In Absentia Read online

  Donny crushed his can and tossed it on the floor. “Just be ready to hand him off to Al Sharqi’s guys and be done with this. I slept like crap.”

  “Yeah. Floor’s hard.”

  “Yeah. Watch him while I drain the snake.”

  Donny took the candle with him and banged through the screen door cut into the back wall and out into the weedy alley behind the shack. Clive and Jamie sat in near-darkness and listened to the stream of Donny’s urine hitting the exterior wall of the structure.

  Jamie mumbled something incoherent and lit the second candle.

  Clive ignored him. His mind and his heart raced. Al Sharqi couldn’t be coming here. Could he?

  “Yo, Clive. Answer me, would ya’?”

  Clive shouted ‘my mouth is taped’ through the tape. He sounded like he was gargling marbles, but the message got through.

  “Oh, I forgot.” Jamie crossed the room with the candle in hand and crouched in front of Clive’s chair to loosen the tape over his mouth.

  Clive licked his cracked, dry lips. “Thanks,” he croaked.

  “Sure. I asked if you gotta piss?”

  “Yes, please.”

  “Okay. I’ll take you when he gets back. Listen, I’m gonna leave the tape off for now, but no noise. Understand?”

  Clive nodded vigorously.

  Just then, Donny slammed back into the room, wild-eyed. “Hide him,” he shouted.

  Clive scanned the one-room shack in confusion.

  “What? Where?” Jamie demanded.

  Donny dragged his hands through his hair and moaned, “I don’t know man. Chelsea’s coming.”

  “Chelsea?” Jamie’s voice was an octave too high.

  “She saw me in the alley.”

  “Son of a …”

  Forceful pounding at the front door interrupted Jamie’s response. Both men fell silent. A fist hammered at the door again, hard enough this time to shake the floorboards and rattle the sole remaining window’s cardboard-covered glass in its frame.

  “Donny, I saw you. I know you’re in there. Open this door. Now!” The woman’s shouted voice was insistent.

  Donny opened and shut his mouth like a carp.

  Jamie gave Clive a hard look and pressed a finger to his lips in warning. Donny glanced at Clive, who lowered his head and scanned the floor. He feigned great interest in a long, shiny roach scuttling along the wall.

  “What should I do?” Donny whispered.

  “Stall her.”

  Jamie looked uncertainly toward the back entrance. Then he grabbed the back of Clive’s chair, tipped it up, and dragged it across the floor.

  “Who is it?” Donny called.

  Clive filled his lungs with air, determined not to miss this chance to yell for help.

  Jamie slapped his hand across Clive’s mouth and put his mouth by Clive’s ear. “Don’t even think about it.”

  “It’s Chelsea. Open this freaking door.”

  Jamie tugged the chair across the threshold and deposited it, and Clive, in the alley. Clive blinked at the sudden light. Even the gray morning sky was bright compared to the interior of the shack. As his eyes adjusted, he scanned the junk-strewn alleyway looking for an escape route. Jamie peeled the tape from the back of the chair and repositioned it over Clive’s mouth.

  Donny peered over his shoulder. Jamie gave him the thumbs up signal, and he threw the bolt open. Jamie crouched off to the side of the screen door and craned his neck to see into the house. From his chair, Clive tried to do the same. He could make out a sliver of the shadowy interior.

  Before the door was fully open, a woman had shouldered her way across the threshold and was shutting the door against the morning sun.

  “H-hey, Chelsea.”

  Clive squinted, trying to make out the details. Chelsea was tall for a woman. Her dirty blonde shoulder-length hair was swept back from her face and secured with a headband. He stared at her gray t-shirt, and a new shoot of hope took root inside him. Her shirt was imprinted with a navy police department emblem.

  Maybe she was here to save him.

  Her eyes shifted away from Jamie and ran over the interior of the house, emotionless and flat. Surely she’d notice the bloody napkins? He held his breath, waiting.

  She turned back to Donny. If she’d seen anything out of the ordinary, she didn’t let on. “Where’s Jamie? And don’t bother lying. I know he’s with you.”

  “Uh … going to the bathroom.”

  “This craphole has a bathroom?”

  He shook his head. “No …”

  She waited, but he didn’t elaborate.

  Jamie inched Clive’s chair further away from the door then stood and shoved his hands into his pockets. He strolled back into the house and reared back in exaggerated surprise. “Chelsea! What are you doing here?”

  “Forget about what I’m doing. I want to know what you two knuckleheads are up to.”

  Clive watched as Jamie shuffled across the floor, inching closer to the pair. Jamie and Donny had their backs to him. Chelsea faced him, but the two men made an effective screen. He leaned forward as far as he dared, stopping just shy of toppling his chair, and strained to listen to their conversation.

  “Nothing, I swear. We, uh, had a few too many last night at the Hi-Life Club, needed a place to crash. That’s all.” Jamie’s tone was pure appeasement.

  Chelsea jabbed a finger into his chest. “Don’t lie to me, Jamie.”

  Clive shouted through the tape—or tried to—at any rate. He didn’t think the sound would carry far enough, but he kept working his dry, hoarse vocal chords.

  Donny started slapping his hands on the counter, pretending he was a drummer. The noise drowned out any sound of Clive’s that might have reached Chelsea’s ears.

  “Stop that,” Chelsea snapped.

  Donny and Jamie exchanged a frantic look. Donny stopped drumming. It didn’t matter. What was left of Clive’s voice was too strained and weak to get anyone’s attention, especially when muffled by his duct tape gag.

  “Why are you here? Speak. Now.”

  Donny sighed. “We’re meeting someone at the train depot later this morning. We just needed a place to hunker down and wait. Honest.”

  “Please tell me you geniuses aren’t selling pills to tourists.”

  “It’s nothing like that, Chelsea. I swear,” Jamie whined.

  Chelsea closed her eyes and pushed her fingers against her temples like she was staving off a headache. “Just handle your business and get out of town.”

  Jamie jumped to acquiesce, twitchy and breathless, “We will. I promise. Donny, you should go make that phone call and find out what time the … uh … meeting is. I’ll clean up here.”

  Donny glared and grabbed his gun from the top of the kitchen cabinets. “Come on, Chelsea, I’ll walk you out,” he said as he shuffled the weapon into his waistband.

  “Are you joking? I can’t be seen with you. I’ll go out the back.”

  “Suit yourself. Avoid the puddles.” He snickered, but Clive caught the desperate look he threw toward Jamie before he headed out the front door.

  As soon as the door closed, Chelsea fixed Jamie with a resigned look. “He’s going to end up getting you killed one of these days. You know that, right?”

  Jamie dropped his eyes.

  Chelsea sighed. “Aunt Rhonda would be so disappointed in you if she was still alive.”

  “Yeah, and you think your momma would be proud of you?”

  Chelsea’s eyes blazed. “I’m out of here.”

  Hope threatened to overwhelm Clive. He trembled with expectation. She’d see him as soon as she walked into the alley. And then she’d get him out of here.

  “Wait.”

  She turned to her cousin. “I’m waiting.”

  “There’s, uh, rats out there. And a lot of piss. You probably really should leave through the front.”

  She crossed her arms over her chest and eyed Jamie.

  After a long moment, he sighed. “Fin
e. There’s something back there you really don’t want to see. Trust me, Chelsea. You don’t want to get involved in this.”

  Get involved. Please get involved.

  Clive’s blood pumped in rhythm with his silent plea.

  Chelsea shook her head slowly and walked toward the front door.

  No. No! Come this way.

  She opened the door and stepped outside without another word, slamming the door behind her. Jamie raced to it and locked it.

  Clive slumped forward and banged his head against the rough brick wall. His eyes were wet with hopeless tears. Whoever or whatever else she might be, Chelsea wasn’t the cavalry.

  Jamie grabbed the chair and yanked Clive back inside.

  10

  Alpine Road, Cabin #4

  Pocahontas County, West Virginia

  8:50 AM

  * * *

  Sasha slowed the car as she neared the top of a gravel road that wound impossibly high before disappearing into a curtain of dense pine trees. She reached blindly for the map she’d purchased at a gas station more than an hour ago, shortly after she’d finally accepted her reality: her cell phone signal wasn’t coming back any time soon. None of these back roads were on her phone’s GPS map. According to it, she’d been zigzagging through a large light green rhombus for the last thirty-seven miles.

  She squinted at the squiggly line representing what she sincerely hoped was Alpine Road. She’d made good time, stopping only to buy the map and a cup of unbelievably weak gas station coffee. If she was in the right place and her luck held, she’d definitely … probably … possibly be back home with Clive in tow in time to catch at least the second half of the Orange Squirts’ soccer game.

  But where was the cabin?

  She abandoned the map and peered over the dashboard. If there was a cabin out there, she ought to be able to see it. Her nearsightedness actually improved slightly as she neared forty. Her ophthalmologist told her not to get cocky; that it was just a matter of time.

  For now, though, she should be able to spot a cabin in the woods. There it was … between two stands of towering green trees, partially obscured by the foliage, was a squat, green-roofed square.

  She inched closer and swung the car in an arcing circle before parking in the widened mouth of the driveway, the front end pointed toward the road in the event she needed to make a quick departure. She unplugged her phone and checked her display: still no voice or data connection. She tossed the phone in the general direction of the passenger seat, where it landed on top of the open map.

  Please be here, Clive. She didn’t care if he was hung over or still drunk or with a woman or, for that matter, a man. She just wanted to find him and take him back to Pittsburgh.

  She exited the car and approached the silent structure from an angle, noting the absence of a white Mercedes in the carport under the deck. She crouched and examined the tire tracks in the gravel. A car had been parked here, front end in. She could trace the overlapping tracks where the driver had swung into reverse.

  Maybe he went into town for supplies.

  She tilted her head to the side and focused on a spot about twenty feet away. Another, wide set of tire tracks. A truck maybe?

  Somebody else has been here.

  A shiver ran along her spine. She shook off her unease as she straightened to standing. She might as well get on with it. She wasn’t Aroostine; she wasn’t going to learn anything more by studying the tire tread patterns. She mounted the steps to the deck, listening hard in between her footfalls. The only sounds were the chirping of some nearby birds and the faint hum of far-off cars. When she reached the deck, she turned and scanned her visual field.

  Although she’d passed several other mountainside cabins on her drive up the road, none were visible from Clive’s front deck. All she saw was trees, more trees, and above the treeline, sweeping mountaintops. The view was rugged, remote, and, to a city girl like her, borderline creepy.

  She hurriedly turned and rapped on the door.

  After a moment, she tried the doorknob. Locked.

  “Clive?” she called out, raising her fist to knock again. “It’s Sasha McCandless-Connelly. Are you okay?”

  No response.

  She moved to the first of a series of large rectangular windows set in the front wall to the right of the door, cupped her hands around her eyes, and peered inside. The interior of Clive’s cabin was all stone and wood with green-painted trim. She could make out a soaring two-story fireplace and a catwalk above the open kitchen area. There were no lights on, there was no movement inside. An overturned chair lay on its side between the entryway and the living area. A tall lamp lay beside it. Her throat constricted. Signs of a struggle.

  She ran back to the door and pounded on it again, harder this time. “Clive? Are you in there?”

  She jiggled the doorknob fruitlessly. She didn’t know much about locks, but Clive’s seemed sturdy.

  Her heart was racing now. She clung to the railing and searched the ground below for a large rock or brick that she could use to break a window if she had to. But maybe there was another way in.

  She ran down the steps two at a time and ducked under the carport. There was a small, plain door with a single-pane window. She imagined it entered into the basement. Not as fancy as the front door. She held her breath and twisted the knob. Locked.

  Well, at least she could break this less expensive, more easily replaced glass instead of his fancy front window. She trotted to the driveway, which was bordered by lines of large, irregularly shaped stones in varying shades of gray and brown. She picked up the nearest rock and hefted it, feeling its weight in her palm. Then she stopped and turned back to the line of rocks. The third rock from the end on the right-hand row appeared to be suspiciously rocky. It had more color gradations than the others and was somehow too natural-looking.

  She returned the stone in her hand to its position in the line and reached for the one that had caught her attention. As soon as she picked up, she smiled.

  It was too light. She turned it over. A plastic cover was seated into slots. She slid it open, reached inside, and removed a plastic sandwich bag from the hollowed recess. Inside the bag was a single house key on a ring, helpfully labeled ‘basement.’ She replaced the cover and returned the rock to its spot in the row.

  For good measure, she knocked one more time on the basement door before she inserted the key into the lock and unlocked the door. The basement was dim, with the musty smell that all unfinished basements seemed to share.

  She eased the door closed behind her and flipped the light switch on the wall beside the door.

  “Clive?” Her voice echoed off the walls and bounced back to her, distorted and watery.

  She moved through the basement, which was empty but for a neat row of storage boxes stacked against one wall, a chest freezer plugged in next to the utility tub, and a shelving unit that held cleaning supplies and tools. She hurried up the stairs to the main floor.

  The staircase opened into a hallway off the kitchen. She stepped out into the hall. A half-bath sat to her left, and the entryway was to her right. She cleared the house the way Connelly had taught her, checking behind every door and corner to confirm that she was alone. She felt silly as she swept the cabin room by room—until she returned to the hall where she’d begun and focused on the scene near the door.

  Clive Bloch had not left his cabin voluntarily. That was clear.

  The turned-over chair, the broken lamp, the table askew, pulled out from the wall at a forty-five degree angle, they all told the story of a struggle. She crouched and peered down at the dark stain spreading across the heart-of-pine plank floors. Blood. A lot of it. A black overnight bag rested against the wall, nearly upright. The cordless phone, off its base, the battery light dead, the base unplugged from the wall, the phone line torn from the port above the outlet.

  That explains the steady busy signal.

  She surveyed the scene as a wave of nausea rolled through her
stomach. She wasn’t a crime scene expert by any stretch of the imagination, but if she were guessing, she’d say Clive had been out on the porch when he’d been jumped from behind and forced back into the house. There was a smear of blood on the wall near the door and his duffle bag looked as though it had been thrown and landed jammed up against the wall.

  She stood shakily and clasped her hands behind her back so as to not touch anything and disturb or contaminate evidence. She took several long breaths, hoping the oxygen would get to her frantic brain. Once inside, he’d been battered with the lamp and, judging by the pooling blood, had landed approximately where she now stood.

  The trail of blood ended abruptly—not tapering off, just stopping—about a foot from the front door. She frowned down at the floor. If there’d been more than one attacker and Clive had been unconscious or otherwise incapacitated, they could have carried him by the arms and legs, and hauled him down the stairs. That position probably would have minimized the blood spatter.

  She shook her head at her attempt at amateur forensic analysis. Just as she wasn’t Aroostine, she wasn’t Bodhi, either. Not a tracker. Not a forensic pathologist.

  No, she was a five-foot-tall civil litigator who had never backed down from a fight. So, instead of trying to pull a crime scene recreation out of thin air, she should go do what she did best: find Clive; save Clive; and then dispense a little justice.

  11

  The Steam Rocket Scenic Railway Depot

  Tannerville, West Virginia

  * * *

  Omar bounced in the driver’s seat as the sedan rattled along the unpaved road that led from Tannerville’s main—and as far as he could tell, only—commercial street to the train yard, railroad station, and parking lot. Beside him, Youssef sat, impassive and silent.

  Omar wondered if the man was thinking about the blood that was about to be on his hands. Youssef hadn’t mentioned Aliviyah Amini’s instructions to Omar, but Omar was certain his passenger had been ordered to assassinate the men they were about to meet.