Linwood Barclay - Parting Shot

“It’s late,” Constance said.

“How is he?” Gaffney said, not taking his eyes off the screen.

“He ate most of the soup. And a tuna sandwich.”

“Well, that’s something,” he said.

“Isn’t this a repeat?” she asked, glancing at the set.

“I think so, but I’m not really concentrating on it. Where’s Monica?”

“She’s in her room, listening to music.”

“Hmm.”

“Albert,” she said.

He couldn’t take his eyes off the screen, as though mesmerized by it.

“Albert, turn that off,” she said gently.

Slowly, he turned his head to look at her. He seemed to be weighing her request. Finally, he picked up the remote and clicked it off.

“What?”

“We... we need to talk about things.”

“There’s nothing to talk about. Everything’s done. The car’s clean. The garage has been hosed down. It’s all been taken care off. All you have to do, Maureen, is keep your mouth shut. If you keep your mouth shut, we’ll be fine.”

“It wasn’t... He wasn’t the one.”

Albert stared at her.

“They’re looking for that Calder man.”

“I know. I talked to Duckworth.”

“So... that means it probably wasn’t the man who... That man. He’s not the one.”

“He’s the one,” Albert said. His jaw tightened. “And even if he wasn’t the one who put those words on Brian’s back, he still hurt him. So... there’s that.”

He hit the button to turn the TV back on.

“Albert.”

He sighed, killed the TV again. “What now?”

“The police will be asking questions. They’ll be coming back.”

“No one saw me. No one saw me at the dump, either. No one saw anything.”

“There’s Brian,” she said.

“What do you mean? He’s home now. He’s going to be okay.” He gave her half a sneer. “You got what you wanted. He’s back with us.”

Constance looked at him, wondered what Albert had become. She’d never feared him before, but she did now.

“The police will be coming to talk to Brian,” she said. “When Frommer’s wife reports him missing, if she hasn’t already, she’ll probably tell them about the fight he had with Brian. They’ll want to question him.”

Albert shook his head slowly. “It’ll be okay. Brian was in the hospital all through the time that Frommer was missing. He has witnesses. It will be okay.” He paused. Worry crept across his face. “Unless...”

“Unless what?”

Albert rose and left the room without saying anything else. He went upstairs and lightly rapped on the door to his son’s room.

“Yes?”

He pushed the door open. Brian was in bed, his head on the pillow. He had his bedside lamp on and was reading a Sin City graphic novel.

“Got a sec?” Albert asked.

Brian put his book face down on the covers. “Sure.”

Albert came in and sat on the edge of the bed. “It’s good to have you home.”

“It’s good to be here. I think I might give up my apartment.”

“Well, get yourself well and then you can think about that. It might be the right thing to do.”

“The hospital gave me some pills. They’re kind of helping with the pain.”

“Good. That’s good. Look, there’s something we need to discuss.”

“Okay.”

“When I was driving around and found you, you told me about Ron Frommer, what he did to you.”

Brian nodded.

“Who else did you tell?”

“I didn’t tell anyone. Remember, I was afraid of getting him in trouble, in case he took it out on Jessica.”

“That’s right. So you didn’t tell them at the hospital?”

“No.”

“You didn’t tell the police?”

“No.”

Albert nodded. “Okay. It’s possible, there’s a chance, that the police might want to talk to you about him.”

“Did you tell them? Dad, I told you not to.”

“No, no, I didn’t do that. But if Jessica were to tell them about the two of you, then the police might come talk to you.”

“Oh, yeah, I guess. But only if she told them. Why would she do that? She’s not going to want to get him into trouble.”

“Well, she might,” Albert said. “You see, if anything were to happen to Ron, they’d want to talk to anyone who’d gotten into an argument with him in the last few days.”

Brian looked puzzled. “I don’t understand. Am I in trouble?”

“No. How could you be? You were in the hospital. If something happened to Ron, well, you couldn’t have had anything to do with it.” He paused. “But there’s one thing I need you to remember, in case anyone ever asks you any questions about him.”

“What’s that?”

“You never, ever told me his name. You never, ever told me where he lived.”

Brian’s look of puzzlement grew. “But I did.”

“No,” his father said firmly. “You did not.”

Brian let this sink in for a few moments. “Okay,” he said, finally. “I never did.”

Albert smiled. “That’s good. And no matter how many times someone might ask you the question, it’s always no. You never told me.”

Brian’s head slowly went up and down. “Right.”

Albert patted his son’s blanket-covered thigh. “That’s good, son. That’s good. Now, you get better, okay?”

“Okay.”

“And when you’re better, we’re going to see what we can do about your back. Right?”

Brian nodded.

Albert stood and walked to the door. As he was slipping into the hall, about to close the door, Brian said, “Dad?”

“Yes, son?”

“I love you.”

“I love you too, Brian.”

Carol Beakman was awake.

Barely.

She could hear the man moving about, wherever it was they were. She’d been drifting in and out of consciousness. Whatever he’d done to keep her groggy was wearing off, and while she wanted to work at freeing herself — she was secured to some kind of bed — she didn’t want to draw any attention to herself.

The first thing she had to do was let her head clear some, and figure out just what kind of fix she was in.

Things were coming back to her.

Going to Dolly Guntner’s place. Telling her that the police were looking into what had happened outside of Knight’s bar. Dolly freaking out, and her boyfriend Cory — yeah, that’s his name, that’s who grabbed me when I tried to get into my car — freaking out because she was freaking out. Which made Carol think that not only did Dolly and this Cory know about what had happened at Knight’s, they’d had something to do with it.

And then she’d dropped her damn purse. God, just like some dumb broad in a horror movie. Everything scattered, keys obscured in the mess. She’d lost the seconds she’d needed to get into the car, lock the door, get the hell out of there and call Trevor. Tell him to call his father.

Things went dark for a long time after that.

She’d had the sensation of moving. She was lying on her side, arms tied behind her back, ankles lashed together. She was in a truck or a van.

She’d blank out for a while, wake up again. Groggy most of the time.

Cory liked to talk, but she was pretty sure it was more like he was talking to himself and not to her. She didn’t believe he thought she could hear him. He’d be sitting behind the wheel, saying things like “Did you bring your bathing suit? Because we’re going to the beach! You ever been to Cape Cod? Yeah, well, me neither, but I bet it’s nice.”

Other times, it was as though he were trying to persuade her he wasn’t a bad person.

“What happened with Dolly,” he said, “was not the way I wanted things to go. But she was freaking out. I think she was going to go to the police, tell them everything. What was I supposed to do? Right? She’d lost sight of how important it was, what we’ve been doing.”