TJ lost his place in the song and faked it, repeating an earlier verse.
Nobody seemed to notice. Or maybe it’s just that nobody cares. He didn’t like to think that, but Grace’s callous pragmatism had rubbed off on him.
As she came back to him with the coffee, he watched her poise and gait.
Who the hell are you?
The thought startled and saddened him, haunting him for the rest of the set. It felt to him as if, when he wasn’t looking, some grown-up girl had replaced his baby. It happened to every father. He’d known the day would come but had never suspected it would be so soon, and now he was blindsided.
His little girl was gone.
Doug Manning stood near the foot of his bed, trying to pull on a blue cotton hooded sweater while conducting a phone conversation.
“Yeah, I’m watching NECN right now,” he said quietly, switching the cell from one ear to the other as he dragged the sweater over his head. “They just did the weather. Looks like it’s gonna hit us on Wednesday, twenty inches or more. Slow-moving. It’s a monster.”
A chill went through him that he knew a lot of people in Coventry would share. Watching the computer model of the storm churning in from the west, all he could think about was blinding snow, a city buried in paralyzing drifts of white, and the frostbitten cheeks of his wife when they’d finally found her and brought him in to identify her corpse.
This storm would be different, though. Instead of destroying his life it would help him build a new one.
“Looks like this is it,” Franco said on the other end of the line.
“Looks like,” Doug replied.
“Are you up to it? Second thoughts? You lose your nerve in the middle of this thing and me and Baxter maybe end up in jail. I can’t take the risk.”
Doug tamped down the anger rising in him. “You kick a dog enough and he can’t help biting you, man. I’ve been kicked enough over the years. I’m ready to start biting, and I’m gonna sink my teeth in deep.”
“What the hell you talkin’ about, man?”
“I’m ready, that’s all. I’m not going to screw this up. If the plan goes south it’s going to be one of you guys who blew it.”
Franco grunted. “Better not let Baxter hear you talking like that. You’ll get him paranoid about working with you.”
“Fuck Baxter. It’s happening this week, during this storm. I have one chance at really turning things around and I’ll do it alone if it comes to that. I ain’t doing this for fun and I sure as hell ain’t doing it for you and Baxter.”
Franco went quiet. A few seconds of silence passed between them while the sports guy reported on the Celtics’ latest winning streak.
“I don’t think of you as a friend,” Franco said at last.
“Feeling’s mutual.”
“No, listen up. I think of you as a tool—”
“Franco—”
“A tool is useful as long as it works,” Franco went on. “You don’t want to see your place in this, I can’t be responsible for what happens.”
Doug laughed softly, but loud enough for Franco to hear him over the phone.
“I’m no master criminal, that’s true,” he said, with a glance at the bedroom door to make sure that Angela hadn’t come back upstairs. “But this is my plan. My goddamned idea. Never mind that I’m the one who got us the house keys; I’m the one whose ass is on the line. Somehow I managed to give you the impression that I’m some kind of pussy, maybe because I haven’t been ripping people off since my cradle days the way you and Baxter have. But this is my gig, man. The keys are mine. The life I’ve been living since I lost my wife … if I’m gambling my life and my house and my freedom, that doesn’t feel like a lot of risk to me. So we’re either in this together, all of us, or I try to pull it off myself. You want to trade bullets over it, let’s go and do it. Otherwise, stop pushing me. You want me to bare my throat to you like we’re some dog pack, but it’s not gonna happen, Franco.”
Again, Franco hesitated. The anger churning inside Doug started to cool and harden into grim confidence when he heard that silence on the line. He felt good, really good, for the first time in so long. While Angela had gone downstairs to make them some lunch, he’d taken a shower and shaved and pulled on clean clothes. Watching the weather forecast had filled him with a peculiar excitement, a dreadful anticipation.
“You going to say all this to Baxter when we meet tomorrow?” Franco asked.
“I am.”
“All right, Dougie. We’ll see how that goes. You might regret asking to meet in the damn woods instead of somewhere public where he’d be less likely to snap your neck.”
“I guess we’ll find out,” Doug replied.
He ended the call without saying goodbye and tossed the phone onto the bed. He felt powerful somehow. Energized.
“Well, that was interesting.”
Doug looked up to see Angela standing in the doorway with a tray of grilled cheese sandwiches and coffee, which were just about all his kitchen had to offer at the moment.
He blew out a long breath. “How much of that did you hear?”
She arched an eyebrow. “Enough to know you’ve been a bad boy.”
Doug picked up the remote and clicked off the TV, trying to interpret her facial expression.
“You don’t seem all that troubled.”
Angela slid the lunch tray onto the low bureau. She started to speak and then her smile faltered and a terrible sadness seemed to descend upon her. Powerful emotion made her voice crack when she tried to speak, and she waved a hand in front of her face, mustering control of herself.
“Sorry,” she said, forcing a smile.
Doug took a step toward her, hands up, wanting to comfort her. “I didn’t mean for you to hear any of that, and I’m sorry, but I can’t apologize for any of it.”
With her sad smile, she put a hand on his chest, grabbing a fistful of his sweater. “I’m not looking for apologies and I’m not gonna judge you. The world owes you an apology, babe.”
Doug stared at her, having trouble processing her acceptance. They’d had a brief, torrid relationship several years ago. Angela had been just as broken and needy as he’d been and they’d abused each other emotionally, each forgiving the other. By nature she was loud and a bit crass and rough in the manner of young beasts who don’t know their own strength.
“Who the hell are you?” he asked.
Angela stepped in close to him, pressed her body against his and her lips to the softness of his throat.
“I’m the woman who’s not running away.”
“What I can’t figure out is why.”
With a soft kiss, she pushed him backward until he struck the bed and sat down, and then she straddled him playfully. They were both fully clothed and she made no effort to undress him or herself, just touched his face and gazed into his eyes with something like love. She couldn’t love him; Doug felt sure of that. They didn’t know each other well enough. But something in her eyes made his mouth go dry.
“You may be up to no good, but you’re a good man,” she said, almost in a whisper, more vulnerable than he had ever seen her before. “I don’t like the idea of you doing something criminal mostly because it makes me afraid for you. I know you’re not some killer or rapist and you’re not going to really hurt anyone. You’re stealing from someone, right?”
He knew he ought to keep his mouth shut. A crazy thought struck him: could her showing up have been something other than serendipity? Had Baxter somehow sent her? Or the cops?
Her eyes put the lie to that.
“Yeah. Something like that,” he confessed, drawing in a deep breath, feeling something inside him that he didn’t quite understand.
Why was he telling her the truth? He’d never been the kind of guy who turned into a fool in a woman’s presence. Only Cherie had ever had that effect on him. He thought of Jack Nicholson, of a famous line in one of his movies that he’d always told Cherie applied to the two of them: Y
ou make me want to be a better man.
“And you’re not going to take anything from someone they can’t afford to lose?”
“No.”
She smiled. “Told you.”
Doug slid his fingers into her hair, bent to kiss her, and stopped.
“You’re just going to trust my word? You’re so sure I’m a good man?”
Angela’s only answer was a kiss.
“Listen,” she said, adjusting herself on his lap, rocking a little bit as she straddled him, rubbing denim against denim. “This thing that happened last night and this morning … I think it’s going pretty well, don’t you?”
“Is that a trick question?” he asked, enjoying the friction.
She grinned. “Me too. And I’m not ready to let it end. I don’t want to freak you out but I called my boss from downstairs and told her I’m taking a week of my accumulated vacation time from the hospital, starting now. We had something, once upon a time … the beginning of something, anyway. And I want to see if we can make it grow again.”
Doug’s pulse had begun to race. He let out a shuddery breath and pushed against her, grabbing her ass and pulling her more tightly to him.
“Something’s growing,” he said.
“Hey,” she said, giving him a little slap on the arm that made him laugh and wince at the same time. “I’m serious.”
“I know you are,” he said, stroking her hair. “And I’m not gonna lie. It’s a little fast. Kind of abrupt. What we had before … it didn’t feel like romance to me, y’know? It felt like two people trying to save each other from drowning.”
Angela kissed him gently, breathing words into his mouth.
“This feels different, doesn’t it? From before?”
“Completely,” he said, pulling her down onto the bed.
They made love again, lunch entirely forgotten, and if Doug forgot himself amid the passion and whispered his dead wife’s name into her ear, Angela seemed not to notice, or not to mind.
Officer Harley Talbot hated the stereotype of the doughnut-eating cop, which meant that every time he pulled into the Heavenly Donuts parking lot he felt as if he were somehow betraying his fellow police. Not that most cops shared his concerns. A morning never passed at the Coventry police station without a couple of dozen doughnuts being put out on the table in the break room and then slowly devoured, usually by men. Even now, female officers had to work their butts off to be treated equally by their superiors, and one of the ways they did that was by staying fit, working harder, and making more arrests.
Harley appreciated that in so many ways. He knew what it was like to hold oneself to higher standards than those around you. His size and the unusual darkness of his skin caused people to make assumptions about him and he proved them wrong through his actions and words. It came in handy, being able to intimidate the hell out of most people just by looking their way without a smile on his face. But it could be tiresome as hell. The last thing he needed was another assumption being made about him. But Heavy D, as some of his brothers and sisters in blue called the doughnut shop, made the best damn cup of cocoa in town. And he loved his cocoa.
He’d been out all night looking for Zachary Stroud and had been ordered home shortly after sunrise. Four hours’ sleep and a shower later and now he was in uniform and headed back to the river to rejoin the search.
Pulling into the parking lot of Heavenly Donuts, he slouched a little in his seat, barely conscious of it, then parked his patrol car up against a snowbank in the back. They had a drive-through, but he’d developed a nice rapport with the staff, and when he had a few minutes he liked to see them in person. When he went in and chatted with the owner, Rick Newell, or one of his employees, he always got an extra helping of whipped cream on his cocoa.
Harley worked hard to keep fit and treated his body right, but a man couldn’t resist a little extra whipped cream. He was only human, after all.
As he strode to the doughnut shop, shoes squelching in the dirty slush, the door slammed open and a young guy hustled out and nearly collided with him.
“Whoa,” Harley said, grabbing the guy’s shoulders and nudging him back to arm’s length. “Watch it, man.”
The guy looked up and Harley blinked in surprised recognition. Nat Kresky went to the local community college and worked at Heavenly Donuts to pay his way. He still lived with his parents but covered the minimal tuition with his savings and what he made slinging coffee. Harley had never seen Nat without a smile on his face—the kid always piled on the whipped cream for him—but this afternoon, Nat looked lost in despair and confusion.
“Sorry,” Nat mumbled, and tried to go around.
Harley grabbed his arm. “Nat, what’s the matter? Something happen?”
Ordinary human concern had prompted the question, but so had cop instincts. Harley believed his were pretty good, and something told him this kid wasn’t upset just about a girlfriend dumping him or bad news at home. He didn’t know Nat well, but they’d talked enough for him to see how far off the rails his troubles had sent him.
When Nat looked at him, though, Harley wondered if maybe he didn’t know the kid at all.
“I’m fine, Officer. Sorry, but … I’m fine.”
He tried to pull away but Harley held him without effort.
“‘Officer’?” Harley said.
“Sorry,” Nat replied, glancing down at his name tag. “Officer Talbot. Can I go now?”
Harley released him but blocked his way. “What’s up with you, Nat? You hit your head? You okay?”
“I’m not okay,” the kid spat, shooting an angry glance back at the door of the shop. “I just got fired ’cause I don’t know how to work the stupid machines!”
Harley’s insides gave a little twist. Getting fired was the least of Nat’s troubles.
“Nat, what’s my name?”
“What, did I pronounce it wrong?” the kid whined, glancing away with the petulance of a middle-schooler. “Officer Talbot.”
“You don’t know me?”
A change came over the kid instantly, like a wave passing through his body, an alarm bell that had just gone off in his head and echoed inside him. His eyes went dull and crafty.
“Course I do.”
Harley didn’t believe him. “What is it, then? My first name?”
Nat hesitated, caught.
“You screwed up at work ’cause you couldn’t remember how to work the machines. That’s what you’re saying, right?” Harley asked. “There’s not much to them, and Mr. Newell’s a good guy, so I’m figuring it had to do with the cash register, screwing up orders, the kind of stuff you’ve been doing here for years.”
Nat’s lower lip quivered. “He thought I was on drugs, all right? They all thought I was on drugs! He should know I’d never…”
The kid silenced himself, turning away. “Just leave me alone, okay? I’m going home. I just need sleep.”
Harley shifted to intercept him, not letting him leave.
“It’s more than that, Nat, and I can tell you know it. You don’t even recognize me and we see each other three or four times a week right inside the shop. Something’s goin’ on in your head. Hop in the car and I’ll run you over to the hospital. You need a doc to check you out, make sure it’s not serious.”
Nat wouldn’t look him in the eye. “I’m just going home. I’ll get my dad to take me.”
Again he tried to pass by and this time Harley grabbed his arm harder. He pointed toward the cruiser he’d parked in back.
“Get in,” he said. “You wanna go home first, that’s fine. I’ll take you there. No way I’m going to let you drive. It’s either me or I call you an ambulance.”
Nat’s lips were pressed into a thin, angry line. Harley had expected the kid to stamp his foot, but finally he started for the patrol car.
“Fine,” Nat huffed. “But this is stupid.”
Harley followed, hoping the kid was right. But you didn’t suffer the kind of memory loss Nat was s
howing signs of without having something wrong with you, some trauma or an aneurysm or something.
As he got the kid into the backseat, he spared one last, regretful glance at Heavenly Donuts. He had a terrible feeling he wasn’t going to get his cocoa today.
TWELVE
Recent years had brought some unseasonably mild winters, but this had not been one of them. The cold weather had swept down from Canada in early November and never really abated for more than a day or so. There were times when the sun shone brightly enough to chase the chill away for a few hours. Now, late afternoon brought on the early arrival of darkness that had always made Joe Keenan want to hole up inside his house with a book and a few logs burning in the fireplace. In early February, spring seemed somehow further away than ever.
He leaned against the hood of his unmarked, drinking weak coffee that tasted like it had been strained through a brown paper bag, and watched the industrious local-media people setting up lights for the live shots they would do during the five o’clock news. They’d be getting under way anytime now, and the reporters were choosing their shots, figuring out the best places to stand in order to have police or volunteer searchers—or at least the icy river—in the background.
Keenan knew what they’d be reporting: nothing. No headway had been made in the search for Zachary Stroud, which had been going on for nearly fifteen hours without a single lead beyond the initial discovery of the boy’s blood inside the car. The vehicle itself had been removed long ago, as had the corpses of Zachary Stroud’s parents. Searchers had combed the woods by the river and begun a door-to-door canvass, hoping to find someone who had seen the boy wandering in last night’s storm or even this morning—maybe wet, maybe bleeding.
The Coventry Harbor Master had come out and taken a look at the river, confirming what Keenan had already guessed: while the current ran strong under the frozen surface, there was too much ice for them to attempt to drag the river in search of a body. State-police divers had gone into the water in midmorning, picking places up and down the bank to enter and search beneath the ice, but to no avail. Keenan didn’t believe the boy had fallen into the river, but even if he had, the chances of their finding his body down there were slim.
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