Innocent Bystander (18 page)

“Good,” Ryder said. “He enters your house, you call the cops, and he gets locked up for a long time.”

“That’s not going to work anymore. He may have gathered enough information to cause me more than just a little embarrassment.”

“Kill him when he comes in. Call it self-defense.”

“I don’t want the cops to even know he was here. No, I need you to make him disappear. A girl who’s helping him, too.”

“For a college professor you don’t have too much brains, do you? One of your students just took a flying leap. Your department chairman vanished from the face of the earth. And now you want to make another student and his girlfriend just disappear? After the dust settles, there’s gonna be an awful lot of people whispering your name.”

“What would you suggest?”

“There’s no easy way out now.”

Desmond sensed he had not finished, so he waited for him to continue.

“Your best bet is to make it look like a murder-suicide,” Ryder said. “As though Burnett and this girl were behind it all. The chairman knew something. They had to get rid of him. Then one double-crossed the other.”

“Sounds good,” Desmond said. “But they can’t be found here.”

“Sounds like shit. It’s just the best I can come up with.”

“How soon can you get here?”

“Things could get dicey if the police are nearby.”

“I asked them to keep a discreet distance. Told them I was having company tonight.”

“What if he doesn’t show?” Ryder asked. “What if the cops get him first?”

Legitimate questions
, Desmond thought, but he knew Burnett would come. Obviously he would have preferred to dispose of Henri’s computer, but now that his immortality had been placed on hold, he needed it more than ever.

Burnett could be caught before he arrived, but he thought that unlikely. His student had managed to remain in town and elude the police this long. With so much at stake, he would find a way to do it a little longer.

“I’ll pay you whether he shows up or not,” Desmond said.

A long, drawn-out sigh traveled across the connection. “I’m not a big fan of risks. Especially unnecessary ones.”

Despite the reluctance of his words, Desmond could tell by his tone that Ryder had agreed.

The sun had just set. Burnett and Emma strolled along the lightly traveled road. Modest homes near the parking garage had given way to the elaborate mini-mansions of Desmond’s neighborhood. Their new habit of walking only on side streets was a trade-off—less likelihood of encountering a police car, but increased time spent out in the open. To the best of his knowledge, there still had been no mention of Emma on the news, so no one would be expecting him to be traveling in the company of a young lady.

Burnett spotted a woman walking her dog on the opposite side of the street. The German shepherd strained at the leash and towed her forward. She was the fifth person they’d encountered since they’d exited the parking garage.

Spontaneously, he tugged down the brim of his baseball cap. Also out of reflex, he tilted his head back enough to determine whether she recognized him as she passed. She glanced their way for just an instant.

Burnett almost stumbled when he noticed the woman, who appeared to be in her mid-sixties, bore an uncanny resemblance to the woman whose station wagon he’d carjacked following his escape from the park. Although she now wore a powder-blue jumpsuit and her curly gray hair had been yanked back into a ponytail, he felt certain it was her.
She’s working for the cops.
They know where we are. They know where we’re going.

He shook off the absurd notion. The unwelcome cocktail of stress and sleep deprivation stubbornly obscured reason. He labored to regain control of his thoughts and pushed his attention to Emma.

Leading her into harm’s way provoked such ambivalence that he felt uncomfortable inside his own body. While he remained grateful not to be alone in his attempt to prove Desmond’s guilt, his feelings for Emma continued to grow, and it troubled him more and more that she was risking her future, maybe even her life, to aid him.

“I wish you’d reconsider,” Burnett said. “It’d be a lot more helpful if you stayed outside and watched for the police.”

“Don’t be a fool. There’s been nothing on the news about me. Who else is going to get him to turn off the alarm system? Who’s going to distract him while you wander through his house? Though I agree with Dr. Stone. Even if he took the computer, he probably got rid of it by now.”

“Maybe. But I know Henri’s computer was new enough to at least require a password. So I’m betting he’s had trouble accessing what he wants.”

“What if he doesn’t even need it? What if he’s already got a copy of the paper and just took the computer so no one else would find it?”

His body drooped. That possibility hadn’t occurred to him.

“All I know is,” she said, “if it’s not there, this is a suicide mission for nothing.”

He searched for a way to spin the conversation to his advantage. “All the more reason for you to wait outside.”

“You don’t search a man’s house without having someone distract him. And his wife, if she’s there.”

“Maybe they’ll be out.”

She stopped. “You have any idea how to deactivate an alarm system?”

Of course he didn’t.

He’d traveled thirty feet before he realized she no longer walked at his shoulder. He stopped, spun, and wandered back toward her. She stood, straight-backed, arms folded, and waited.

She was right. Despite her privileged upbringing, she possessed a street wisdom he envied. Either that or she watched a lot of TV. The second explanation sat better with him.

“Then we better hope he’s home,” she said as he arrived at her side.

“Can we keep going now?”

She took a step.

* * *

Mayweather and Farrow sat in a pair of high-backed chairs in front of the oversized, mahogany desk. With the wide-eyed look of a schoolboy, Mayweather admired the glass case in the far corner. Rare ancient Indian artifacts lined its shelves.

Photographs of ten- to fifteen-story buildings in varying stages of completion ringed the office. The spacious room sat on the top floor of a twelve-story building.

“You’re not being honest with us,” Farrow said and hopped up.

Mr. Blankenship squeezed the armrests of his plush leather chair, but remained seated. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“You deny calling in a 911 this morning?” Farrow asked.

“You know I did. What is it you want?”

“You claimed Burnett was alone when you saw him.”

“And? I’m a busy man, Detective.” He peeked outside at the darkening sky. “I’ve already missed dinner. I’d like to spend a little time with my family this evening.”

“That include your daughter?”

“I have three. To which one are you referring?”

“Emma.”

“She’s at school.”

“Not far from here.”

Mr. Blankenship sprang to his feet and slammed his chair against the wall with the backs of his knees. The charcoal self-portrait affixed to the wall behind him quivered and threatened to fall. He leaned forward. “If you have a question, ask it.”

“Where’s she right now?” Farrow said.

“I have no idea.”

“She’s with Burnett, isn’t she?”

“You have no proof of that.”

“She
was
with him this morning, wasn’t she?” Farrow guided his fingertips to the desktop. The two men’s faces bobbed less than a foot apart. Mr. Blankenship opened his mouth to speak but Farrow cut him off, “Don’t bother to keep denying it.”

As Mayweather’s gaze flitted between them, the sense that he’d met Mr. Blankenship before surfaced. He couldn’t remember where or when, but the longer the sensation persisted, the more certain he became.

“You weren’t there, Detective,” Mr. Blankenship said, his voice quiet now.

“So you just happened to be driving down the same street Burnett was on this morning?”

Despite the late hour, Mr. Blankenship looked fresh. His suit did not have the wrinkles one would expect after a full day at the office. Nor was there any sign of five o’clock shadow, despite the fact that it was well past five.

“And,” Farrow said, “you just happened to skid to a stop across the road, then get out and drop your keys in the sewer?”

Farrow’s knowledge of the incident clearly alarmed him.

“Yes,” Farrow said. “One of our men found them in the drain. Want to try again?”

“Fine, he had her car. But she wasn’t with him.”

“Then how’d your car keys end up in a sewer pipe?” Farrow asked. “You telling me Burnett dropped them in while you were on the phone?”

“What difference does it make? Yes, I had a GPS device installed in her car. So what?”

“First, you could have told us so we could have found them,” Farrow said. “And second, I think you know more about where they are than you’re telling us.”

After a minute Mayweather gave up trying to recall where he’d met Emma’s father. “We’re not your enemies,” he said. “In fact, I feel I know you. Have we met before?”

“I have no idea,” Mr. Blankenship said, dismissing the question with a shake of his head.

“We want to help you, and we want to help your daughter,” Mayweather said. “We can’t do that unless you cooperate with us.”

“What will happen to her?” Mr. Blankenship asked.

“As it stands right now,” Farrow said, “she’s aided and abetted a suspected murderer.”

“You don’t know that,” Mr. Blankenship said. “And if she is with him, and I don’t believe she is, she could be his hostage.”

“If she is on the run with him,” Farrow said, “and more people are killed, I’m sure the DA will find additional charges to file.”

Mr. Blankenship grimaced.

“The sooner we find them,” Mayweather said, “and bring this to an end, the better for everyone.”

An expectant silence filled the room.

“I’m sorry, gentlemen,” Mr. Blankenship said. “I don’t know where they are.”

Mayweather braced for his partner’s explosion, but Farrow simply stood there, his face reddening. Farrow reached into his pocket and yanked out his iPhone. He set it on the desk, parallel to the front edge.

Farrow glared at Mr. Blankenship. “This is a recording from an answering machine that will be entered into evidence against your daughter when she’s found.”

He clicked a button, and Emma’s voice shouted from the device:
“Get out of there! The police know where you are! Get out of there now. Meet me at Henri’s favorite restaurant.”

Farrow jammed the iPhone back into his pocket. “We were two minutes away when she called and warned him. You still think the hostage angle’s gonna fly?”

Mr. Blankenship fell back into his chair, a defeated man.

“Talk to us,” Farrow said through clenched teeth. “Save your daughter. Before she gets in any deeper.”

Mr. Blankenship steepled his fingers as he bowed his head. Without looking up, he said, “I can’t help you. Now, unless you have a warrant for my arrest, get the hell out of my office.”

* * *

Desmond set a gray, hard-plastic trash can on the blacktop beside its twin. He found it difficult to comprehend how two people managed to generate so much garbage every seven days.

Straddling the lip at the end of his driveway, he searched north and south for Ryder’s car. A pair of headlights followed a bend in the road. When the vehicle appeared, he recognized it as his neighbor’s minivan.

The Honda Odyssey braked as it neared him. He waved, and Mrs. Heinz and each of her three young children reflected his greeting. The always pleasant young mother guided her minivan into the driveway across the street.

Two screaming children burst from the vehicle. Five year-old Jonathan charged toward him with seven year-old Caroline a step behind.

Desmond trotted across the road in plenty of time to intercept them before they reached the street. People drove much too fast nowadays, and he had witnessed far too many cars fly around the corner at close to forty miles per hour.

“Uncle Connor,” the two children cried in unison. Jonathon hopped into Desmond’s arms. The professor’s spine took exception to forty-five additional pounds.

“Look what we got,” Caroline said and shoved a Snickers bar in his face.

“Looks delicious,” he said and returned the boy to the blacktop. “After dinner, right?”

“Yes,” Jonathon said, an epic frown displacing a radiant grin.

Each child grabbed one of Desmond’s hands and dragged him up the driveway. Both children skipped as he labored to keep pace.

Moments like this offered a painful reminder of a life he had passed up. When he and his wife had exchanged wedding vows twelve years ago, both were in their late thirties. After a great deal of discussion, and gallons of shed tears, they had made the difficult decision not to start a family. He would focus his efforts on his career, and his wife would do the same with hers. Her job involved finding worthy causes to support, primarily by donating enormous amounts of cash from her family’s fortune. These days, it seemed, there was no shortage of worthy causes in need of money.

As he gazed down at the two bouncing heads beside him, the irony of a five-bedroom ranch with only one bed struck him with renewed force. Never would he be granted the opportunity to play catch with his son, share his love of the physical world with his daughter, or explain the intricacies of time travel to his grandchildren.

If somehow he lived to see a time machine constructed during his life, he had at least one reason to venture into the past.

He now stood alongside Mrs. Heinz. While performing a juggling act with a pair of grocery bags, she extracted her wriggling two-year-old daughter from her car seat.

“Here,” Desmond said, reaching for the bags. “Let me get those.”

“It’s okay. I can manage.” She turned to her son. “Actually, Jonathon, you should be helping.”

But before she’d even finished speaking, the boy had spun and darted up the first few steps.

“Please, let me,” Desmond said. He wrapped an arm around the two bags, then reached inside the minivan and snatched a third.

Mrs. Heinz cajoled Caroline onto the walkway. She offered Desmond an exhausted smile. “Thank you.”

“Anytime.”

“Unbelievable what happened at the school the other day,” she said.

“You found the perfect word for it.”

They stopped at the front door.

Mrs. Heinz fumbled for the house key on her chain. “Jenny Hunter’s daughter’s a freshman at SUNY. She said both students were in your class.”

“And I thought they were friends.”

Mrs. Heinz elbowed the door open. Desmond trailed her into the house and down the hall.

“Could you ever have imagined one of your students doing something like that? Someone you’d seen every week for almost a year?”

“Actually, I had the young man in a class several years ago.” He set the bags on the kitchen counter.

The woman’s body shuddered. She attempted to place the two-year-old on the floor. The child would have none of it, and wrapped her legs around the back of her mother’s knees. Mrs. Heinz hoisted the child onto her hip. “Pushing his friend off a balcony. I don’t think I could deal with it. Someone I know doing something like that.” She shook her head with disbelief. “And then that poor girl they found in his trunk.”