Fear the Worst

by Linwood Barclay

  She stopped fighting me, but wouldn’t look at me. “At first, I thought if she came back, I’d be in deep shit.”

  “You? Why would you be in trouble?”

  “Because… I gave her the tip to work for the hotel. I put her in touch with somebody.”

  I thought about what Andy had told me, about finding Gary and Patty meeting over a milk shake.

  “You knew Gary,” I said. “Andy saw you together.”

  Now she looked at me. She was puzzled. “Knew?”

  “Gary’s dead,” I said.

  “Dead?” Patty said.

  “How did you know Gary?”

  “I did some work for him. Couple of places I worked.”

  “Stealing data off credit cards?”

  “It was no big thing.” She looked away. “But I knew, if Sydney came back, and told everybody everything, it’d come back on me. How Syd got the job, that I knew Gary, that I used to rip off numbers for him. I’d be in deep shit.”

  “Patty, Patty, Patty,” I said softly, thinking of all the anguish she’d put me, and so many others, through the last few weeks. “Didn’t Gary, and the others at the hotel, didn’t they think you’d know where Sydney was? Because you were friends?”

  “They didn’t know we were that close. I mean, they came to see me, right? I wasn’t going to tell them where Sydney was, but I had to give them something, so I told them they should watch your house and Sydney’s mom’s place, but so what? I knew Sydney wasn’t going to show up, because she was listening to me. She’d call me every few days and I’d tell her to keep laying low, right? And come on, let’s face it, she’s been safe all this time, right?”

  I heard a car pull up, a door open and close.

  “But you still could have told me,” I said. “It didn’t make any sense to trick Sydney into staying away.”

  “The thing is…”

  “What?”

  She bit her lower lip. Then, “I liked it that she was gone.”

  I felt a chill that had nothing to do with the night air. I thought of all the times Patty, since Syd’s disappearance, had dropped by to see me. Showed up with dinner. Popped into the dealership.

  Patty wanted to take Sydney’s place. She could be my daughter if Sydney didn’t come back.

  Then why had Patty finally decided, in the end, to come to Stowe to bring Sydney back?

  Unless that hadn’t been the plan at all.

  That’s when I realized that someone was standing on the covered walkway only a few steps away. I’d been so focused on Patty, trying to figure out what she’d done, that I’d failed to notice we were no longer alone.

  I whirled around. There was a woman standing there. She was holding a gun, and it was pointed at me.

  It was Veronica Harp.

  FORTY-SIX

  “YOU LITTLE BITCH,” VERONICA SAID TO PATTY. “You mean you knew where she was all along? You waited until yesterday to tell us? You couldn’t have mentioned this a couple of weeks ago?”

  So, there it was.

  Patty had led Veronica here. To get Sydney. I could guess when she’d decided to make her betrayal of Sydney complete. After I’d told her I had one daughter, and didn’t need another.

  “He has a gun,” Patty told Veronica.

  Great.

  Veronica, keeping her weapon trained on me, said, “Take it out slowly and toss it over the railing.”

  I reached behind me, pulled the Ruger from behind my belt, and did as I was told. A second later we heard it splash into the creek.

  “Do your Yolanda Mills voice for me,” I said to Veronica. She held back a smile. “Emailing me that picture was what really clinched it.”

  “That was a bit of luck,” Veronica said. “I really was trying to figure out how to take pictures with my phone. I’m not very technical, you know, but I want to be able to take lots of shots of my grandson, and I don’t want to have to carry a camera around if the phone will do the trick. So I was fiddling with it up in the hall when Sydney walked by. Who knew it would come in handy later?” To Patty she said, “You told me you hardly knew this Sydney kid. You’re friends?”

  More than that, I thought.

  “I didn’t want something to happen to her,” Patty said. “Then.”

  Veronica sighed. “Working with children, I swear.”

  I said, “I don’t get it.”

  “You don’t get what?”

  “How does someone like you, a goddamn grandmother, sleep at night doing what you do? Bringing people into the country, farming them out as slave labor. Taking all their rights away. Turning them into prostitutes and God knows what else.”

  Veronica became indignant. “They get lots of good jobs. Nannies, hotel work, restaurants, construction. Let me tell you something. They’ve got it a lot better here than they did back in the countries they came from. You see any of them trying to go home?”

  “Would you let them? What do they pay you to come here? What kind of horseshit stories do you tell them to convince them they’re going to have a better life when they get here?”

  Veronica had nothing more to say. When it was clear she wasn’t interested in debating with me any longer, I said to Patty, “You know she’s going to have to kill Sydney. And me. And Bob.”

  Patty said nothing.

  “And probably you, too,” I said.

  “Don’t listen to him, Patty,” said Veronica. “You fucked this up, but you’ve been a lot of help to us. You made the right decision, telling me how to find your friend.” She was agitated. “Where are the rest of them?”

  “They should be here any second,” Patty said. “If they see your car—”

  “It’s across the street, behind a gift shop. Go out onto the road, flag them down, tell them to come onto the bridge, that Mr. Blake has turned his ankle, something. You’re good at lying.” She smiled. “Aren’t you, sweetheart?”

  Patty took a couple of hesitant steps.

  “Go!” Veronica hissed.

  Patty ran.

  “The shit’s hit the fan back in Milford,” I said. “Have you heard?”

  She looked at me.

  “Gary’s dead. Carter is dead. Owen’s in the hospital.”

  I could tell that she didn’t know about this. She was trying to hide her surprise.

  “The whole thing’s unraveling, Veronica. You’d be smarter to forget about us and just get in your car and drive as far away as you can.”

  “Shut up,” she said.

  “You can’t go back. I’ll bet the hotel is swarming with police right now. When Owen’s able to, he’ll probably tell them everything if it means he can cut some kind of a deal. I’ll bet he gives you up first.”

  “I have friends,” Veronica said, but her voice lacked confidence.

  “Out in Seattle, maybe? Did one of them send you that cell phone in the mail?”

  “Just shut up.”

  “I don’t care how many friends you have. I don’t like your odds now. I think, basically, you’re fucked, Veronica.”

  Her eyes dazzled angrily as she held the gun on me. “I don’t think so.”

  We could both hear a car approaching. Then, in the distance, Patty yelling, “Over here! Over here!”

  My gun was down in the creek, but Bob would still have his. The problem was, he had no idea he was going to need it. If I didn’t think I could get the drop on Veronica—she was careful to stand several feet away from me—I would have to wait until I was sure Bob and Sydney were out of the car before I started shouting.

  I heard the echo of a car door closing, then some girlish squealing. Patty and Sydney embracing. Sydney genuinely excited, Patty giving an Oscar-worthy performance.

  They needed to quiet down, just for a second.

  I could hear them approaching the end of the covered walkway.

  “Run!” I shouted as loud as I could.

  “Fuck!” Veronica said, and fired.

  I was already moving, but not quite fast enough. My left ear sudde
nly felt very hot and my hand went up to it instinctively. I could feel blood trickling out between my fingers. The bullet had nicked the top of my ear. The shock of it bounced me off the walkway wall and down to the floor.

  Instead of scaring everyone away, the shot brought people running.

  Bob was in the lead, reaching around to his back, which suggested to me that he had the Ruger with him. He could see me down on the bridge, and Veronica, gun still in hand.

  He brought out the weapon, fired one shot wild, using all the skill he’d employed when he’d taken a shot out the window of the Mustang.

  Veronica threw herself up against the wall and fired back, even though Sydney and Patty were already on the bridge behind Bob, and at risk of getting hit.

  Bob, as it turned out, was an effective cover for both of them. “Oh shit!” he shouted. The gun fell out of his right hand. He grabbed his upper right arm with his left hand and tripped over his own feet. “Jesus!” he said. “I’m fucking shot!”

  Sydney screamed.

  Now Veronica was running down the bridge, away from me. Sydney turned to run, but Patty blocked her way long enough for Veronica to grab her. She took hold of her by the arm and started dragging her back to where I was leaning up against the walkway wall.

  Veronica said to Patty, “Get that gun!” Meaning Bob’s, which had slid away from him. He was in too much pain to try to reach it.

  Patty did as she was told, held the weapon down at her side in her right hand.

  Veronica turned on Sydney and said, “Get over there.” She kept pushing Sydney along the bridge, then shoved her down when they reached me.

  Sydney threw her arms around me, her fingers getting smeared with my blood.

  “Dad, are you okay? Are you shot?”

  “It’s okay,” I said. “I’m okay.”

  “Why is Patty helping her?” she asked. “What’s going on?”

  I put an arm around Sydney, pulled her into me. I wanted a chance to hold her before Veronica ended up killing all of us.

  “It doesn’t matter anymore,” I said. “We’re together. I love you. I love you so much.”

  Veronica looked down at Sydney. “God, what a pain-in-the-ass little bitch you turned out to be. All we wanted was a nice, English-speaking face on the front desk, and look at the trouble you got us into.”

  “He was a bad man,” Sydney said through her tears. “Mr. Tripe was a very bad man.”

  “You think I’ve been hunting you down to get even for that?” Veronica asked. “I just want to shut you up, once and for all. As long as there was a chance you might come back, tell the police about the hotel…” Veronica shook her head, called over to Patty, “Bring me that other gun, would you, love?”

  Patty approached.

  The gun hung from her right arm. I wondered if Bob had ended up with the Ruger with only one bullet left in it. If so, it was empty now. That would mean at least Patty was not a threat.

  But how many bullets did Veronica still have in her weapon?

  Patty stopped a few feet away, gun still in her hand.

  “You know how this is going to go,” I said to Patty. “If you ever thought there was going to be a chance for us to connect, to have anything, it’s not going to happen. She’s going to kill me. And your sister.”

  Sydney said, “What?”

  “Just shut up,” Patty said.

  “She’s your sister,” I told Sydney.

  “Shut up! Shut up!” Patty shouted.

  I was still looking at Sydney. “Patty is… Patty’s my daughter.”

  Sydney couldn’t find any words.

  In the distance, a siren. People, no doubt, had heard the shots.

  “Shit,” said Veronica. “We have to get out of here.”

  It sounded as though more than one siren was approaching. A cop car, probably an ambulance, too.

  “I’m sorry,” Patty whispered. She looked at Syd and me. “I’m sorry. I really really fucked this up. This isn’t how I wanted it to go.”

  A solitary tear ran down her left cheek.

  Veronica pointed her gun at my head. “We have to run,” she said. “Bye-bye.”

  I got ready. I tried to pull myself over Sydney, to somehow protect her.

  And then the shot came. Loud.

  But it didn’t come from Veronica’s gun.

  Then there was another shot.

  Bob, evidently, had taken the gun with three bullets.

  Veronica’s body was thrown up against the railing. Feebly, she raised her weapon and fired it once at Patty before she slid down to the planks of the covered walkway.

  The one shot Veronica managed to get off had caught Patty in the chest. The gun fell from Patty’s hand as she collapsed against the wooden beams, then slumped down into an awkward sitting position.

  I lunged for Veronica, grabbed her wrist and slammed it against the railing. But there was no fight in her. The gun went over the side and down into the creek. Veronica didn’t move.

  Syd was screaming.

  I got my arms around her. “It’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay,” I said. I kept telling her it was okay, that it was over, that we were going home, that she was going to see her mother, that everything was going to be okay, that the nightmare had come to an end.

  Even though the sirens were closing in, suddenly it seemed very quiet.

  I kept holding Syd. I wanted to hold her forever, never let her out of my arms again, but we weren’t totally out of the woods yet. People were hurt. Patty. And Bob. Even though I’d only been nicked in the ear, I was feeling very faint.

  No doubt a large part of that was emotional. This roller-coaster ride we’d been on for weeks was coming to an end. I felt like I was shutting down.

  “Sydney,” I said softly, trying to calm her, “it’s over. You’re coming home. You know that, right?”

  I felt her head go up and down.

  “We’re going home. We’re going home now.”

  “I know,” she whispered. “I know.”

  “The police, the ambulance, they’re coming,” I said. “They might see Bob, but they won’t know anyone’s in here.”

  Another nod, a sense that she was pulling herself together, at least slightly. “I’ll tell them,” Syd said.

  “I’ll stay here with Patty,” I said. “She’s shot pretty bad.”

  “You too,” Syd said, looking at the blood running down from my ear.

  “It’s not that bad. But… I’m feeling a bit weird.”

  Then we both looked at Patty. There was a huge black spot rapidly spreading across her chest.

  “Daddy,” Syd said, not able to take her eyes off the blood, her voice shaky. “You said she was my—”

  “Hon,” I said. “Go. Now.”

  She looked at both of us a moment longer, sniffled, nodded, then started running down to the end of the bridge.

  I slid over, put my arm around Patty, pulled her into me, felt the warmth of the blood that was soaking her clothes.

  If only I’d known. If only I’d known.

  “They’re coming,” I said to her. “Just hold on.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said.

  I barely made out the words. They came out raspy, bubbly.

  “Don’t talk,” I said, trying to comfort her, putting my face up against her cheek, our tears coming together. “Don’t talk.”

  “I just wanted you to love me,” Patty whispered.

  “I love you,” I said. “I do.”

  I stayed and held Patty as she drew her last breaths while my other daughter flagged down the ambulance and the police.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  As always, I want to thank my terrific agent, Helen Heller, and at Bantam, Nita Taublib and Danielle Perez for their continued support. Also, thank you to Deborah Dwyer, for her usual meticulous copy-edit. My friends Carl Brouwer and Mike Onishi, two retired car salesmen who’ve both persuaded me over the years that I really did get a great deal, were generous with their time in expla
ining how their business works. Dale Hopkins filled me in on credit card fraud, and told me a slew of private detective stories I hope to rip off from him one day. Finally, none of this would mean anything without Neetha, Spencer, and Paige, who deserves a special thanks. Eating the eggs I’d made her one morning, she said, “Suppose you came to pick me up at my job, and found out I’d never worked there?”

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  LINWOOD BARCLAY is a former columnist for the Toronto Star. He is the author of several critically acclaimed novels, including Too Close to Home and No Time for Goodbye, a #1 bestseller in Great Britain. He lives near Toronto with his wife and has two grown children. His website is www.linwoodbarclay.com.

  Fear the Worst is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2009 by Linwood Barclay

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by Bantam Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

  BANTAM BOOKS and the rooster colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Barclay, Linwood.

  Fear the worst : a novel / Linwood Barclay.—1st ed.

  p. cm.

  eISBN: 978-0-553-90696-7

  1. Missing persons—Fiction. 2. Fathers and daughters—Fiction. I. Title.

  PR9199.3.B37135F43 2009

  813′.54—dc22

  2009009860

  www.bantamdell.com

  v3.0

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Other Books By This Author

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten