The Evan Buckley Thrillers: Books 1 - 4 (Evan Buckley Thrillers Boxsets)

by James, Harper

  ‘Hey Evan, before you go, can you do this next root canal for me?’

  Evan laughed. He could see what was coming next.

  ‘It’s just that since I’m doing your job, I thought maybe you’d like to do mine.’

  Chapter 23

  HE WENT BACK UPSTAIRS and sat at his desk. The last thing he wanted was another trip to some local government offices to wade through more official records. It was four pm on Friday and he wouldn’t be able to get to the District Court before it closed. That meant he was going to have to wait until Monday morning. That wasn’t a massive problem in itself apart from the fact that it gave him a bit of a dilemma.

  If Hendricks really was Saunders, then he would want to do a whole lot more digging to try to find out if he had anything in his past that he was hiding. In which case, the quicker he got started, the better. On the other hand, if Hendricks wasn’t Saunders, he didn’t want to waste a lot of time and effort chasing something that ultimately led nowhere.

  But the real problem was, how was he going to pass the weekend if he didn’t, because his conversation with Jacobson had shaken loose a lot of doubts and worries that he didn’t want to have to deal with.

  He went back down to Jacobson’s office. Jacobson was getting ready to go.

  ‘Uh-oh, I see someone in need of a beer.’

  ‘What are you, a mind reader?’

  ‘No, I read faces. In my job you need to be able to see the level of fear in a patient’s eyes. And I see fear in yours.’

  ‘Fear of what?’

  ‘Of being alone. Of not trusting what you might do left to your own devices. Come on, let’s go.’

  They went to the same bar as before. It was still early so they got settled into the best seats at the end of the bar. On the short side in the corner, not the long, front side where everyone buying drinks leaned over you and dripped beer on your pants.

  ‘What’s on your mind,’ Jacobson said, after he’d got the first round in.

  ‘Talking about people changing their names makes me think things I don’t want to think. About Sarah.’

  Jacobson nodded and sipped his beer.

  ‘I’ve always thought something must have happened to her. Killed or abducted or whatever.’

  He sat there with the terrible thoughts that plagued him pushing their way to the forefront of his mind. He didn’t think he’d ever voiced them aloud. He didn’t know if he’d be able to. He swallowed thickly and took a long pull on his beer to give himself a few more seconds. Jacobson waited for him to continue.

  ‘Or is it that I’ve always wanted to think that something happened to her. Because the alternative is too awful for me to deal with.’

  It was easier to say than he had thought it would be. He didn’t want to think about what that might imply. Christ, you could drive yourself mad.

  ‘Because the alternative is that she chose to go.’

  It was all pouring out now, there’d be no stopping it.

  ‘Because she couldn’t stand to be with me any longer. Just like the Schneiders. She made a conscious effort to disappear because I’m as bad as Max Schneider. Then changed her name so that I couldn’t ever find her.’

  Jacobson put his hand on Evan’s shoulder.

  ‘Don’t do this to yourself, Evan.’

  ‘I can’t help it. Most of the time I’m okay, then suddenly something will set it all off.’

  ‘Okay. So what stops it again?’

  Evan turned his head to look at Jacobson.

  ‘A hangover usually.’

  ‘Coming up,’ Jacobson said, slapping him hard on the back.

  He downed his beer and ordered the next round.

  ‘I don’t want to be too boring and practical, but I do need to know,’ Evan said. ‘If I knew she chose to walk out then I’d stop trying to find out what happened and try to move on.’

  He met Jacobson’s steady gaze and wondered if his life was as complicated.

  ‘But if something happened to her then I can’t ever give up. She could have been abducted and she’s still alive in some shitty basement, hoping I’ll find her. If there’s a one in a billion chance of that being true, I’ve got to keep looking.’

  Jacobson took a deep breath and let it out again.

  ‘You certainly know how to torture yourself.’

  ‘As I said, I’m okay most of the time and the possibility of finding her alive keeps me going. It’s just that every now and then something happens to make me start thinking all this shit.’

  ‘I’m guessing that’s when you lock your door and hit the whisky bottle.’

  ‘You know, Tom, you’ve really got to stop auditing the trash cans.’ He grinned, but then it slipped off his face just as fast. ‘Seriously, though, Stanton brought that bottle with him, and even if the cops didn’t believe me, I want you to. I don’t keep booze in the office and I don’t drink alone.’

  Jacobson smiled. ‘Glad to hear it. You get maudlin enough on a couple of beers. Talking of which . . .’

  Evan ordered them two more. At this rate the hangover-induced catharsis was practically guaranteed.

  ‘It get’s even worse you know,’ Evan said.

  ‘Is that possible?’

  ‘Oh yes. It makes me question whether I ever really loved her.’

  Jacobson swivelled in his chair, clamped a huge hand on each of Evan’s shoulders and shook him violently.

  ‘Enough, already!’

  Evan started to speak again so Jacobson shook him even harder. After Evan didn’t say anything for a few seconds Jacobson took his hands away. Evan leaned away from him and lifted his hands up in appeasement.

  ‘Just let me just say this, okay?’

  Jacobson shook his head sadly but didn’t say anything else.

  ‘If I really loved her then I’d want her to be alive and happy whether it’s with me or someone else. But if it’s not with me then I’ll feel a whole lot better if she’s dead. That way I can go on living with my memories and not have to look at myself too hard. I’m putting my feelings over her life. Does that sound like the dictionary definition of love to you?’

  ‘There’s no hope for you Evan. You’re determined to give yourself a hard time. I suggest we try the hangover method first and if that doesn’t work, I’m prescribing a lethal dose of novocaine.’

  Chapter 24

  EVAN FELT A LITTLE off-color the next morning. Something unpleasant had crawled into his mouth during the night and died. Jacobson was a big guy and had drunk him under the table. But despite his physical symptoms Evan felt a lot better for having got it all off his chest. He felt like he had a chance of making it through the weekend at least.

  In his drunken state the previous evening it had occurred to him that it might be worth checking with Faulkner to see if he knew anything about the possibility of Hendricks having changed his name. He was in his car on his way to Faulkner’s trailer park when his cell phone rang. He didn’t recognize the number but he answered it anyway.

  ‘Mr Buckley, this is Barbara Schneider.’

  In his surprise he swerved and almost hit a car coming in the other direction, its horn blaring and then receding into the distance.

  ‘I can call back if you’re driving,’ she said.

  She had a lovely voice. Probably the sort of voice you heard if you called a phone sex line, not that Evan had ever done that.

  ‘No, no, it’s okay,’ he said pulling onto the shoulder.

  ‘Ginny Doyle said you wanted to talk to me. She said it was very important.’

  Evan couldn’t think of any gentle way to ease into the questions he wanted to ask. He didn’t know how much Doyle had told her. He needn’t have worried; she carried on without waiting for him to say anything.

  ‘She said you wanted to ask me about when I left my husband.’

  ‘I realize this might be difficult—’

  ‘It’s ancient history. Don’t worry about me. Just ask me what you want to know.’

  ‘I wa
nted to ask if you—’

  He couldn’t think of a nice way to put it.

  ‘Ran away with another man when I left my husband?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘The answer’s no. I ran away on my own. Does that help you?’

  He was finding the conversation very unsettling. The strange combination of her directness coupled with her lovely voice made it difficult to think clearly. He got the impression you could ask her anything.

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘You don’t sound very sure.’

  He could hear the amusement in her voice and wondered if she was used to having that effect on people. On men in particular.

  ‘I’m not.’

  ‘Would it be easier if you came over to see me?’

  ‘I thought you didn’t want anyone to know where you are.’

  She laughed. It was a lovely laugh too. It made him wonder about the mouth that these lovely sounds came out of.

  ‘I think Ginny is being a little melodramatic.’

  She gave him an address which was only about a hundred miles away.

  ‘You didn’t go far,’ he said.

  ‘Why would I? That idiot Max never leaves the house and there wasn’t anyone else to worry about. Can you come straight over? I have to go out later.’

  Evan decided he could visit Faulkner later and he didn’t want to risk her changing her mind. He told her he’d be there in a couple of hours. Then he turned his phone off so that she couldn’t ring back and cancel.

  ***

  BARBARA SCHNEIDER WAS EVERYTHING her laugh and phone sex voice promised and then some. She was attractive in a slightly risqué sort of way, with a little too much makeup for this early in the day. The lips that let slip the wonderful sounds were full and coated with dark red lipstick. She was shapely too, broad across the beam—in a good way—but cinched in at the waist and with a generous bust to top it all off. The bust was very much on show. You don’t get half a dozen of those in an egg box, Evan thought, as he admired the magnificent display.

  He almost felt sorry for Max Schneider and his doomed attempts to keep this much woman in check. And what had she ever seen in him?

  He looked around, not exactly nervously, as he entered, to see if there was any evidence of a man living there. He felt a lot like an unsuspecting fly that had just been tricked into entering a big, fat spider’s web.

  Barbara wore a crisp white blouse that was totally inadequate for the job it was expected to do, tucked tightly into a plaid skirt a little too short for her age and the size of her backside, but a great testimonial for the strength of the seams nonetheless. It also slid up easily and alarmingly over her powerful thighs when she sat down. Evan wouldn’t have wanted to get his head stuck between those, especially not with his damaged ear. He wondered if she liked being called Babs.

  ‘What happened to your face?’ she asked, looking as if she wanted to reach out and touch it, see if it was real.

  ‘A dissatisfied client,’ he said, and grinned.

  She smiled back, revealing perfect teeth. Was that the tip of her tongue poking through?

  ‘I don’t believe that for a minute. You look like Mr. Satisfaction Guaranteed to me. Anyway, what do you want to know?’

  He was having difficulty stopping himself staring at her chest. His eyes just kept slipping downwards. As a result, he was making himself stare at the point where her eyebrows met. It was a trick he used when talking to people with crossed eyes. He never knew which one to look at and this trick made it look like you were looking at both of them and not favoring one or the other.

  He was doing it now because if he stared too fixedly into her eyes she would think he was hitting on her, but every time he averted his eyes they immediately dropped to her breasts. The problem was it made him look like he was holding his head stiffly.

  ‘Have you got something wrong with your neck as well?’ she asked with a hint of a smile.

  She knows exactly what she’s doing.

  ‘I slept badly. Anyway, let me start from the beginning.’

  He told her the basic outline of the case, about Daniel and then Robbie disappearing and the rumors about Robbie running away. He missed out the nastier rumors and he didn’t mention any names.

  ‘So you want to know if I ran away with the father.’

  She shifted in her chair and her skirt rode up some more to reveal the lacy tops of her pantyhose—at this time in the morning?—and a small slice of smooth, pale flesh. Evan was aware of faint stirrings in his own underwear. He’d noticed before how frisky he felt when he had a bad hangover.

  It was nothing obvious at this stage but he didn’t want it to go any further. Unfortunately, it seemed like Babs—he had to admit it was the only thing to call her—had exactly the opposite idea. He was convinced she kept glancing down at his crotch. He crossed his legs primly, which made her smile again.

  ‘You’d have to tell me his name first,’ she said.

  Evan opened his mouth to tell her when she said, ‘No need, you’re talking about Robbie Clayton aren’t you.’

  ‘Yes. So you knew him.’

  ‘I knew him before I ran away. You’ve talked to Ginny so she probably told you what my husband was like.’

  Evan nodded. ‘I’ve met him too.’

  ‘Lucky you! You’ve seen the amusing side of him, no doubt. Amusing if you can laugh at his stupid antics and then leave. Not so amusing if you live with it day in day out. But it’s not all harmless fun.’

  ‘I know. I saw the temper as well.’

  ‘Well, it was a lot worse than you saw or Ginny said, I can tell you. I didn’t tell her, or anyone else, the half of it.’

  Again, Evan nodded and made encouraging please-continue noises.

  ‘I was a very attractive woman back then,’ she said, putting the emphasis on the very, and then paused. And paused. It was a fishing expedition, but Evan wasn’t biting. She didn’t seem to mind.

  ‘I had all the young men flirting with me and it drove Max wild. He used to beat the shit out of me. Try to make me less appealing.’

  Evan made the appropriate sympathetic sounds.

  ‘It was very flattering, but that’s all it was to begin with. I was married and I took that seriously. We went to Church regularly.’

  Good God, I hope you didn’t go dressed like that.

  ‘But Max was a real shit.’ Her whole body crumpled in on itself as the memories came flooding back. ‘Then I met Robbie and everything was different from then on.’

  ‘But he didn’t run away with you?’

  She shook her head sadly. ‘No. I begged him to and I think he would have come with me—’

  ‘But then Daniel disappeared.’

  ‘Yes. He changed then. It brought his family life back into focus. I was just a bit of fun on the side. He was obsessed with finding out what happened to his boy.’ Her gaze passed straight through Evan, back in time to what might have been. ‘Compared to that I wasn’t important any more. Not important enough, anyway.’

  Suddenly it was a very different woman sitting in front of him. The clothes were the same but now they were just inappropriate, not provocative. Or had that all been in Evan’s mind—and underwear. The body inside the clothes didn’t look quite so full and bursting with life. More like someone had pulled the stopper out of an inflatable mattress. Bumps and hollows in all the right places but not very exciting.

  ‘I’m really sorry I had to bring all this up again,’ he said.

  ‘It’s not your fault and in a way, it’s made me feel better too.’

  ‘How’s that?’

  ‘I never knew Robbie had disappeared as well as Daniel. I thought he just went back to his happy family life, with or without the boy, and forgot all about me.’

  ‘I don’t think he’d ever have forgotten about you,’ Evan said, hoping he hadn’t overdone it.

  He wasn’t sure if he wanted to bring back too much of the original Babs.

  ‘What do you think h
appened to him?’ she asked, as if she hadn’t heard.

  ‘I think something bad happened to him as well. He’s not with his wife, and he’s not with you. The police think he ran off because he killed Daniel. I don’t believe for a minute he did anything to Daniel and I think if he’d run off, he’d have taken you with him.’

  She smiled at the compliment and it was as if a light had been turned back on inside her.

  ‘I think you’re right. He couldn’t have hurt that boy in a million years. And he might have chosen family over me, but if he was going to turn his back on his family, he’d be with me now.’

  Her spirits seemed to be fully recovered already.

  ‘Did he have any suspicions about what might have happened to Daniel?’

  ‘Not really, but I know he didn’t agree with the police. They thought it was the boy’s teacher, but Robbie didn’t buy that. I can’t remember what it was now but he thought their “evidence”’—she did the quotes thing with her fingers—‘was pretty thin. He thought the teacher was a good guy.’

  Evan knew she was talking about Hendricks’ evidence but didn’t say anything.

  ‘Did he try to find out what happened?’

  ‘I don’t really know. I know he felt really guilty, as if it was his fault. As if it wouldn’t have happened if he hadn’t . . .’

  Been with me?

  She couldn’t finish the sentence, just sat looking down at her hands in her lap. Then she looked up at Evan.

  ‘I think he also blamed me in a way because he was with me that afternoon. There, I’ve said it.’ She took a deep breath and bit down on her bottom lip. Evan hoped she wasn’t about to cry.

  ‘I don’t think it would have made any difference if he was with you or getting drunk in a bar, which is what he said he was doing.’

  She smiled at him again.

  ‘Thank you for saying that. You know, you’re the first person I’ve talked to about all this. You don’t exactly go up to people and say, Hi, I’m Babs. I was in bed with a married man when his boy got abducted. It tends to limit the number of dinner party invites you get. Turns you into something of a pariah.’

  She shifted in her chair, revealing another inch of thigh, and her knee brushed Evan’s. He jumped slightly and a shiver rippled through him.