Find You First

by Linwood Barclay

  “It’s her!” he said as he powered down the window. “Sandy!” he shouted.

  She’d already heard the van and was looking his way. She appeared alarmed at first, then relieved to see who it was, but then almost as quickly, her expression became one of discomfort. Miles, on the passenger side, and probably not immediately visible to Sandy, blinked several times as he tried to get a good look at her.

  “I’ve been calling!” Travis said. “What’s going on?”

  Sandy held her position on the sidewalk. “I’m leaving,” she said.

  “Sandy, why—”

  “I’m freaked out. I have to get away from here.”

  “Please, get in. There’s an explanation!”

  “A what?”

  “I think I know what’s going on. Get in!”

  Sandy appeared to give the offer some thought. She held her ground another moment, prompting Travis to hit a button that retracted the side door behind him, inviting her in. Finally, dragging the bag behind her, she reached the open door and set her luggage in first. She must have been thinking she’d then go around and get in up front, but caught a glimpse of Miles in the passenger seat. He’d been looking at her, but turned away when she spotted him.

  “Who’s that?” she asked, her voice suddenly filled with panic.

  “He’s okay!” Travis said. “He knows what’s going on! He can help us! Just get in!”

  Sandy hesitated one last time, decided to throw the dice, and hopped in, settling into the middle seat as Travis hit the button to close the door. He pulled away from the curb.

  Miles shifted in his seat so he could address Sandy full-on.

  Sandy, getting her first good look at him, said, “Oh, shit.”

  “Hi, Samantha,” Miles said.

  “No, her name’s Sandy,” Travis said.

  “No, it’s Samantha,” Miles said. “She’s my niece. My brother Gilbert’s daughter.”

  Fifty-Three

  New York, NY

  “Jeremy who?” Chloe asked, once she was fully awake and had the strength to sit on the side of the bed.

  “Pritkin,” Nicky said.

  Chloe rubbed her forehead briefly, as though she recognized the name but couldn’t place it. “And where am I?”

  “Manhattan. It’s a big house, but I guess they want us to be roomies.”

  “I’m getting out of here,” Chloe said, standing.

  “You can’t. The door’s locked. We’re prisoners. It’s a nice enough cell, and I won’t lie, the food’s pretty good, but we’re not going anywhere.”

  “What do they want? Why are they keeping us here?”

  “It’s not a we. It’s a him.”

  “Who?”

  Nicky brought Chloe up to speed about Pritkin. Who he was, the people he knew, and the kinds of things that went on in this house.

  “He’s like this megalomaniac or something. Has more money than God and houses all over the world but spends most of his time here. Thinks he’s some kind of superman who doesn’t have to worry about what’s legal and what isn’t, and considering that some of his best friends are judges and cops and lawyers and mayors and shit, I guess he’s right. Oh, and he likes young girls. Like me.”

  Chloe was dumbstruck. “Is that why I’m here? I got kidnapped by some sex slave ring?”

  Nicky shook her head slowly. “No offense, but you’re a little too old for Jeremy.”

  “Why are you locked up?”

  “I heard something I shouldn’t have,” Nicky said. “I’ve told them I’d never tell, but I guess they don’t believe me.”

  “Why?”

  “I was already thinking about telling what goes on here.”

  “So, what are they going to do? Keep you here for the rest of your life?”

  Nicky shook her head slowly. “No.”

  “Then what?”

  Nicky said nothing, but the silence spoke volumes.

  “No way,” Chloe said.

  “I heard them talking. They’re waiting for someone to do it. And the fact they put you in here with me, well, I guess it’s going to be a twofer.”

  Chloe swallowed. Her mouth was dry. She walked into the bathroom, cupped her hand under the tap, ran some water into it, and lapped it up.

  “There’s glasses,” Nicky said.

  Chloe saw two clean glass tumblers on a shallow shelf above the sink. She picked one up and stared at it for several seconds before putting it back, the sides now wet from her fingers.

  Chloe returned, sat back down on the edge of the bed, and asked: “What did you hear that you weren’t supposed to hear? You might as well tell me if we’re both in the same boat.”

  Nicky leaned in close and whispered, first giving Chloe the background of how she’d been in a position to hear Jeremy’s phone conversation, and finishing with the three words she had heard that chilled her to the bone.

  Kill them all.

  About an hour later, they heard the door being unlocked. When it opened, a woman entered, carrying a loaded tray. There were two plates on it, shrouded with metal warming covers.

  Out in the hall, just a few steps away, stood the security guard.

  The woman set the tray on the top of the dresser and left without saying a word. The door closed, and locked.

  “Dinner is served,” Nicky said. She took off one lid and said, “Ooh, Italian.”

  Chloe approached and lifted the lid off the second plate, slowly, as though there were a rat underneath it.

  “Linguine with chicken in a garlic and wine sauce, I think,” Nicky said. “The food’s so good here, I keep thinking every meal must be my last one, you know? They serve you something nice before they strap you into the chair.” She rolled her eyes. “Actually, I don’t think that’s how they’ll do it.”

  Chloe tucked into the food. She hadn’t realized, until the meal had arrived, how hungry she was. She ate standing by the dresser, and inhaled the pasta in less than three minutes.

  “You in a rush to get somewhere?” Nicky asked.

  Moments after finishing, the door was unlocked and opened. Standing there was the woman Chloe saw, very briefly, in the back of the limo.

  “This is Roberta,” Nicky said. And then, to Roberta, she said, “I’d introduce you but I figure you already know who she is.”

  Roberta ignored Nicky’s snide comment. She turned to Chloe and said, “Your host would like a word. Come with me.”

  Chloe looked worriedly at Nicky. Was this it? Had she just had her last meal?

  “Don’t be afraid,” Roberta said. “He’s really looking forward to meeting you.”

  Roberta stepped into the hall and motioned for Chloe to follow. They walked a short way to the broad landing, then up to the third floor, through a set of open doors and down a hallway that was lined with windows on the street side, and black-and-white erotic photography on the other. Chloe paused in front of a four-foot-square photo of female genitalia.

  Chloe asked, “Is this you? Because you seem like a really big cunt to me.”

  At the end of the hall was a set of double doors. Roberta opened them outward and motioned for Chloe to walk in first.

  Holy shit, Chloe thought.

  She figured this was supposed to be an office, or a library, judging by all the shelved books and the big desk in the center of the room, but there was more square footage here than in her entire home. On top of that, a goddamn RV was parked on the far wall. How the hell did that get up here?

  But her focus quickly turned to the man sitting behind the desk. Midfifties, sixty maybe, with a full head of gray hair, neatly trimmed. Slim, tanned, handsome. Long face, chiseled jaw. Sitting behind the desk, all she could see was his shirt. Powder blue, button-down collar.

  But then he stood and came around the desk. Jeans, faded, but shit, were they pressed?

  “Let me look at you,” he said.

  Oh no, Chloe thought. Maybe she really had been brought here to be part of some sex thing.

  �
�Please, sit,” the man said, motioning to the leather chairs on this side of the desk.

  Chloe sat.

  Roberta said, “Would you like me to stay, Jeremy?”

  “If you wouldn’t mind waiting in the hall,” he said.

  With that, Roberta slipped away, closing the double doors behind her.

  “I’m Jeremy Pritkin,” he said, sitting in the chair next to hers.

  “Figured,” Chloe said.

  “How are you enjoying your stay, Chloe?”

  “I thought the pasta had a titch too much garlic in it.”

  He nodded. “If there’s something else you’d like, we could fix it up for you.”

  “I’d like a ticket out of here.”

  Jeremy smiled. “Tell me something about yourself.”

  “Like what?”

  “What do you do?”

  “I’m a waitress. At a diner in Providence.”

  “I see. You’ve been at that for a while, haven’t you?”

  Chloe’s eyes narrowed. “Why do I get the feeling you already know the answers to the questions you’re asking?”

  “It’s true, most of them I do,” Jeremy Pritkin said. “I know your history. About your mom, and her partner. That she passed a few years ago. I would get occasional reports.”

  What the fuck? Chloe thought.

  “They were … disappointing,” he said. “You weren’t exactly a straight-A student, were you?”

  “I don’t understand,” Chloe said.

  “Have you never aspired to anything more? You’re content to be a waitress for the rest of your life?”

  “No,” she said.

  “What then? Please, indulge me.”

  “Film,” she said. “Documentaries, stuff like that. I would like to make them.”

  Jeremy brightened. “That I did not know. You have a talent in that regard?”

  “I have no idea,” she said. “But I’d like to do that.”

  Jeremy nodded thoughtfully. “Well, that’s something, I suppose.”

  “I still don’t … what is the point of this?”

  Jeremy looked down into his lap. A sadness seemed to have come over him. “This is very difficult for me, Chloe. I don’t expect you to understand, but believe me when I say that it is. Very difficult. To see you, sitting here.”

  Jeremy sighed. And then, before her eyes, he appeared to transform. His forlorn expression turned into something harder, like warm water suddenly turning to ice.

  “There are some things I need to know,” he said.

  “Right back atya,” she snapped.

  “I need you to tell me everything that you and Miles Cookson have learned.”

  “Why do you care? What’s it to you?”

  “Don’t make this any more difficult than necessary,” Jeremy said. “For your own sake.”

  “Fuck that,” Chloe said. “You want to know something, then you go first. Tell me what this is all about.”

  Jeremy sighed. He raised his head and called out, “Roberta!”

  The woman reappeared. This time, she had something in her hand. It was hanging at her side.

  A belt.

  Jeremy stood and then, with great solemnity, placed his hand gently on Chloe’s head, felt the texture of her hair on his palm.

  He closed his eyes.

  Chloe froze, so taken aback by the gesture that she did not know what to do.

  After several seconds, Jeremy opened his eyes and took his hand away. Chloe watched him walk to the door, nod to Roberta, and leave.

  Once in the hallway, he closed the doors behind him. The first time he heard Roberta lash Chloe with the belt, and the young woman’s simultaneous scream, he flinched, ever so slightly.

  But when the second strike came, and then the third, and the fourth, it was like he wasn’t hearing anything at all.

  Fifty-Four

  Somewhere over Pennsylvania

  Miles and Samantha had left poor Travis pretty much in a state of bewilderment. Miles hardly knew what to tell him. He was as shocked to find Samantha was his “girlfriend” as Travis was to learn that Sandy was not really Sandy.

  But Miles did take time to offer the young man some advice.

  “Get out of town. Go away for a few days and don’t tell anyone where you’re going. Don’t take this van. They know what it looks like. Take a bus or a train and pay cash. Ditch your phone and get a burner or something.”

  Travis had been shell-shocked.

  “Do you understand me?” Miles had asked.

  Finally, he’d nodded. “What’ll I tell my parents?”

  Miles had paused. “You might want to consider taking them with you.”

  Miles had given him a number to call in a week’s time. By then, Miles hoped he’d be able to tell him whether it was safe to come in from the cold.

  Then Miles took Samantha to the airport. On the way back to Connecticut, in the private jet he’d chartered, Miles got the full story from Samantha.

  Her mother made her do it.

  Miles listened to the tale with nothing short of absolute amazement. It was the kind of story that, if he’d read it in a newspaper, he’d have thought someone had to be making it up. It reminded him of that story from more than twenty years ago. That woman in Texas who wanted her daughter to get picked for the cheerleading team and was arrested for trying to hire a hit man to kill the mother of her daughter’s rival. A family tragedy, the woman figured, would leave the other girl too distraught to try out for the team.

  Couldn’t have happened. Yet it did. What Caroline had put her daughter up to rivaled what that Texas mom had tried to do.

  No, it was worse.

  “She said we’d be doing it for Dad,” Samantha confessed, teary-eyed. “Mom said you had done a terrible thing to him, cutting him out of your will. Which, I won’t lie, sounded kind of shitty, considering everything. You were going to give all your money to these biological kids, strangers, Mom said. Wasn’t right, she said. She had a plan to make everything okay but needed my help.”

  Samantha said her mother had a list of the heirs and researched them online to determine the best one to target. The women were excluded—Caroline had found nothing in their online profiles to suggest any of them were lesbians—so that left the five young men. Jason Hamlin’s profile suggested he was in a relationship. Dixon Hawley retweeted a lot of stories about gay rights. There wasn’t a lot of information on Colin Neaseman or Todd Cox. But Travis Roben ticked all the boxes. He wasn’t much to look at, showed no evidence of being in a relationship, and had nerdy interests. Caroline was betting there wasn’t a girl out there who’d ever given him a second look.

  He’d fall for Samantha in an instant.

  “How did she know?” Miles asked. “How did she have the names?”

  “There was a picture,” Samantha said. “Of the list.”

  Miles thought back to when he was in the Porsche with his brother, getting out briefly when he did not feel well. A printout of the list had been in the car. Gilbert would have had enough time to take a picture.

  “So your dad was in on this, too?”

  Samantha shook her head. “No. Mom came up with a story about me going to London. To see a whole bunch of plays in the West End, because I’ve been majoring in theater.”

  Caroline, Miles figured, must have known about the picture, sent it to herself off Gilbert’s phone. She wasn’t exactly the type to respect her husband’s privacy.

  “Instead, you went to Fort Wayne to give the performance of your life. I don’t understand. What was the plan? So you find a way to meet Travis. What then?”

  This part was hard for Samantha to talk about. She was ashamed of what she had done, what she had been talked into, how outrageous the scheme sounded when she said it out loud.

  “I’d meet him. Become his girlfriend.”

  “Go on.”

  “We’d get …”

  “Jesus. Not marry him.”

  “Mom said it wouldn’t have ha
d to be for long.”

  “What did she mean by that?”

  “She was never very specific,” Samantha said. “Anyway, we’d become a thing. Live together. And when Travis got all the money—”

  “—you’d find a way to con it out of him,” Miles said.

  “Mom said that’s when we would make everything right for Dad. Get the money to him. At least a share of it.”

  “But really, it was for your mother. How were you going to trick him into giving you his money?”

  “She hadn’t talked about that,” Samantha said quietly. “I’m not sure that was the plan.”

  Miles waited.

  “If … if something happened to Travis, the money would go to me. That’s w-why,” she stammered, “when those two came to, you know, kill us, I thought somehow the wires had got crossed. That someone had been told to do it. But too soon. And thought it was supposed to be both of us.”

  Miles studied Samantha for several seconds, wondering if he’d really heard her say those words.

  “I need to stretch,” he said.

  He unbuckled his seat belt, stood, and took what was a short walk to the back of the plane, dropped into one of the other empty seats and looked out the window.

  Was it possible? Miles wondered. Could Caroline be behind everything? Was she trying to whittle down the list so that a greater share would go to Travis, and ultimately to her and Samantha? Even for Caroline, that seemed too diabolical. Mounting something of that magnitude—tracking down people across the globe and disappearing them—would require the help of other people, people who were professionals at that kind of thing. It would also require a lot of money.

  She might have it.

  Maybe Caroline’s approach to the Google executive hadn’t been the only one. It was the only one Miles knew about. If she’d pulled off a successful scam with someone else—maybe an individual instead of a company—she’d have the money to hire some help. She did work in the criminal justice system. Had she crossed paths, at some point, with someone who could help her with this?

  And it didn’t have to be someone charged with a crime. He thought back to that story out of New York from fifteen or more years ago. The two cops who were doing hits for the Mafia. Hadn’t Travis said the two who tried to kill them had identified themselves as police?