No Safe House by Linwood Barclay
“Yeah,” I said. “But what are the odds the person who was in that house would have a key to ours?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know. I just—I don’t know, Dad.”
“What on earth are you talking about?” Cynthia asked. “What the hell is going on?”
I took a second to compose myself, let the proverbial dust settle around us. I said, “We’ve got some trouble.”
• • •
SITTING at the kitchen table, Grace and I told her everything, from the beginning. We didn’t leave anything out. When Grace neglected a detail, I filled in a gap, and vice versa.
Cynthia, to her credit, mostly listened, asking only the occasional question, letting the story unfold. If it had been me hearing all this, I’d have been interrupting every ten seconds.
I finished by telling her where I’d just been, how I had hoped maybe I’d find Stuart Koch at home.
“So you still don’t know what happened to him,” Cynthia said.
We both shook our heads.
Grace said, “I know you probably want to chew me out and all that stuff, but Dad’s sort of done some of it, and right now I really have to go to the bathroom, so can it wait until I get back?”
Cynthia nodded.
As Grace got up from the table, her mother grabbed her arm and pulled her in to give her another hug. Grace wrapped her arms around her mother’s head and said, “I’m glad you’re home. Even if it’s just for a visit. And everything’s going to shit.”
Cynthia looked like she wanted to say something, but held back. All she said was, “Go.”
When Grace was gone, Cynthia looked at me.
“You could chew me out now instead,” I said.
She reached out and gripped my hand. “What a mess.”
“What’d Tommy Lee Jones say in that movie? ‘If it ain’t, it’ll do till the real mess gets here.’ Yeah, this is bad.”
“I think you’re right about getting her a lawyer. Pronto. We don’t know what’s coming.”
I nodded.
“But we’ve been through tough times before,” Cynthia said. “Thanks to me. My troubles nearly got us all killed.”
“It’s nice that we can take turns,” I said.
“You think that man at the door—that he was here to get Grace? That he was in that house and thinks she saw him?”
“Maybe,” I said.
“Let’s say you’re right,” Cynthia said. “How could that person have a key to the house?”
Good question.
Cynthia speculated. “Maybe Grace—or you, or I—maybe we left our keys out somewhere, allowing someone to make a copy. You know, like when you leave your car keys with the dealership service department, or you give them to a valet and they’re hanging there at some restaurant where anyone could sneak off with them for a while.”
Except I was a schoolteacher and Cynthia worked for the health department. Okay, we had a cleaning lady, but we didn’t exactly throw our money around that way. “When was the last time you used the valet service at a hotel or restaurant?” I asked.
“Never.”
“Same here.”
“Maybe one of Grace’s friends? Got into her purse, took her key and copied it?”
“From the way Grace described the guy, it wasn’t a kid. It was someone my age.”
“But even if he got into the house,” Cynthia said, “he’d have had to contend with the alarm system. Soon as that went off, he’d have had to run.”
“He didn’t know we had one,” I surmised. “If he knew we had one, he’d have had to know the code to disable it.”
We were both quiet for a moment.
“Stealing a key and copying it is one thing,” Cynthia said. “But none of us would be dumb enough to give out the code.”
“Only people who know the code are you, me, Grace, and Teresa.”
“Second time her name has come up,” Cynthia said.
And again, we were both quiet.
“No,” I said. “I mean, even if it was Teresa, that she gave someone a key and told him the code, what would be the point? What have we got? We don’t have a security system to protect our valuables. We have it to protect ourselves, after what happened years ago. And that guy, when he was trying to get in, he figured no one was home. He rang the bell, he knocked, and Grace didn’t answer. So maybe he wasn’t coming in to attack her. He was coming in for some other reason. What would he steal? Your priceless jewelry?”
For the first time, Cynthia chuckled softly, despite everything.
“My rare coin collection?” I continued. “The thousands in cash that we keep stuffed under the mattress?”
“It doesn’t make sense,” she said, and her face grew dark. “I’m going to talk to Vince.”
“Oh yeah, that’s a plan. He loves us. When I saw him last night, he wasn’t any more friendly than when you and I visited him in the hospital years ago.”
“I’ve seen him,” she said.
“What? You mean, recently?”
Cynthia nodded. “Yeah. He visited me at the apartment.”
“Wait a minute,” I said, breaking my hand free of hers. “You’ve been seeing Vince?”
“I haven’t been seeing Vince,” she said, leaning back in her chair away from me. “But I’ve talked to him. I wrote to him after his wife died, sent a card. He spotted me driving around, followed me to the apartment, thanked me. And he apologized for how he treated us way back then.”
“I didn’t get my apology,” I said.
“I guess the card you sent got held up in the mail.”
I had no comeback for that.
“Anyway,” Cynthia said, “I want to talk to him. I think he’ll be more forthcoming with me than you.”
“I’ll go with you,” I said.
“No. I’ll do it alone. Besides, someone needs to be with Grace. All the time.”
I didn’t disagree.
I pressed my back against the chair and folded my arms across my chest. “So how long have you been keeping an eye on us?”
She bit her lip. “Since I left.”
“Wait a minute. You couldn’t be watching us all the time.”
“No. But most nights. I’d park around the corner. There’s a tree—you know the one, out front of the Walmsleys’ house?”
I nodded.
“It’s wide enough to hide behind. I can’t get to sleep unless I know you’re both home safe. Especially Grace. I could see her window, and sometimes I’d wait until she turned off her light, and then I’d go home.”
She swallowed. “What I wanted to do was just come in. I wanted to go up to her room and kiss her good night and turn off the light for her. But I guess, when you’re fourteen, you’re too old for your mother to do that.”
“I think she’d have been okay with it.”
“And then, after I’d done that, all I’d have wanted would be to slip into bed next to you.” She sniffed. “But then I’d drive back to the apartment. Until the next night, and I’d do it all over again.”
I should have known. I should have suspected from the very beginning that this was what she would do.
“Can you forgive me?” she asked. I uncrossed my arms, leaned forward, and took her hand.
I nodded. “For loving us? Yeah, I think so.”
I was about to give her a hug when we heard a scream from upstairs.
Grace.
Actually, not a scream. A shout. A single word: “Yes!”
Cynthia and I ran up the stairs and found her in her room, sitting on the bed, phone in hand, a smile on her face unlike any I had seen in some time.
“What is it?” I said, coming through the door first, Cynthia right behind me.
Grace looked up, and she was smiling.
“He’s okay!” she said.
“What?” her mother said. “Stuart?”
“He just texted me! He’s okay!”
She handed the phone to me and I held it so Cynthia could see the screen,
GRACE: just let me know your ok
GRACE: im going out of my mind if something happened 2 u let me no
GRACE: if you cant talk get someone else to get in touch with me
GRACE: did i hit you? just let me know that much
Those messages had all been written this morning. Grace had sent a dozen others last night.
And then, just now, there was this:
STUART: hey
GRACE: omg r u ok?
STUART: yeah. sorry if i freaked u out
GRACE: freaked out? im going out of my fuckin mind
STUART: had to run sorry i left u there. lotta shit going down, my dad mad
GRACE: but your ok?
STUART: yup.
GRACE: where r u
STUART: hidin out for while. dad mad boss too
GRACE: did i do it? shoot u?
STUART: fuck no! more l8r. see ya.
Cynthia and I exchanged glances, then looked at Grace, who was beaming.
“This is, like, the best news ever,” she said.
THIRTY-NINE
“HELLO?”
“Reggie.”
“I’m kind of busy right now, Unk. Let me call you back in a few—”
“He called me.”
“What? Who called you? What are you talking about?”
“He knows.”
“Who? Who knows what?”
“Quayle.”
“Jesus. Just hang on a second. I’m coming out of the coffee shop. Let me get into the car. Hang on. Okay, I’m in. Start over.”
“Quayle phoned me. Just now. He knows it’s me.”
“There’s no way. Eli never told him. I’m sure of that. He—Shit!”
“What?”
“I just spilled some hot coffee in my lap. Unk, I don’t get it. How would Quayle make the connection?”
“Quayle hired a detective. Eli must have called him once to sound him out about a deal, but when he never called back, Quayle wanted to find him. So he got a private detective to look for him.”
“What did Quayle say? Exactly. What did he say, exactly, Unk?”
“He said he knew it was me. Said he should have known all along. Reggie, he must have done a deal with Eli after all.”
“What?”
“He hasn’t got her in his actual possession, but the detective does. Quayle said they’re checking for fingerprints. That they’re going to look for my fingerprints.”
“That sounds like bullshit, Unk. It’s a trick. He’s trying to set you up.”
“What if he isn’t? If they find my fingerprints, they’ll go to the police. I’ll be arrested. And then they’ll find out about Eli, about what happened to him.”
“Let me think, let me think. If we knew who the detective was—”
“He told me.”
“What?”
“He told me the detective’s name. Duggan. Heywood Duggan. I looked him up in the book. He’s a real private detective.”
“Well, hell, you got an address, Unk?”
FORTY
AT the body shop, Vince had closeted himself in his office. Gordie was outside the door asking Vince, through the frosted glass, whether he was okay.
“I need a minute,” he said, dropping into the padded chair behind his desk. “Where’s Bert?”
“He’s coming in.”
“When’d he get back from the farm?” Vince opened a drawer, took out a small glass and a bottle of Jack Daniel’s. Poured himself a snootful, knocked it back, poured himself another.
“Around four in the morning. He joined up with me to do a couple more houses, then went off on his own.”
“What’d he do with Eldon’s Buick?”
“Left it at his place. He was in his own car when he caught up with me. Listen, I think things are more or less okay,” Gordie said, “but he ran into a problem at one of the houses a little while ago.”
Jesus, it never ends.
Vince asked, “Which house?”
Gordie told him. “He said he rang the bell, knocked, was sure no one was home, but the kid was there, and then the wife showed up. Nearly ran him over.”
Cynthia.
“Shit,” Vince said.
“Have you talked to Eldon yet?” Gordie asked. “I mean, is he going to show up here any minute and not know? ’Cause I don’t want to be the one who tells him. I think it should come from you. I’m trying to weasel out of it, but you’re the boss and all.”
“Eldon won’t be coming in.”
“Why’s that?”
“When Bert gets here, I’ll fill you both in. You do that other thing I asked you?”
“The texts? Yeah, that’s done. But I wanted to ask you if—”
“I told you. I need a minute.”
Gordie’s shadow moved away from the frosted glass.
Vince stared straight ahead, dazed. Poured himself a third shot, downed it, then placed his hands flat on the desktop. Concentrated on his breathing. Inhaled slowly. Exhaled slowly. He was feeling light-headed, and it had nothing to do with the booze. He felt a knot of anxiety in the center of his chest. He wondered, for a moment, whether he was going to be sick to his stomach.
Was this what they called a panic attack?
Get a grip. You got a lotta shit to deal with.
A shadow darkened the frosted glass again. “Bert’s pulling in,” Gordie said.
“I’ll be out when I’m out.”
The shadow slipped away again.
Vince was thinking about a show he’d seen on disasters. Probably on the Discovery Channel. How, when a plane came down or two trains ended up heading toward each other on the same track, there was usually more than one cause, unless it was a bomb. Events conspiring. Pilot error meets faulty switch. Engineer looking at a video on his cell phone as trackside signals malfunction.
Vince believed events had very much conspired against him. Stuart breaking into that house at the very same time as someone else was ripping it off.
Things were going to shit all around him. He could feel his empire—such as it was—slipping away. And it had been getting chipped away at before the events of the last twenty-four—God, it hadn’t even been that long. More like twelve hours.
Audrey.
Maybe Jane was right. He had been a pussy. But he couldn’t bear to see his wife in that hospital bed those last few weeks. It tore him apart, filled him with despair and rage at the same time. He knew this wasn’t supposed to be about him—it was about her, about being there for her. But it was too risky, going to see her. Vince had to be the rock. Always the rock. He was the guy who didn’t let things touch him.
Most of the time, he could pull that off.
But not when he was in that room with Audrey, watching her die. It was bad enough, when she had her eyes open, seeing him become emotionally compromised. Seeing that tremble in his chin. The moistness in his eyes. But what if someone entered the room—a nurse, her doctor, Jane, Eldon or Gordie or Bert—and saw him that way? He’d never recover from the embarrassment. It would be a humiliation.
Now, though, he wondered.
He’d been so worried about how he’d be perceived during the time he was losing Audrey that now he was at risk of losing Jane.
Aw, fuck it. It’s not like she’s my real daughter or—
Maybe not. But damn it, he loved her. From the moment Audrey came into his life, dragging Jane along with her, there was something about the kid. Tough, but vulnerable at the same time. She’d been hurt so often by other men who’d come into her mother’s orbit, starting with her own dad, who’d never been there for her. She’d stopped looking for any sort of father figure. As far as she was concerned, all the men her mother had taken up with over the years were assholes.
Vince was willing to concede that maybe he wasn’t much different, but at least he cared about Jane in ways the others hadn’t.
He’d had a daughter once.
Briefly.
It had always haunted h
Headstrong. Stubborn. Not afraid of a fight. Goddamn intimidating at times. Sneaky, too, when it served her purposes.
And a pain in the ass, let’s not forget that. But if his daughter had turned out like Jane, he would have been proud. This is a kid who can take care of herself. A kid who doesn’t take any shit.
He didn’t try to be her friend. From the beginning, he just tried to treat her with respect. Didn’t bullshit her. When she asked him once—this was more than seven years earlier, before he got shot—whether he was going to marry her mother, he could have said something like, “Well, we’ll see, your mother and I care about each other a great deal, and we don’t know at this point where it will lead blah blah blah.”
But instead he said, “I got no idea. If I had to make up my mind today, I’d say there’s no way. I got enough people nagging me as it is. But I like her. And you’re okay, too.”
Another time, she asked him flat out whether he was a criminal.
“That’s how you make your living, right? I mean, this body shop thing, that’s just bullshit. A legit business to cover up all the other stuff that you and Bert and Gordie and Eldon are up to. Am I right or am I right?”
He took a second. “You’re right.”
Jane nodded appreciatively. “That was a test.”
“Huh?”
“I just wanted to see if you’d lie to my face. I don’t like what you do, but at least you’re honest about it.”
A pistol. That’s what she was.
Maybe he was a fool to believe this, but he thought his directness had, over time, won her respect. And once he had that—and it sure as hell didn’t happen overnight—he believed she came to feel something stronger. Was he kidding himself, or did she love him back?
Vince thought she did.
He knew he didn’t come across as an educated guy. He’d barely finished high school, and never attended any institution of so-called higher learning. But he liked to read, and the shelves of his beach house were lined with books. History and biography, mostly. Vince liked to read about how important people made decisions, and took comfort in the fact that even smart people, as often as not, made the wrong choices.