Time of Departure

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Time of Departure Page 31

by Douglas Schofield


  The cops were diligent, but not one of them had been smart enough to wonder why every single interior door in Tribe’s house had a hollow-core design. Every door was adorned with an identical decorative panel. All someone had to do was remove the panel on his bedroom door, and he would have found an envelope filled with Polaroid photographs, each one featuring one of the girls lying naked on a bare mattress on a dirt floor.

  Naked … and terrified.

  Luckily, none of the cops had been clever enough to notice that the only modern feature in Tribe’s forty-year-old house was its interior doors.

  Earlier this morning, he’d pried the panel off. He’d spent an hour lingering over the pictures, wallowing in the memories. But he hadn’t retrieved the envelope just for titillation. The time had come. The photos had to be destroyed. As soon as he put the groceries away, he would burn every one of them and flush the ashes.

  It was something he should have done a long time ago.

  He slammed the tailgate and carried the groceries into the house. He set them on the kitchen counter. He tugged a folded newspaper from one of the bags. He leaned on the counter, studying the front page story.

  There was a rustling noise behind him.

  “Hello, Tribe.” A woman’s voice, silky and calm.

  He spun around.

  “You should have listened,” the voice continued.

  Tribe stared, uncomprehending.

  “Listened to what?” He stared at her. “You look like that woman!” His jaw contorted. “I don’t understand!”

  A gloved hand raised a matte black nine-millimeter pistol. It was mounted with a silencer. “Do you understand this?”

  Tribe went pale. “Yes.”

  “I saw the photographs. I laid them out on your dresser so the police will find them.”

  Tribe let out a resigned breath.

  She fired. The slug tore into his chest. He flew back, caromed off the counter, and crashed to the floor. A grocery bag toppled, spilling fruit and canned goods over his twitching form.

  Rebecca Hastings knelt in front of him. She looked straight into the dying man’s eyes. “My mother left you a bullet. Maybe you should have used it.” She pressed the muzzle of the pistol against his nose and pulled the trigger.

  The bullet ripped through his skull. Blood and brains tattooed the floor and cupboard behind him.

  She rose. She picked the newspaper off the counter. She studied the headline:

  AMTRAK DISASTER!

  27 CONFIRMED DEAD; 1 MISSING

  An aerial photo showed wrecked railcars lying zigzag in shallows next to the base of a damaged trestle.

  Embedded in the article’s text was another photograph.

  A photograph of her mother, Claire Alexandra Talbot.

  The caption read:

  CONTROVERSIAL GAINESVILLE PROSECUTOR CLAIRE TALBOT MISSING IN AMTRAK WRECK

  Rebecca folded the newspaper. She knelt down. She lifted Harlan Tribe’s bloodless right hand and placed the newspaper under it.

  She left the house.

  * * *

  Just before sunrise on the day Marc and Rebecca Hastings would leave Florida forever, they parked their U-Haul van in the breakdown lane on US 17, just south of the bridge over the St. Johns River. They walked slowly out onto the span. Three hundred yards downstream, a crane car sat on an undamaged section of a railway trestle, heaving and groaning. Thick steel cables sang like giant bowstrings as the crane strained to raise shattered railcars from the murky waters below.

  Marc and Rebecca stood next to the railing, watching the recovery operation.

  Behind them, cars and trucks whipped past, engines straining, tires clacking and rattling on the uneven bridge surface.

  But they heard nothing.

  Time stood still.

  Rebecca clutched her father’s arm.

  He sagged against the railing.

  She held him while he wept.

  About the Author

  Douglas Schofield was raised and educated in British Columbia, where he earned degrees in history and law. Over the past thirty years, he has worked as a lawyer in Canada, Bermuda, and the Cayman Islands. He has prosecuted and defended hundreds of cases of murder, sexual assault, and other serious crimes. Schofield and his wife, Melody, live on Grand Cayman, along with their most excellent and amazing talking cat, Juno. Visit him at www.douglasschofield.com. Or sign up for email updates here.

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  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Notice

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Epigraph

  Letter to Daughter

  Claire

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Lipinski

  Chapter 32

  Claire

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Marcus

  Chapter 50

  Claire

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Rebecca

  Chapter 57

  About the Author

  Copyright

  This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  TIME OF DEPARTURE. Copyright © 2015 by Douglas Schofield. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

  www.minotaurbooks.com

  Cover design by John Hamilton Design

  Cover photograph © Agha Waseem Ahmad/Stocksy

  The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:

  Schofield, Douglas.

  Time of departure / Douglas Schofield. — First edition.

  pages; cm

  ISBN 978-1-250-07275-7 (hardcover)

  ISBN 978-1-4668-8461-8 (e-book)

  1. Women lawyers—Fiction. 2. Public prosecutors—Florida—Fiction. 3. Cold cases (Criminal investigation)—Fiction. I. Title.

  PR9275.C393S36 2015

  813'.6—dc23

  2015022092

  e-ISBN 9781466884618

  Our e-books may be purchased in bulk for promotional, educational, or business use. Please contact the Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department at (800) 221-7945, extension 5442, or by e-mail at [email protected].

 
; First Edition: December 2015

 

 

 


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