Линвуд Баркли - Find You First

Matthew’s eyebrows went up, and he stood, nodding to his wife that yes, they really should leave the room until the doctor was finished with this call. Katerina took a step toward the desk, leaned in slightly, and whispered, “We’ll just wait—”

Gold turned and glared at them over his shoulder. “Get out,” he said.

Katerina recoiled, as if slapped. Her husband appeared ready to leap across the desk, or at the very least say something, but she shook her head vigorously, warning him off doing anything. Besides, Gold had already turned his back on them again and resumed his conversation. She guided her husband to the exit and pulled the door closed behind them as they left.

“Just someone in the office,” Gold said. “They left. No, no, they didn’t. Stop. Stop. Listen to me. I’ll tell everyone what I did. I will. I’m past caring. I can’t do my job. I’m a disaster. I can’t sleep. I spend half the time wondering whether to kill myself. No, God no, I haven’t said anything to my wife. You think I’m crazy? But yes, she’s noticed I’m on edge. I’ve told her the clinic... that we’re having a slight cash flow problem, that it can be resolved.”

He listened to the other person talk for the better part of a minute, by which time Gold appeared to be calmed, slightly.

“Okay,” he said. “Okay, okay.”

And then one more “Okay.”

Gold ended the call, turned around in his chair, and put the phone on his desk. He looked at the two empty chairs across from him and blinked a couple of times, as though trying to remember who had been there only a moment earlier.

Before the Caseys emerged from the doctor’s office, Julie Harkin had been at her desk, opening a browser on her desktop and entering the headline she’d seen atop the news story on the doctor’s computer.

She found the story almost instantly, read it from top to bottom. A house where several Bates College students lived off campus had burned down. One man, Jason Hamlin, had not been found, and authorities were now starting to believe he’d not been in the house when the fire began. But if he hadn’t been there, where was he?

Why, Julie wondered, was this story of interest to the doctor?

The story had a link to another one: FAMILY HIT WITH DOUBLE TRAGEDY. Julie clicked on it. The Hamlin family home in Baltimore had burned down not long after the Lewiston tragedy.

As if the family had not suffered enough, Julie thought.

And then she read the names of Jason’s parents: Margaret and Charles Hamlin.

“Oh my God,” she whispered to herself.

One of the couples whose names, along with their children’s, she gave to that woman in the coffee shop.

Springfield, MA

“What do you mean, something else might be going on?” Chloe asked Miles as he sat next to her in the Pacer.

Miles hesitated. He needed another moment to digest the information he’d received from Dorian. Could it be coincidence that three of the people he was hoping to connect with — Todd Cox, Jason Hamlin, and Katie Gleave — were missing or presumed dead? That they had gone missing, or died, in such a short period of time?

And all since Miles had started his hunt for them?

It was possible, he supposed. Bad things did happen to people. Houses caught on fire. Young people visiting foreign countries, where they were unfamiliar with local customs or the language, could find themselves in trouble. And there was a possible explanation for Todd’s disappearance: he was into something illegal and had made a run for it.

And yet.

Why was Todd’s trailer so spotlessly clean? Why had every trace of him been erased? Who’d been hiding under the bed? Not Todd. And who was the woman in the van that had screeched to a stop out on the main road?

He thought back to what Dorian had told him about Jason Hamlin. A house fire. The other students who lived there survived, but not Jason. Surely, eventually, his body would have been found among the ashes. So if he hadn’t been in the house when the fire broke out, where was he? What had happened to him?

“You gonna answer me or what?” Chloe asked.

Miles said, “I’m trying to put it together.”

“Put what together? I’m right here. What the fuck is going on?”

Slowly, he said, “The list, the nine people that I... Jesus, am I allowed to call them my children? Is that too... presumptuous?”

Miles, feeling overwhelmed, was losing his focus. This emotional tidal wave washing over him was making it increasingly difficult to direct his thoughts logically. It wasn’t that long ago that Miles could picture lines of computer code in his head like they were right there on a billboard, in front of him. Intricate, complex concepts were as easy to visualize as a sunset.

But now, all this information and events coming at him at once — finding Chloe, not finding Todd, news about the others on the list — was starting to feel like too much. Dorian’s call was like someone dumping onto the table several hundred pieces of a jigsaw puzzle and demanding they be put together in ten seconds.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” he said, bending over, making his hands into fists and pressing them against his forehead.

“Miles?”

“I... need a minute,” he said.

He took his fists from his forehead and looked at Chloe.

“Can I call you that? Can I call you my child? Can I call you my daughter? Because... to be able to do that, to have the right to do that, don’t I have to be more than just a sperm donor?”

He was afraid he might cry. Fight this, he told himself. It’s a symptom. Don’t let it control you. Okay, one of your daughters is missing. Two of your sons are unaccounted for.

He hadn’t had a chance to so much as say hello to them yet.

“Miles, are you okay?” Chloe asked, reaching out and touching his arm.

He swallowed hard, as if that would tamp down the emotional storm. Then he attempted a nod. “Yeah.”

“I am your daughter,” she said. “You’re allowed to call me that.”

“Being a parent is a lot more than just biology,” he said.

“Yeah, well, now you’ve got a chance to make up for the other part,” she said, giving his arm a squeeze. “You need to get back on track here, okay?”

“Okay.”

“Can you answer my question?”

“Try me again.”

“The phone call. What was the phone call about?”

“It was my assistant,” he said. “She’s been gathering information for me on... the others.”

“Okay.”

Without giving her the names, he told her about the missing woman in Paris and the student believed to have perished in a fire.

The news hit Chloe harder than he expected.

“So... I’ve lost a brother and a sister? On top of Todd going missing?”

“I’m sorry,” Miles said.

“What’s happening?”

“I don’t know.”

“I mean, is it all connected? Is that what’s going on?”

“Chloe, I don’t know.”

She took her hand off his arm and her empathetic look turned severe. “So wait. Around the time you start trying to find me and my half brothers and sisters, shit starts happening?”

“It... it looks that way.”

“Nothing happens for years to any of these people, and then when you start nosing around bad stuff happens. You think that’s a coincidence?”

“I swear, Chloe, I don’t know.”

“Like, what did you do, tweet out all their names so somebody could go after them?”

He gave her a sharp look. “Don’t be ridiculous. I haven’t even told you their names. And why would anyone go after them?”

“Hey, you’re the rich, techie genius. You might be able to figure this out faster than I could. Okay, so it’s not you, but you’re not the only person who knows who all your little kidlets are, right?”