Never Look Away

by Linwood Barclay

  I looked at Sebastian.

  “A Taser,” he said. “A stun gun.”

  “You stun-gunned the man’s genitals?”

  “Not a simple task,” Sebastian said. “The wires that shoot out from a stun gun don’t have pinpoint accuracy. But I was lucky.”

  A lot luckier than Buddy, I thought.

  “You might as well tell the rest,” Welland said.

  Sebastian said, “I explained to Buddy that when you have blood in your urine, it makes it a lot trickier to use it for invisible ink. To be honest, I wasn’t sure fifty thousand volts would do anything but make Buddy a candidate for state-supplied Viagra, but as it turned out, it achieved the desired effect.”

  There was a moment of quiet in the car. Finally, Sebastian said, “I never would have thought it was possible to make a member of the Aryan Brotherhood cry.”

  “I think it would be hard not to, having something like that done to you,” I offered.

  “Oh, it wasn’t that,” Sebastian said. “Once he’d recovered from the shock, I showed Buddy a picture of his six-year-old son, living with his girlfriend on the outside, and explained how unfortunate it would be if any of the recently released inmates he’d sodomized and otherwise terrorized were to find out where his little boy lived. That was when I saw that solitary tear run down his cheek.”

  “Well,” I said.

  “Indeed,” said Elmont Sebastian. “So, I would very much appreciate it if you would tell me who wrote to you at the Standard and invited you up here to meet with her.”

  “I don’t know how you know about that email,” I said, although I had a pretty good idea. “But since you clearly do, you know it was anonymous.”

  He nodded. “Quite true. But there are countless other ways to get in touch with people. And I think even though your first rendezvous was unsuccessful, it’s entirely probable that this woman found another way to contact you.”

  “She didn’t,” I said. “I think she must have had second thoughts.”

  “Then what are you doing back here again?”

  “I drove up to talk to the manager of that store back there. I wanted to ask him about my wife. She went in there to buy some drinks when we came up here Friday. I thought she might have said something to him that would help me find her.”

  Sebastian appeared to be mulling that one over.

  “You see, David, I can’t afford to have leaks in my organization. No company can. Not Apple, not Microsoft, and certainly not Star Spangled Corrections. I have to assume that email came from one of two places. From within my organization, or from within Promise Falls city hall, specifically someone connected in some way to Stan Reeves. Now, as I explained to you the other day, all of my dealings with political representatives have been totally aboveboard. But a false allegation can be as damaging, perhaps even more so, than one that turns out to be true.”

  Welland was slowing the car. I glanced ahead and saw no obvious reason to do so.

  “So it’s very important to me to find out who would contact you and suggest any kind of malfeasance on my company’s part. The author of that email admitted to a couple of things. One, that she was female, and two, that she had a white truck. My own investigation has determined that Star Spangled has four female employees within a two-hour drive who either have, or have access to, a white truck. And at city hall, among those who might be privy to the correspondence of council members, perhaps half a dozen are women. What vehicles they have I’m in the process of nailing down. I am prepared to escalate my investigation of these women unless you’re willing to save us all some trouble.”

  I heard Welland repeat the word “escalate” under his breath. He had the turn signal on, and a moment later was driving down a narrow gravel road slicing its way into a thick forest.

  “Mr. Sebastian, my hat’s off to you,” I said. “You’re no slouch at this whole intimidation thing. It would have been hard to miss the point of your little Aryan crybaby story. I’d toss whatever journalistic standards I might have out the window in a minute if I believed, even for a second, that you were threatening my son.”

  Sebastian made a face of mock outrage. “David, is that what you took from that story? I just thought you’d find it interesting.”

  I continued, “If I really thought you might hurt my boy, and all it took to save him was to betray a source, well, I’d burn that source. I wouldn’t much like myself for it, but blood runs thicker than newsprint ink.”

  Sebastian nodded.

  I added, “And if you did harm him in any way, if you so much as took away one of his action figures, I would find you and I would kill you.”

  Sebastian smiled wearily. “You know what would be really interesting? What would be really interesting is if they nail you for this. If they find your wife’s body and find a way to pin it on you, and they put you on trial and convict you and send you up for ten or twenty years, and it turns out to be one of my jails. If we get this thing fast-tracked, it might actually be the one in Promise Falls. Wouldn’t that be something?” He chuckled softly. “Welland, wouldn’t that be something?”

  “You know what that would be, sir?” he said, bringing the car to a stop. “That would be ironic.”

  “Indeed.”

  I looked outside. We were in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by forest.

  I asked Sebastian, “Don’t you worry about yourself?”

  “What do you mean?”

  All those other Aryan Brothers out there, aren’t you afraid someone might want to get even for what you did to Buddy? Maybe pay a visit on a member of your own family?”

  “If I had any family, that might be a concern. But a man in my line of work functions best when he doesn’t have the burden of loved ones.”

  I looked out the window again. I didn’t want to ask, but couldn’t stop myself. “What are we doing here? Why are we stopping?”

  Welland shifted in his seat so that he could catch his boss’s eye in the rearview mirror. He was awaiting instructions.

  “It’s beautiful out here, isn’t it?” Sebastian said. “Only a mile off the main road, and it’s like you’re a hundred miles from civilization. Magnificent.”

  I put my hand on the door handle. I was getting ready to run. I didn’t like my chances of escaping, out here in the middle of nowhere.

  “But being out here, in the open, can be as dangerous as being kept behind bars in one of my facilities,” he said. “Certainly for you. Right now. At this moment.”

  We locked eyes. I was determined not to be the first to look away, even though I was pretty much scared shitless. He could have Welland kill me and dump me here and my body might never be found.

  Finally, Sebastian sighed tiredly, broke eye contact, and said to Welland, “Find a place to turn around and head back.” To me, he said, “This is your lucky day, David. I believe you. About your source. I actually do.”

  I felt, briefly, tremendously relieved. Elmont Sebastian, by giving me something new to worry about—whether I might live to see the end of the day—and then giving me a reprieve, had made me forget, at least for a while, my other troubles.

  “But we’re not done,” he said. “While you may not know who this source is, I would be most grateful if you’d make an effort to find out, and then let me know. You may be contacted again. There may be an opportunity for another meeting.”

  I said nothing. The limo was moving again. Welland found a narrow intersection up ahead and managed to turn the beast around, then headed for the highway that would take us, I hoped, back to Ted’s.

  “So was it Madeline?” I asked.

  “I’m sorry?” Sebastian said.

  “Madeline Plimpton. My publisher.”

  “And what is it you think she did?”

  “She fed you the email from that woman. It’s not much of a stretch to think the publisher would have some kind of clearance that would allow her to read every message attached to one of the paper’s email addresses. I deleted it as quickly a
s I could, but I guess I wasn’t fast enough. Is that the deal? She betrays her staff, keeps the heat off you, and in return you buy her land?”

  Sebastian’s eyes seemed to twinkle.

  “That’s the trouble with you newspaper types,” he said. “You’re so incredibly cynical.”

  TWENTY-NINE

  “Why the hell do you keep staring at that picture?” Horace Richler asked his wife.

  Gretchen was sitting on the front step of their Lincoln Avenue home, forearms resting on her knees, holding the picture David Harwood had left with them of his wife in both hands. It was a printout on regular paper, and if she held it with only one hand the breeze would catch it and flip it over.

  Horace noticed that on the step next to his wife was the framed photo of their daughter, Jan.

  “What’s going on?” he asked.

  “I’m just thinking,” she said.

  “You want a coffee or anything? There’s still some left in the pot.”

  Gretchen said nothing. She looked up from the picture and stared out at the street. She could see them. The two little girls playing in the front yard. Running around in circles, laughing one minute, arguing the next.

  Then Horace, running out the front door, getting into his car, throwing it into reverse and hitting the gas.

  “Hey. Coffee?”

  Gretchen craned her neck around. She couldn’t move it all that far. She noticed it most when she was trying to back out of a spot at the grocery store. Couldn’t turn around to see where she was going, had to rely on the mirrors. Always came out real slow, figured if she did hit something, she’d hear it, could step on the brakes right away.

  “I don’t want anything, love, thanks,” she said.

  “What’s going on inside your head?”

  When Gretchen didn’t reply, Horace came down the steps and plunked himself down, not without some discomfort. Both his knees hurt like the devil. Once he was settled, he leaned his shoulder into his wife’s.

  He said, “I had a dream about Bradley last night. That Afghanistan never happened. That he never went over there, there never was any goddamn Taliban, that none of that ever even existed. I was dreaming that I was sitting right here, and you were sitting next to me the way you are right now, and I looked down the street that way and I saw him walking up the road in his uniform.”

  A tear ran down Gretchen’s cheek.

  “And he had Jan with him,” Horace said, his voice breaking. “She was still a little girl, and she was holding on to her big brother’s hand, and the two of them were coming home. Together.”

  Gretchen held on to the photo with one hand and dug a tissue out of her sleeve with the other. She put it to her eye.

  “And then I realized that they weren’t really alive,” Horace said. “I realized that you and I, we were dead. That Lincoln Avenue was heaven.”

  Gretchen sniffed, blew her nose, dabbed her eyes.

  “Sorry,” Horace said. “I shouldn’t have told you that. It was that fella coming here, I think that’s what triggered it. He shouldn’t have come here. He shouldn’t have done that, bringing his troubles into our house when we got enough of our own. I don’t know what the hell he was thinking, barging in here with a cockamamy, bullshit story like that.”

  Gretchen sniffed again, dabbed again, then wadded the tissue up into a ball.

  Horace picked up the photo of his daughter. His body seemed to crumple around it.

  “It wasn’t your fault,” Gretchen said for probably the thousandth time in all these years.

  Horace didn’t respond.

  Gretchen got both hands again on the printout picture of Jan Harwood and stared at it.

  Horace said, “The idea that somebody would go around using our daughter’s name and birth certificate, it just … how can you steal a little girl’s identity?”

  “It happens,” Gretchen said quietly. “It happens all the time. I saw, on TV, how someone went through a cemetery, found graves where they could tell from the dates that it was a child that died, and they’d use that name to make up a whole new person.”

  “Some people,” Horace said under his breath. He glanced over at the picture his wife couldn’t stop staring at. “She’s pretty.”

  “Yes.”

  “It must be hard on that fella, not knowing what’s happened to her. Not knowing if she’s dead or alive. That has to be bad, the not knowing.”

  “At least with not knowing, there’s always hope,” Gretchen said, not taking her eyes off the picture. “I haven’t stopped looking at this all day. I knew, when he first showed it to me last night….”

  “You seemed kind of upset,” Horace said. “You went upstairs.”

  Gretchen was struggling to say something. “Horace …”

  He slipped an arm around his wife’s shoulders. “It’s okay,” he said.

  “Horace, look at the picture.”

  “I’ve seen the picture.”

  “Look, look right here.” She pointed.

  “Hang on,” he said, then sighed and took his arm from around her shoulders. He reached into the front pocket of his shirt, where he kept a pair of small wire-rimmed reading glasses. He opened them up, noticed they were smudged and dirty, but slipped the arms over his ears just the same.

  “Where do you want me to look?”

  “Right here.”

  “I don’t know what you’re looking at.”

  “Here.”

  He grasped the picture with both hands. He studied it for a moment, and then his face began to fall.

  “I’ll be goddamned,” he said.

  THIRTY

  Once Welland had the limo turned around and we were well on our way, I said to Elmont Sebastian, “Suppose, just for a moment, that I did find out who emailed me, and I told you who she was.”

  His eyebrows went up half an inch.

  “What would you do to her?” I asked.

  Sebastian said, “I would have a word with her.”

  “A word.”

  “I would tell her that she was lucky that no harm had been done, and I would explain to her that it’s not a good thing to be disloyal to those you work for.”

  “Assuming she works for you,” I said.

  “Or Mr. Reeves. It’s not a good thing to rat out your friends or employers.”

  “But it’s okay if I rat her out.”

  Sebastian looked at me and smiled.

  As we approached Ted’s, I sensed the car slowing, but then it sped up. “You passed it,” I said to Welland.

  “Thanks for that,” Welland said. “I never would have known.”

  I glanced at Sebastian. “What’s going on?”

  He didn’t seem to know any more than I did. “Welland?” he said.

  His driver said, “Didn’t look safe to pull in, sir.”

  “What did you see?”

  “Looked like someone was waiting for Mr. Harwood,” Welland said.

  Someone was waiting for me at Ted’s?

  “Pull over up ahead, once we get round that bend,” Sebastian said.

  The car maintained its pace for another few seconds, then Welland steered it over onto the gravel shoulder. Once the car was fully stopped, Sebastian said to me, “Always a pleasure, David.”

  These guys were pretty consistent at not returning me to my pickup point.

  As I opened the door Sebastian said, “I hope you’ll give due consideration to everything I’ve said.”

  I got out and started walking back to Ted’s without closing the door. It wouldn’t have killed Sebastian to lean over and deal with it, but when I glanced back I saw Welland getting out of the driver’s seat, going around to the other side. I expected him to slam the door, but he leaned in briefly, came back out with what appeared to be a Mars bar wrapper in his hand, then slammed the door shut. He glanced my way, and for a second time, made his fingers into a gun and pointed at me.

  This time, he fired twice.

  As I walked along the shoulder my cell phone r
ang. It was my mother.

  “It’s getting bad here,” she said.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “TV trucks and reporters. Everyone wants to talk to you, and if they can’t get you, they want to talk to me or your father. Or they want to get a picture of Ethan.”

  “God, Mom, what’s tipped everyone off?”

  “I’ve been checking the websites, first your paper’s, then others. It’s starting to spread. The headlines say things like ‘Reporter Questioned in Wife’s Disappearance’ and ‘Reporter Tells Police: I Didn’t Kill My Wife.’ But like I said, it’s not just your paper. It’s on the TV news websites, and I heard something on the radio, and, David, it’s just terrible. I can’t believe the things they’re saying about you, well, not actually about you, but it’s all the innuendo and suggestions and—”

  “I know, I know. Once Reeves got the ball rolling, everyone joined in. Tell me about Ethan.”

  “We’re keeping him inside, just putting him in front of the television. We’ve got some Disney DVDs and he’s watching them. David, I went onto the CNN website, and even they had an item on it. It was short but—”

  “Mom, just worry about Ethan. Does he know what’s going on?”

  “He looked outside a couple of times but I’ve told him to stay away from the window, because if they can get a picture of him, they’ll probably use it.”

  “Okay, that’s good. Does he know why they’re there?”

  “No,” Mom said. “I made up a crazy story.”

  “What kind of story?”

  “I told him sometimes people come by to see the house because Batman used to live here.”

  In spite of everything, I laughed. “Yeah, your house is a regular Wayne Manor.”

  “I don’t know why I said it. It was the first thing I could think of. Hang on, your father wants to talk to you.”

  “Okay, Mom, thanks—”

  “Son?”

  “Hi, Dad.”

  “Where are you?”

  “Just walking along the highway north of Lake George.”

  “Why the hell are you doing that?”

  “What is it, Dad?”

  “I got somebody for you.”