Find You First

by Linwood Barclay

  Rhys approached the trailer, mounted the cinder block steps to reach the door, and went inside. The place still smelled of bleach. He closed the door, behind him and immediately got to his knees, peering under chairs and the living room couch. He worked his way to the kitchen and, using the flashlight app on his phone, peered into the cracks between the stove and fridge and cabinetry.

  “If I were a phone, where would I be?” he said under his breath.

  He stood, briefly, to walk down the hallway to the bedroom at the trailer’s tail end, then went down on his knees again.

  That was when he heard the approach of a vehicle.

  It was too soon for Kendra to be back with the coffee, and besides, this did not sound like the van, which was a well-tuned machine. Whatever was coming down the driveway sounded like the proverbial bucket of bolts. Rattles, squeaky springs, perforated muffler.

  He crept to the closest window, went up on his knees, and peeked outside.

  It was an old piece of American Motors shit. A Pacer. A young woman was driving, a middle-aged guy in the passenger seat.

  “Fuck.”

  He moved away from the window and considered his options.

  The trailer had a so-called back door, but it was on the same side as the front door. He couldn’t slip out without being seen.

  He heard the car’s two doors slam shut. Voices. The man and the woman were having a conversation as they got closer.

  And then, from the front end of the trailer, the ringing of a cell phone. Inside the trailer. Terrific. Now he knew where to look, but couldn’t do a damn thing about it.

  He had to hide.

  Where did you hide in a mobile home? It wasn’t like there was a basement to scurry down into. No attic to crawl up into.

  He figured he could squeeze himself under the bed. He’d cleared the space out only hours earlier. He flattened himself on the floor and edged his way under.

  But not before taking the Ruger out of his pocket and gripping it firmly in his right hand.

  Twenty-Four

  Springfield, MA

  Chloe, standing outside the trailer, phone in hand, said, “That dumbass. No wonder I can’t reach him. Left without taking his phone with him.”

  “You said it never leaves his hand.”

  She shrugged. “I haven’t known him that long. Maybe sometimes he has something else in his hand. You’d know a little something about that, wouldn’t you, Mr. Sperm Donor?”

  Miles gave her a disappointed look. “Is that any way to talk to your dad?”

  She took a step toward the trailer. “If he’s left it unlocked, we can wait inside.”

  “We can’t just walk in.”

  Chloe waved him off. “He’s family.”

  She mounted the cinder block steps and tried the door. “Here we go,” she said, pulling the door open. She stepped inside. Miles followed her.

  Once inside, Chloe screwed up her face. “Jesus, what’s that smell?”

  “Some kind of cleaner?” Miles said. “Maybe bleach? Call his phone again and I’ll try to track it down.”

  Chloe dug out her cell one more time and a moment later they could hear a ring near the front end of the trailer. Miles walked over to a couch, looked down, and saw the edge of the phone tucked down in between two cushions.

  “Must’ve slipped out of his pocket,” Miles said, picking up the phone and displaying it. “Maybe he tried to find it, but had somewhere to go and had to give up looking. There’s some texts here, and not just from you. There’s a Madeline?”

  “His mom.”

  “Can’t access them. Know his password?”

  “No.”

  Chloe had stepped into the kitchen area. “What the …” She took her phone, still in hand, tapped the camera app, and set it to video. “I’m getting a record of this shit. This is crazy. I mean, look at the place.”

  “What? The place looks fine.”

  “That’s the point. The place is fucking spotless.”

  “So Todd’s a neat freak.”

  “No, he isn’t.”

  She walked slowly over to the sink, looked down. “I can see my reflection.”

  Miles bent over, putting his nose to a countertop. “I can smell the bleach here. Maybe Todd hired the world’s best cleaning lady.”

  “It’s more than that,” she said, nodding toward the kitchen table. “Where’s his laptop? Where’s his stuff? I’m telling you, the guy’s like totally messy. And the thing is, I don’t think he even knows he’s messy. It’d never occur to him that he needed to spruce the place up or bring in a cleaning lady or anything.” She pondered a moment. “Maybe his mom did it? She was here the other day, would have seen how messy it was. Except she was limping. Can’t see her doing all this hobbling around on one foot.”

  She struck off down the hallway, raising the phone to record her journey. As she headed toward the back of the trailer, Miles held back, in the kitchen, standing at the hallway’s end. He felt like more of a stranger here than Chloe did—an interloper—and that he didn’t have the right to start nosing around. But when she reached the end of the hall, she looked back at him and waved at him to join her.

  She was starting into the bathroom when he came up alongside her.

  “Whoa,” she said, stepping in for a closer inspection.

  “What?”

  “You could eat off this toilet,” she said. “Not that I plan to.”

  Miles followed her into the bathroom. Not large, but large enough for the toilet, small built-in cabinets with drawers and a sink, and a bathtub that doubled as a shower. Chloe, with her free hand, opened the cupboard doors, then each of the drawers, all of which were completely empty and scrubbed clean.

  “Do you believe this?” she asked.

  “Did Todd rent this trailer?” Miles asked.

  “What? Why?”

  “If he decided to leave, to move on, his landlord could have had this place cleaned.”

  Chloe shook her head. “He told me he owned the trailer, had it brought in here, but he paid some guy to rent the land it’s sittin’ on. But the trailer, it’s his.”

  “Maybe he was going to sell it. To whoever owns the property.”

  Chloe edged around him and went into the bedroom at the back of the trailer, continuing to film. Again, Miles followed. Chloe opened a set of folding doors that revealed a wide closet. Except for a few wire hangers, it was empty.

  “This is like, nuts,” she said.

  A built-in set of drawers that spanned the rear wall was her next target. She wanted both hands to open them more quickly, so she stopped recording and put her phone back into her pocket. Every drawer was empty.

  “No way,” she said.

  Miles, feeling weary, plopped down on the bare mattress.

  “Nothing?” he said.

  “Not so much as a sock with a hole in it.” Chloe sat down on the bed beside him, ran her hand across the surface of the mattress. “There’s not even any sheets here. What do you make of that?”

  “Looks like he’s cleared out.”

  Chloe glared at him. “You think?” She slowly shook her head. “So, okay, let’s say you’re right, and he decides to take off. What’s with how clean the place is? Why would he leave without telling me? None of this makes any sense.” Then she looked at him, sharply. “Unless …”

  “Unless what?”

  She hesitated, as though weighing how much to tell Miles. “I think Todd’s into something he shouldn’t be.”

  “Like what?”

  “Conning old people,” she said. “I tried to ask him about it, but he just clammed up. Like, some kind of phone scam, where you call people in retirement homes and try to trick them into buying something or giving you their money. Something like that.”

  “The computer virus scam.”

  “The what?”

  “Just one of many. You call someone up, say that you’re from Microsoft or Apple and say you’ve detected a virus on their computer but yo
u can send a fix. All they have to do is provide a credit card number or send some money to Western Union.”

  “I can’t believe people do that. Take advantage of oldsters. I’m gonna kick Todd’s ass if I find out he’s really pulling that kind of shit.”

  “If you can find him.”

  “Yeah, if I—did you hear that?”

  “Hear what?”

  “Shush,” she said, putting her index finger to her lips. “I thought I heard something. Like, in the wall or the floor.”

  “I didn’t hear any—”

  “Just shut up for a second.”

  Miles shut up. For several seconds, neither of them breathed. Finally, Chloe exhaled.

  “Maybe it was a mouse or something,” she said.

  “Can I talk now?”

  “Sure.”

  “You mentioned Todd’s mom?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You got a way to get in touch with her?”

  “Right there,” she said, pointing to the cell in Miles’s hand.

  “Told you. It’s password or thumbprint protected.”

  “You’re the tech guy. Can’t you get into it?”

  “I’ve got some people at the office who might be able to. But maybe we could just look her up online, find an address. Maybe she knows where he’s gone.”

  “I guess. I don’t know why—”

  She was interrupted by the sound of brakes squealing, tires ripping across pavement, like a driver in panic trying to avoid a crash.

  “What the hell was that?” Miles said.

  “Up on the road,” she said.

  Charise, so far as they still knew, remained parked at the end of the driveway.

  “Let’s go, Chloe,” Miles said, springing to his feet, leaving Todd’s phone on the mattress. They went out the back door, steps from the bedroom. Once on the ground, they both ran past the Pacer for the main road, but Chloe instantly had the lead. Miles felt resistance in his legs, like they didn’t want to do what was being asked of them.

  But he soon caught up to her at the roadside, where he found Charise and Chloe helping a woman out of a van that had veered off partway into the ditch about twenty yards behind the parked limo.

  “I nearly hit it!” the woman screamed, sliding out from behind the wheel.

  “Are you okay, ma’am?” Charise asked her as she went around to the front of the van, leaving the driver’s door open, to see how far she was into the ditch.

  “Nearly hit what?” Chloe asked.

  “You didn’t see it?” the woman said. “A goddamn deer!”

  “A deer?” Miles said, catching his breath.

  “Thing came out of nowhere!” the woman said. “Came shooting across the road, went running into the woods there!” She pointed. “I came this close to hitting the son of a bitch!” She held up a hand, spacing her thumb and index finger an inch apart. She looked at Charise. “You must have seen it.”

  Charise shook her head. “Was looking in the rearview when I heard you hit the brakes. You nearly plowed into the back of me. Nice maneuvering. Are you sure you’re okay?”

  “I’m fine,” she said.

  The woman looked down and noticed, seemingly for the first time, that the front of her blouse and pants were wet. “Yikes, that smarts,” she said, as two empty paper cups rolled out of the open van door, dropped onto the shoulder, and were swept under the vehicle by the wind. “That coffee was fuckin’ hot when it hit me and now it’s gettin’ cold.”

  She ran her hands across the front of her clothes, as if she could somehow brush the spilled coffee away.

  “Where you headed?” Miles asked.

  The woman eyed him for the first time, blinked, and said, “Driving to Rochester to see my sister.”

  “You’ve still got your back wheels on the gravel there,” Charise said. “I’m betting, you take it slow, you can back out without needing a tow.”

  “Let’s give it a whirl,” she said, getting back into the van. She put it in reverse, feathered the gas so as not to send the back wheels into a spin, and slowly pulled the van back onto level ground.

  “Nicely done,” Charise said.

  Through the open driver’s window, the woman said, “Sorry for all the commotion. You see that deer, give it a piece of my mind.”

  She steered the van back on the pavement and drove off. Charise kept watching it until it disappeared.

  “Huh,” Charise said.

  “What?” Miles said.

  “Nothing, sir.” She paused. “Will you be wanting a drive back soon, Mr. Cookson?”

  “Not sure,” he said, and glanced at Chloe.

  She shrugged. “I guess you might as well. I can try to get in touch with Todd’s mom, let you know what I find out.”

  “Let me go back and get his phone,” Miles said. “Might have someone who could break into it.”

  He and Chloe walked back down the driveway and mounted the cinder block steps to the front door again. Together, they walked to the bedroom at the back of the mobile home.

  Miles stared at the bare mattress.

  “Where is it?” he said.

  “The phone?” Chloe said.

  “I left it right there.”

  “Maybe it slid off. We kind of took off in a hurry. It could’ve fallen onto the floor.”

  Chloe dropped to her knees and looked under the bed.

  “Nothing here,” she said, and got to her feet again. “You sure you didn’t have it in your hand?”

  He shook his head adamantly. “No, I mean yes, I’m sure. Hang on.” He patted his pockets, wondering whether he’d slipped the phone into one of them without thinking. But he came up with nothing. “No, I left it on the bed. I’m certain.”

  Chloe said, “Maybe you had it in your hand and dropped it when we ran to the road.”

  “No,” he said with certainty. “No. I left it right here.”

  “Well,” Chloe said, “it didn’t sprout legs and walk out of here on its own, unless you’ve designed an app which does that.”

  Miles felt a sense of uneasiness wash over him. “Maybe it was your mouse,” he said.

  Chloe eyed him skeptically, shook her head. “It has to be somewhere.”

  She got down on her knees again to take a second look under the bed. “I’m telling you, it’s not here.”

  Miles’s own cell phone rang. He took it from his pocket, looked at the screen.

  “It’s Charise,” he said. “Yes, Charise?”

  “Mr. Cookson, something doesn’t feel right. It’s probably nothing. But you know, I never saw any deer.”

  “Okay.”

  “That woman. Said she was driving to Rochester to see her sister.”

  “Yeah, I remember.”

  “She’s got a few hours ahead of her. Kind of early to be picking up a coffee for her.”

  Miles shook his head, not understanding. “What’s that, Charise?”

  Charise said, “Why’d she have two cups of coffee? I mean, sure, you’re on a long trip and want to be well supplied, but it’s not like she can pull over to the side of the road and step into the bushes, if you get my meaning.”

  Twenty-Five

  East Seventieth Street, Manhattan

  There was a knock on the door of Nicky’s room.

  She was sitting cross-legged on her bed, in her pajamas, mindlessly playing Angry Birds on an iPad, not able to do much else with it but play games as the Wi-Fi was disabled in this part of the house. It was like the room was cocooned with lead or something. There was a window, but it was a small one, two feet square, and all it did was look out to the alley. About five feet away, a wall of brick.

  Her phone had been taken from her, so she’d been unable to text with anyone since she’d been put in here nearly a week ago. No phone calls, either, and she couldn’t send or receive emails. It was weird, not having any communication with anyone from the outside world.

  She couldn’t even use having to go to the bathroom as an excuse to be let
out once in a while. This guest suite had its own bathroom—and what a bathroom it was, too. Everything marble. A huge whirlpool tub and a walk-in shower. One of those things next to the toilet that shot water up your ass. And they were bringing meals to her three times a day. One thing you had to say about this place: the food was fantastic. Jeremy Pritkin had some pretty talented people working in the basement kitchen. The head chef had supposedly been lured away from a Four Seasons somewhere. And the room itself was better than decent. A huge king bed, thick-pile rug that felt wonderful on bare toes, a flat-screen that got about two hundred channels. If you had to be under house arrest, this was the house to be in.

  When the knock came, she didn’t bother to get up and go to the door. She couldn’t open it from the inside. So she shouted, “Come in!”

  She heard a deadbolt turn, and then the door swung wide open. It was Roberta Bennington, Jeremy’s assistant. Pretty hot looking, Nicky thought, for someone pushing fifty. Black hair, lots of curves, and nearly six feet tall with her four-inch heels. She’d apparently been with Jeremy for fifteen years, and was the first person Chloe met when she was drawn into this place by her Brooklyn friend’s acquaintance.

  Roberta had made hanging out at Jeremy’s place sound like the opportunity of a lifetime. Nicky, Roberta said, would be part of “the Pritkin Experience.” She would make real money mingling with movie stars, movers and shakers, important people from all walks of life, and the most important person of all, of course: Jeremy. Nicky would be part of a team of young girls who’d help make a visit to the brownstone one that no one would ever forget. Think of the advantages! The things she would learn! These people could advance their careers, get them into the best schools, find them placements at some of the richest firms in the country.

  Hadn’t quite worked out that way so far for Nicky.

  Oh, Nicky had made some good money, no question about it. And it had come at the right time, when she had hardly any at all. It wasn’t like her mom and her new boyfriend were transferring anything to her account. But as for all the things she would learn, probably the most important one around here was, especially where Jeremy Pritkin was concerned, the only good massage was one with a happy ending.