Find You First

by Linwood Barclay

  Travis turned.

  Holy shit.

  It was a girl. Standing right next to him. Okay, not a girl. This was a young woman, probably his age, a year older or younger maybe. And she was a good-looking young woman, blond hair down to her shoulders, slim, jeans with ragged little holes around the knee. She smelled nice, too. He had no idea what the smell was—something flowery, duh—but he liked it. He was taken aback for several reasons. One, she was an actual female in the comic shop. Okay, you didn’t want to make a sexist generalization, but the fact was, the ratio of males to females in this shop was about ten to one. Sure, you saw a few. Often, they came in with their boyfriends. And once in a while, there’d be a girl in here who was generally interested. Like, say, an art student whose interest was more curriculum related.

  “Well, do you?” she asked.

  Travis realized that since she had first asked him if he worked here, he had done nothing but stare at her.

  He blinked, cleared his throat, and said, “No, no, I don’t.”

  “Oh,” she said, looking disappointed. “I didn’t see anyone on the cash register, so I thought maybe you were in charge.”

  Travis, his stomach fluttering, glanced over at the counter by the front door. “Oh yeah. I guess Danny ran out to get a sandwich or something. He should be back in a second.”

  “Okay,” she said, turned away briefly, then turned back. “Maybe you can help me anyway.”

  Travis’s mouth suddenly felt very dry. “Um, okay.”

  “I don’t really know all that much about comics and stuff, but I wanted to get something for my nephew, who’s going to be twelve next week and I wanted to get him something for his birthday.”

  “Okay.”

  “I know he likes Batman, so I was thinking maybe a Batman comic.”

  “There’s only a million of them,” Travis said. “There’s like, classic stuff from the fifties and sixties and seventies, and then it started getting all serious in the eighties with Frank Miller and the Dark Knight stuff. And then there’s the Elseworlds series, and—”

  “Elseworlds?”

  “Like, totally alternate timelines or universes. Like, if Batman lived over a hundred years ago and was in London instead of Gotham City and was hunting for Jack the Ripper. That’d be an Elseworlds kind of thing.”

  “I don’t know if that would be appropriate for a twelve-year-old,” she said.

  “Oh, sure,” Travis said. “By age twelve I’d read The Killing Joke and the Arkham Asylum stuff and it’s all pretty intense and violent and kind of sick, but I turned out okay. They’re really good. If he hasn’t read those, I bet he’d like them. Do you know what Batman books he’s already got?”

  “Not really.”

  Travis swallowed hard, working up his courage. He hoped he could be heard over the beating of his heart. “Let’s go over where the Batman stuff is,” he said, leading the way, brushing up against her ever so slightly as he moved around her.

  “Okay, here,” he said, waving his arm at an entire section devoted to Batman graphic novels.

  “Wow,” she said. “I had no idea. There’s like hundreds of titles.”

  “Yeah,” he said. “I used to read Batman like crazy but not so much anymore.”

  “Why not?”

  “I’m not so into superheroes. I mean, they’re okay, but not my thing.” He had turned his head slightly sideways so that it was easier to read the spines. “Here’s a good one.” The comic was so jammed in between other editions that he struggled to extract it. He lost his grip once because his fingers were sweating. But once he freed the book, he handed it to her. His fingertips left small, sweaty marks on the cover that slowly evaporated.

  “The Long Halloween?” she said.

  “A classic. Written by Jeph Loeb, who produced stuff like Smallville and Lost.”

  “Oh my God, Lost,” she said. “I binge-watched it last year. I loved it, well, except maybe the ending. I’m not even sure what happened.”

  “Same here. But it was a great ride.”

  “I loved that episode where you thought it was a flashback, but it was actually a flash-forward, and—”

  They heard a bell jingle and both looked in the direction of the door. Danny, the store proprietor, clutching a Subway bag, found his way back behind the counter.

  “So, uh, Danny’s back,” Travis said. “You should probably pay for that before he gets too far into that sandwich. He usually gets double onions and could drop you dead from ten feet away.”

  That made her laugh. Travis could not remember the last time he’d made a girl laugh. At least, not in a good way.

  The woman held up the comic and smiled. “So, like, thanks for this. And all your advice.”

  “Yeah, sure, okay,” he said.

  “What’s your name, anyway?” she asked.

  “Travis,” he said, and then, just to be sure, added, “Travis.”

  “I’m Sandy,” she said, flashed a smile, and walked away.

  Just in time, too, because Travis could feel this huge woody growing in his pants and was afraid if she’d stayed any longer she might have caught a glimpse of it under his jeans. Christ, if it popped out, he’d be knocking books off the shelves.

  He went back to where she’d found him, just as Danny called out, loud enough for anyone in the store to hear him, “Hey everybody, just a heads-up. If you got any doobies in your pocket be aware there’s a couple of narc-y, cop-looking types across the street.”

  That didn’t worry Travis. He didn’t do drugs.

  His heart rate was getting back to normal, the bulge in his pants was diminishing, and his hands were not nearly as clammy as they’d been only a minute earlier.

  He should have asked her last name. He should have asked where she lived, or worked. No, no, that would have been a terrible idea, because then he would have had to endure the embarrassment of her struggling with some excuse for not divulging any personal information.

  Okay, fine, be one of those types. Maybe those crazy incel guys were on to—

  “Can I thank you by buying you a cup of coffee or something?”

  Travis almost sprained his neck turning his head so quickly. “What?”

  “There’s a place like two doors down,” Sandy said. “Interested?”

  Thirty

  Springfield, MA

  Miles was as freaked out as Chloe was by the hand under Todd’s bed. She’d paused the image and expanded it to get a closer look. It appeared to be a man’s right hand, and the fifth finger, the smallest one, was unusually short, as though it had been cut off at the first knuckle.

  “Was he there the whole time, while we were sitting there?” she asked as the two of them sat in the Pacer in front of Todd’s mother’s house.

  “Had to be,” Miles said. “But then we heard that van up on the road, the brakes squealing. When we came back and I was trying to find the phone—”

  “—I got down on my hands and knees and looked under the bed,” Chloe said, and started hyperventilating. “Holy shit, if he’d been there then—”

  Miles placed a comforting hand on her arm. “But he wasn’t.”

  “What the fuck is going on?” she asked, her eyes pleading for an answer as she looked at him.

  “I don’t know. Whoever it was, he wanted that phone. I knew I hadn’t lost it.”

  Chloe’s eyes widened. “Maybe it was Todd!”

  Miles considered her theory, which, judging by her hopeful expression, she wanted to believe. It was a less creepy possibility than some stranger hiding under the bed.

  “Does that make any sense?” he said. “You know Todd. Wouldn’t he have been happy to talk to you? And his car wasn’t there. His stuff all gone …”

  “I know, I know. And anyway, Todd’s not missing part of a finger.”

  “And there’s the business with the woman in the van,” Miles said.

  “What about the woman in the van?”

  “She came along at just the right t
ime, didn’t she? Charise thought there was something funny about her.”

  Chloe’s eyelids fluttered. “Like what?”

  Miles was thinking. “We hear what sounds like an accident, we run out to see what’s happened. Our guy under the bed takes that opportunity to get out, with the phone. By the time we get back, he’s gone. That woman, who said she was trying not to hit a deer, that might have been a distraction.”

  “But how …”

  “Guy hears us come in, he hides under the bed, he mutes his phone, sends her a text. Tells her to do something that will draw us outside.”

  “Oh my God,” Chloe said.

  Miles, more to himself, said, “There was no deer. Charise didn’t see a deer.”

  “Okay.”

  “It was a distraction. Hitting the brakes. It got us out of the trailer. We’d arrived there right in the middle of whatever it was they were up to.”

  “The scam,” Chloe said.

  Miles nodded, figuring out where she was going. “Yeah, maybe.”

  “Whatever phone scam Todd was doing, maybe he wasn’t in on it alone. Maybe he was working with, you know, like, some organized-crime types or something. Maybe he double-crossed them.”

  Miles ran his hand over the top of his head, thinking. He looked back at the house.

  “We have to tell her,” he said. “We need to tell her that something might have happened to her son. She needs to call the police.”

  “Shit, seriously?” Chloe said. “Because if she does, then the cops will find out what Todd’s been doing, whatever it is, and then if it turns out he’s okay, he’s gonna be up to his ass in trouble.”

  “She has to know,” Miles said firmly. “You said she already knows he might be up to something illegal. Bring her up to speed, let her make the call. She’s his mother.”

  “You’re his father,” Chloe said.

  The words hung there.

  Miles was about to say it wasn’t the same, but couldn’t bring himself to utter the words. To downplay his relationship to Todd was to downplay his relationship to Chloe.

  “Yeah,” he said. “Should we tell her together?”

  “You gonna tell her your connection?”

  “Let’s play that part by ear,” he said.

  As he put his hand on the door handle, his cell rang. He took it from his jacket, looked to see who it was from, then put the phone to his ear.

  “Yeah, hello,” he said. “Dorian.”

  “How’s it going, boss?” his personal assistant asked.

  “That’s kind of a long story. What’s up?”

  “Okay, so, couple of things. The gamers want to set up a second meeting, maybe in—”

  “Just set it up, whenever they want. What’s the other thing?”

  “So … can you talk?”

  “Yeah. What is it?”

  “I’m following up on that list, getting more information on all the people on it, building up even more detailed profiles so when you approach them, you’re up to speed, you know.”

  “Sure.”

  “So, I’ve run into something kind of weird with a couple of them.”

  “What do you mean, weird?”

  “Let’s start with Jason Hamlin.”

  “Okay, right. The one in Maine.”

  “Right. The college student. He’s missing.”

  Miles suddenly felt light-headed. “Missing?”

  “Well, maybe not technically. He may have died in the fire. They’re looking for his body in the wreckage.”

  “Dorian, start at the beginning.”

  “I’ll email you a link to the story. Hamlin was living in a house off campus that he shared with some other guys. There was a gas leak and an explosion. The others made it out, but not Hamlin. They haven’t found his body but they’re thinking it has to be in the ashes. The thing is, though, he usually went out for an early-morning run, but he must not have done it that day, because, well, if he had, he’d have showed up. Right?”

  Chloe was giving him a what’s going on? look. Miles raised a hand.

  “Send me the stories,” he said.

  “And this Katie Gleave? From outside Buffalo? Lackawanna?”

  “Right.”

  “She’s been in Paris, posting stuff on Instagram pretty regularly. She’s over there with a friend, and now the friend is asking if anyone knows where she is, to get in touch. She’s disappeared. Police issued a release and everything.”

  Miles’s light-headedness was getting worse.

  “Miles, you there?” Dorian asked.

  “What … what about the others? Dixon Hawley, and … and …” He knew every name on the list by heart, but now he couldn’t remember them. “Um, the one in Fort Wayne, Travis, what’s the name, Travis Roben. What about him? And Nina—”

  “That’s all I got so far,” Dorian said. “But I thought you’d want to know. Did you find the Swanson girl? Chloe?”

  “Yes,” he said slowly. “Dorian, I’ll have to call you back.”

  He ended the call, put the phone away, and stared straight ahead, shell-shocked. He tried to get his head around Dorian’s news. He contemplated the odds that three connected individuals might, seemingly at random, suddenly encounter misadventure.

  “What was that all about?” Chloe asked. “You okay? You look like shit. Was that your doctor? Bad news?”

  “Not … my doctor.”

  “Yeah, well, whatever it was, we have to figure out what to do right now about Madeline. She’s looking out the window at us. We gonna tell her about Todd or what?”

  Miles tried to draw some moisture into his dry mouth.

  “It might just be a hell of a coincidence,” he said, “but your theory about Todd? About whatever it is he’s into?”

  Chloe nodded.

  “There might be something totally different going on.”

  When Dorian was finished with her call to Miles, she saw that Gilbert was standing outside her door.

  “Gil?” she said.

  Miles’s brother entered hesitantly.

  “Do you have a minute?”

  “Sure,” she said. Gilbert took a seat and Dorian came out from behind her desk and perched herself on the edge of a coffee table. “What’s up?”

  “Where’s Miles?”

  “He’s … on the road.”

  “You know about his diagnosis, of course.”

  She nodded. “I know. It’s awful. He doesn’t deserve what’s happened to him.”

  “I … I need to ask you about something and I don’t want you to share it with Miles. I know that puts you in a difficult position.”

  “Yeah, it kinda does, Gilbert.”

  Gilbert bit his lower lip, considering whether to proceed. “Miles told me something about Caroline. Something she tried to do, and got caught.”

  “Oh,” Dorian said. “Okay. You want to tell me what that was?”

  He shook his head slowly. “Not really. But she tried to take advantage. Financially. And I’m worried she might be trying to do it again.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I mentioned it to Miles the other day, but he had so much else on his mind, he kind of brushed it off.”

  Dorian was growing impatient. “Gilbert.”

  He sighed. “Excel Point. It’s showed up several times in the accounts. We’ve paid them about $198,000. I’ve been through all the departments, talked to our people in research and development, and no one knows what it is.”

  Dorian did not immediately look concerned. “We pay a lot of people a lot of money around here.”

  “I know,” Gilbert said. “That’s why I think it would be so easy for someone to bill us for something they never did. I looked up Excel Point and I can’t find a thing about them online.”

  “Maybe they don’t have a website.”

  It was Gilbert’s turn to be impatient. “A tech firm with no online presence?”

  “Okay, point taken,” Dorian said. “What would you like me to do?
”

  “Can you check into it? And if it leads back to Caroline, can you give me a heads-up? I want to try and get ahead of this. If she’s done this, I’ll make her pay it all back.”

  “I’m on it,” Dorian said.

  “And you won’t tell Miles?”

  She paused before answering. “Don’t make me promise that, Gil. But I’ll see what I can do. And you know what? Maybe it’s legit. Maybe it’s something you missed.”

  Gilbert sighed with relief and stood. “Thank you. I owe you one.”

  “It’s okay,” she said.

  “At first, I was going to ask Heather, but that felt like making it too official,” Gilbert said.

  Dorian shook her head. “No need. Leave it with me. If I find out anything, I’ll let you know ASAP.”

  Thirty-One

  Boston, MA

  They were sitting in a bar at Logan International, waiting for their flight to Phoenix, going over the events earlier in the day.

  It had been, Rhys Mills conceded, a close one.

  Hiding under the bed while the girl and the older guy were in the front end of the trailer, Rhys, his gun in one hand, had managed to extract his phone from his pocket with his other one and text a message to Kendra.

  PEOPLE HERE, he had tapped. HIDING IN TRAILER. CREATE DISTRACTION.

  He could, of course, have simply shot and killed his visitors. But there’d been little sense in making this any more difficult than it already was. He’d had no idea who the man and the girl were, but as they’d approached the tail end of the trailer and he was able to more clearly hear their conversation, it had sounded like the girl knew Todd.

  Well, duh. She was in his trailer.

  The girl had gone through the closet, the drawers, found them all empty. She and the man had speculated about why Todd might have taken off. That had encouraged Rhys. They weren’t even tossing around the idea that he’d been killed. And then the girl said something about this Todd character being involved in some shady shit. Rhys remembered Todd being very nervous when he and Kendra had shown up, posing as police. That was encouraging, too. When and if the real police became involved, they’d be looking in that direction.

  Moments after sending the text, he heard the screeching of brakes.