You'll Miss Me When I'm Gone (29 page)

After one more ring, the call went to voice mail. They didn't leave a message.

She glanced out the sliding glass door and wondered if the caller was out there in the darkness, watching her. Moving over to the door, she checked the lock again and then closed the curtains.

The phone rang once more—again,
UNKNOWN CALLER.
She stood over the phone for a moment, then finally grabbed it and clicked on. “Troy?” she said, breathlessly. “Troy Slattery?”

There was no response. But she could tell the caller was still on the line.

“I know this is you,” she said. Yet she really wasn't so sure now.

“Hello?” He had a strange, singsong voice—almost like something out of a cartoon.

“Who is this?” Andrea asked.

There was a sigh, and then that puppet-like voice again. “Do you know what your nephew's doing right now?”

“Who the hell are you?”

He shushed her.

Bewildered, Andrea fell silent.

“Spencer's being a bad boy again,” he whispered. “You'll see . . .”

Then he hung up.

* * *

As he staggered down the residential street in search of his Miata convertible, Ron Jarvis didn't think he was that drunk.

He was just ticked off.

He'd told several people at the party that he was going to kick Spencer Murray's ass. He'd been talking about it with somebody in Amanda's kitchen when he smashed another beer bottle—this time on the counter. A piece of glass flew up and cut Kate Coupland on the cheek. It wasn't like she needed stitches or a transfusion or anything. She just bled a little. But Amanda had a cow and tossed him out on his ass.

One of his teammates, Mike Walter, had volunteered earlier to be his designated driver, and he'd said something about having him sleep over at his place tonight. But Ron had kept it noncommittal, thinking he might go home with Princess Leia. They'd even made out a little, but she'd gotten all pissy because his burnt-cork mustache had rubbed off onto her face and her white costume. Plus, she wouldn't stop asking him about Bonnie. When she'd referred to Bonnie as “that skank,” he'd said she was hardly one to talk—and that had killed it. She'd blown him off.

When he'd left the party, Ron had spotted her hanging all over some guy dressed like Spiderman.

Well, screw her
, he thought.

As he made his way to his car, Ron figured missing out on a night in heaven with Princess Leia was no great loss. He didn't want to admit it, not even to himself, but he still wasn't over Bonnie.

He spotted his green Miata and took a few fortifying, deep breaths. It was only a couple of miles to his house, but the cops were out in full force tonight looking to catch drunk partiers. He figured he'd be okay driving—especially if he kept the window open and the radio blasting.

He clicked the unlock button, and watched the Miata's parking lights flicker. Opening the door, he climbed behind the wheel and then froze.

“What the fuck?” he muttered, staring at the thing dangling from his rearview mirror.

It was a GI Joe doll, hanging from a shoestring around its neck. The doll's fatigue trousers had been shucked down to its boots, and the shirt was bunched up under its chin. The doll was naked from the chest down to its ankles.

“What the fuck?” he repeated, angry now.

Was this somebody's idea of a joke? What was it supposed to mean anyway?

He wondered how someone had gotten into his car. Had he forgotten to lock it? He couldn't remember.

Ron quickly checked the back. He was relieved to see his blue and gray varsity letter jacket where he'd left it.

He turned and started to yank the doll off his rearview mirror. But then he realized the damn thing was tightly tied to the bar connecting the mirror to the windshield. He didn't want to tear down the whole rearview mirror. So he tried to loosen the knot around the bar. He kept picking and pulling at the stupid shoelace. It was frustrating as hell and seemed to take forever. “Goddamn it,” he muttered, again and again—until he finally untied the knot.

Ron hurled the doll outside, slammed his door shut, and started up the car. Then he peeled down the street.

He forgot to keep a lookout for cops. And after all that attention he'd just paid to his rearview mirror, he didn't bother to look in it now.

If he had, Ron might have seen the car following him.

* * *

The driver of the Toyota Corolla kept one hand on the wheel and the other held his phone. He watched the Miata about half a block ahead of him.

“I believe our boy is DUI, and on his way home,” he told his friend on the phone. “What's the situation there?”

“Lights out,” whispered his cohort. “It looks like his parents and kid sister have all gone beddie-bye.”

The driver of the Corolla glanced at his wristwatch: 10:38. “I don't think he's going to take a side trip. He needs to go to bed. He's got a big game tomorrow. I wonder if he's worried about having to play with a hangover. I doubt it. Do you think they'll cancel the game on account of him?”

“Do you really think they'll find him that quickly?” his friend asked.

“Oh, yeah,” he said. “I'll bet they'll find him tomorrow morning. If they don't cancel the game, they'll at least give the scumbag a minute of silence . . .”

He followed the Miata as Ron took a turn on Queen Anne Avenue. There were four more turns until Ron would reach his house.

“Be ready for him in about five minutes,” said the man in the Corolla.

“I'm here,” his friend said, “just waiting . . .”

* * *

He was convinced someone in the apartment house across from Kerry Park was going to call the police on him. He skulked around on their front lawn—behind trees and some shrubs.

The park was halfway up Queen Anne Hill and offered a spectacular view of downtown Seattle and Elliott Bay—with the Space Needle up close and taking center stage. Surrounded by bushes, the lookout point had a tall abstract metal sculpture, several park benches, and a coin-operated telescope. Only a few couples and one slightly noisy foursome were checking out the view at this late hour.

And then there was Tanya, sitting alone on one of the park benches.

Spencer's phone vibrated. He dug it out of his jacket pocket, checked the caller ID, and clicked the phone on. “Hello?”

“Hi,” Bonnie said. “Are you still on surveillance duty?”

“Yeah,” he replied in a hushed voice. He glanced over his shoulder to make sure no one from the apartment building had come out to chase him away. “About forty-five minutes ago, Tanya got dressed up—in almost normal clothes. She even put on lipstick. Then she walked to Kerry Park. She's been sitting on a bench here for about a half hour now. She's checked her phone a few times, but hasn't called anybody. I wonder if she's being stood up. Anyway, I'll stick around here. I have about another hour until I'm supposed to be home.” He glanced back toward the apartment building again. “How are you? Did you talk to Ron?”

“Like talking to a brick wall,” she replied. “I finally gave up and left the party. But Mike Walter said he'd drive him back to his place and they'd crash there. Ron's parents talked to the police about the texts and the calls.”

“Did they think I was behind them? Did they blame me?” Spencer asked.

“I'm guessing no. Otherwise the police would be on your case right now, don't you think?”

“Or they'd be watching me,” Spencer said. He thought about the Toyota Corolla that might have been following him the other night.

“Well, anyway, I'm home in my room now,” Bonnie sighed. “At the party, I started worrying about my family, so I came back here. It's weird. When I'm not with them, I'm worried about them. And when I'm here, I think I might be putting them all at risk just by being under the same roof as them. I saw a patrol car cruise by about ten minutes ago, and that makes me feel a little better. So I think we've done as much as we can for Ron, short of calling the police ourselves.” She paused. “Spencer? Are you still there?”

“Yeah,” he whispered, eyeing Tanya across the way. “And I guess I'm going to be here a while.”

“Well, call me if anything happens. And if nothing happens, call me when you get home. Either way, call me. I'll be up late.”

“I will,” he said.

“You know, Ron's really jealous of you.”

“Why's that?”

“He thinks we're—a couple,” she said. She gave a nervous, little laugh. “Isn't that crazy?”

“Yeah, it's crazy,” he murmured, not knowing what else to say.

“Well, call me later, okay?”

“Okay, bye,” he said. Then he clicked off.

Spencer slipped the phone back inside his jacket pocket. He gazed at Tanya, still sitting alone on the park bench with the illuminated cityscape in front of her. He had a feeling her friend wasn't going to show up.

Spencer also had another feeling, one that tore at his gut. He was almost certain something awful was going to happen tonight.

* * *

Ron let out a long sigh as he turned into the driveway. The drive home had sobered him up a bit. He'd been worried about a cop pulling him over.

It looked like everyone had gone to bed. But his parents had left the front light on.

Pulling into the carport beside the garage, he parked the Miata and then checked his reflection in the rearview mirror. Most of the burnt-cork, drawn-on eyebrows and mustache had smeared off. He looked like shit. He figured if he took an aspirin and a glass of OJ before bed tonight, maybe he'd be okay for the game tomorrow.

Ron switched off the headlights. As he climbed out of the car, a shadow swept over him. He turned around to see someone in a ski mask, holding what looked like a blackjack above his head.

“Payback time,” the man said under his breath.

“What?” Ron gasped.

It happened so fast. Maybe it was because he was drunk and tired, but Ron barely had time to react. He saw the short, leather-covered club coming down at him. He dropped his car keys and started to put up his hand. But he was too late.

“No—”

It was all he could say before the stranger slammed the blackjack over his head.

Ron let out a feeble moan and flopped down on the driveway with a thud.

The stranger picked up the keys. While he was bent over, he whispered in Ron's ear. “I said, it's payback time, you sad, stupid son of a bitch.”

* * *

It was fascinating how the blackjack worked.

Here was a guy who was used to having these two-hundred-and-fifty-pound giants slamming into him, trying to crush him every Saturday afternoon during football season. And he went down with one forceful blow from this little weapon. And the frail, stricken sound he'd made—like an old man getting punched in the gut—was so pitiful. It had all been so easy.

But now the stranger in the ski mask had to pick up Ron and drag his one hundred and eighty pounds of dead weight into the Miata's passenger seat. He managed to haul him around to the other side of the car and got the door open.

Suddenly a patch of light appeared on the front lawn. Someone on the second floor must have switched on a light.

He froze. He was pretty sure they couldn't see the carport from the window. But what was keeping them from coming down to investigate the noise?

He'd discussed with his partner the possibility of this very thing happening. The Corolla was parked across the street, one house down. They'd decided that if anyone came out of the house during the abduction phase, then that was it for the whole family. They'd kill whoever tried to come to Ron's rescue, drag the body into the backyard, and then kill everyone inside the house. After that, they could transport Ron to the designated spot and take their time proceeding as planned.

For a minute, he didn't move. He just stood over Ron's near-lifeless body and waited for the next light to go on—or the sound of a door opening. But everything remained quiet.

He took a deep breath and hoisted Ron onto the passenger seat. Ron moaned a little in protest, but he was still out of it. He didn't move at all as he was buckled into the seat. The man in the mask quietly closed the door, hurried around to the other side and climbed behind the wheel. He started up the Miata and backed out of the driveway.

He kept the lights off until he was halfway down the block. He pulled the ski mask up to his forehead. His face felt sweaty and flushed.

His head tipped to one side, Ron groaned in the passenger seat.

The driver checked the rearview mirror and spotted the Corolla following them.

Ron's phone started ringing. But Ron didn't stir. It was most likely one of his parents calling, wondering why their sonny boy had come home, only to pull out of the driveway again. Where was their precious Ronny going at this hour when he had a big game tomorrow?

They had no idea they'd never see him alive again.

The driver glanced in the rearview mirror once more. Something in the back caught his eye. It was Ron's varsity letter jacket.

The driver smiled.

They'd have a souvenir from tonight—or, more accurately, Spencer would.

CHAPTER THIRTY

 

T
anya walked home from the park, knowing Spencer was tailing her. Two blocks of her trek were practically straight uphill. She had to stop and catch her breath a few times. All the while, she could sense him behind her, stopping, too—watching her every move.

Tanya knew she was a decoy. She was setting up Spencer for something, but she wasn't quite sure what it was. She felt bad about that. She liked Spencer. It was all she could do to keep from turning around and calling to him. She'd been tempted to do that at least a dozen times tonight.

If only he emerged from those shadows, then she'd warn him that someone was out to get him. She just couldn't say who.

Even if she told him, he wouldn't believe her.

She kind of liked all the secret attention from her handsome stalker. Being watched all the time, she felt like a real actress—giving an ongoing performance. But it would have been so much nicer walking alongside of him, maybe even holding hands.

Instead, she had to settle for this. And she had to do what she was told.

As Tanya turned down her block, she took out her phone.

* * *

Spencer wondered if Tanya was calling her mystery man.

But then his phone vibrated in his jacket pocket, and he realized she'd dialed his number. A quarter of a block ahead of him, she paused on the sidewalk for a moment. Spencer quickly ducked behind a tree. He clicked on the phone: “Yeah, hello?” he murmured.

“Hi,” she said. “You sound funny. You're whispering. Were you asleep?”

“No, I just don't want to wake up my aunt,” he whispered.

“Oh, so you're home?”

“Yeah,” he lied. “Watching TV . . .”

“I thought you were trying to be quiet for your aunt,” she said.

“I've got the volume down and the subtitles on,” he said, peeking around the tree at her.

She'd started walking again—at a very leisurely pace. “Well, I just called to confirm that I'm taking you out for an apology dinner tomorrow night.”

“Um, sure,” Spencer said. “Did everything go okay tonight with your meeting?”

“Oh, it got canceled.”

“Sorry to hear that,” he said, watching her walk farther away.

“The night wasn't a total loss. I had Thai food with some of the cast. Then I went to the bookstore. Then I went home, but got kind of restless and ended up taking a late night stroll to Kerry Park, down the hill. It's such a beautiful night. I'm just getting back home now.”

Spencer didn't say anything. He realized she'd just told him everything she'd done tonight. Had he actually caught her being totally honest with him for a change? Or was there some other reason she felt compelled to give him a blow-by-blow of her evening activities?

“Well, so then we have a date for tomorrow?” she asked.

“You bet,” he said. “Good night, Tanya.”

“Spencer?”

“Yeah?” He could see her at her front walkway, beside the neglected front yard. She was looking back in his direction. He stayed behind the tree. He didn't dare move a muscle.

“Nothing,” she muttered. “Good night.”

He heard a click on the other end. Then he watched Tanya with her head down, walking toward that decrepit bungalow.

* * *

Ron wasn't sure what was happening. He couldn't feel his arms. He was cold, and his head throbbed so badly he thought he was going to be sick.

Someone was dragging him across the ground. They had him by his feet. It sounded like two guys. He could hear them breathing heavily, but nothing else—no traffic noise, not even the wind. It was deathly quiet. Where was he? He couldn't quite focus. It wasn't just because he didn't have his glasses on. This had something to do with his head. He remembered drinking at the party—and then that guy hitting him in the carport.

He realized his jeans were bunched down around his ankles—like that GI Joe doll he'd found hanging from its neck on his rearview mirror earlier tonight. His vision started to right itself, and he saw all the trees above him. They'd taken him to some woods. But who were they?

A panic swept through him. Ron tried to struggle, but he couldn't move his hands. They were dragging against the ground—numb and cold, cut up from sticks and rocks on this wooded trail. His wrists were tied behind him.

“What are you doing?” he yelled, trying to get a look at the two guys pulling him down the pathway.

He rolled to one side and then another, catching a glimpse of them. Both of his abductors wore dark clothes and black ski masks. They didn't say anything—to him or each other. They were like a couple of furniture movers—all business, hauling something away in a hurry.

Ron tilted his head back and saw they were coming to a bald spot in the forest. He noticed a tree at the edge of the little clearing. A rope with a noose dangled from a low-hanging branch. Beneath it was an old milk crate, turned upside down.

Ron remembered the GI Joe doll again.

“No!” he cried. “Help me! SOMEBODY HELP ME! HELP—”

All at once, one of them had his hand on his throat, choking him. Ron flailed, but the guy had him pinned down. He kept moving his head from side to side as the masked stranger tried to stuff a rag into his mouth. All his struggling didn't do any good. And now they'd silenced him.

They stood him up, and he rammed his whole body into one of them. The guy fell onto the dirt. “Shit!” he grumbled.

But as Ron tried to escape, he stumbled over his pants, tangled around his feet. He fell to the cold, hard ground. Curled up on his side, he heard the other guy snickering.

Ron didn't see him take a step back and kick him in the kidney.

He felt it. The rag almost popped out of his mouth. He would have screamed if he'd had any breath left in him. The pain in his gut was excruciating—as if the organs in there had been mashed up.

He couldn't resist or struggle as they stood him up again and led him to the makeshift gallows. They lifted him onto the milk crate and put the noose around his neck. “Get on your tiptoes, Ron,” one of them said.

He thought he recognized the voice, but told himself it couldn't be.

He tried to thrash around, but the noose started to choke him. His abductor was right. He had to stay on his tiptoes to keep the rope slack—and to get a breath.

Ron kept thinking this had to be a joke or something. He couldn't die here.

“How does it feel, Ron?” one of them asked.

He knew that voice. He wanted to scream at him to take off that mask so he could see his face.

The other one pulled a pair of scissors out of his jacket pocket. He clicked the blades together as if the shears were a musical instrument. “I'm going to cut off these panties now,” he announced. “Don't you move, Ron, or I might slice off your pecker.”

Ron remembered attacking Damon Shuler in the restroom, keeping him in a chokehold while his buddy, Max, threatened to cut off the freak's underpants. They told him they were going to string him up from one of the pipes near the ceiling and make it look like a kinky suicide. They'd worn black masks—like these two wore.

But that had all been a joke. They'd just been messing with Damon, trying to scare him.

This was real.

The one with the scissors started to cut at his underwear—at the side of his hip, from the bottom up. He stopped just before the elastic waistband. “Y'know, you were right,” he said to his friend. “This milk crate's the perfect height . . .”

Trembling, Ron stood on his tiptoes. Tears started to stream down his face. He kept thinking that if they just took the gag out of his mouth, he'd tell them he was sorry.

But the one whose voice he knew started kicking at the milk crate.

Ron desperately struggled to keep his toes on top of the crate. He wanted to scream at him:
Stop! Show me your face!
He felt the milk crate moving away with every kick.

In his head, Ron could almost hear himself screaming:
Let me see your face!

But all at once, the crate flew out from beneath him.

And all Ron heard was his neck snapping.

* * *

He repositioned the milk crate and climbed up on it so he could cut the ropes off Ron's wrists. He touched Ron's hand first. It was still warm. Careful not to nick him, he cut away the rope with the same scissors his friend had used to cut Ron's underpants. As the rope fell to the ground, his partner retrieved it and stashed it in his jacket pocket.

They both still wore their executioners' masks.

Even with Ron dead, he wanted some kind of anonymity while this close to him. Ron's crimson face was just inches from his. He pulled the gag from Ron's mouth. The football player's body swayed in the air, and the tree limb sagged slightly from his dead weight. Ron's eyes remained open in a blank, dead stare. The stench around him was awful.

His friend took off his ski mask and grinned up at him. His handsome face was flushed. “What did I tell you about him crapping himself?”

He nodded. His partner had done so much of the planning with him. They were so careful, down to the last detail. If the police traced the milk crate, they'd find it was stolen from outside a 7-Eleven three blocks from Ron's house.

Ron's Miata would remain parked nearby.

His friend had left the Corolla farther down the woodland trail—at the end of a gravel drive so there would be no tire marks. They weren't worried about their shoe prints. The shoes came from a Goodwill store on Capitol Hill.

With Ron nearly naked from the waist down, people would wonder about this bizarre suicide in the woods. He asked his friend if the police would notice the red marks on Ron's wrists. Would they see the bump on his head from the blackjack?

“So what if they do?” his pal had answered.

The police wouldn't think it was suicide for long.

The two of them had set it up that way. And they'd set it up so Spencer
Rowe
would be the central suspect in Ron Jarvis's murder. Several students had witnessed an altercation between the two of them at school today. And less than an hour ago, Ron was telling everyone at the party that he would kick Spencer's ass.

If the coroner got the time of death right, Spencer would have no alibi for tonight. Right now, he was outside Tanya McCallum's house, hiding in the shadows, watching her. He was alone. Tanya had been instructed to phone Spencer and tell him exactly what she'd done tonight. So his claims he'd spent the night tailing her would carry no weight with the police.

They had just one more thing to do to put the final nail in Spencer's coffin—and it involved Ron's precious letter jacket.

He climbed down from the crate and pulled off his ski mask. The cool air felt good against his face. He gave the milk crate another kick—turning it on its side. It lay there on the ground in the shadow of Ron's dangling corpse.

He couldn't help feeling a little disappointed now that it was over. It was that way with the others, too. The planning, the masterminding—that was the best part. He liked feeling in control.

But some things he had no control over. His friend was certain a jogger or some hikers would find Ron's body here in the woods near Discovery Park by noon tomorrow. But then, he'd also been sure someone would stumble upon Spencer's dead therapist within twenty-four hours—and that had been three days ago. She must not have had any appointments for the rest of the week. Her body would have started to decay by now. Did fragrances from the candle and soap shop below her office help camouflage the smell? He couldn't be sure, and hated that uncertainty.

After one last look at their handiwork, he and his partner started toward the gravel drive where the Corolla was parked.

As they neared the car, his friend put a hand on his shoulder and squeezed it. “Hey, I want you to look over here at what I did in the wee hours this morning while you were asleep.”

“What are you talking about?” he asked—with a mystified smile.

“It's just over here, c'mon,” he said, taking him by the arm. His friend led him into the woods. Twigs snapped beneath their feet.

Not far from the gravel drive, he spotted what looked like a shallow trench. “What's this?” he asked.

His partner chuckled. “Oh, God, I just hate to tell you this,” he said, taking something from his pocket. “But I really don't need you anymore.”

“What?” It took him a moment to realize his friend was holding a gun—and that he was standing in front of his own grave.

At that same moment, a loud, single shot echoed in the woods.

* * *

His aunt flung the door open. “What happened to you?” she asked.

She must have been waiting and watching from the front window, because Spencer hadn't even reached the front stoop yet.

“You said you'd be home by eleven,” she continued. “And I thought we agreed you'd take a cab . . .”

Spencer glanced at his watch. “It's only half-past.”

“What happened to the cab?” she pressed.

“I decided to walk Tanya home,” he said.

She glanced down at his muddy shoes. “Where does she live? In a swamp?”

Stepping through the front door, he started to take off his dirty Converse All Stars. “Sorry I'm late,” he muttered.

“Well, I don't mean to jump on your case, but I've been worried,” she said, shutting the door behind him. She locked it and put the chain on. “So how was the movie?”