The Watcher in the Wall, page 19
“Forget about the doors,” Stevens said. “I’m guessing you won’t have a problem scaring up enough cash for replacements. What we’re concerned about is that Dylan’s all right, and that he understands what happened here today.”
Douglas Price gave Stevens the once-over, a long, assessing stare. Then he turned back to the window.
“The police kind of gave me the basics,” Dylan said, still staring at the coffee table. “They said Brandon wasn’t, you know, actually Brandon. That he was some old guy, some freak who liked watching teenagers kill themselves.”
“His name is Randall Gruber,” Windermere said. “Comes from small-town Indiana, a rough upbringing. Abuse, violence, neglect. He watched his stepsister hang herself when he was fifteen.”
“We’re hoping you might have picked up on something that could lead us to where he’s hiding,” Stevens said. “Any kind of clue about his real identity.”
Dylan’s brow wrinkled in thought. “I don’t know,” he told Stevens and Windermere. “I always just figured he was Brandon, you know? I wasn’t really looking for, like, clues.”
“Did anything ever seem weird to you? Anything ever sound off?”
“His voice,” Dylan said, “but I guess you already know that. It wasn’t the voice of an old dude, that’s for sure.” He thought. “I remember he messed up his time zones once. Like, we were talking and it was night and he said something like, ‘Crap, I have to go to bed, it’s almost midnight here.’ But he was supposed to be in Iowa, right? And that’s a different time zone from Baltimore, but the thing was, it was almost midnight here.”
“Could be he’s still on the East Coast,” Stevens said. “His last known location’s still Cleveland.”
“There were always these noises in the background, too, when we talked,” Dylan said. “Like train whistles or whatever, locomotives. They were usually pretty constant. He told me he lived near a train yard.”
“Train yard on the East Coast,” Windermere said. “Anything else?”
Dylan thought for a minute. “I really just thought he was Brandon,” he said, and he looked down from the ceiling and found Windermere, then shied away. “I thought he was, like, my friend.”
Windermere felt a fresh wave of anger. Dylan Price looked small, vulnerable, a child. And Gruber had taken advantage of that vulnerability. It was brutal and unconscionable. And it pissed Windermere off.
“So, let me get this straight.” Douglas Price turned from the window. “You’re saying my son is a victim, is that right? He’s not a head case; there’s nothing actually wrong with him.”
“We wouldn’t be here if Dylan wasn’t unhappy,” Stevens said. “Randall Gruber found him on a website for suicidal teenagers. You’re going to want to think about therapy.”
“Wait a second,” Douglas Price said. “You just said he wasn’t a head case. Now you want to send him to a shrink?”
“Not just your boy,” Windermere said. “We’re talking about all of you. Because from what I can tell, sir, your boy isn’t the only person in this room who has issues.”
Douglas Price opened his mouth to reply. Couldn’t. Closed his mouth and opened it again, stood there dumbfounded, his face going red, his muscles rigid.
Windermere felt her phone go off in her pocket. Ignored it. “You played a role in this, Dr. Price,” she continued. “Your son didn’t just wake up this morning and decide to off himself. I’ve read the logs from his chats with Gruber. You want to know what got him into this mess, it was you, sir.”
Price turned on her. “I don’t believe this,” he said. “You come into my house and—”
“And save your kid’s life?” she said. “Yeah, we did. You’re welcome.”
Now Stevens had her, was pulling her back, away from Price, toward the living room doors. “I think that’s our cue,” he told Pickford. “Keep an eye on them, would you? Anything comes up about Gruber, let us know.” He tugged Windermere away. “Come on, Carla.”
Windermere shook him off. Hit Douglas Price with the side eye one more time as she turned and walked out of the room, walking fast, blood pumping, feeling pretty good actually.
She walked through the Prices’ empty, expensive house, Stevens hurrying to catch up. “What the heck was that?” he asked her. “You can’t just—”
Windermere felt her phone buzz. Voicemail from Agent Schwartz in Phoenix. She held up a finger to Stevens, hit redial. “Talk to me, Schwartz.”
“Oh, hey,” Schwartz said. “Was just reviewing those chat logs for your Gabriel98 character.”
“Yeah,” Windermere said. Made the Prices’ front door and burst out into the evening light. “And?”
“And it sounds like he was grooming another teenager,” Schwartz said. “Someone named DarlingMadison, out of Tampa. Sounds like she and your subject have their own suicide thing going on.”
< 87 >
“Wait,” Paul said. “You want me to lend you money for what?”
“It’s just two hundred bucks,” Madison said. “Well, two hundred for the bus ticket and, I dunno, fifty for, like, food? Two hundred and fifty bucks?”
Paul’s eyes goggled. He sipped his milkshake until the straw made a slurping noise. Then he sipped some more, maddening Madison both with the sound and the lack of a coherent answer. Time was wasting.
She’d found him on Facebook. They weren’t friends, but that hadn’t stopped her. She’d sent him a private message, asking if they could meet, and he’d pulled into the McDonald’s parking lot twenty minutes later, driving some kind of beat-up brown Buick. She’d been working on him ever since.
“A bus ticket,” he said. “What, so you can go meet your boyfriend somewhere? Why can’t he just come to you?”
“His parents found out about us,” Madison told him. “They probably called my mom already, so we have to sneak off together. We’re meeting in Louisville tomorrow night.”
“Assuming you can get the money for a bus ticket,” Paul said, grinning.
“Duh. So are you helping me or not?”
Paul picked at his fries. He was taking a long time to come up with an answer, and Madison was using the time to compile a mental list of other people she could hit up for the cash. It was a short list.
“I don’t really have very much money,” Paul said. “I don’t even know if I have two hundred bucks in my savings.”
“I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t an emergency,” Madison said. “Paul, please?”
“How are you going to pay me back if you never come back to Florida? I’d have to be pretty crazy to lend money to a girl just so she could skip town. And to be with her boyfriend, no less.”
“I’ll get a job as soon as we figure out where we’re going,” Madison told him. “I’ll wait tables or something. Work in a bookstore. I’ll send you the money back, I promise. I just need it now, Paul, and fast.”
She pulled out her phone, checked the time. Six-thirty in the evening. Forty-five minutes before the Greyhound left for Orlando. If she missed this bus, she’d be stuck until tomorrow. And what if Brandon showed up in Louisville and she wasn’t there? What if he did something crazy?
“Please, Paul,” she said. “I really need this. What do I need to do to convince you to help me?”
Paul looked across at her, a gleam in his eye, and she felt her stomach turn. Then he held up his hands.
“Never mind,” he said. “I’ll do it. Just, like, keep in touch or something, okay? Let me know you’re all right when you get where you’re going.”
Madison leaned across the table and hugged him hard, scattering his empty milkshake cup and his tray to the floor.
“Thank you,” she said, ignoring the stares from the tables around them. “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”
Paul hugged her back. When she pulled away, he was smiling again.
“Come on,” he told her, gathering his trash. “We gotta hurry if we want to get that money before your bus leaves.”
< 88 >
Stevens and Windermere caught a cab back to the airport. Walked inside the terminal and stopped.
“So, Tampa?” Windermere said, eyeing the long line of check-in kiosks and ticket counters. “Debrief DarlingMadison, see if she knows anything more about Gruber?”
Stevens followed her gaze. “Assuming she knows anything new at all,” he said. “Gruber was pretty careful with what he told Dylan Price, it sounds like.”
“Train yard on the East Coast,” Windermere said. “Yeah. And we can assume Gruber isn’t coming back online, not after he watched half the Baltimore police force bust down Dylan’s door. If he has any sense at all, he’s gone to ground.”
“In which case, we can put local agents on DarlingMadison, get back to the old-school,” Stevens said. “Spell Mathers on the paper trail, the payments Frank Abrams sent Gruber for the snuff films.”
Windermere thought about it. Figured they were on the right track, that DarlingMadison probably wouldn’t give them much more than Dylan Price had. Still, something niggled in the back of Windermere’s mind. According to Schwartz, Tampa PD was still trying to locate the girl.
“Girl went out for a walk, hasn’t come home yet,” he’d told Windermere on the phone. “Mom says it’s not unusual, she does this all the time.”
Would be nice to have this girl accounted for, Windermere thought. Get her location locked in and make sure she’s safe before we go chasing hunches again, what with all the crazy around.
“Let’s get our butts to Tampa anyway,” she told Stevens. “I just have a feeling. We can pick up the paper trail from there.”
She walked up to the Delta counter, was halfway through the purchase of two one-way tickets to Tampa International, departing immediately, when her cell phone started buzzing in her pocket again.
“One sec,” she told the ticket agent. Pulled out her phone. Mathers. “Derek,” she said. “What’s up? Me and Stevens were just talking about you. Thinking about taking over that Western Union lead, giving you a break.”
“Think again,” Mathers said, not even trying to hide the glee in his voice. “I just heard back from Western Union themselves not five minutes ago. They said our man ‘Earl Ashley’ always picked up his payments at a check-cashing joint in Buffalo, New York, a suburb called Cheektowaga.”
“Buffalo.” Windermere held up one finger to the Delta agent. “You’re sure about this?”
“Sounds like they had records of seven or eight payments going through that one location,” Mathers said. “It seems clean to me, Carla.”
The Delta agent was reaching for Windermere’s MasterCard. She snatched it back. “Mathers,” she said. “Your timing is impeccable. Remind me to do something nice for you when I get back to town.”
“You?” Mathers laughed. “I’ll believe it when I see it.”
Windermere clicked off. “Change of plans,” she told the Delta agent. “When’s your next flight to Buffalo?”
< 89 >
Turned out Paul Dayton’s savings account was a little short.
“One hundred and seventy-four dollars and eighty-nine cents,” he said, counting out a pile of bills and a jumble of loose change. “Literally every last penny I have.”
Madison took the money, counted it again, praying he’d skipped a couple twenties somewhere. Realized pretty quick that he hadn’t.
“Crap,” she said. “Crap. That bus ticket alone is two hundred bucks. Plus, I have to eat. What am I going to do?”
It was nearly seven o’clock, fifteen minutes before the Orlando bus pulled out. They were parked outside a Bank of America branch a couple blocks from the Greyhound station. Madison looked at the pile of money in her hands, and it might as well have been toilet paper. She needed another thirty bucks, minimum. Fifty would be better.
“I could, uh . . .” Paul said. He trailed off.
“Yeah?” Madison said. “What? Spit it out, dude.”
Paul went red. “I could drive you,” he said. “We could use that money for gas. You know, drive in shifts or whatever.” He dared to look at her. “It might be fun.”
“What,” Madison asked, “you’re just going to tag along while I go to meet my boyfriend? What are you going to do when you get there? How would you get home?”
“Your boyfriend could lend me the money to get back,” Paul said. “Or something. Or I could, like, sell the car. I could even come with you guys. We could travel together. I wouldn’t get in the way, I promise. I—”
“Shush.” Madison held up one hand. She was thinking. “Start the car,” she said. “Take me to the bus station.”
Paul deflated. Stared at her a moment longer, like he’d been really pumped, like the whole road trip thing had sounded really good to him.
“Come on,” Madison said. “Time’s a-wasting. What are you waiting for?”
Paul just kind of sighed. Didn’t answer. Turned the key in the ignition and pulled out into traffic.
“So, what?” he said when they were parked in front of the bus station. “It’s five minutes past seven. What’s your big idea?”
Madison opened the door. “Inside,” she said. “Hurry.”
Paul made a noise like he was just about at the end of his patience, but he followed her inside the terminal anyway. The place was crowded, people lining up for buses in every direction, the Orlando bus already boarding.
“Look around,” Madison said.
“Okay,” Paul said. “Why?”
Madison pulled out her old cell phone, the iPhone she’d been using until she bought the burner. “Look for someone who would want to buy a cell phone,” she said. “Someone with cash.”
Paul frowned. “Don’t you need a cell phone?” he said. “How will you get ahold of your boyfriend?”
Madison flashed him her new phone. “Got a burner,” she said. “Untraceable. Brandon’s the only one with the number. So start looking.”
Paul made like he was going to argue. She cut him off with a glare, and he sighed and scanned the bus station.
“There.” He pointed to a man in a suit with a briefcase, a nice watch.
Madison shook her head. “Too legit,” she said. “He’ll want to know what the scam is. Plus, he might not have cash.”
She checked the digital clock on the wall. Ten after seven. Five minutes.
“Keep looking,” she said.
Paul kept looking. So did she. She didn’t see anyone. But Paul nudged her. “How about him?”
Madison followed his eyes and could have kissed him. “Perfect.”
He was a young guy, early twenties, white, but dressed up like a gangsta rapper: the flat-brimmed baseball cap, saggy jeans, a lot of gold jewelry. He was the kind of guy who would jump at a deal like this. Madison hurried over.
“Excuse me,” she said. “I’m trying to get to Orlando and I’m, like, fifty bucks short.”
The guy eyed her up and down. Pursed his lips. “Aw, honey,” he said. “You need a loan?”
“Not on your life,” Madison said. “I’m just wondering if you want to help me out by buying my phone. iPhone, only a year old. Fifty bucks cash. You in?”
She was already scanning the bus station for other possibilities, just in case this guy didn’t want to play.
“Huh,” the guy answered. “Fifty bucks, you said? I could maybe do twenty-five, you know, seeing as how it’s the previous generation and all. The new one’s coming out in a minute, you heard? I—”
“Fifty bucks,” Madison said. “Yes or no. In or out. Right now. Go.”
The guy looked at her. Looked at the phone. Looked at Paul watching in the background, fifteen feet away. He smiled a wide, toothy smile. Reached into his jeans for his wallet.
“Fifty bucks,” he said. “Deal.”
< 90 >
Gruber took back roads. Drove Curtis Donovan’s shitbox white Lincoln down Route 5 until he hit the state line, followed the lakeshore into Erie, Pennsylvania, the night closing in around his windows, the lake an empty void to the north.
He gassed up in Erie, paid with some of the cash he’d taken from Donovan’s wallet. The news was playing on the TV above the clerk’s head; Gruber lingered in the candy bar aisle, eavesdropping on the anchor. Left ten minutes later with a Milky Way bar and an optimistic outlook. There’d been nothing on the news about any murdered men in Buffalo, no house fires, no pictures of his face.
He followed Lake Erie into Ohio, then ducked south in Conneaut and zigzagged toward Akron. Avoided the interstates, any major highways, kept his eyes peeled for patrol cars, kept the radio turned to any major news channels.
He drummed his hands on the steering wheel as he drove. Couldn’t help but feel excited, the way the game was playing out. Couldn’t help but see Donovan’s wide eyes, hear him sucking for air, feel the way the knife cut him deep. Imagined knocking on Earl’s door holding that same knife, or maybe Donovan’s big revolver. Showing Earl what a man he’d gone and raised, and then finding Madison Mackenzie when he was finished.
Gruber had big plans for Madison. She was his déjà vu. They would have so much fun together, just like he and Sarah had.
• • •
He made Akron around midnight. Took the Lincoln through a McDonald’s drive-through, ate his dinner in the parking lot, and then drove around until he found a run-down warehouse on the east side of town, the parking lot dark and empty. Friday night, he figured he’d have the place to himself. He parked the Lincoln in the shadows and reclined Donovan’s seat. Killed the engine and figured he should try to sleep awhile.
He was too jacked-up to sleep, especially at first, the way Donovan’s death kept playing back through his memory, the way Earl’s face kept showing up, too. In Gruber’s mind, Earl hadn’t grown older. He was the same age as he’d been in the trailer, around forty, maybe, still strong enough to kick the shit out of a little runt like Gruber.
