Michael Connelly - The Safe Man - A Ghost Story

“I don’t know. I guess because we’re about to have a kid—my wife is eight months along—and, I don’t know, I never really thought about the ages of children before. Now I do.”

Rowan took a few moments to grind over the answer. Brian shifted his weight on the stool and started pumping his knee.

“Mr. Holloway, you seem agitated. Is something wrong?”

“Of course, there’s something wrong. That girl is missing and I just have a bad feeling about it. Look, I had nothing to do with it. You’re wasting your time. So do what you have to do with me and get it over with. I’ll take a lie detector, if you want. You can go search my van, too. Just get past me and go find her. Before it’s too late.”

Rowan seemed to be taken aback.

“What do you mean, ‘before it’s too late’?”

“Isn’t that how these things always end up?”

Before Rowan answered, Stephens came in. He looked at his partner and then at Brian.

“Safe’s empty.”

“Mr. Holloway has volunteered to take a poly,” Rowan said. “We can also take a look in the van.”

Stephens nodded.

“What about your home?” Rowan said. “Can we look around inside?”

Brian flashed on the bag of stale dope in the bedroom dresser. Laura quit smoking when they decided to get pregnant. Out of fairness he had stopped as well and the bag had sat in the drawer with his socks for a year.

“If you’re just going to look around for the girl—closets and stuff—that’s fine. But I don’t want you going through drawers and stuff. Just make it quick. And don’t mess things up or my wife will know.”

“You know what I still don’t understand?” Rowan said. “You’re in there doing a job for Mr. Robinette and you go and ask his daughter how old she is. Why is that?”

“I don’t know. I told you. I wondered how old she was. What else do you ask? She was a cute girl and I wondered how old she was. I’m sort of hoping that we have a girl and so…that’s all.”

“You said was, ” Stephens said.

“What?”

“You said she was a cute girl. Why’d you use the past tense? Is there something you want to tell us?”

Brian shook his head.

“Look, you’ve got this wrong and you’re wasting time. Don’t do this. You should be out there looking for—”

“Mr. Holloway,” Rowan said, “I think we are going to take you up on your kind offer to allow us to look around here and maybe bring you down to the station to set up a polygraph. Your offer is still good, right?”

They kept him in a small, windowless, and—it seemed to him—airless room. There was no clock on the wall and he lost track of time. He was thinking about the girl he had seen by the safe. Lucy. They came in from time to time to talk to him, to ask him the same questions over and over. But unsatisfied with his answers, they would leave again. He could tell it was dark outside. He could sense it. It had been at least that long.

Finally, the door came open again and Stephens looked in.

“You have ten minutes,” he said.

“What?”

Stephens backed away from the opening and then Laura appeared. Hesitantly, she stepped into the room and the door was closed behind her.

“Brian? What is going on? I came home and they were in our house. They had a search warrant. What did you do?”

He shook his head.

“I didn’t do anything. Robinette’s daughter is missing and they think I took her. All I did was talk to her.”

“You talked to her? When?”

“That day. I told you at dinner.”

“No, you told me she had the same name we picked. You didn’t say you talked to her.”

“She came in where I was working. I asked her what her name was and how old she was and that was it. I told her I had to get to work. She left and I never saw her again. That’s it.”

She slid into the seat across the table from him. She never took her eyes off him.

“Did you tell them this?”

“Yes, I told them a hundred times. They’re wasting their time with me when they should be out looking for her. If you ask me, they ought to be talking to Robinette instead of me.”

Laura put her hand on her abdomen, as if calming the baby inside. She started rocking in her chair.

“Oh my God, I can’t believe this,” she said.

“Neither can I,” Brian said.

He reached a hand across the table and she put her other hand on top of it.

“Have you asked for a lawyer?”

“No, I don’t need a lawyer. I didn’t do anything.”

“Brian, just tell me. Did you take that girl anywhere?”

He pulled his hand back from her. His mouth came open and it was a moment before he found his voice.

“Laura?”

“Where did you go when you got up last night? You’ve been acting weird all week. What is going on with you?”

“They sent you in here, didn’t they? They convinced you out there and sent you in here to—”

“No, Brian, you’re wrong. You’re being paranoid. I just want to know what is going—”

The door to the small room suddenly came open and Rowan stepped in.

“Mr. and Mrs. Holloway, you can go on home now.”

“What do you mean?” Laura asked.

Brian started to push back his chair.

“We found her,” the agent said in a matter-of-fact tone. “We want to thank you for your cooperation but you are no longer needed. Have a nice evening.”

Brian stood up, a weird mixture of relief and anger overtaking him.

“Is she all right?” he asked.

“She’s fine. Patrol just brought her into the station. Turns out she didn’t like moving into the new house.”

He forced a laugh.

“She thinks it’s haunted. So she split. She walked all the way back to her old neighborhood and hid in her best friend’s guesthouse.”

Rowan stepped back from the doorway so they could leave. Brian walked slowly. He was having a hard time understanding what Rowan had just told them. He was having a hard time dealing with what his wife had just asked him as well.

“That girl found her way back to her old house?” he asked.

“That’s right,” Rowan said. “Step this way and I’ll get you back your property. Then you’ll be out of here.”

Brian was led down the hallway and into a large squad room. There were several detectives working at desks and moving about. Across the room was another room separated by a glass wall. He could see a boardroom table in there. Sitting at the table were Detective Stephens and a girl. She was maybe thirteen years old. She looked like she was crying.

Rowan went to his desk and got a manila envelope out of a drawer. He handed it to Brian. It had his wallet and keys in it. His loose change. He didn’t bother tearing it open. He just held it as he stared at the girl in the glass room. Rowan noticed his gaze and looked across the room as well.

“She’s okay. She spent the night eating potato chips and drinking soda pop. I guess she had such a good time, she still doesn’t want to go back home.”

“Does Robinette have another daughter?”

“No, just the one. Just Teresa who doesn’t want to go home.”

Brian thought of the dream, of the dread he felt when he woke up from it. The feeling that he had let something loose.

“Teresa?”

Rowan looked at him.

“That’s right. I thought you said you asked—”

“Can I talk to her?”

“To the girl? No, I don’t think that would be proper, Mr. Holloway. Your involvement with this thing is over as far as I’m concerned.”

“I really need to speak to her.”

“Well, that’s not going to happen. Now it’s time for you and your wife to head on home.”

“What did she say about the house being haunted?”