Linwood Barclay - Far From True

“Now,” Duckworth said, “it may be just one huge coincidence that this same number keeps popping up. But maybe it isn’t. That’s why I’m asking for the public’s help. If you know of someone with a fixation on this number, if you have any idea how these various incidents might be connected, we want you to get in touch with us. All tips will be treated as confidential.”

A reporter’s hand shot up. “Can I ask a question now?”

Duckworth nodded. “Yeah, sure.”

“So you think you’re looking for a guy who likes to torture squirrels and blow up drive-ins?”

Soft chuckles went around the room again.

“I’m saying we see a possible link here,” Duckworth said, “and we’re asking the public for their help. Four people died when that screen came down, so you’ll forgive me if I don’t laugh along with the rest of you.”

Another hand. “So let’s say the same person or persons are responsible for all these things. Why? What’s the deal? Those words painted onto the dummies, ‘you’ll be sorry.’ Who’ll be sorry, and for what? If someone’s trying to send a message, what is it?”

“There’s nothing I’d like to know more,” Duckworth said.

Clive Duncomb brought home dinner, although that hardly made this evening special.

Duncomb picked up something on the way home most days. And those that he didn’t, Liz generally ordered something in. Or threw some Stouffer’s frozen thing into the microwave. Tonight, he had stopped at Angelino’s, an Italian place that did mostly takeout. Pizza was Angelino’s biggest seller, but they did pasta, too, so Clive got two orders of linguine with clams, and a single Caesar salad that he and Liz could split.

Cooking had never been Liz’s calling. Even back when she ran her own business, in Boston, where she had a devoted clientele, when a customer asked for something spicy off the menu, a dildo was a more likely ingredient than dill. Nor was Liz’s “Round the World” option a sampling of global cuisine.

But then again, Duncomb did not choose to make a life with Liz for her terrific soufflés. They had not met at the Cambridge School of Culinary Arts. Liz’s mentor was not Julia Child. They met during an investigation into a Boston escort business. Duncomb, working vice at the time, had been gathering evidence to shut the place down, but had something of a change of heart when he met Elizabeth Palmer. She was willing to bring to life just about any fantasy he could imagine — especially those that involved extra players — if it meant turning a blind eye to her business operations.

Liz didn’t even have to provide the handcuffs. Although, when it came to threesomes, or younger girls, she used her connections.

Not quite enough connections, however, to feel she could keep her business going without eventually getting busted, or keep Clive from getting brought up on police charges. When they sensed their luck was running out, they each bailed on their lines of work, but not before tracks were covered. Files were shredded or deleted, payoffs made, threats to potential squealers delivered.

So they put their Boston lives behind them and came to Promise Falls. But it didn’t mean they had to abandon their interests. Just because you move to the North Pole doesn’t mean you don’t still like water-skiing.

“Hey,” he said when he came through the side door, directly into the kitchen. Liz was leaning up against the counter, watching Dr. Oz on a small television that hung from under one of the cabinets. Her long brown hair was twirled into a knot at the back of her head, and her feet were bare. Her red tank top was cut off, exposing several inches of skin above her jeans.

“Shh,” she said, holding up a finger. “Dr. Oz says we should be having sex two hundred times a year. I’m not sure I could handle that.”

“If you got down to two hundred,” Duncomb said, setting the takeout on the counter, “you could take up another hobby. Scrapbooking, maybe.”

“What constitutes a single sexual act, anyway?” Liz said, picking up a remote and turning down the volume. “I’ve got my doubts Dr. Oz will address this, but if I’m sucking your cock while Miriam’s eating me out, is that one act or two?”

She suddenly frowned like a child expecting to be reprimanded. “I shouldn’t speak that way of the dead, I suppose.” She looked in the bag. “What do we have here?”

“Linguine, salad.”

“Good,” Liz said without enthusiasm.

“You’re not happy?”

“I don’t know. I was feeling a little bit like Thai. But this is fine. I can eat this.”

“Are you really gonna bust my balls about dinner today ?”

Liz rubbed his shoulder and forced a pout. “Big man have bad day?”

“Yeah, I had a bad day. And it’s not over. Blackmore’s freaking out because Georgina hasn’t come home, and the most important disc is the one I can’t find.”

Liz got down plates, opened up the take-out containers, and divvied up the pasta and salad. “I’ll get some Parm,” she said, and brought out a container of cheese from the refrigerator door.

“Are you hearing me?” he said.

“No matter how bad things are,” she said, “we still have to eat.”

They did so, standing at the counter. The kitchen table was littered with newspapers, bills, boxes of paperwork that appeared to have taken up permanent residence there. They twirled pasta onto their forks, speared salad leaves.

“So, what do you mean, you can’t find it?” Liz asked.

“Like I said. You know how Georgina’s been lately. Like she wants out. I started to wonder whether it was her that took it from Adam’s place. Tore her — well, her and Peter’s — place apart, but it wasn’t there.”

“Shit,” she said. “I wish you’d find it.” She smiled. “I’d like to watch it.”

“Jesus, Liz, the second I find it, I’m breaking it into a hundred pieces.”

“She was a foxy little thing, that Olivia.”

Clive shook his head, not wanting to talk about it.

“What?” Liz said. “That was a fun session. It was too bad what happened to her. She might have liked to come back for more. We didn’t even have to spike her wine like any of the others. She was coming on to Adam in the kitchen. She didn’t even know what we were all into. She just wanted to fuck a washed-up writer.”

“We should have,” he said.

“Should have what?”

“Spiked her wine like the others. It was a huge risk, bringing her into the mix and letting her remember what actually happened.”

“She never told a soul,” Liz said. “I mean, the girl was engaged, for God’s sake. Who was she going to tell? Her fiancé? I think she wanted one last wild experience before she tied the knot.” A grin. “You know, in the marriage sense. I seem to recall a bit of knot-tying that night.”

“Honestly, Liz, dial it down for Christ’s sake. This is no joke.”

“Okay, okay. You’re just so serious all the time.”

“I’m going to go through all the discs again tonight, at Peter’s. Maybe I missed her. I fast-forwarded through all of them once I got them out of Adam’s house. I didn’t see her. But maybe she was there, and I just went too fast.”

“It must have looked funny.”

“What looked funny?”

“All that fast-motion fucking. All those asses going up and down at a hundred miles an hour.”

Duncomb opened the fridge, took out a beer, uncapped it. “A cop came out to the campus today,” he said.

“Why?”

“About the Mason Helt thing. They’re still asking questions about that. I didn’t do anything wrong there.”

“Of course you didn’t,” she said, almost purring.