The Last Night (The Last Series Book 2)

by Harvey Church

  That meant there was a marina involved. And other boaters. People who knew Paul, probably not as intimately as his wife—Lisa was her name, wasn’t it?—but well enough to provide information about the type of douchebag he really was.

  Or wasn’t.

  After all, Ethan wanted to think he was keeping an open mind about this monster, not just assuming that Paul Hyatt had an identical twin with an identical scar on his face who, as an adult, kidnapped innocent wives.

  Chapter Eleven

  Waukegan Harbor & Marina was located in northern Illinois, in a city called, you guessed it, Waukegan. The drive from Ethan’s house to the South Harbor entrance off of Pershing took just over an hour, including a quick stop for gas because the Jag was thirsty. The entire trip, Ethan kept wondering what might link someone like his angelic wife to a sleazebag creep like Paul Hyatt. He’d been a mickey mouse management consultant for pharmaceutical companies; Raleigh was a true scientist, the one mixing chemicals and producing miracles. He owned a boat; she was afraid of the water.

  Assuming Special Agent Klein had been correct, and they weren’t dealing with an actual abduction, what had Hyatt’s role been in Raleigh’s life and disappearance?

  There were barely any vehicles in the marina’s vast parking lot; most people were finished with their boats for the season. For mid-September the half-dozen cars probably meant the place was busier it should normally be. After easing his Jaguar SUV into a free spot along the fence that faced the railroad tracks, Ethan stepped out of the car and stretched. Great day to be outdoors; the sunshine and unseasonably warm weather would make for a nice hike, he reasoned, reminding him of one of the last things he’d done with Raleigh before she was taken.

  As Ethan reached the gate that accessed the individual slips where the boats were moored, he saw that most of the boats had been pulled out of the water and stored for the winter. But the boaters who had procrastinated were obviously wiser, given the unseasonal weather, and that wisdom was being rewarded with an extra few weeks of boating.

  “Hey, can I help you?”

  Ethan spun around to face a young man with long hair flowing out of the back of his Waukegan Harbor & Marina ball cap. The kid had to be eighteen, a hundred and ten pounds, and one of Proactiv’s top-five spenders. Placing a big smile on his face, Ethan snapped out his hand and introduced himself as Arthur Andersen.

  “I’m here to appraise Paul Hyatt’s boat.” He gave a firm nod, as if that might convince him. “For the executor of his estate.”

  The young man retracted his hand and offered a sloppy, post-puberty deep chuckle. “Like the accounting firm?”

  The young man’s familiarity with the now-defunct accounting firm surprised Ethan, so he fake-laughed, trying to match the kid’s tone, but he just couldn’t pull off “agonizing doofus” without embarrassing myself, so he gave up.

  Decked out in a pair of ironed khakis and a golf shirt with Anderson Appraisals (Ethan had won the customer-donated shirt at last year’s staff Christmas party) and their double-A logo, he knew the young man didn’t consider him a threat. Grabbing the AA logo, Ethan pulled it away from his chest and held it closer to the young man so he could inspect it.

  “You must have misunderstood; I’m an appraiser. I’m sure his widow’s accountant will be interested in my valuation, but I was asked by his estate executor—”

  “Nah, man, your name.” The marina employee glanced at the logo, then lost interest. “Arthur Andersen is your name, but it was also an accounting firm that got in a shit ton of trouble for destroying . . . never mind.”

  Ethan really hadn’t pegged him as a history buff. “Oh,” he said. “I get that all the time.”

  When the young man chuckled again, the sound irritated Ethan. He wanted to throw him into the water.

  “Anyway, Hyatt’s boat,” Ethan said, nudging him back on track.

  Pointing through the gate to one of the busier slips, the marina employee said, “Hyatt’s boat, Sea Rally, is down on S-eight. It’s a 45-footer. Sea Ray, dual Volvo inboards that purr like a kitten, man.”

  The hair on Ethan’s arms stood, vibrating like pitchforks. He retrieved his pocket-sized notebook to camouflage the reaction and wrote a quick note. “You said Volvos, huh?”

  “Yeah, man.”

  With his vision narrowed, Ethan hadn’t noticed the young employee taking out his keys to unlock the gate until the door swung open. Ethan stepped through, onto the ramp that led to the docking.

  “Like I said, S—”

  “Eight,” Ethan finished for him, already halfway down the ramp. And then, through gritted teeth, “Sea Rally.”

  Or, as Ethan envisioned it spelled out on the canvas in his mind, See Raleigh.

  Chapter Twelve

  Approaching Sea Rally, Hyatt’s forty-five foot Sea Ray, Ethan couldn’t help but sense the acceleration of his heart and the uncanny feeling that Paul Hyatt was sending some kind of message. Between his choice of vehicle—a lower-end Jaguar F-Pace, just like Ethan’s except a different color—and the name on the back of his boat, it left no question in Ethan’s mind that Hyatt was involved in Raleigh’s disappearance.

  But if Agent Klein’s theory had any merit—that Raleigh’s social standing didn’t warrant the depth and planning that it would take to falsify an EMS team, an ambulance, not to mention intercepting calls made from Raleigh’s mobile phone—then that suggested the other theory that had been percolating in Ethan’s head for the past seven years had substance: someone had messed up and the whole debacle had been a massive cover up.

  But why? Who had messed up, and how? Why go to such incredible lengths to cover it all up?

  “Damn shame what happened to him,” someone said behind Ethan.

  Spinning around, Ethan noticed a heavier, curly-haired man with a porn-stache and a bare, flabby chest with pube-sized hairs that flowed over his shoulders and cascaded down his back like a superhero cape. Although the weather was unseasonably warm, shirts were still warranted, especially in this guy’s case.

  Moving his bottle of beer from his right grip to the left, the hair-caped man held out his hand and smiled. “I’m Terry, two slips down.” Terry pointed toward the other end of the dock, closer to the water. “Paul was a good man, one of the finest. Man, did we ever have a good time whenever he was out here, which was most Fridays and all weekend in the summer. Super guy to have such a shitty thing happen to him. They say the driver was texting, huh?” Terry’s eyes narrowed as they came across the logo on Ethan’s shirt. “Appraisals, huh?” He frowned. “Sheee-it. Lisa’s not thinking of selling the Sea Rally, is she?”

  Swallowing his disgust, Ethan cringed at the sound of his missing wife’s name on hairy Terry’s lips. “Just looking at the value for estate purposes,” Ethan explained, flicking the Anderson logo with his finger.

  “Huh.” Terry massaged his mustache. Frowning, he started to wander off. “Damn shame, anyway.”

  And then Terry was gone, leaving Ethan alone at the stern of the Sea Rally.

  Weirdo.

  It was a fairly large boat, the kind with a smallish deck in the back, a larger, covered deck up top that could only be accessed by way of the stairs just inside the sliding doors, and then a vast tanning area at the bow.

  To add a sense of perceived legitimacy to his visit, Ethan reached into his pocket and produced his phone. He activated the camera and took a few photos, leaning sideways to make it look good.

  After snapping those initial shots, he finally boarded the Sea Rally, stepping across the diving platform and then climbing over the thigh-high door that opened to the rear deck. He moved around the dinghy with its 9.9 Mercury outboard. When Ethan heard voices back on the dock—a younger couple pulling a cooler with wheels toward the next set of slips—he produced the phone and took some more pics.

  The back area of the Sea Rally was fairly stark. The cushions for the molded seating surfaces had been removed to avoid weather damage, surely shoved into some lockable stor
age compartment somewhere inside. He stepped up to the tinted sliding door and gave the handle a gentle tug—enough to pull the door open, but not forcefully enough to trigger an alarm because a boat like this surely had one of those.

  Locked.

  Cupping his hands, he stared inside. There were two generic, integrated sofas, a narrow stairwell that led to the upper deck off to the right, and another stairwell straight ahead that led down to a kitchen area, the head, and a stateroom. A good-sized boat, for sure, especially for two people.

  What struck Ethan as odd was the lack of personal effects inside the boat. No photos of Paul and his wife, no quilts or blankets to lend a homey feel, not even the kinds of trophies one might expect—game hanging on the walls, a favorite childhood fishing rod, things like that. The boat, Ethan realized with a sad grin, was incredibly sterile.

  Like my house, ever since Raleigh was taken from me.

  Shuffling away from the sliding doors, Ethan noticed Terry and another stubby marina frequenter walking toward the Sea Rally. Neither looked very impressed.

  “Hey!” Terry shouted, pointing an accusatory finger. “You’re that fuckwad from the funeral home, aren’t you?”

  Both men, half a boat away, increased the speed of their stride. But since they were both wearing flip-flops, neither moved exceptionally quickly.

  Panicking a little, Ethan hurdled over the fiberglass railing at the stern and stepped onto the dock just as Terry and his friend arrived at the corner of the boat. Chest-pube Terry’s sidekick reached out and grabbed the collar of Ethan’s shirt, called him a bad name—a motherfucking twat for those keeping track—and promised Ethan he was going to go for a swim, but Ethan twisted his body, deflected a flying fist with his shoulder, and then wrenched himself free of the foul-mouthed sidekick’s grip.

  “Get him!” Terry shouted as Ethan stumbled onto the dock, climbed back to his feet and ran off at a sprint.

  Neither man had the type of footwear or physical aptitude that allowed for a pursuit of any kind.

  “Don’t come back here!” Terry threatened and, when Ethan glanced back, the bare-chested man waved a balled fist.

  “Twat!” his sidekick added.

  Sticks and stones.

  Once he reached the main dock, Ethan eased into a comfortable jog for the remaining distance to the ramp, and then he let himself out to the parking lot. With nobody chasing him, he drove off in his Jag. Reaching down to adjust the AC’s temperature, he realized he’d built up a sweat after that confrontation.

  If Agent Klein got wind of what had just transpired, he wouldn’t be happy. Still, Ethan scolded himself for not asking Terry if he knew Raleigh, or at least producing one of the photos he kept on his phone and asking if he recognized her.

  But then, if Paul Hyatt was somehow involved in the cover-up—which didn’t exactly make a whole lot of sense because Hyatt wasn’t a real EMT, which meant he had nothing to cover up in the fist place—he’d have been careful to not flaunt a missing woman’s face around the marina, especially one stocked with quality members like Terry. Right?

  With that missed opportunity no longer an option, Ethan realized he really only had one last option for learning more about this mystery. And that option wouldn’t bode well with Klein.

  If Ethan wanted to get to the bottom of this and possibly rescue his wife after seven and a half years of absence, he needed to pay Lisa Hyatt a visit. He’d have to corner her so she couldn’t avoid him. Which meant going to her house.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Forgetting about the expensive Sea Ray boat for a minute and Hyatt’s choice of having his funeral at Reid Sanderson, if there was ever any question in Ethan’s mind about whether the dead man made bank, that question was definitely answered the moment he stopped outside the Hyatts’ Highland Park home.

  Correction: when Ethan saw the half-open gate to their home, because from the road all he could really see was a winding driveway and the wall of trees that lined it.

  Every few seconds, the wind would roll through, disrupting the pre-autumn foliage and offering a glimpse at what was surely a seven-thousand square foot home. And while the property didn’t border Lake Michigan, it surely had a value well into the mid-seven figures, or low-eight figures back before the housing crash.

  What business would Raleigh have with a douchebag like Hyatt? And what would someone with access to the resources that Hyatt had pretend to be a fake EMT? Doesn’t add up!

  Since the big iron gate was partially open, Ethan assumed the Hyatt family welcomed unsolicited visitors. Even with Paul dead and gone, there was no reason to assume Lisa would have changed that “open door” policy.

  Capitalizing on Lisa Hyatt’s perceived hospitality (why else would the gate be half-open?), Ethan drove up the driveway. He noticed the cameras in some of the trees. Nothing too fancy, just the black bubble units that looked like inverted miniature UFOs. He counted a dozen before stopping his Jaguar at the quiet, still fountain at the front of the two-and-a-half story portico. The French-style estate with Italian Renaissance cues couldn’t be more than a decade old.

  Slipping out of the Jag, Ethan walked to the front door. Another camera watched him, which brought his count to thirteen in total. Between the gate and all of those cameras, the Hyatts came across as mildly paranoid.

  Once Ethan pressed the doorbell, he reached into his pocket and produced his phone. He had a special folder for his photos of Raleigh, which he quickly accessed while the doorbell’s chime echoed on the other side of that heavy door. If the goons at the marina had recognized him as the “motherfucking twat” from the funeral home, Ethan had little doubt that Lisa Hyatt would as well. And, after blowing it with those goons, he needed her to talk.

  The door opened a couple of inches before a heavy chain stopped it. A sliver of Lisa Hyatt’s makeup-free face appeared in the crack.

  “Can I…?” she asked, cutting herself off as her eyes widened and she recognized him. “Oh, it’s you!”

  “Hold on,” Ethan begged, raising his hand with the phone turned outwardly so that she could see the image of Raleigh. “I’m sorry about that.”

  “You need to leave before I call the police.” She tried to push the door shut, but Ethan kicked his foot out and stopped her.

  “I’m sorry, Mrs. Hyatt, I really am,” he said, speaking so quickly he couldn’t even hear the words to know whether he was saying them properly, “but over seven years ago, my wife got into an ambulance with your husband, or a man who looked exactly like your husband, and she never came home.” He took a swallow, thinking back to the words he’d just spewed.

  “It wasn’t Paul,” she said, and, through the toe of his shoe, Ethan felt the pressure of Lisa leaning into the door to force it shut. “I’ve never seen that woman before,” she added with a grunt, nodding at the image on the phone as she pushed a little harder, nudging Ethan’s foot slightly farther.

  “Here,” he said, quickly turning the phone back so that he could navigate to the other set of pictures, to the folder where he’d saved the image he’d taken of the police’s composite rendering. “This is the description I gave the Chicago Police that day.” He turned the image to her and watched her frustrated eyes soften a little. And then the pressure of the door pressing against his shoe became a little lighter, too.

  “Paul,” she said, her voice such a quiet whisper that if the house hadn’t been surrounded by green space or was situated closer to a busier street like Green Bay Rd or St. John, it would’ve been snuffed out by the sounds of traffic.

  “Maybe,” Ethan said. He took the phone and flicked the picture, coming to another shot that showed some of the artist’s notes, along with the Chicago Police Department crest. “I honestly never meant to alarm you, Mrs. Hyatt, but when I saw your husband’s photo on the news, I knew…”

  She was quiet. She also wasn’t trying to push the door shut anymore, which meant she was listening to what he had to say. Through the crack, Ethan watched her raise a han
d to her face and wipe at something. His incredible sense of deductive reasoning suggested it was a tear.

  “You have no reason to trust me, I get that,” he said. “But I’m just looking for answers about my missing wife.” Even to his own years, Ethan heard the ring of god-honest truth and sincerity. “If you could just spare me—”

  The door clicked shut.

  “Thanks,” he muttered and started to turn away when he heard another click.

  This time, the door opened all the way, revealing the same beautiful woman Ethan had seen at the funeral home, minus the makeup, heels, and griever’s veil.

  “Come in,” Lisa said, sighing. “But if you try anything stupid, the cops’ll be here before you can even think of apologizing.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  The interior of Lisa Hyatt’s mini-mansion was even more elaborate and elegant than the exterior. Ethan left his shoes in the front foyer, a grand open space that brought the word “museum” to mind. Or maybe it was “mausoleum.” Either way, there was an echo and the hard marble floors were spotlessly clean, shiny.

  With Lisa leading him deeper into the small estate, Ethan could see that she was quite a bit shorter without those funeral heels, maybe five-four against his five-ten. She was still as slim as she’d been at the visitation (that hadn’t been an optical illusion produced by her dark dress), and when she walked, her hips had a hypnotic side-to-side sway that only a beautiful woman could pull off. Which meant she knew he was looking at her ass, which was in terrible taste given that her husband had just died.

  “Lovely home, Mrs. Hyatt,” Ethan said as they entered a grand living space. There were three leather sofas arranged in a U with plenty of room between them, a table with two magazines on it—Chicago Life with this very home on its cover, and Lake Michigan Yachter with Paul and Lisa standing on the rear deck of the Sea Rally—and a large fireplace with a piece of substantial art as the centerpiece of the room. The tall windows overlooked an impeccable back yard with a pool, hot tub, and all of the other luxuries that only the truly wealthy could afford. And by wealthy, Ethan guessed that Paul and Lisa had more than two and a half million in the bank. Maybe add a zero or two.