Nothing Good Happens After Midnight: A Suspense Magazine Anthology

by Jeffery Deaver

And she couldn’t even find a single bulb to turn on.

  Fumbling with her phone was not an option. She wanted both hands free for her Glock.

  She figured there had to be a small, focused lamp of some kind by the technicians’ workstations. How else would they be able to see what they were doing during the performance?

  Vail moved her left hand in a circle and her index finger brushed against something that telescoped vertically. She followed it down to a base—and flipped a rocker switch. It flooded the desktop with a small, but powerful halogen light.

  Sitting ten feet to her right was Harrison Vaughn.

  He yelled.

  She yelled.

  But they were saying different things.

  Harrison: “Ahhh!”

  Vail: “Don’t move. FBI!”

  Harrison made like most criminals—and ignored Vail’s admonition.

  He scrambled away on his knees to the right, around a bend and, as she learned, out the side door.

  Vail followed—and heard Bledsoe calling out instructions to their fleeing suspect.

  Man, the acoustics in here are great.

  “Get down! The theater’s surrounded. There’s no place to run.”

  Have the deputies arrived? Or is he bluffing?

  Vail emerged behind Harrison. Bledsoe was advancing on him, coming up the left aisle, his SIG steady and menacing.

  “Down on the ground,” Vail added, letting Harrison know she was there—and that he had no viable way out.

  Rather than getting on his knees, he decided to protest. “What’s this about? I didn’t do anything.”

  “Debra Mead may have something to say about that,” Vail said. “If you haven’t killed her yet.”

  “Debra who?”

  “The woman you kidnapped in the SmartLots parking lot.”

  “Don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “We’ve got you on security camera footage. Those cameras were installed after your dad started abducting women. Ironic, isn’t it, Detective?”

  “How so?” Bledsoe asked.

  “Vaughn taught his son how to kidnap and murder women, but one thing he didn’t teach him about was how not to get caught.”

  Vail advanced on Harrison and handcuffed him.

  “Where’s Debra Mead?” Bledsoe asked. “And don’t give me any bullshit like you don’t know what we’re talking about.”

  “I don’t know who that is.”

  Vail twisted him to face her. “Look, asshole. If she’s still alive, you’d better tell us where she is. It’s cold out there. She’s diabetic and if she doesn’t get her medication”—she glanced at her watch—“in the next thirty minutes, she’s gonna die. Then it won’t just be reckless endangerment. You’ll be tried for murder. Unlike the feds, Virginia puts its convicted killers to death.”

  More complicated than that, and Mead isn’t diabetic—but what the hell.

  “Yeah,” Bledsoe said, getting in his face. “Like your daddy tonight. We were there. Saw him take his last breath.”

  Harrison narrowed his crooked right eye.

  “The way she’d been taken,” Bledsoe said, “we knew it was someone he’d coached. So we asked him who took her. Right before they injected him, that’s when he gave you up.” He paused to let that sink in. “We compared your DMV photo to our video clip in the parking lot, and bang. There you were. We put a name with a face.”

  “And here we are,” Vail said. “Case is open and shut. You help us find Debra Mead, we’ll recommend that the prosecutor cut you a good deal.”

  Harrison twisted his lips as he thought.

  “Twenty-nine minutes left,” Vail said. “Then Debra dies. Her diabetes medication—”

  “She’s in an abandoned shack in Hill County.”

  “Address?”

  “Don’t know. House is owned by a guy named Ed Malicki.”

  Vail got on the phone to X-ray and told him to head toward Hill County and mobilize deputies to the property of Ed Malicki.

  She flicked Harrison on his left cheek. “Ed help you out?”

  “He don’t know anything. I just borrow his shack. Store stuff. He never asked what I put there.”

  “You know what, Harrison?” Bledsoe yanked him back to face him. “You’re a piece of shit like your father.”

  Harrison spit in Bledsoe’s face.

  Vail stuck her hand on Bledsoe’s fist and stopped him before he brought it forward into Harrison’s nose. “He’ll get his time, just like Vaughn.”

  Bledsoe groaned, then shrugged his jacket back into place. “I’m not good with delayed gratification.”

  “Let’s get him outa here,” Vail said, grabbing Harrison’s left arm.

  “You—you’re gonna recommend the deal, right? To the prosecutor?”

  Vail feigned surprise. “Of course I’ll recommend the deal. Just like I said, Harrison. I’m a woman of my word. But the prosecutor, she hates my guts. Never takes my advice. Does the opposite, usually.”

  They pushed through the doors to the outside, where the air was bone-chilling cold.

  Bledsoe blew on his left fist. “Temperature dropped about ten degrees while we were in there.”

  He sat Harrison on one of the metal chairs in the center of the breezeway in front of the theater, then double handcuffed him to the table while they waited.

  Vail pulled out her phone.

  “Who you calling?”

  “With X-ray looking for Debra Mead, we don’t have a ride. I’m getting an Uber.”

  Bledsoe gave her a look of consternation. “We can’t transport a prisoner in—”

  “Relax. I’m calling a local deputy I know, see if he’ll come pick us up.”

  Minutes after loading Harrison into the rear of one of the responding police cruisers, their phones buzzed simultaneously. A text from X-ray:

  meads alive

  medics got a pulse

  weak thready

  but shes alive

  airlifting to hosp

  catch you latuh

  running on fumes

  sipping fuel

  “Thank God,” Vail said.

  “Your vic’s gonna be okay?” the deputy asked.

  “Looks like it.”

  “You lucked out,” Bledsoe said, elbowing the prisoner seated to his right. “Hear that, Harrison? You got lucky. Twenty-five to life instead of death row.”

  Harrison did not respond. By now he probably figured he had been played.

  Bledsoe turned to Vail. “Maybe it was us who lucked out. We got to Debra Mead just in time.”

  “Luck? Skill? Who cares. Sometimes our job’s a mix of both. I’m just glad that Stephen Raye Vaughn is a footnote in American history. And his son’s gonna be behind bars before he could do too much damage.”

  Bledsoe sighed heavily, then looked out the window at the pitch blackness, pinpricks of stars winking back at them. “Bastard was one bad dude.”

  “Congrats. You win the award for understatement of the year.”

  Bledsoe stole a look at his watch. “Damn, it’s friggin’ late. Why is it that the dregs of society come out when everyone else is asleep?”

  Vail shrugged. “Better time to ply their trade.”

  “Yeah, well, in my experience, nothing good happens after midnight.”

  “And yet,” Vail said with a grunt, “tonight it did. Twice.”

  * * *

  CELL PHONE INTOLERANT

  KEVIN O’BRIEN

  Ed McKinnon was pee-shy. No help was the fact that, at age fifty-nine, his prostate was about the size of a bowling ball. He hated using public restrooms. But sometimes it became necessary—as it did on that December evening, in the middle of Christmas shopping at the downtown Seattle Nordstrom.

  Usually, he took care of these things before leaving the house. But the shopping expedition dragged on longer than he’d anticipated—what with the endless lines and cashiers who didn’t know how to send gifts. Most of Ed’s purchases were going to his b
rother’s family in Phoenix, and he always sent his ex-wife Fran something, too. She lived in San Francisco. One of the cashiers had mentioned that he might find it easier to shop and send gifts online. Ed had told the woman that he wanted to support the brick and mortar stores. But considering how much his send-purchases seemed to piss off the clerks—as well as the customers waiting behind him—he figured he’d shop online next year. Then he wouldn’t have to deal with all the obnoxious shoppers—like the ones who stood side by side on the escalators, blithely blocking everyone in back of them; or the idiots who decided to stop and text someone at the top or bottom of the escalators, creating more blockage; or the moron who thought bringing her dog (on a ten foot leash, no less) into Nordstrom during the Christmas rush was a brilliant idea. No one had “situational awareness” these days; most people were totally oblivious to everything and everyone else around them.

  Ed lived alone in a three-bedroom house in Seattle’s trendy Capitol Hill neighborhood. It had been his home for over two decades. The house was currently decked out for Christmas, very tastefully, too. He took pride in the place, and kept it immaculate inside and out. He led an orderly life. A dripping faucet was cause for alarm. But he easily repaired things like that. Ed was mechanically inclined. He worked for thirty-two years in the Union Pacific Railroad car repair shop, and took an early retirement last year. He kept active with bi-weekly visits to the gym, and spent hours every night in his basement “lab” tinkering with various inventions. He held thirteen different patents, but nothing he’d invented had taken off yet. He’d come really close with his idea for a touch-activated faucet, but somebody beat him to the punch.

  One of his ex’s major gripes was that he’d spent too much time down in their basement with his “mad scientist’s projects.” Fran also claimed he was kind of a control freak. Ed knew he was guilty on both counts. He certainly liked to be in control of things.

  He just wished he had a bit more control of his bladder right now. And he wished every other man in Nordstrom hadn’t suddenly decided to use the restroom the same time as him. Both stalls were occupied with two customers waiting; and both urinals were in use—with a guy and his toddler son in line ahead of him. It was a pee-shy sufferer’s nightmare.

  Ed would have preferred a stall. But things naturally moved faster at the two urinals. The dad and son didn’t waste any time. So, reluctantly, Ed took one of the urinals.

  At least he didn’t have to pee standing next to anyone. But he felt pressured to hurry up and go while he was still there alone. He played a mind game that sometimes helped him get started, reciting in his head: “You’re a two, you’re a four, you’re a six, urinate…” But it didn’t work. He heard all this activity behind him as toilets flushed and the guys waiting for the stalls took their turns. The two other guys washed their hands and left. There was a hush. Then, by some Christmas miracle, Ed started to pee.

  “I’m serious, I’ve been invited to five Christmas parties this weekend!” someone announced as he breezed into the men’s room. The guy was right behind Ed when he spoke.

  Ed was so startled, he stopped peeing in mid-stream.

  The man stepped up to the urinal beside Ed’s. He spoke so loud, his voice seemed to echo off the bathroom tiles. “The way I figure, I’ll just Uber the whole night, because I’ll be so wasted by the last party…”

  Ed stole a glance at the man. He wondered who the hell this clown was talking to. Was there someone in back of them?

  No. The guy was on his goddamn phone.

  This is why I hate people, thought Ed. He still needed to pee, but he’d temporarily gone bone dry.

  “Well, Lloyd’s is B-Y-O-B, but I’m not bringing anything. I won’t be there very long,” the guy said—over the loud drone of his stream hitting the plastic pad for the urinal cake. Obviously, he had no pee-shy issues. With his baseball cap on backwards, he looked like a cocky jerk. He was in his late thirties and had a slight resemblance to Jason Priestley—if someone had taken a bicycle pump to Jason Priestley and inflated him. Ed figured he was a jock gone to seed.

  Ed heard a woman murmur something on the other end of the line.

  He gave up trying to pee. He couldn’t take any more of this.

  “Oh, yeah?” the guy said into his phone. “Well, three guesses how I feel about that.”

  Ed zipped up and flushed. “SERIOUSLY?” he said loudly. “DOES THE WOMAN YOU’RE TALKING TO KNOW YOU’RE PISSING IN A PUBLIC RESTROOM RIGHT NOW?”

  Rude Jason Priestley squinted at him. “What’s your problem, man?”

  “You are! You’re my problem! I’m trying to take a pee here, and you’re carrying on a phone conversation! Could you be any ruder?” Ed swiveled around and saw some twenty-something guy had just stepped into the restroom. The young man stared at him as if he were completely insane.

  “No, it’s nobody,” Rude Jason said into his phone. “Some crazy guy here in Nordstrom. No, I’m not in the restroom. I’m in Men’s Shoes…” He headed for the door.

  “HE DIDN’T FLUSH AND HE DIDN’T WASH HIS HANDS AFTER HE PEED!” Ed announced loudly, so the guy’s girlfriend could hear.

  With the phone to his ear, Jason flipped him off as he left the restroom.

  Ed was livid. He still needed to pee, but knew he couldn’t. And both stalls were still occupied. Besides, he didn’t want to hang around the men’s room any longer than he had to. He hated confrontations. And nowadays, the least little conflict could end up in a mass shooting. Rude Jason could be lying in wait for him outside the restroom.

  So Ed made a beeline from the men’s room to the exit doors.

  All the way home on the light rail, he was seething. He couldn’t help notice how everyone around him was wrapped up in their mobile devices. It was a crowded car, and he found only two other people—a couple—who weren’t focused on their phones. But they had their phones in their hands. Before Ed got off at his stop on Capitol Hill, he saw those last two holdouts start to check their mobile devices, too.

  Walking home, he realized practically everyone he passed on the street—couples, people walking alone, people in groups—they were all on their phones. Ed felt like he was in some kind of Orwellian nightmare. He was the only person in the vicinity not on a phone or wearing some kind of head-phone device. Most of these people seemed ready to walk right into him if he didn’t step aside. People with dogs were the worst. They were supposed to love their dogs, yet during the one time they did something for their pet, they were on the phone, ignoring the poor animal—and taking up the entire sidewalk, too.

  He figured maybe this was a Seattle thing—especially in his neighborhood, populated with so many young tech types. Or was it like this everywhere?

  As an inventor, he used to think cell phones were a modern age marvel. But when they first started to get popular in the nineties, Ed noticed the people who used them seemed like self-important assholes. Look at me, I have a cell phone, they seemed to say. He remembered the ones in his local video store, browsing the new releases and chatting loudly on their mobile devices—annoying everyone else in the store.

  For a while, people on cell phones were like smokers. They were annoying, but they were a minority. Now everyone had a phone. There was no escaping them. Even when people weren’t supposed to use their phones—at the movies, while driving their cars, in locker rooms or bathrooms—they still used them anyway. It was like the rules didn’t apply to them.

  As far as Ed was concerned, cell phones should have stayed something that people used only for emergencies. They shouldn’t have become a way of life.

  He wished he could invent some device to discourage people from using their phones, at least in situations where it was inappropriate. Maybe he could come up with a remote control mechanism that would scramble the phone signal. But would that really stop all the rude, phone-obsessed people out there?

  “Ed, you’re certifiable,” claimed his friend, George. Another divorced retiree from the railroads, George was on
e of those gray-haired ponytail guys. They’d been best friends for twenty years. George lived on a houseboat on Lake Union.

  It was late February, and George sat on a step-stool in Ed’s paneled basement “lab.” After weeks of trial, error and experimentation, Ed was ready to test his cell phone “Intruder,” a small gadget he’d fashioned to look like a remote keyless device for a car. Ed made himself the Guinea pig. He had four different brands and models of phones on the table in front of him. On each one, he would call his home number (Ed still had a landline—with an answering machine from the nineties). And while Ed was on the phone, George would click the device at him. Then they’d see what happened.

  “I don’t feel good about this,” George said, frowning at the gizmo in his hand. “When did you come up with this little gem? Three in the morning? Nothing good ever happens after midnight, my friend. You were probably half-asleep when you put this together. I know it’s just supposed to scramble the signal, but what if something goes wrong?”

  “That’s why we’re doing this—to make sure nothing goes wrong when I actually use it,” Ed explained. He picked up the Samsung. “And I do my best work after midnight. Remember, you’re sworn to secrecy about this. I really appreciate it, buddy. Afterwards, I’ll take you out for pizza and beers—on me.”

  “If you’re still alive,” George said. “Remember a few years ago, those cell phones caught on fire because of the lithium batteries? What if something like that happens? I could blow your goddamn hand off or something. Or I might be sending out some radioactive signals…”

  “Nothing like that is going to happen,” Ed assured his friend—and himself. The truth was the scrambling signal might end up doing just about anything to the phone—and the person holding it. That was why he needed to be the Guinea pig with this experiment. He might have wanted to screw with some of the phone-obsessed jerks out there, but he didn’t want to hurt anybody.

  Ed didn’t want to get hurt either. So, despite how he acted with George, he was skittish about this experiment and the unknown results.