The Twenty-Three

by Linwood Barclay

  “Oh my God, you really think he could be behind it?”

  Angus pulled on a pair of jeans. “There’re all kinds of these things happening. These lone-wolf, rogue terrorists who get inspired by jihadists overseas. They’re not linked to any actual terror group. They’re acting totally on their own. He could be one of those.”

  He sat down on the edge of the bed, close to his wife. “What if this Naman guy blew up the drive-in? Maybe that was just a warm-up for what happened yesterday.”

  “That’s terrifying,” Gale said, “that there could be someone like that, just living among us. It could be someone you know, someone you live right next door to, and it turns out they’re some kind of monster.”

  “I know,” Angus said. “That’s what always happens, when they finally arrest some killer or terrorist. Turns out, he was a member of the chamber of commerce or he was a Scout leader or he played on the local hockey team. These kind of people, Gale, are like you say. They’re among us.”

  “So what are you going to do? About Naman? Are you going to tell Detective Duckworth what I saw?”

  Angus thought about that. “I don’t think so.”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t know how it would look.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Like, I get put on leave, and then call in with a tip. Like I’m trying to impress them, wheedle my way back in. I’m not going to do that.”

  “But if Naman actually had something to do with this—”

  “I’ll do it myself,” Angus said.

  “Go on,” Gale said slowly.

  “I’ll go over there and talk to him. Not as a cop, but just someone dropping by, seeing how he’s managing after the place got firebombed.”

  “Can you do that?” she asked.

  “Why not?”

  “And then,” Gale said, “if you do find something, if you really do believe he might have had something to do with it, then you’ll go to Duckworth?”

  “Exactly,” he said.

  Gale threw her arms around him. “I’m so proud of you.”

  “It’s no big deal,” Angus said.

  “No, it is, it really is. I love it when I see you excited about something like this. Because sometimes . . .”

  “Sometimes what?”

  “Nothing,” she said.

  “No, sometimes what?”

  “All I was going to say is that sometimes, you know, you get in this very dark place. And I get that. We all have moments when we get down. But I worry about you when you’re like that, when you start obsessing—”

  “Obsessing?”

  “That was the wrong word.”

  “No, no, it’s the right word. I know that’s how I can be when it comes to my mom.”

  “I really see you moving forward,” Gale said. “Like, right now, you’re in a different place altogether.”

  “I am,” he said.

  Angus leaned in close to his wife, kissed her lips. She slipped her arms around his neck and pulled him into her. They tumbled over onto the bed.

  “I love you,” she said.

  “I have to go,” Angus said. “I have to do this thing.” He untangled himself from her. “But later, when I get back home, we’ll talk about Montreal.”

  “Really?”

  “Sure. You’re right. We need to get away. I’m starting to wonder why anyone lives here at all.”

  FIFTY-TWO

  Duckworth

  “WHAT’S this?” I asked Victor Rooney, pointing to the back wall of the garage.

  “What?” he said, the engine still running and the door to his van still open. He was standing with me, just inside the garage, where we had been looking at the squirrel traps on the shelves that lined one wall.

  I was pointing to something wrapped in dark plastic sheeting sticking out from behind a sheet of plywood that was leaned up against the wall. There was about two feet of it showing, whatever it was, and it was shaped roughly like a rolled carpet. But at the end there was something sticking up.

  Like feet, I thought.

  I became very aware of the gun at my side, that at any moment I might be reaching for it.

  “I don’t know what that is,” Victor said. “She kept all kinds of stuff out here.”

  “You want to move that piece of plywood for me?” I asked. “I want to get a better look at it.”

  I’d have attempted to move it myself, but I wanted my hands free.

  “Why should I do that?” he asked.

  “I just thought you’d want to help.”

  “I’ve got things to do,” he said. “You should get out of the garage. I want to close the door.”

  “You asked me in, remember?” I said. “Just give me another second. Do you mind?” I pointed to the plywood.

  Hesitantly, he walked over to the sheet, put a hand on each side, and lifted it out of the way.

  That rolled carpet was about six feet long. But it got broader in the middle, and there was something round at one end.

  What we had here was a mummy.

  “Jesus,” Victor said. “That looks like a person.”

  Indeed it did. But who? Who was missing? My mind raced back through the last few days.

  A kid. Not a kid, really. A young man. George something. George Lydecker. Angus Carlson had been working on it. A recent grad from Thackeray. Could that be who was wrapped up tight here?

  I turned and faced Victor, felt my heart starting to pick up speed. “Mr. Rooney, I need you to lie flat on the floor with your arms behind your back.”

  “What?”

  “Flat on the floor, hands behind your back. I’m placing you under arrest.”

  “I don’t have anything to do with this,” he protested. “This isn’t even my garage. I just park my van here. This is total bullshit.”

  “Mr. Rooney—”

  He pointed to the object wrapped in plastic. “Is that a fucking dead guy? Because if it is, I’m as surprised to see it as you are. I don’t ever remember seeing anything like that before. Or any of that other shit.”

  He nodded toward the squirrel traps. I glanced back for half a second, and spotted something I had not seen when I’d looked that way earlier.

  A hand.

  Turned sideways, palm out, it was poking out from behind some paint cans.

  “Don’t move,” I said to Rooney, and shifted toward the shelves. As I got closer, the hand looked shinier and less lifelike.

  It was from a mannequin.

  I’d just won the lotto.

  I looked back at Rooney. There was panic in his eyes. I’d reached into my pocket for a plastic cuff, just like the one I had used to secure Randall Finley to the door at the water treatment plant.

  “This is the last time I’m going to ask nicely,” I said. “On the floor, hands behind your back.”

  He bolted.

  He went straight for the van. With the door open and the engine running, it wasn’t going to take him long to get away.

  I brought out my gun.

  “Freeze!” I said, arms outstretched, both hands on the weapon. Victor had very little interest in doing what I asked.

  I wasn’t going to shoot him. My life was not in jeopardy, and I had a lot of questions for him. I did not want him dead. So as Victor got behind the wheel and threw the van into reverse, I aimed for the tires.

  That’s the sort of thing they do all the time in the movies, but a tire doesn’t present as a large target, especially when you’re not standing beside the vehicle. Which was why I didn’t hit the front right tire until my third shot, by which time Rooney was halfway down the driveway. The van lurched to one side, but Rooney wasn’t slowing down as the wheel rim dug into asphalt. He was going so quickly in reverse the transmission was whining in protest.

  I aimed for the other front tire as he reached the sidewalk. Took out a headlight.

  I started running.

  Once Rooney hit the street and cranked the wheel, the side of the van would present
itself to me. I’d have a brief opportunity to take out another tire. With two out, he wouldn’t get far. I’d be on the phone in thirty seconds and police all over town would be looking for him.

  As it turned out, he didn’t get much past the end of the driveway.

  The moment the van emerged onto the street, there was a tremendous, teeth-rattling crash.

  A fire truck broadsided Rooney’s van.

  It couldn’t have been answering an urgent call, because there’d been no sound of sirens. But the Promise Falls Fire Department was still making regular rounds of the city, looking for people in trouble, still reminding them it was not yet safe to drink the water.

  The truck—it was a pumper, not a ladder truck—hadn’t been going all that fast, probably no more than thirty miles per hour, but there’s a lot of weight to a truck like that, and it pushed Rooney’s van a good forty feet up the street before the driver behind the wheel of the truck had fully applied the brakes.

  I had my phone out, ready to call 911, then figured, What the hell?

  The fire department was already here. Chances were they were putting in a call for an ambulance.

  I hoped so. Because at that moment, I felt a stabbing pain in my chest.

  FIFTY-THREE

  FROM where David had been sitting in the woods, he could see Sam, and he could see Brandon, but he could not see Carl anywhere. He had a view of the back and the side of the tent. David didn’t know whether Carl was still inside it, or had gone off to use the central bathrooms, and he didn’t know which would be worse. If Carl was in the tent, it might be tricky for Brandon to try to drag him out. But if Carl had gone to the bathroom, he might end up walking back into the middle of this confrontation at any moment.

  He could hear only a little of what they were saying. Brandon was doing most of the talking. But he wasn’t always speaking directly to Sam. His eyes were moving from her to the tent and back again.

  Carl, David guessed, was in the tent, maybe looking out. Yeah, that was it. Sam turned to look at the tent at one point and spoke sharply. Loud enough that David could hear. She’d told him not to come out.

  In Sam’s hand was a small cooking pot. The way she was holding it, David surmised she was intending to use it to hit Brandon when and if she had the chance.

  What she needed was what David had in his hands now. He was crouched down, the shotgun raised up to eye level, left hand supporting the barrel, right hand, and finger, poised over the trigger.

  He was at least forty feet away. He was squinting down the barrel and had Brandon, more or less, in his sights. But what the hell did he know about shooting a shotgun? If he fired this thing, would the shot go wide and end up hitting Sam? Or tear through the tent and hit Carl?

  Even if he did have some experience with a shotgun, was he really going to shoot Brandon if he tried something?

  Probably not.

  What would he tell the police? It sure wouldn’t be self-defense, what with him off hiding in the bushes.

  No, he wouldn’t fire the shotgun. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t use it. If Brandon threatened Sam or Carl, he could run out and, with that shotgun in his hands, scare Brandon off.

  That seemed like a sound strategy.

  So long as Brandon didn’t have a gun.

  If he did, he hadn’t pulled it out. He was standing there in jeans and a shirt. If he had a gun, the only place he could be hiding it was behind his back. That would mean he had it tucked into his belt. David was thinking that’d attract a lot of attention, some guy wandering through the campsite with a butt sticking out of his butt.

  So maybe he didn’t have a gun.

  Jesus, I hope he doesn’t.

  David did not want to get into a gunfight with this guy. So if by some chance he did have a gun, walking into things waving a shotgun might just be the dumbest thing David could do. It would get Brandon riled up. Once everyone started shooting, there was no telling who’d end up dead.

  What he should have done, David now concluded, was find the office and call the police. He’d considered it earlier and decided against it. Now he was sorry.

  Now he was here, in the trees, shotgun in hand.

  He could abort. He could set the shotgun down, sneak back through the woods the way he’d come, and make the call. It wasn’t too late to handle the situation sensibly. If Brandon made a grab for the kid, the police could be there before he got out of the campsite.

  Brandon’s car—he must have stolen or borrowed one from somebody—had to have been in the parking lot where David had left his own wheels. If he had known which one it was, he could have slashed a tire or two.

  He wasn’t cut out for this. Any other time he’d been in a tough situation, it hadn’t taken him long to come to that conclusion. What was wrong with him that he didn’t learn?

  David gently set the gun in the grass. He was ready to sneak back to the campsite entrance.

  But hold on.

  Brandon looked like he was getting ready to walk away. Was that possible? Had he really decided to slip out of that Boston hospital and find his way up here just so he could have a chat?

  That didn’t seem likely.

  David got back into position, picked up the shotgun again. Trained it in the general direction of the tent. Brandon, who had started walking away, suddenly pivoted. He started running flat out toward the small canvas enclosure.

  Sam was booting it in the same direction, the metal pot still clutched in her hand. It looked to David as though her intention was to cut Brandon off.

  Brandon had to be going for Carl.

  David was already certain the boy had been at the door to the tent. It looked pretty clear to David that Brandon was going to grab his son and make a run for it.

  What am I going to do?

  He brought the shotgun up to his shoulder, eyed down the barrel. Could he take a shot? By the time he was even asking himself that question, Brandon had vanished. He was obscured by the tent. He was probably crawling into it now, going for Carl, hoping to grab an arm or a leg.

  David couldn’t do anything about what he couldn’t see. So he sprang up from his crouching position and ran toward the tent, the shotgun angled across his chest.

  “Hey!” he shouted. “Get away from the kid!”

  Sam, just outside the tent door and still visible, stopped and looked in the direction of the voice. When her eyes settled on him, her jaw dropped.

  “David?”

  “Get back!” he shouted.

  Now Brandon’s head popped up above the top of the tent. He saw David running toward them brandishing the shotgun.

  Brandon quickly grabbed Sam around the waist and dragged her to the ground. The pot fell from her hand. She tried to say something, but all that came out was a scream.

  David was almost to the tent. He made a wide approach, moving around the far side of the picnic table. He’d moved the shotgun into a firing position, holding it slightly above waist level.

  What happened next happened very quickly.

  Brandon grabbed the pot Sam had dropped.

  David shouted, “Hold it!”

  Sam screamed, “Brandon, it’s okay, it’ s—”

  Brandon, coming out of a crouch like a runner shooting out of the blocks, pot raised menacingly, yelled at Sam and Carl, “Get down!”

  David felt his finger on the trigger of the shotgun.

  Sam cried, “David, no!”

  Carl wailed, “Dad!”

  David fired.

  Brandon, already closing the distance between himself and David, spun hard to the right and went down. His right hand went to his neck. Blood came streaming out between his fingers.

  “Don’t move, don’t move, don’t move!” David yelled, standing over Brandon.

  Carl started to run toward his father, but Sam grabbed the boy and straitjacketed him with her arms.

  “No!” Sam said. “God, no!”

  David looked at her and said, “Are you okay? Did he hurt you?” �
�You idiot!” she yelled at him over the cries of her son. “You stupid fucking idiot!”

  “But . . .”

  “He was sorry!” she said. “He came to say he was sorry!”

  David, numb, lowered the shotgun. “What?”

  The blood pouring from Brandon’s neck soaked into the forest floor and began to puddle by David’s shoes.

  FIFTY-FOUR

  ARLENE Harwood got off the phone and said to her husband, Don, “Good news.”

  They were sitting in the living room of their son David’s house. “Lay it on me,” Don said.

  “That was Marla.”

  Gill was recovering. At the very least, he was holding his own. He’d ended up staying in the Promise Falls hospital instead of being moved to Albany, where so many other patients had been taken.

  Most of Gill’s symptoms had receded. He had regained consciousness, although he was somewhat disoriented. He was no longer sick to his stomach and his vision did not seem to be seriously impaired.

  “He’s not out of the woods yet,” Arlene said. “They still want to do tests to see if there’s any kind of permanent damage, but this is such good news.”

  Derek Cutter and his family had stepped in to help. They’d been chauffeuring Marla back and forth to the hospital for regular visits. Derek’s parents had offered to take Matthew during these periods so Marla could concentrate on her father. Derek had been with her almost nonstop, and his folks had, with Marla’s permission, stayed overnight in her father’s house, with her, to help out where they could.

  “That’s all good news,” Don said.

  “You don’t look happy.”

  “I am, I really am. That’s all good. You heard anything from David?”

  “Nothing since he took off this morning looking for Sam and her boy. What’s Ethan doing?”

  “Beats me.”

  Arlene called out, “Ethan?”

  A shout from upstairs: “Yeah?”

  “Where are you?”