The Drowning Child. Alex Barclay
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Название: The Drowning Child
Автор: Alex Barclay
Издательство: HarperCollins
isbn: 9780007494583
isbn:
‘It’s over,’ said Ren. She smiled and opened her arms.
Cliff came up to her, arms wide. He paused. ‘Hey, pretty lady – have you been crying?’
‘Possibly …’
He recoiled a fraction. ‘Oh, oh, no. And drinking.’ He glanced back at Ren’s Jeep.
‘I know. I know,’ said Ren. ‘But keep it coming with the hug.’
Cliff hugged her tight, kissed the top of her head.
Ren looked up at him. ‘I need my CARD laptop. I’m flying to Portland with Gary in the morning.’
‘Aw, Jesus, Ren …’
‘I know, I know.’ I know I know I know.
‘For someone who knows a lot of things …’ Cliff reached around her, punched in the right code, pushed the door open. Ren stepped out from under his arm, let him put his foot inside the door. He dangled his car keys in front of her. ‘Why don’t you tell me where that laptop is, go wait in my car, and let me take the lady home.’
Aw, maaaan. ‘I’m a loser.’
‘You are, Renderland, you are. But nothing’s gonna change my love for you.’
Ren grabbed his arm, squeezed. Then she watched how he took the stairs slower than he used to and she felt a pain in her chest.
You instinctive knight-in-shining-armor with your own burden of grief to deal with.
Cliff’s wife, Brenda, whom he adored, had passed away from cancer just two months after the shootings at Safe Streets.
Everywhere I turn …
Ren looked around the foyer.
Leave.
She stepped inside.
You come here every day why are you doing this now you’ve been drinking this will be a shitshow don’t.
She walked ten paces in, stared at the basement door.
Bang … bang … bang … bang … bang.
And the sensation struck, the sensation that terrified her, like she was being drowned in a rush of cold air or water or something that she wouldn’t rise above, that she couldn’t breathe through, something she would succumb to. She sucked in a huge breath, and another, and another.
And then Cliff was back, and he had taken her in his big arms, and he had held her tight as she shook. She looked up at him, still holding on, her eyes wide. ‘How did it all come to this?’
‘I don’t know, Renheart. I don’t know.’
‘It’s like someone took a slash hook to our lives.’
Ren was settled into a dark corner of a dark restaurant in Denver airport by four thirty a.m. She ordered coffee and a pineapple juice. She popped two Advil.
Somebody fucking shoot me. Ugh. Do some work. My brain is fried. Do something easy.
She opened Safari.
Fuck, the light.
She dimmed the screen and googled the town of Tate.
Tate, Oregon, nestled in the Willamette Valley, fifty miles south-east of Portland, fifteen miles east of Salem, home to 3,949 residents.
The first images were of a quaint, well-kept town, built around one intersection, its most prominent building a two-story red-brick family restaurant with Bucky’s written in red cursive at a jaunty angle on the front.
The public announcements of Tate PD were about fallen trees, storm damage, and buckling up to avoid getting a citation.
Caleb Veir’s disappearance had hit the news and there was a photo of him alongside the article. He was a sturdy-looking boy with dark, side-parted hair, pale skin with freckles across his nose and cheeks, and a naturally downturned mouth.
A mournful-looking kid.
Ren jumped as a figure came into her peripheral vision.
Gary. Jesus. Fuck hangover jumpiness.
‘Hey.’ He sat down beside her. He glanced at the watery pineapple juice pooled in the dying ice of her glass. He knew it was her hangover cure of choice.
Please just smell my beautiful wintergreen smokescreen breath.
‘Caleb Veir was last seen by his father, John, at seven forty-five yesterday morning,’ said Ren. ‘When did you get the call from Tate PD?’
‘Right before I called you last night,’ said Gary. He nodded. ‘Yes – it’s strange. The kid didn’t make it to school, but when his teacher called his mom, she couldn’t get hold of her. She left a message, then left one for the father on his cell phone and at work. He’s a corrections officer at Black River Correctional Institution outside Salem. An inmate escaped the previous day, so the teacher figured John Veir would be caught up with that and didn’t want to bother him: she figured Caleb was at home being looked after by his mom anyway – a lot of kids had been off school with a virus.’
‘Jesus Christ,’ said Ren. ‘Wouldn’t the teacher have persevered? And why wasn’t the mom answering her phone?’
‘She wasn’t home the previous night and no one could reach her the following day.’
‘Why not?’ said Ren.
‘I don’t have all the details,’ said Gary.
‘So, Caleb was alone with his father the night before he disappeared?’ said Ren. ‘What’s the father’s deal?’
‘John Veir, fifty-seven years old, ex-military, CO at BRCI for the past five years.’
Military man, corrections officer, son about to hit his teens … hmm.
There was a short silence.
‘Sylvie Ross is flying in too,’ said Gary. Sylvie Ross was an agent and child forensic interviewer. ‘I’m still seeing her.’
Loving the defiant tone. ‘That’s your business,’ said Ren.
‘I just wanted you to know,’ he said.
Why – so I’ll know to exercise the muscles of my blind eye СКАЧАТЬ