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Tom realized that this would be asking an awful lot
of his friend. Frank was as true-blue a friend as could be, but
this just might be a bit more than he’d be willing to do. Lying was
one thing; having to find a way to spend an entire day incognito
was really pushing it.

But luckily for Tom, Frank Warren owed him a favor. A
big favor. Earlier that year, Frank had run into some financial
problems and covertly asked Tom to loan him a fairly large sum of
money. Frank had a weakness for gambling and had lost a bundle in a
real estate investment scheme that his wife didn’t know about. One
day, the Warrens needed money for an emergency situation but Frank
had all but drained their savings account dry. So Tom had saved the
day, and Frank’s ass, by loaning him the money under the table.

Frank had only paid a fraction of the loan off so
far. He had promised Tom that he would pay off the balance before
the year’s end.

And the year was all but over.

Tom smiled to himself. If Frank was hesitant about
helping him out with his plot, he would simply remind him of the
debt he still owed him.

When Tom pulled into his driveway, more than the
wheels on Peg’s car were spinning.

CHAPTER 19

It was a beautiful winter morning—cold and crisp with
a cloudless blue sky. Tom walked out of the service department at
the Jeep/Chrysler auto mall, spotted his beloved vehicle parked on
the other side of the lot and walked briskly toward it.

After he slid into the driver’s seat and fired up the
engine, memories of the longest dream in history returned with a
vengeance. It dawned on Tom that he hadn’t been in this car since
the day that the paramedics had pulled him out and rushed him to
the hospital. The familiar feel of the soft leather seats and his
grip on the steering wheel triggered the vibe like taking hold of a
live electric wire. He glanced over at the passenger seat, half
expecting to see Erin Myers telling him about her grim, unhappy
life as an orphan. But the seat was of course unoccupied.

Tom dismissed his disappointment and
focused on getting out of the tight parking space. He pulled out
onto the street and checked the fuel gauge, elated to see that he
had a full tank. He turned on the CD player, selected the third
disk and pressed ‘play.’ Steely Dan’s
Hey
Nineteen
shot out of the speakers and into
his head like a jolt of strong coffee.

Tom’s thoughts were a mishmash of hurtling fragments.
In the back of his mind was the huge lie he was living by driving
to Smithtown. He had never been comfortable with lying and for that
reason was a notoriously lousy liar. But the present situation
forced him to go against his better judgment and spin an incredibly
lame alibi to cover what could only be considered a compulsive,
irrational shot in the dark—or just plain madness.

Here he was, a grown adult with a fairly intact grip
on reality, embarking on a two-hour road trip in order to track
down a woman he had only seen once in his life nearly twenty years
ago. And why was he undertaking this ill-conceived mission? Because
he had finally decided after all this time to find out what had
ever happened to the child this woman had told him was his.

Maybe not exactly grounds for institutionalization,
but certainly a valid argument for OCD.

Because in the midst of all of this deceit and
irrationality, Tom was still asking himself the same thing over and
over: Why?

Why was he doing this in the first place? What did he
expect would come from all of this in the unlikely event that he
did locate Mindy Conkel and she in turn granted him what he sought?
The peace of mind in knowing once and for all that he had an
illegitimate kid running around somewhere? A kid who would be a
young adult by now and probably didn’t give two shits who his or
her father was—the father who had not only abandoned him or her but
hadn’t even been willing to admit paternity?

What
good
could possibly come from
this?

Tom couldn’t think of any, really.

But he could certainly think of plenty of bad things
that could come from this—one being that if Peg were to catch him
sneaking around like this, he might as well pack his bags and leave
town. There was no doubt that she would throw him out of the
house—he was certain of that. He and his wife had based their
entire marriage on mutual trust and honesty. Not only had he failed
to mention this “blemish” in this former life, he had gone a step
further and lied to her about this whole ridiculous mission.

Peg would ream him a new asshole and file for divorce
all in the same breath.

Tom considered calling the whole thing off as he
drove west toward I-71 south. He could call Frank on his cell phone
and catch him before he drove all the way to Cleveland by himself.
Then he could either join him or they could both simply go back to
their respective homes and tell the wives they had changed their
minds about going to the Rock and Roll Museum.

But Tom knew he wouldn’t do this. Because something
deep inside was telling him that he must follow through this. It
was the same thing that had told him to track down Erin Landry.

He needed to know the truth.

He pulled onto the I-71 south ramp, cranked up the
volume on the CD player and sat back comfortably in his seat. In a
couple of hours, he would get to the bottom of what this was all
about.

CHAPTER 20

As he neared the Smithtown city limits, Tom was
barraged with childhood memories. It had been nearly six years
since he’d visited his hometown and he wondered how much of the
small southern Ohio burg had changed. He didn’t expect much since
the town of 20,000 always seemed to be standing still in the grand
scheme of things. Smithtown had been under economical duress for as
long as he could remember and suffered from the same ills as the
other small towns in Appalachia: high unemployment rates, low
wages, sub-par health care and an alarming rate of poverty. The few
friends he knew of that still lived in the area were either doctors
or drunks—there seemed to be little else in between.

He passed by the several gas stations that greeted
him and continued south until he spotted a phone booth in a small
strip mall. He pulled into the parking lot, went into the booth and
began thumbing through the white pages.

He looked under the C’s and wasn’t particularly
surprised to discover that there was no listing for a Mindy Conkel.
There was an M. Conkel, however, so he dug into his pocket for his
cell phone and keyed in the number. After a few rings, a man
answered.

“Hello?”

“Uh, hi. I’m trying to locate a Mindy Conkel and was
wondering if this was her number.”

“No Mindy here,” the man replied in a thick hillbilly
drawl.

“Oh, I’m sorry. Do you by any chance know a Mindy
Conkel?”

“Nope. Never heard of her.”

“Okay. Well thanks, anyway.”

“Uh-huh.”

Click.

Time for Plan Two, Tom thought. He thumbed through
the pages until he reached the S’s and found a few Shortridges but
no Donny nor any D. or M. Shortridges. This came as no surprise
either, but it was at least worth a shot.

Plan Three was to track down his old friend, Alan
Hughes, and see if he could help him locate Mindy. Although he had
doubts that Alan knew her, he figured that his friend might at
least give him some ideas of where to start looking. Smithtown was,
after all, not a very big place.

He looked up Alan’s number and gave him a ring, only
to get a recording that the number had been disconnected. No
forwarding number was given so Tom snapped the phone shut in
disappointment.

Already, he was losing faith in this whole insane
idea. Besides the fact that he felt depressed every time he came to
this miserable hellhole of a town, it was beginning to look like he
might have driven all this way for nothing. He was so out of touch
with everybody here that at the moment, he wasn’t sure what to do
next. He tried thinking of anybody else he knew who might be able
to help him locate Mindy but came up empty. Desperately, he picked
up the telephone book and starting with the A’s, flipped through
the names randomly, hoping to spot a name he recognized.

He’d gotten to the F’s when he noticed the name of
the same bar where he had met Mindy all those years ago. He decided
that Frankenstein’s Pub was as good a place as any to begin his
search.

Hopping back into the Jeep, he proceeded south toward
the downtown section of Smithtown. As he entered the business
section, he couldn’t help but notice that most of the old stores
he’d known as a child were shut down. In fact, the whole town
seemed eerily ghost-like, save for the occasional pedestrian
walking down the street.

He spotted Frankenstein’s and parked a few doors
down. When he entered the place, Tom noticed that very little had
changed over the years as he walked past the pool table toward the
bar.

He sat down and waited for the bartender to come
over, noting that there were only four persons other than himself
in the whole place.

“Whatcha need?” a gruff looking man in his
mid-sixties with greasy gray hair asked.

“Mick Ultra, please.”

The man turned and headed toward the cooler. Tom
watched him pull out a longneck bottle, pop the top and return with
it.

“Two fifty,” he said as he set the beer down on the
weathered wood bar.

Tom pulled out three ones and slapped them down.

He took a long slug of the ice-cold lager, relishing
the feel of it going down. He wasn’t much of a daytime drinker, but
this beer was as welcome as it was required under the
circumstances.

He fixed his eyes on the two guys playing pool,
trying to determine if he recognized either of them. He had seen
the tall one before, but had no idea what his name was. The other
one drew a total blank.

There were a couple more men standing toward the back
of the bar playing a video game. The bar was rather dark so it was
hard to make out their faces. Tom got up and sauntered toward
them.

As he drew closer to the pair, he realized that he
knew one of them fairly well. It was one of the friends he used to
hang out with when he was in high school. Brad Thompson looked
almost the same as he did nearly twenty years ago except for the
fifty or sixty pounds he had tacked on since then. Tom hadn’t seen
him since graduation.

Brad glanced over and recognized Tom before he could
open his mouth.

“Jesus Christ, if it isn’t Tom Grayson! How the hell
are ya?” Brad said, extending his hand.

Tom shook and said, “Great! How have you been,
Brad?”

“Can’t complain—still stuck in this shit hole trying
to make a livin.’”

The other man finished his game and turned
around.

“Tom, this is my cousin, Lenny. He’s visitin’ from
KY.” He said to Lenny, “Tom is an old high school friend I haven’t
seen in over twenty years.”

Tom shook the man’s hand. “Nice to meet you,
Lenny.”

“So where are you livin’ now, Tom? Last I heard,
you’d moved to New York City. You still there?”

“Not anymore. I moved to Columbus a while back. Got
married and have a couple of kids, in fact.”

“Hey, that’s great! So what are ya doing up
there?”

“Teach at Capital State.”

“Don’t tell me—some kind of art course, right? You
always were the artistic type.”

“Yeah. Art history.”

“I knew it! So what the hell brings you down
here?”

Tom wasn’t sure how to answer that at the moment.
“Well, I’m sort of looking for somebody I haven’t seen in a
while.”

Brad looked at him suspiciously. “Not some old
girlfriend, I hope. Your old lady wouldn’t be too happy with you if
that’s the case!”

Tom realized that Brad was trying to be funny—if he
only knew that he was on the right track.

“No, just an old friend of mine. You don’t know Mindy
Conkel, do you?”

“Hmm. Mindy Conkel. Charlie Gossett’s old lady was
named Mindy, but I’m not sure what her maiden name was. Do you
remember Charlie?”

Tom tried to hide his shock. Charlie Gossett was a
hillbilly redneck that was always getting into bar fights.

And if he had to think of someone who reminded him of
Charlie Gossett, it would be a certain character that didn’t exist
in real life—

Donnie Shortridge: the stuff that bad dreams were
made of.

Tom recovered enough to say, “Yeah, I remember
Charlie. He was one of the scariest guys in high school. Always
carried a knife looking for trouble.”

Brad nodded. “Yep, that was Charlie all right. He
finally got sent up the creek quite a while back. Beat up his wife
so bad that he nearly killed her. Like I said, her name was Mindy.
Never knew the chick before she married Charlie, though.”

Holy hell!
Tom thought.
This can’t really be
happening!

“What did this Mindy look like?” Tom inquired.

“Well, I only saw her a couple of times. She used to
come here every now and then without Charlie. No one would ever go
near her though because they knew that Charlie was the jealous type
and would probably murder anyone who tried to pick her up. Anyway,
she was a freakin’ beauty, no doubt about that. Really blonde hair,
kinda tall with great tits. Had one hell of an ass, too.”

That had to be Mindy Conkel, Tom thought. He couldn’t
have described her better himself.

“You don’t happen to know where she lives now, do
you? She sounds like the same girl I’m looking for.”

Brad Thompson shook his head. “Nope. I haven’t seen
her in a few years. She may have left town after Charlie got sent
to prison.”