The Last Night (The Last Series Book 2)

by Harvey Church

  Ethan shrugged, pasting a you-caught-me guilty grin to his face. “Technically, I did let it go. I moved on and bought that Jaguar, remember? But when I saw Paul Hyatt’s photo on the news—”

  “Whoa, whoa, just stop, please stop.” Phil placed the sandwich with just a few bites left on his plate. “You even know this dude’s name?” Ethan didn’t understand why his friend’s vocabulary hadn’t matured beyond teenager levels, but, well, that was Phil.

  Ethan nodded, smirking and leaning forward. “I even went to his house.”

  Phil closed his eyes. His face remained still, but then he continued chewing the food that was still in his mouth.

  “This is finally a lead, Phil. All this time, I’ve been looking for answers that never showed up. I think I’m going to get them now. Finally.”

  “Maybe there are no answers.”

  “But there are. There’s Paul Hyatt now. And his widow, who has no true alibi for him on the night Raleigh was taken.” Ethan tilted his head, narrowing his eyes as he watched Phil raise his sandwich and finish it off. “All this time, I’m finally getting somewhere.”

  Phil grabbed the paper napkin and shook his head. “Do you remember when you told the police what happened?”

  Ethan nodded. “I’ll never forget.”

  “And what did they think when you told them about an ambulance coming to your house at a time when ninety percent of humanity is asleep?”

  “My neighbors—”

  Phil’s eyes popped wide. “Your neighbors were meth-addict—”

  “Crack addicts, Phil.”

  “Whatever, they were drugged-out squatters one hit away from a fatal overdose.”

  “But Yvonne—”

  “A blind old lady, bro.” Phil chuckled, shaking his head.

  “That’s not entirely true, it was Jan across the street—”

  Phil wasn’t having any of it. “Bro, listen to yourself! Your wife’s gone. Legally, she’s dead. Ten years dead.”

  “Seven. And a half.”

  “Whatever!” Phil’s voice got loud again. “You’re single again, bro, and you didn’t have to lose half of your shit to a divorce, or catch her sleeping with another dude like half the other dudes in this place.”

  “I just want Raleigh back,” Ethan said, appalled by his friend’s twisted view.

  “You were close to going to prison! For murder!” Phil reminded him, his voice capturing the attention of the other patrons again. The others started eating a little quicker all of a sudden. “Bro, doesn’t that tell you something? It’s time. Time to let this go, and all the signs are telling you there’s no better moment to move on than right effing now, right?”

  “Except this thing with Paul Hyatt . . .” Ethan waited for Phil to show signs of agreement. If anyone could see things Ethan’s way, he knew it was Phil.

  Except Phil shook his head again and leaned over the table, bringing his face closer to Ethan’s. “Maybe you’re misreading my cues in this conversation, bro. So I’ll try to put it another way.”

  “I’m not giving up on Raleigh, Phil. I married her because I love her. And that kind of love never gives up, even when the best man does.”

  Chuckling with mild amusement, Phil sat back in the seat and crossed his arms.

  “If she’s out there, I’m going to find her. I’m going to bring her home, where she belongs.” Ethan watched Phil’s face to see if he might be open, even a little, to the prospect of helping him find Raleigh. But he seemed firm in his resolve. “What’s wrong, Phil? Why aren’t you seeing the possibilities with this?”

  Scratching his head, Phil let out a long breath before leaning closer to the table again. “I love you, bro, you know that, right?”

  Already, Ethan didn’t like how this sounded, but he nodded his confirmation anyway.

  “So I’m just going to lay it all out on the line. Okay?”

  “Sure.”

  “Raleigh wasn’t right for you. Never was. She didn’t deserve everything you had to offer and, if I can speak frankly—” he was on a tear, wasn’t he? “—I’ll add that she was a bit of a slut, bro.”

  “A slut?” Ethan wasn’t sure whether he should laugh hysterically or punch his best man in the nose.

  “I meant to add ‘no offense,’” he said, crunching his face.

  “A slut?” Ethan felt more like breaking Phil’s nose now. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He’d always known Phil had never wanted him to marry Raleigh. And, for what it was worth, Raleigh had never liked Phil, either. She’d always complained that he was narcissistic and childish, and that his impulsive ways posed a true danger to their marriage.

  “Listen, I know you don’t want to hear this, but she’s dead, bro.” He nodded, as if trying to convince himself of whatever argument that was hovering on the tip of his tongue. “So I’m going to tell you something, once and for all.”

  “Tell me what, Phil?”

  “Alright.” He rubbed his hands together as if trying to start a fire. “So, I never told you this, but I once saw her downtown. She was with another dude.”

  “When?” Ethan hadn’t heard this before.

  “It was, like, a year before she disappeared.”

  In Phil-speak, “like, a year” could have been the week prior. The way Phil used the vernacular of a twelve-year-old boy, it was difficult to determine just how much truth was in his words. And this latest confession about her being with another man felt more than just a little contrived.

  Ethan raised an eyebrow. “Statistically speaking, Phil, Raleigh worked in a field that is dominated by men. He probably worked with her.”

  Shaking his head again, Phil wasn’t biting. “Nah, it wasn’t like that. I remember it. And it was . . . different.” He glanced over at Ethan to see how he was handling this revelation.

  Ethan shook his head, rubbing his hands down his face. “How was it different?”

  “The smile, bro. You two never smiled at each other like that. It was the kind of look that makes the people who see it want to barf.”

  “So, tell me, who was this other dude, Phil?” Sighing, Ethan felt an explosion of possessive heat decimate all matter in his chest cavity.

  He shrugged. “I don’t know who he was. I was out with Olly, we were wining and dining an Asian biotech company at the Signature Room. So yeah, I noticed her there, bro. I saw her as a threat, what with all of the corporate espionage in that field. But that look they shared, they weren’t there to spy on us. They were so far across the restaurant, even if they were there for us, they couldn’t have heard anything.”

  “Maybe they were,” Ethan said, but Raleigh was a scientist, not a corporate spy. She wasn’t a corporate anything; she just wanted to do good with her skills, and she was onto something, something big. It would have made sense if Phil and Oliver Faulk had been spying on her, not the other way around.

  Phil shook his head. “Nah, bro. What I saw, it was personal, one-hundred percent. The kind of personal where you don’t see anything or anyone else around you. Like it’s all just background music. Because I sure don’t think she saw me.”

  Ethan’s mouth had gone dry. Seven and a half years. His best man and only friend had been holding onto this detail for seven and a half long years. Ethan felt more betrayed by Phil than he had by Raleigh’s lunch date with another man “like, a year before” she disappeared, a man who was clearly her coworker, no matter what Phil speculated.

  She said she always skipped lunch, ate on the fly.

  “Ah, man,” Phil said, groaning. “I knew you’d react like this.”

  Raising a finger, Ethan shook his head, not ready to dismiss their conversation in favor of Ethan’s “reaction.”

  “Phil, did this guy look like any of the sketches the Chicago Police sketch artist produced? You remember those, right?”

  Phil bit down on his lips, looking away. “Nah, man, I’d have recognized it.” He shook his head, slowly as he stared at some faraway place. He seemed defeated
by Ethan’s insistence.

  It didn’t make sense why Phil hadn’t mentioned this suspicious lunch before. Why now? Why after all of these years when Ethan had finally come across a true lead in Raleigh’s disappearance?

  “Why now, Phil?” he prodded, angry.

  “Huh?” The confused look on Phil’s face was an act, Ethan was sure of that.

  “If Raleigh was having an affair—and that seems to be what you’re suggesting with this crap about smiles and the rest of the world fading to background music—why didn’t you tell me when you knew I was scraping rock bottom in those early days?” Ethan stared hard into Phil’s eyes, demanding an answer, a good and honest one.

  Raising an eyebrow, Phil asked, “Would you have believed me back then?”

  “That’s irrelevant. I deserved to know.”

  “You deserved a friend, bro.” Phil’s face softened, as if he was hurt by all of this.

  “Bullshit.” What a cowardly thing to say. Ethan couldn’t help but wonder if it was all made up, fabricated right there under the influence of a sirloin steak sandwich on a focaccia.

  “Here’s the thing, bro.” Phil’s tone suggested he didn’t appreciate Ethan questioning him. “Right from the start, Raleigh was no good for you.”

  “You’ve mentioned that.”

  “You don’t seem to be listening to me.” Phil seemed annoyed now, his eyes widening.

  “Because that’s not up to you to decide,” Ethan said through his clenched teeth. He pointed to his left breast. “That’s not even up to me to decide. Don’t you think I want nothing more than to forget about her and move on?” He had two-and-a-half million in the bank, begging to be spent so he could start living again.

  Ethan reached for the second half of his tuna wrap, but then abandoned the thought of eating it for now. He sighed instead.

  “Listen, bro. Whether she was having an affair or not, she’s gone. Gone. I’m sorry, but none of what I’m telling you and none of what some dead guy’s face on the news, or his widow can say can change that.”

  “Then maybe it was a kidnapping.”

  He laughed, the kind of roar that said he couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “Are you for freal?”

  Freal?

  Ethan poked at the table to make his point. “Maybe this other guy wanted Raleigh to leave me, but she didn’t want to. So he drugged her and then intercepted the ambulance on its way to the hospital.”

  “Insane.” Phil glared at Ethan as if he were the one who needed to be medicated.

  But the theory made sense. Agent Klein had said, just last week, that getting an ambulance, uniforms, and intercepting calls from Raleigh’s phone was simply too much effort for a kidnapping. Which meant Raleigh’s disappearance was likely a cover-up by Chicago EMS. Even to Ethan, the cover-up angle seemed a little weak. But, add in a disgruntled lover who might have drugged her, knowing an ambulance would be called sometime in the middle of the night, a lover who wanted Raleigh all to himself, and ambushing an ambulance became a possibility. Likely even. Even Ethan would go to those lengths if it meant getting Raleigh back.

  And Chicago EMS would never want the public to find out just how vulnerable they were, would they?

  “Bro, I mean no disrespect, but it’s been seven years.” He raised a finger, counting off the items. “She was out for lunch with a man who was more than a business associate.” Second finger went up. “And the system says she’s dead.”

  “She’s my wife, and until I see a corpse . . .”

  Phil threw his arms into the air, as if giving up. “Bro, have you ever wondered, what if she doesn’t want you to find her? Assuming she’s both alive and waiting in that turret for you to ride in on your horse and save her. After everything I’ve told you about Raleigh—today and even before your goddamn wedding—do you think she’s going to be the same wife you thought you married?”

  “Until I see a corpse,” Ethan said, feeling his face burn up. “I’m not giving up.”

  Shaking his head, Phil chuckled mildly before pushing out his chair and standing. “I, uh, I have to get back to work. You take care of yourself, bro, all right?”

  Ethan rose as well. “Phil . . .”

  He turned around. Ethan noticed the glares from the other patrons as Phil shook his head again. “You have to let this go and move on, bro.”

  Ethan simply stared back at him, watched him maintain the gaze for the half-second before he gave a final, disappointed head-shake and left him standing in Barney’s like a man who didn’t know which way was up.

  Chapter Seventeen

  With half of his tuna wrap left, Ethan sat back down to finish his expensive lunch and let the twelve-dollar cappuccino cool to the point of becoming flavored milk. Sitting there, he noticed a few glances thrown his way. The ones from the women seemed to be a mixture of pity and ridicule, as if asking “Has it really be ten years?” But he ignored them and by the time he took that final bite and started on the cappuccino, a few of the tables had been vacated.

  At the closest table, the trio of young men in their late-teens, early-twenties were still talking about videogames and other crazy schemes. But instead of fancy sandwiches, they were eating expensive desserts with their coffees. One of them, the one with his back to Ethan, spoke as loudly as Phil had, with no filter and no sense of volume as he explained his latest sexual exploit—a young lady named Lacey who worked with him at the movie theater and could do all sorts of great things in the men’s room stall.

  With a new appreciation for just how disruptive Phil’s trash talk had been to the other patrons, Ethan hurried through his cappuccino and tried not to listen to their conversation, which had turned from videogames to legs-behind-her-head Lacey to some kind of robbery. But then one of the young men, a red-haired kid with freckles, stubby fingers and braces said something that got him thinking.

  He said, “The best way to pull off a complicated crime like that is to involve people who don’t know each other.”

  The loud guy—his name was Jeff—let out a laugh. “Yeah, because that’s how you know your crew is loyal, Rob.”

  Rob, the red-headed kid with the theory, disagreed. “Loyalty is only important if you’re caught. You need to think a few steps ahead of that, Jeff. Because you’ll only get caught if someone rats you out.”

  Shaking his head, Jeff sat back in his chair. He huffed like Rob’s theory was the most ridiculous thing he’d ever heard, and as a millionaire observing their conversation, Ethan tended to side with Jeff.

  But Rob seemed determined.

  From the corner of his eye, Ethan watched him lean forward, as if fully prepared to convince Jeff and the third, quieter man at the table who, for the record, seemed just as curious about this theory as everyone else.

  Using hand motions to drive his point home, Rob elaborated, “You work a job with a stranger, you’ve got something to prove. You’ve got your integrity, and in the world of high stakes crime, that’s all you’ve got. So you know you’re gonna keep your mouth shut after you yank it out of the wall or whatever you’re lifting, right?”

  The third young man nodded. He had long hair to his shoulders, so straight that Raleigh would have been jealous because she’d always spend hours straightening her own. “But you’re assuming a stranger cares about his integrity when the cops come knocking.”

  “That’s the other thing,” Rob said, grinning. “Because nobody knows each other, nobody can really talk. And that’s the problem these days—someone always talks when they’re squeezed.”

  Jeff was listening now. He leaned forward on the table. “So in Willy’s instance, you’re saying that if he’d worked with complete strangers, nobody would have gone out and crashed a new Porsche? Guys are gonna spend their earnings. And they’re gonna mess up. And when that happens, lips start flapping.”

  Rob chuckled. “You didn’t hear my point. Because if you don’t know the dude you’re working with, how can you rat him out?”

  Groaning, Jef
f offered a reluctant but understanding nod. Same with the third guy, the quiet one who kept glancing over at Jeff like they were telepathically sharing some kind of sinister idea. Maybe they were, because the conversation shifted back to a guy named Willy.

  The way these young men told the story, Ethan was able to piece together that Willy was some kind of mastermind behind a series of high-earning, ATM thefts. He and his “crew” would forcibly remove the cash-heavy machines from a closed gas station, a bar, or pretty much whatever other “closed for the night” business where there was an on-site cash machine. Willy and his crew would move from one stolen vehicle to another one, then transport the stolen ATM to an offsite location where they forcibly gain access to the cash compartment. Then, they’d split the loot among themselves, dump the damaged evidence, normally in the backwoods of Wisconsin, and start planning their next hit.

  But—again, according to the pieces that Ethan pulled together from the conversation—Willy had become the “ultimate victim” when one of his crew crashed a newly-purchased Porsche. When that so-called moron resurfaced from his coma, he’d not discovered Jesus, but saw that he’d been handcuffed to a bed so that he couldn’t escape the guaranteed prison sentence awaiting him.

  Unless he talked, ratted out Willy and his crew, every single one of them.

  See, the first responders at the scene had discovered several thousand dollars, all crisp twenties just like the ones used in off-site cash machines. An enterprising investigator had gained access to the moron’s house while he was comatose. The moron’s God-loving mother was accommodating to the point of taking him on a tour of said moron’s bedroom where computer codes for ATMs had been left on his printer, along with multiple pornographic images.

  Ethan caught himself shaking his head at the moron’s absentmindedness, and Rob glanced over and asked him to mind his own fucking business.

  Clearing his throat, Ethan started by apologizing. “I didn’t mean to listen in, but you mentioned the money that the first responders found at the site of the car crash.”