Linwood Barclay: No Safe House

“Just going out for something to eat,” Nathaniel said.

“You have dogs?” I asked.

He smiled sheepishly. “Not here, and they’re not mine. That’s what I do. I’ve got a dog-walking business. Go from house to house through the day, take my clients’ mutts out for a stroll while their owners are at work.” He shrugged. “I’ve had a small career change. But I’m sure Cyn — I’m sure your wife has told you all about that.”

I looked at Cynthia again, expectantly this time.

“I haven’t,” Cynthia said. “Don’t let us hold you up.”

“Again, nice to meet you,” he said to me, then trotted down the stairs, got behind the wheel of the Caddy, and took off on North Street.

“A dog walker with a Cadillac?” I said.

“Long story. Short version goes like this. Hit it big in the phone app business, market went south for a while, lost it all, had a nervous breakdown, now walks dogs for people every day while he gets his life back together.”

I nodded. This house seemed to be a place where people came to regroup.

“Well,” I said.

Neither of us spoke for the better part of a minute. Cynthia watched the street the entire time.

Finally, she said, “I’m ashamed.”

“It was an accident,” I said. “It was just a crazy accident. You never meant for that to happen.”

“I do everything I can to protect her and I’m the one who ends up sending her to the hospital.”

I didn’t know what to say.

“You probably need to get home and make Grace dinner,” Cynthia said. “Give her a hug for me.” She paused. “Tell her I love her.”

“She knows,” I said, getting up. “But I’ll do it.”

She walked me to the car. The smell of freshly mown grass wafted up my nostrils.

“If there was anything going on, if Grace were in trouble, you’d let me know,” Cynthia said. “Right?”

“Of course.”

“You don’t have to tiptoe around me. I can take it.”

“Everything’s fine.” I grinned. “Mostly she watches me to keep me out of trouble. I try to throw any wild parties, she nips that right in the bud.”

Cynthia rested her palm on my chest. “I’m coming back. I just need a little more time.”

“I know.”

“You just keep an eye on her. This thing, about those teachers being killed, it’s got my mind going all kinds of places it shouldn’t.”

I forced a smile. “Maybe it’s some former student, years later, getting even with teachers who gave him a hard time for not doing his homework. I better watch my back.”

“Don’t even joke.”

I lost the smile. I realized I hadn’t been funny. “I’m sorry. We’re okay. We are. We’ll be better when you come back, but we’re getting by. And I’m watching her like a hawk.”

“You better.”

I got in my Ford Escape, keyed the ignition. Driving home, I couldn’t get out of my head two things Nathaniel had said.

Hey, good-lookin’ was the first.

And the second was: Another friend dropping by?

“WANNA have some real fun?” the boy asked.

That worried Grace. Maybe not a lot, but a little.

She had a pretty good idea what Stuart was getting at. They’d already been having some fun — just above-the-waist stuff — parked out back of the Walmart in his dad’s old Buick. This car, it was an aircraft carrier. Massive hood and trunk, and inside, well, you hardly had to get into the backseat. The front — which went all the way across, no console or shifter in the middle — was the size of a park bench but way, way softer. The car was from the seventies, and when it went around corners, she felt as if she was in a huge boat way out past the sound, out in the Atlantic or something, getting carried away by the waves.

Grace was okay with what they’d done so far — she’d let him touch her in a couple of places — but she wasn’t sure she wanted to take things any further. Not yet, anyway.

She was still just fourteen, after all. And even though she knew, with absolute certainty, that that meant she was not a kid anymore, she had to admit that Stuart, being sixteen, might know slightly more about the whole sex thing. It wasn’t even so much that she was scared about doing it for the first time. What scared her was looking like a total amateur. Everyone knew, or thought they knew, that Stuart had already been with plenty of girls. What if she ended up doing it all wrong? Ended up looking like a total idiot?

So she decided to play things cautiously. “I don’t know,” she said, pulling away from him, leaning against the passenger door. “This has been, like, good, you know? But I’m not sure about taking things, like, to the next level.”

Stuart laughed. “Shit, I’m not talking about that. Although, if you’re thinking you’re ready, I’ve come equipped.” He started to reach down into the front pocket of his jeans.

Grace slapped his hand playfully. “Then what are you talking about?”

“It’s something totally cool. I swear, you’ll wet your pants.”

Grace could guess. Maybe some pot, or X. What the hell? She could give something like that a try. It was actually a little less scary than letting him get into her pants. “So what is it? I’ve tried a few things. Not just pot.” A lie, but one had to keep up appearances.

“Nothing like that,” Stuart said. “You ever driven a Porsche?”

That took her by surprise. “I’ve never driven anything, you idiot. I won’t have a license for two more years.”

“I mean, you ever ridden in a Porsche?”

“Like, is that the sports car?”

“Jesus, you don’t know what a Porsche is?”

“Yeah, I know. Okay. Why you asking me if I ever had a ride in a Porsche?”

“Have you?”

“No,” Grace said. “At least, I don’t think I ever have. But I don’t exactly pay a lot of attention to what kind of car I’m getting into. Maybe I was in one and didn’t know it.”

“I think,” the boy said, “if you’d been in a Porsche, you’d kinda know. It’s not like an average car. It’s all low and swoopy and shit and fast as fuck.”

“Okay, so no.”

Stuart was kind of hot looking, and one of the cool kids, although not exactly in a good way. He had that don’t-give-a-shit thing going on, which had some appeal to a girl who was sick to death of having to make safe choices. But after being out with him three times, she was starting to think there wasn’t a whole lot going on inside that head of his.

Grace hadn’t told her father she was seeing Stuart, because he knew exactly who the boy was. She could recall her dad bringing up his name more than once, back when Stuart was in her dad’s English class two years earlier. He’d be marking papers in the evening at the kitchen table and say something about this Stuart kid being thick as a plank, which her dad didn’t do very often because he said it wasn’t professional. He said it wasn’t right to comment on the work of students his daughter might know, but once in a while, if the kid was dumb enough, he slipped.

Grace remembered a joke her dad had made. For a long time, right up until this year, she’d thought she might like to be an astronaut, someone who went up to the International Space Station. Her dad had said maybe Stuart could be an astronaut, too, because all he did in class was take up space.

Tonight, Grace had to wonder whether maybe her father had this boy nailed.

One time, Stuart had asked her what she wanted to do when she finished school, and when she’d told him, he’d said, “Seriously? They only send guys up into space.”

“Hello?” she’d shot back. “Sally Ride? Svetlana Savitskaya? Roberta Bondar?”