Линвуд Баркли - Find You First

Was it possible? Miles wondered. Could Caroline be behind everything? Was she trying to whittle down the list so that a greater share would go to Travis, and ultimately to her and Samantha? Even for Caroline, that seemed too diabolical. Mounting something of that magnitude — tracking down people across the globe and disappearing them — would require the help of other people, people who were professionals at that kind of thing. It would also require a lot of money.

She might have it.

Maybe Caroline’s approach to the Google executive hadn’t been the only one. It was the only one Miles knew about. If she’d pulled off a successful scam with someone else — maybe an individual instead of a company — she’d have the money to hire some help. She did work in the criminal justice system. Had she crossed paths, at some point, with someone who could help her with this?

And it didn’t have to be someone charged with a crime. He thought back to that story out of New York from fifteen or more years ago. The two cops who were doing hits for the Mafia. Hadn’t Travis said the two who tried to kill them had identified themselves as police?

He was willing to believe anything at this point.

Miles had decided getting Samantha home took priority over heading to the west coast to find the others on the list. From the plane, he had made an awkward call to Dorian and asked her to get back to that FBI agent. There was more than enough evidence now, Miles believed, for the authorities to step in.

“Okay,” Dorian said. “On it. Anything else?”

He wanted Charise waiting for him when he got back. He wanted to take one last run at Dr. Gold, press him even harder this time. Maybe it was time to take Charise — former bouncer and wrestler — up on her offer of assistance. He had a feeling she could be very intimidating if the circumstances called for it.

“Is everything okay, Miles?” Dorian asked.

“Is that a serious question, Dorian? Considering everything I’ve been through?”

“I know, but you sound... funny. Is there something you’re not telling me?”

Miles wanted to fire the same question back at her, but not yet. The truth was, he still needed her help.

“No,” he said, and ended the call.

And then Miles called Chloe.

The call went immediately to voice mail. “It’s Miles. Please call me back,” he said. Then he added, “There’s been some big... developments. You’re still important to me, Chloe.”

For good measure, he sent her a text message saying basically the same thing. He watched to see whether the text was delivered.

It was not.

Miles decided to try again later.

He went back to his seat, across from Samantha, and asked, “What did you do after those two tried to kill you? Did you tell your mother? Did you call your dad?”

“There was this other person I was supposed to contact, a kind of middleman?”

“Do you know who that was?”

She shook her head. “I sent texts but there was no response. The last one I sent said everything had gone wrong. I couldn’t call Dad because he didn’t know anything about it. And Mom had told me not to contact her directly. And I knew she’d be mad, that the whole thing had fallen apart.”

Miles had been wondering when to break it to her. That the entire scheme was pointless. Now seemed as good a time as any.

“There’s new evidence, a new DNA test, that suggests I’m not Travis’s biological father,” he said. “He’s not in line for any windfall.”

Samantha, what with the roar of the jet engines, thought maybe she’d misheard. “What?”

“It’s got something to do with the doctor at the fertility clinic. So far as I know, I’m no one’s father, biologically speaking.”

She was stunned. “It never would have worked.”

“No.”

Samantha looked out at the clouds. “I couldn’t have gone through with it. Travis and I... we were in the back of his van, and... I couldn’t do it. I don’t think I could ever have done it. Not for all the money in the world. I mean, he’s actually a nice guy, you know? I was actually getting to like him, and that was why I couldn’t do it. I didn’t want to go through with it. If those two hadn’t come along, I think I would have found a way to end it, to walk away. Even if Mom went nuts on me.”

“I still don’t get why you agreed to do it. How your mom talked you into it.”

Samantha looked at her uncle as if he were a dumb two-year-old. “Because she’s my mom .”

Before they landed in New Haven, Miles persuaded Samantha to call her father and tell him what had happened. When they landed outside New Haven, Gilbert was waiting. Samantha ran into his arms. After they’d had a private moment together, Gilbert approached his brother.

“I had no idea,” Gilbert said. “I can’t believe she did this to our daughter. It’s unforgivable.”

“Samantha’s going to need a lot of support,” Miles said. “Maybe even therapy. It’s like she needs to be deprogrammed from what Caroline did to her.”

Gilbert looked like he’d consider stepping in front of a bus if one had happened to go by at that moment.

“There’s more,” he said. “And maybe it’s connected.”

He told Miles he’d seen Caroline heading into the Omni, that someone had slipped a key card into his pocket and told him where to find her. Caroline had been waiting for another man.

“She hasn’t come home since.” He hung his head, then looked up. “And when I got the call from the plane, I phoned her, confronted her with that. She didn’t even try to deny it. Normally, that’d be her default position, but I knew too much for her to say none of it was true. She started crying, said it was all for me. I’ve called a lawyer. I’m getting the locks changed.”

Miles said something his brother already knew. “There’s no telling what she might do. Maybe to herself.”

Gilbert nodded.

“Go be with Samantha. She barely scratched the surface when she talked to you from the plane.”

When Gilbert left, Miles tried to reach Chloe again. She didn’t answer, and another text went undelivered.

He tried to remember the name of the diner where she worked. Finally, it came to him. He opened a browser on his phone, found it, tapped the number.

“Paradise Diner,” a woman said. “You got Vivian.”

“Yeah, hi. I wonder if it would be possible to speak to Chloe.”

“I’m wondering the same thing. She’s not here.”

“When’s her shift?”

“Right now,” Vivian said. “She hasn’t shown up, isn’t answering her phone, and I’m shorthanded. If it’s not one thing with that girl it’s another. You wanna leave a message?”

New York, NY

Nicky had run a washcloth under very cold water in the bathroom sink, wrung it out and folded it into a compress. When Chloe was brought back from her meeting upstairs with Jeremy, she was crying. When she collapsed facedown onto the bed, Nicky could see streaks of blood seeping through the back of her blouse.

Nicky had rolled up her top to reveal the belt marks on her back. Chloe winced as Nicky applied the cool cloth, moving it from one wound to another. Chloe’s bravado, her flip attitude, were gone. She seemed to Nicky somehow smaller, as though her encounter upstairs had diminished her, made her less of a person.

“I told them,” she whimpered. “I told them everything they wanted to know.”

Nicky dabbed her cheek. “Sorry I don’t have ice.”

Chloe said, “I think he knew most of it already. Someone had told him. He was confirming things.”

“Take it easy,” Nicky said. She took the cloth off Chloe’s back. “This is warm already. Let me make it cold again.” She went back into the bathroom and ran more water into the sink, holding her finger under it to test the temperature.