Fear the Worst: A Thriller (22 page)

FORTY-ONE

I
WAS DRIVING THE
B
EETLE ALONG
R
OUTE
1 when I noticed, in my rearview mirror, a patrol car that had been heading in the other direction put its brake lights on. I kept glancing at the mirror.

“Don’t turn around, don’t turn around,” I said under my breath.

The cop car turned around.

It was still quite a ways back, so I eased down on the accelerator, trying to increase the distance between us without appearing to take off at high speed. Not that the Beetle was exactly up to that.

The cop car straightened out, and the flashing lights went on.

I hung a hard right down a residential street, then killed my lights so there weren’t two bright red orbs glowing from the back of the car. The streetlights were bright enough that I could see where I was going. I looked in the mirror, saw the police car take the right as well.

I took a random route. A right, another right, a left. I kept looking up at the mirror, looking not just for the car but for the pulsing glow of its rooftop lights.

The driver was probably on the radio now, asking for backup units to close in on the ar
ea.

I wasn’t safe in this car. The odds were I wouldn’t make it to Bob’s house without getting spotted.

I made another left, another right, and found myself down near the harbor, not far from Carol Swain’s house. I couldn’t go back there.

I was coming up on a cross street, and a police car zoomed past, siren off but lights flashing. If I’d had my headlights on, I’d have had a perfect look at the driver’s profile.

I wasn’t even going to get out of this neighborhood, let alone to Bob’s house. I wheeled the Beetle into a stranger’s driveway, pulling it up as far as it would go next to the house, killed the engine, grabbed the two guns I’d acquired, plus Milt from the back seat, and got out of the car.

Would it be safe to call Bob and ask him to come pick me up here? And would he even do it? The police—maybe Jennings herself—had been to see them. Even if Susanne and Bob didn’t know why, exactly, the police were hunting for me, they had to know it was serious.

I started running in the direction of the harbor. Bob’s house wasn’t far from the Sound. Maybe I could steal a small boat, head up to the Stratford shore near where Bob lived, beach the boat, then hoof it the rest of the way to his place. Then, with any luck, I could talk him into giving me another car so I could start driving up to Stowe.

I got to the harbor. It was a warm evening, and many people were sitting on their boats, having a drink, chatting with friends, their voices coming through the night like soft background noise. Stealing a boat might not be all that simple.

I was skulking around a parking lot that edged up to some tree cover. I was tiptoeing across gravel to the most remote end of the lot, wondering if there was any chance someone might have left their keys in a car—did anyone do that anymore?—when something about a van I was walking past caught my eye.

Stenciled on the rear windows were the words
Shaw Flowers
.

As I came up around the driver’s side, I could see what appeared to be two people up front, leaning into each other over the console.

I tapped the driver’s window with the barrel of one of my acquired weapons. He jumped, and as he turned to see who it was, his blonde-haired companion slumped forward lifelessly onto the dashboard.

“Hey, Ian,” I said through the glass.

He powered the window down. “Oh my God, it’s you,” he said.

“It’s okay,” I said. “I can see that’s not my daughter with you.”

“My aunt made me tell,” he said quickly, defensively. “She made me tell who hit me. But I told the police it was all a mix-up.”

“I know,” I said. “I appreciate that. And I never told anyone about your friend.”

“Thanks,” he said quietly. “What do you want? What are you doing here?”

“Unlock the back door,” I said. “I need you and Mildred there to make a delivery.”

I got into the back. I set the guns on the floor and put Milt on the seat. Surprisingly, it was the stuffed moose that caught Ian’s attention.

“And you think
I’m
strange,” he said.

W
E SPOTTED THREE CRUISERS
wandering the neighborhood before we got back up to Route 1.

“They all looking for you?” Ian asked while I looked around in the back of the van, trying to stay below the window line.

“The less you know, the better,” I said. “You’ve got a wrapped-up bouquet sitting back here.”

“Yeah,” Ian said. “Been trying two days to deliver it. The people are away.”

I gave him directions to Bob’s house. “Drive down the street once, see if the place is being watched. Cop cars, or what look like unmarked cop cars. We do that a couple of times, and if it looks clear, pull into the driveway.”

“Okay.” He paused. “You know, I don’t normally deliver flowers this late. Won’t that look weird?”

“Let’s hope not,” I said.

It didn’t take long to get to Bob’s neighborhood. “Houses are really nice around here,” Ian said. “I’ve delivered up around here before.” He paused. “I don’t see anything that looks funny.”

“Let’s do it,” I said. “I want you and Mildred to hang in for a minute.”

“Her name’s Juanita,” Ian said.

He pulled into Bob’s very wide driveway, right next to the Hummer. I grabbed the wrapped bouquet, slipped out the side of the van, walked up to the front door.

Susanne looked shocked when she opened it. At first I thought she was reacting to the late-night floral delivery, then realized she was looking right at me.

“My God, what happened to you?” she asked, Bob standing in the hall a few feet behind her. She took the flowers from me and set them on a nearby table.

At first I was thinking she’d already seen my nose. It hadn’t occurred to me that I’d sustained more injuries. I glanced in the front hall mirror. My cheeks had several small cuts in them. My forehead was bruised. Shards of broken window glass and hitting your head on the steering wheel will do that to you.

And there was still duct tape hanging off one of my wrists.

“I don’t have time to explain,” I said. To Bob I said, “What have you got for me?”

“Where’s the Beetle?” he asked, peering out into the drive and seeing only the van.

To Susanne I said, in a rapid-fire delivery, “I know where Syd is. She’s in Vermont. In Stowe. There are people already on their way to get her. They might already be there. I need to get there fast.”

I thought she’d pepper me with questions, but she instantly grasped that my taking time to answer them would not be in Syd’s best interest. She said, “Just take Bob’s car. Go. Now.”

She was referring to the Hummer, Bob’s massive SUV. I didn’t like the idea of heading up to Stowe in that beast. It stuck out like a sore thumb, was lumbering and slow to respond, I’d lose too much time stopping every hundred miles to fill it up with gas, and before long the police might be looking for it.

“Something else, Suze,” I said.

She nodded, instantly understanding. “On the lot, we just took in a Mustang. Has a V8 under the hood.”

“Come on,” Bob protested, “you can’t be serious.” He looked at me. “You know the police have been by here twice tonight looking for you? What the hell’s going on, Tim?”

“A lot,” I said. “But at this point, all that matters is that I get on the road to Stowe.”

Susanne put her hand on the doorknob for support. “The Mustang’s in good mechanical shape,” she said to me. “Good tires.”

“And it’s fast?” I said.

She nodded. “In a straight line. Not so hot cornering, but it’s interstate all the way to Vermont.”

“Let’s get it.”

“I don’t like this,” Bob said. “If the police are looking for him, this is tantamount to helping a fugitive.”

Susanne looked long and hard into Bob’s face. “I can do this alone, or you can help me.”

Evan came down the stairs. “What’s going on?”

“We’ll be back in a bit,” Bob said grudgingly. “If the phone rings, answer it.”

“No, don’t,” said Susanne. “And if the police come to the door, you haven’t seen Tim, and you have no idea where we are.”

“So you want me to lie to the cops,” Evan said, half to himself. “Cool.”

As the three of us went out of the house toward the Hummer, Bob said, “Honestly, Tim, I think you owe us an explanation of just what the hell’s going on here. You call late at night, demand a car, have some story about Sydney being up in Vermont, you can’t—”

“Hang on,” I said, changing direction and heading over to the van. “I have to get my guns.”

That shut Bob up, at least for a while.

I
THANKED
I
AN
and told him to take off. In addition to the guns, I grabbed Milt, whom I gave to Susanne for safekeeping. On the way to Bob’s Motors, I laid it out for Susanne in point form. Bob, behind the wheel of his Hummer, listened, then made some noises about how what made the most sense was to call the police, here and in Vermont. I argued that the police were so focused on me right now we’d waste valuable time persuading them to move on Stowe.

Susanne said to Bob, “I’ll put my money on Tim, for now, if you don’t mind.” Then, to me, “That man you shot in the knee. Is he dead?”

“Owen?” I said from the back seat. “I don’t think so. If an ambulance got to him in time, he’ll live. But the two with him? Gary and Carter? They’re goners.”

“And Andy,” Susanne said from the passenger seat.

“Yeah,” I said. “And it gets even worse.”

“What?”

“Patty,” I said. “I don’t know how she was involved in any of this, but something happened to her in the last forty-eight hours. No one’s seen her. And one of those three who tried to kill me, he said I didn’t have to worry about her anymore.”

“Oh my God,” Susanne said. “Oh my God.”

“Yeah,” I said, feeling the pain of what had happened to Patty in a way I could not bring myself to tell my ex-wife. At least not now.

“I can’t believe this,” Susanne said. “It can’t be happening…”

We went the next few blocks in silence. Then Susanne said, “So someone really was watching the house.”

“Yeah,” I said. Behind the wheel, Bob looked chagrined. “They thought if Syd tried to come home, to your place, they’d get her then.”

“Why hasn’t she just called us?” Susanne asked. “Found a way to get in touch?”

“One reason,” I said slowly, knowing there was no real way to prepare Susanne for this, “is that she may have killed someone.”

Susanne started to form some words to respond, but nothing came out.

“I think it may have been self-defense, or she was trying to help someone else who was being attacked.”

“But…” Susanne struggled. “Even if, even if that’s true, I can’t believe she wouldn’t call. For help.”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t know.”

I wondered whether we were thinking the same thing, that something had happened to Sydney, something even the bad guys didn’t know about, that had kept her from letting her parents know where she was.

“Maybe because, on top of everything else, she’s pregnant,” Susanne said.

Bob tightened his grip on the Hummer steering wheel.

“I don’t think so. I mean, yeah, maybe, but I don’t think that has anything to do with why she hasn’t called.”

Bob’s used-car dealership was just up ahead. He pulled into the lot and parked just beyond a dark blue Mustang, late nineties vintage I thought. “I’ll get the key,” Susanne said, getting out and heading for the office.

“You never even paid for the Beetle, did you?” Bob asked.

“Is that your biggest concern at the moment, Bob?” I asked.

I was resting my head against the seatback. I was suddenly very exhausted. Stowe had to be a good four-hour drive. I needed some sleep, but I didn’t have time for it.

I also didn’t know where to begin looking for Syd once I got to Stowe.

“Look,” Bob said, “do what you have to do. But it’s not fair to drag Susanne into this. Not if you’re wanted by the police. You’re really a piece of work, you know?”

“Did the cops tell you what they want me for?”

“All they said was more questioning. It was Detective Jennings and this other cop, big guy with a girl’s name. What do they think you’ve done?”

“There’s a list,” I said. “But the man who tried to kill me tonight killed a woman named Kate Wood earlier today. The police like me for it, at the moment.”

“Jesus Christ.”

I closed my eyes and rested my head. I opened them when I heard rapping at my window. Susanne was dangling a set of car keys.

I climbed down from the Hummer and took the keys for the Mustang. “Any gas in it?” I asked.

“I doubt it,” she said. “It’s not exactly Bob’s policy to include a tankful with every purchase.”

I hit the remote button and unlocked the doors of the Mustang. I got inside, left the driver’s door yawning open, and turned the engine over. It roared. I glanced at the gas gauge and saw that there was a little under half a tank.

“Gas up now and you should be able to make it the whole way there without stopping if you get lucky,” Bob said.

“You mind grabbing the guns?” I said to Bob.

He went back to the Hummer. Susanne said to me, “I’m going with you.”

“That’s not a good idea,” I said. “You’re not up to this.”

“Don’t tell me that.”

“Susanne,” I said, lowering my voice so she’d lean in close to me. “I’m going to get Syd out of this thing. But if something happens to me in the meantime, I want her to have you to come home to.”

“Tim, don’t say—”

“No, listen to me. I mean it. You have to stay here, be here for Sydney when she comes back, if she ends up coming back alone. And I may need to get in touch, need you to find out things for me. Right off the bat, when you get home, I need you to look up some directions for me for getting to Stowe. I’m going to hit 95, then 91 North, but I could use some pointers along the way.”

Susanne’s eyes were glistening. “I love you, you know. I always will.” She sniffed. “What should I do about the police?”

“Don’t tell them a damn thing. But if it’s Jennings… you can tell her what went down at the dealership. Just not where I’ve gone. They’ll try to stop me. Jennings’ll be waking up every Connecticut state police officer trying to find me. I don’t know how much time I have to find Syd, but I don’t need Jennings holding me up.”