Cruel Comfort (Evan Buckley Thrillers Book 1)

by James, Harper

  They ate in silence for a while; then Evan said, 'You're right, but there is one thing that I can do.'

  Jacobson waited for him to go on.

  'I'm not going to do any more divorce work. I've always hated it, and now this happens. So that's it. Finito.' He chopped the air emphatically with his hand.

  'Sounds good. So where does that leave you?'

  Evan didn't need to spend much time thinking that one through.

  'Realistically? Sitting on my butt in my office with rent to pay and no clients.'

  'Well you can forget about the rent to start with. That's not a problem.' Jacobson said through a mouthful of seafood risotto. 'I'm happy to wait until you get yourself back on your feet.’ He grinned. ‘Maybe you can check out my wife for free...’ The grin slipped off his face. ‘Sorry, that was a really crass thing to say.'

  Evan looked down at the table for a moment, looking hurt. Then he looked up and grinned back at him. 'That's okay, I've already got those photos...'

  Jacobson did a double take, realized he'd been had and punched him on the arm. With someone Jacobson's size, it hurt. 'I think I'm about ready to do that root canal you were asking about. Unfortunately I'm all out of anesthetic.'

  After they'd finished eating, Jacobson said he had one last question that was on his mind. Evan told him to fire away.

  'What was all the shouting about? I would have thought it would've been quite a somber visit.'

  'So would I, but the fat one was riding me really hard. Letting me know what a worthless piece of shit he thought I was.'

  Jacobson looked like he was weighing up the answer in his mind. It obviously came up short. 'That's it?'

  Evan looked at him, wondering how much to tell him. He really didn’t want to get into it now, but a couple of Margaritas had loosened him up a bit. The guy had been pretty good to him...so what the hell.

  'No, that's not all. He touched a very raw nerve and I completely lost it.'

  Then Evan told him all about Sarah and how she'd just disappeared five years ago; how he'd tried to find her and that was why he'd ended up doing what he did now.

  Jacobson shook his head slowly. 'Jesus Christ, Evan, I had no idea.'

  'Not many people do. I don't talk about it much. Besides, people just want to forget about things like that and get on with their own lives. Nobody really gives a shit. Just another sad story that had everyone's attention for about five seconds before they got distracted by something more important, like a great, new breakfast cereal flavor.'

  Jacobson nodded. 'I know what you mean. Most people have the attention span of a goldfish. What about the police?'

  'They went through the motions, but they weren't interested. They decided early on there wasn't any foul play involved, so they dropped it. Not officially of course, but that's what happened. People disappear of their own free will every day.'

  'Do you have any idea what might have happened?'

  Evan didn’t say anything for a moment. He didn’t know what had actually happened, but there were plenty of ideas that had passed through his mind over the years. Most of them unwelcome, and nothing he wanted to get into now.

  'Nope. She just disappeared without a trace.'

  It was obvious to Jacobson that there was a hell of a lot more but he didn’t push it. 'But you keep on looking?'

  'I wouldn't be able to stop if I wanted to. You know what they say about "closure". Until I know what happened - one way or the other - I'll never be able to drop it.'

  CHAPTER 5

  Back in his office Evan was as good as his word - he sat around on his butt wondering what on earth he was going to do to drum up some business. Business that didn't involve sneaking around motel parking lots in the middle of the night. Business that didn’t make people’s lives worse than before. If he didn't manage to come up with anything it wouldn't just be himself he was letting down now - he'd be letting Jacobson down too. It would have been easier if Jacobson has given him an ultimatum on his rent arrears instead of being so damn understanding.

  Even though the possibility of another client didn't seem likely any time soon, he didn't want to risk being caught out – or at least that’s what he told himself - so he picked up another bottle of scotch on his way back from lunch. It was sitting on his desk now; an unwelcome, accusing reminder of the previous night and the irreparable damage that he’d caused. He knew he'd be beating himself up for a long time to come. He desperately wished there was something he could do to make the situation better but there was no way he could make amends. Stanton was dead and Evan was probably the only one who cared.

  Then there was Sarah. It wasn't that he'd forgotten - there wasn't a day went by when he didn't think about her, but time had softened the edges of his pain. The argument with Ryder that morning had taken him straight back to when it first happened and the terrible rawness of his grief and his frustration and anger at the police.

  It didn't take long before he caved in and cracked the seal on the bottle. He'd been determined he wasn't going to let himself slide into a drunken pit of self pity, but it wasn't long before he'd fired up his computer and sat browsing his photo archive. Not the client archive - he deleted that religiously at the end of every assignment - but his personal mementos. The things that should have brought him joy but now only made his pain more acute; the restaurant in Paris where he’d proposed and she’d made him squirm pretending to think about it; the white clapboard church in rural New England where they’d got married in the fall and where her folks still lived; the whitewashed villa – more like a shack - on Santorini where they’d spent their honeymoon; the good friends who'd somehow drifted away; the house she fell in love with that they couldn't afford but bought anyway, the one he couldn't bear to live in after she'd gone...

  He wasn't sure when he'd fallen asleep or for how long. The bottle was half empty and it was dark in the office. He wasn't sure what had woken him up but then it came again. A tentative knock at his door. Who the hell was coming round at this time of night? Again his first thought was that Hugh McIntyre had tracked him down. But would he even care now? He'd got Stanton's wife and Stanton's half of the business for himself now. Besides, he hadn't seemed the type to knock politely on the door and wait to be invited in. Probably kick it down like Evan had done to him, or wait for him in some dark alley.

  'Come on in,' Evan called, 'it's not locked.' Join me for a drink if you dare, he thought.

  But instead of opening the door, whoever it was turned and retreated back down the corridor. He heard the fast click of a woman's heels. That surprised him, but then an awful thought crossed his mind - what if it was Stanton's wife? He was in two minds whether to follow her or not. He knew he couldn't hide from it.

  In the semi-darkness he jumped up from his chair too quickly and knocked the open bottle, sending it flying off the desk. He made a desperate attempt to catch it but only managed to lose his balance and crash into the filing cabinet behind the desk. Ignoring the whisky bottle as it emptied the last of its contents into Tom Jacobson's carpet, he crossed to the window to see if he could catch sight of his visitor. It was too late to run after her now; he was half drunk and he had a large damp stain where some of the whisky had landed in his lap. Or at least he hoped that's what it was. He certainly couldn't follow her in his car in his present condition.

  Looking out the window, he caught sight of her as she ran across the parking lot and got into an old Toyota Corolla that had seen better days. She was parked in the corner furthest from the street lights. All Evan was able to make out before she drove away was a blond woman in her mid-forties. He didn't think he'd ever seen her before - it wasn't Stanton's wife, he was sure of that - and he had no idea what she wanted. Or why she changed her mind and ran.

  The strange visit shook him out of his melancholy stupor, but it also unsettled him. He realized how vulnerable he would have been if it had been McIntyre come to pay him a visit. He wouldn't have stood a chance. The trouble was, the way he was
feeling about himself, he deserved to have some meathead beat seven shades of shit out of him.

  He'd been sleeping in the office on a fairly regular basis recently. He had a small apartment that he rented after he sold the house he bought with Sarah, but it was a depressing sort of place. Going home to an empty apartment just seemed so much more lonely than staying late in the office before unrolling his sleeping bag. He didn't really know why he kept the apartment - apart from the fact that he'd need somewhere to go when Tom Jacobson finally kicked him out.

  He had a battered, old armchair and a small screen TV in the office, and it had that cosy, homely feel that a whisky soaked carpet lends a room. So it wasn't unusual that he should be sitting in his chair watching the TV the following evening, with a somewhat smaller drink in his hand and the cap screwed down tightly on the bottle.

  Luckily for him, Jacobson had been out of town all day at a seminar on the future of dental amalgam or whatever else it was that got dentists off, so he'd smuggled a commercial vacuum into the building and sucked all the whisky out of the carpet. Then he'd frozen half to death with the window open all day and now the only thing that remained was the faintly suspicious, lemony smell of carpet cleaner.

  He'd even turned down one enquiry for more divorce work and was feeling pretty good about his resolve. The thing was, he was starting to get cabin fever. He needed something worthwhile to do, just like Detective Donut had said.

  The stresses of the previous few days had left him feeling drained. He felt tired, so he turned the TV off and settled back into his armchair. It was remarkably comfortable for something that had only cost him twenty-five dollars.

  He was drifting off into a mildly intoxicated doze when car headlights washed across the ceiling of the room and woke him. His office was on the second floor which meant a car had just driven up the ramp and into the parking lot. The lights from the cars on the street didn't reach this high. It could be kids looking for somewhere to park up and make out, but it was a bit too exposed for that, unless you got a thrill from that sort of thing.

  He immediately thought of the woman from the night before and went over to the window. Sure enough, the same tired Toyota Corolla had just parked in the same spot. The engine was still running and nobody seemed to be in a hurry to get out. He watched it for a full five minutes before the door opened and the interior light went on but she still stayed where she was. Just as he decided to go down she leaned back out and pulled the door shut again and started backing out.

  Forgetting everything else Evan grabbed his car keys, bolted out the door and ran for the stairs. He didn't have time to wait for the elevator. He took the stairs three at a time, the adrenalin flushing any remaining effects of the booze out of his system. She was turning left out of the parking lot as he crashed through the main doors and sprinted for his car. He leapt into the driver's seat, slammed the car into gear and fishtailed it out of the lot and into the traffic behind her, horns blaring as he shot in front of the oncoming traffic. He could see her three cars in front and settled down to a more reasonable speed. Traffic was just right; enough to cover him but light enough for him to easily keep her in sight. Whatever turmoil was going on in her head probably worked in his favor too.

  He followed her for a couple of miles into a quiet residential neighborhood on the edge of town. Like her car, it had seen better days. He had to drop back further as there was almost no traffic at all. He made a left where he thought she'd just turned and then pulled sharply into the curb and stopped. She was turning into a driveway about a hundred yards further on. He sat there for five minutes until he was sure she would be inside and started driving slowly down the street. He made a note of the house number and her license plate as he passed and then stopped again another hundred yards further on.

  He couldn't make up his mind whether to approach the house or not. He didn't want to carry on with this ridiculous nightly charade forever. Besides, the woman seemed to be getting more nervous every night and she might not come back at all. On the other hand, having him knock on her door in the middle of the night would probably only freak her out.

  He felt almost as nervous as she was. It was ridiculous, he felt like a teenager on a first date, too nervous to knock on the door. He got out the car, walked back to the house and rang the bell. The only noises he could hear was the pinging of the car engine as it cooled and the faint sound of the TV coming from inside. She hadn't gone to bed yet, but she didn't come to the door.

  He gave it a couple more minutes and rang the bell again, but he knew he wasn't going to get anywhere that night. Unless he wanted to stand there all night and freeze to death, he might as well give up and go home. He left a business card in her mail can and drove back to the office, wondering what he was going to do to make her talk to him.

  Back inside the office he dropped wearily into his armchair. It was just after nine p.m. He poured himself another drink and settled comfortably into his chair; it was far too early for bed.

  The next thing he knew, it was almost midnight and he was still in his chair. He was cold and his neck was stiff. The drink was untouched on the table next to him. He was surprised he'd dozed for so long. It was becoming a habit. He needed to get a better lifestyle. He massaged the back of his neck and took a sip of the drink before pouring the rest of it down the sink.

  CHAPTER 6

  Early next morning Jacobson called in to see him again. This time Evan had tidied away the bottle and glasses, and his sleeping bag was rolled up out of sight behind the armchair. It was a beautiful spring day and he had the window open. The sound of birdsong drifted in from outside and the early morning sunlight slanted across his desk. A faint lemony smell still lingered and mixed with the smell of freshly baked bread wafting in from the bakery next door. Sat at his desk, Evan looked for all the world like a conscientious, hard working P.I. getting stuck into his heavy caseload. He was just about to look up his nocturnal visitor.

  'You're looking a lot better than last time I came up,' Jacobson said, dropping into the visitor’s chair. Evan wished he wouldn’t keep sitting there; it made him think of Stanton.

  'Yeah, I think I'm over the worst of it,' Evan lied. He’d actually been feeling pretty good until Jacobson sat there and reminded him of Stanton.

  'Well I hope I'm not going to be the one to spoil that, but there's something I think you should know about.'

  'That sounds ominous.'

  'It's probably nothing, but after the seminar yesterday I came back here around ten p.m. to sort a few things out; get ready for today.'

  Evan hoped the surprise he felt didn't show on his face. Jacobson must have come back while he was asleep and he hadn't even woken up. He hadn't realized he'd been out so completely. He'd have sworn he was only dozing. He got up and walked over to the window to try to control the jumpiness he felt in his limbs.

  'I was just about to leave when I heard somebody outside in the corridor. I thought it must be you - I know you've been keeping pretty late hours - and they were headed up here.' Something about the way he said it made Evan feel sure that Jacobson knew he was virtually living in his office. But there was no edge or accusation in his voice; maybe it was just Evan's guilty conscience.

  'So I locked up and then, on a whim, I thought I'd come up and see if you wanted to go for a beer.'

  Evan waited for him to go on, but he already had a pretty good idea of what was coming next. He knew it hadn't been him in the corridor outside Jacobson's office.

  'When I got up here there was a man outside your door, trying to look through the glass. I asked him what the hell he thought he was doing. He turned round and walked towards me, starting to say something or the other, and then suddenly he shoved me out of the way and ran back down the stairs and out of the building. I ran down after him but he was pretty fast and my knee isn't so great. He was already across the parking lot by the time I got outside, so I gave it up. It would have been different in the old days.'

  Evan was horrifi
ed. He had slept through the whole thing. The intruder - it had to be Hugh McIntyre - had found him and got into the building and had been only seconds away from breaking into his office. There'd been a scuffle in the corridor right outside Evan's door. And he'd slept through it all. The minute Jacobson was out the door, the rest of the whisky was going down the sink.

  But what did McIntyre want? The lights had been off in Evan's office and he'd been quietly asleep in his chair. The office would have looked empty. Unless McIntyre had followed him to the office hours earlier and waited outside all that time, he must have thought he was breaking into an empty office. There must be something he thought Evan had in his files that he wanted to get rid of. It couldn't be the photos because the police already had the copies he'd made for Stanton.

  Evan turned away from the window and looked at Jacobson. 'What did he look like?' he asked. 'Actually, don't bother trying to answer that - let me show you a picture.'

  He opened up Stanton's file and called up the photos which he hadn't got round to deleting yet. Unfortunately his system was set up to show thumbnails of the images and Jacobson got a quick flash of all the images before Evan was able to click on the one of McIntyre and Stanton's wife outside the motel.

  'Is that him?' he asked.

  'That's him. No doubt about it. I assume that's the guy who was fooling around with your client's wife. And that's the wife.'

  'You got it. Mr Hugh McIntyre in person. One hundred per cent screwball.'

  'What's all this about, Evan?'

  'I have no idea. I thought the guy just wanted to break a few bones, that sort of thing, but it looks like he's after something else.'

  'The photos?'

  'Can't be. The police already have Stanton's copies.'

  They both sat thinking it over. Evan knew he didn't have anything else.