The Stranger Beside You (13 page)

That’s when I glanced at the rearview mirror and realized I was being followed.

21

They will be watching
.

I had noticed the car during the first trip to Long Island earlier that morning, but at the time hadn’t paid much attention because I wasn’t yet armed with Tom’s warning.  I wanted to punch my dead husband in the face because he had me scared of my own shadow.  The car was nothing special.  I only recognized it because the paint on the front quarter-panel on the passenger side didn’t match the rest of the car.  In fact, it wasn’t painted at all, as if it had been pulled from the body shop before the repair work was completed.  I think it was Plymouth sedan.  I spotted it because it pulled away from the curb ten seconds after I exited the parking lot at the assisted living facility.  It had been sitting there waiting for me.  There was no other reasonable explanation. 

I reached up and adjusted the mirror.  The Plymouth had drifted back.  Maybe he suspected that he’d been spotted.  I changed lanes, putting a flatbed delivery truck between us, and accelerated hard. 

Three or four minutes later, the Plymouth reappeared.

I felt a twist in my gut.  For the first time since it all began, I felt true fear begin to rise.  I had both hands on the wheel, squeezing until my knuckles flushed white.  Along with the wave of fear came panic.  I was desperate to exit the expressway and get somewhere safe.  I craned my neck hoping to spot a Highway Patrol car.  The traffic around me shifted and moved, and I suddenly found myself boxed in.  I needed to find an opening and hit the gas, but I was stuck.

The Plymouth was still in my mirror.  I passed a sign for an exit one-half-mile ahead.  I glanced at the mirror.  He had merged with the flow of traffic and was playing it cool.  I changed lanes and eased off the gas, nearly causing a multi-car pile up.  The flow of traffic drifted ahead of me.  The reduction in speed had closed the gap between us by several hundred feet.  I could see the swath of gray primer clearly now.

There was still a chance that I was being paranoid.  I would find out in a few seconds. 

I navigated the Volvo into the far left lane and tapped the brakes.  A corvette rocketed past in the next lane.  I glanced in the mirror but couldn’t see much, so I quickly turned my head to glance over my shoulder.  The Plymouth had spotted me and sped up slightly and drifted all the way to the right, putting several lanes of traffic between us.  He clearly had not realized what I was planning to do. 

The exit was coming up.

A big rig was in one of the lanes between us.  I tried to keep visual contact with the Plymouth.  He was matching my speed exactly.  I saw the green exit sign looming ahead.  I had to do this right the first time.  I drifted into the next lane but the Plymouth didn’t react.  So I drifted a lane closer and craned my neck to see if I could spot the driver.  The big rig was obstructing my view.  Then the driver of the Plymouth glanced my way.  He was wearing a ball cap and sunglasses.  He had spotted me looking and quickly panicked and accelerated.  Perfect, this was my chance. 

I checked the mirror to make certain I wasn’t going to crash into someone behind me.  The coast was clear, so I let off the gas.  The Volvo slowed just enough for me to change lanes and slide in behind the big rig.  The Plymouth was several car lengths ahead of me.  The green exit sign was getting close.  I watched the Plymouth to see what he was going to do. 

The exit sign was five seconds away.

Four.

Three.

Two.

The Plymouth kept going straight!

At the last possible second I jerked the wheel to the right.  Loose highway grit kicked up under the car from the shoulder of the exit.  My heart was pounding.  I slowed the car and tried to spot the Plymouth but he was gone.  

They will be watching
.

I again felt a chill.

I stopped at an intersection.  The key from the treasure chest was on the seat between my legs.  I held it in my hand.  I had no idea what it belonged to.  The number 127 was imprinted on the metal.  Tom had been leading me somewhere but it seemed I had hit another dead-end. 

I turned left through the intersection and slowed nearly to a stop as I crossed an overpass, then held the wheel with one hand as I leaned over the passenger seat and looked down over the expressway.  Traffic streamed beneath me in a continuous ribbon.  I strained to find the Plymouth but it was lost to sight. 

They will be watching
.

Someone behind me honked, so I sped up and moved out of the way.  I found a strip mall and parked where I had a view of the expressway.  If the Plymouth circled back around and came looking for me, I’d see it coming. 

If Tom had been a murderer and cheat, why had he left a trail of breadcrumbs to follow?  What was the point?  Clearly, he had known he was in danger, but had not mentioned his alternate life to me.  He had to have known I would find out about the affair, and eventually the murder.  He had known the FBI would show up at our door, and so he had planted a string of clues to follow because someone was watching.

I studied the roads for half an hour.  There was no sign of the Plymouth.  Perhaps I’d gotten lucky and he’d not seen me take the exit.  That meant he was probably a half-hour down the road by now, which begged the question: did he know where I lived?  Of course he did.  Chill bumps spread down every square inch of my body.  They knew exactly where I lived.  That meant the man in the Plymouth could watch the house and wait for me to return home.  It wasn’t safe to go back there yet.

“Tom, what have you gotten me involved in?”

I crossed my forearms on the steering wheel and rested my head.  I could envision the Plymouth parked in the shadows outside my home, with the man in the sunglasses and ball cap patiently waiting for me.

•  •  •

The meeting ended and the executives seated around the conference table gathered their laptops and briefcases and shuffled toward the door.  Some of them gathered in small pockets of conversation, while some made cell phone calls, and still others drifted out to the elevators to hurry off to attend to other business.  It was just another day on Wall Street.

Aaron McFadden made small talk with a couple of other gentlemen as they waited for an elevator.  He checked email on his Blackberry, then checked in with his secretary for messages.  Still no word from Tom Nelson.

McFadden frowned.  Tom hadn’t called or emailed. 

McFadden shook hands with his associates and then they scattered in separate directions as they hit the lobby.  He flagged down a cab and headed uptown.  He had an early lunch scheduled with clients. 

McFadden was dressed in Brooks Brothers, Italian shoes, and a Rolex.  He had recruited Tom straight out of business school and had been his boss for the past fourteen years. Tom was one of the best and brightest he’d ever seen, but now McFadden was worried that his friend was playing a dangerous game.

The Blackberry chimed.  There was a new email in his inbox.  McFadden did not recognize the sender.  The message was from [email protected]. 

McFadden pursed his lips and clicked on the message. 

It read simply: 
TELL BRYNN NELSON ABOUT TORONTO
.

•  •  •

Rosemary Gladwell was awake.  The man in the beard had not returned in hours.  She was very hungry.  She had no idea what the man with the beard wanted.  Was he stealing from her?  Was he robbing the house slowly, day by day?  She was not wealthy.  It would have taken no time at all to strip her clean of all her earthly possessions.  Did he intend to kill her?  Was he some kind of psychotic serial killer that got a thrill from torturing his victims by chaining them up for weeks and slowly starving them and driving them insane?  Her eyes were open, pivoting rapidly back and forth in the darkness.

She used all her strength to lever up onto one shoulder.  Her fingers clawed at the knot in the cord around her wrists.  She picked at it a few minutes and could feel it begin to loosen.  Her pulse quickened.  The knot in the cord was coming undone!

It took fifteen minutes to work the knot out, then the cord fell away and Rosemary Gladwell sat up.

22

Dade Country, Florida

The bank teller was a young, attractive Latina woman.  She yawned as she said hello to the next customer in line because she had been up late the night before arguing with her boyfriend.  He drank too much, she had told him, and more and more she didn’t like the way he treated her.  She needed to find a man willing to treat her like a lady.  Thinking about her relationship had left her distracted this morning, but she smiled at the man at her window and apologized for yawning in front of him.

Scotty Sheldon did not return the smile.  He placed an index card on the counter between them.  The teller picked up the card and read it.

I HAVE A GUN.

KEEP YOUR HANDS WHERE I CAN SEE THEM.

PICK UP THE PHONE AND CALMLY CALL THE MANAGER OVER.

DO AS I SAY OR I WILL KILL YOU.

It took a moment for her brain to register the fact that the bank was being robbed.  She lifted her eyes to the man at her window.  He was staring hard at her.

Scotty Sheldon made a small gesture with his head. 
Pick up the phone
.

The teller nodded.  She was scared out of her mind.  She spoke into the phone.

“He’s coming,” she said after she’d hung up.

Scotty Sheldon glanced over his shoulder and spotted a man in a suit rise from a desk behind a glass wall.

The man approached.

“I am Vincent Delgrado, the branch manager,” he said.  He was balding, with peach fuzz on his scalp, and wore rimless glasses.  “Is there something I can help you with?”

Sheldon turned to him.  He pressed the barrel of the gun through the fabric of his jacket into Delgrado’s gut.

“I have a gun.”

Delgrado’s eyes widened.

“Tell the girl to fill a bag with five hundred thousand dollars.  If she triggers the silent alarm or calls the police, I will kill you.  Tell her to fill the bag and hand it through the window.  Do you understand?”

Delgrado nodded.  His branch had been robbed before and he knew how to handle the situation.  He whispered instructions to the girl behind the glass.  “Hurry,” he said.

“Please don’t hurt anyone,” Delgado whispered to Sheldon as they waited.

Sheldon kept the gun pressed into the man’s gut and carefully watched everyone around him.  The Latina girl returned in three minutes and heaved the bag up onto the counter.  Sheldon tugged it through the opening in the window.  He let out the drawstring so he could look into the bag.  There were bricks of cash stacked inside.

“You’re coming with me,” he told Delgrado.

“Fine, I’ll do whatever you say.”

“Carry the money.”  Sheldon could feel every eye in the room on him.

They went out through the heavy glass doors into stark sunlight.   He grabbed the man by the back of the neck and thrust him forward.  Delgrado stumbled, his arms wrapped around the bag of stolen currency in a bear hug.  Sheldon was sweaty and nervous.  He had no way of knowing if anyone inside the bank had tripped the silent alarm, but then he heard sirens.  He forced the bank manager across the busy street, cars skidding to avoid hitting them.  Horns blared.  A man with brown skin shook a fist out his car window and cursed in Spanish. 

Sheldon had the gun out of his jacket now and jammed it against the side of Delgrado’s head.

“Please don’t kill me.”

“Shut up.”

The car Sheldon had stolen the night before was parked behind a building across the street from the bank.  The sounds of the sirens had grown louder within seconds.  Sheldon knew there was no time to waste.  He clubbed Delgrado in the back of the head with the gun, then grabbed the bag of money and ran as hard as he could.  He threw open the car door and thrust the money into the back seat.  The first police car flew past the alley with its lights flashing.  Sheldon put the car in reverse and backed out.  He was two miles down the road when the dye pack exploded.

He pulled into an open bay at a car wash and poured the stacks of money onto the floor beneath the passenger seat.  There was red paint everywhere.

He was dripping with sweat and stared in horror at the ruined money.  It was in that moment he knew for certain he could never save his family.  

•  •  •

It was noon when I pulled into the faculty parking lot at Kingston-Pratt.  It felt like a million years since I’d last been at work.  I found my classroom and peeked inside, careful not to let the students see me.  A substitute teacher was covering for me and I watched her hand out an assignment sheet and scrawl some brief instructions on the blackboard.

Mr. Hogan’s secretary was at her desk outside his office.  She looked up from her computer keyboard.

“How are you, Mrs. Nelson?”

“Hi, Grace.”

“We didn’t expect to see you today.”

I smiled.  “I’m not staying.  I just needed to speak to Mr. Hogan for a few minutes.”

“He’s finishing up a call,” she said.  “Go on in and have a seat.”

I smiled.  “Thank you, Grace.”

I slipped inside Mr. Hogan’s office and settled into a chair.

“We were beginning to worry about you, Mrs. Nelson,” he said when he put down the phone.  “I had expected an update.  We didn’t hear from you yesterday afternoon or this morning, so Grace and I were beginning to fear the worse.”

“I appreciate your concern,” I said.

He brushed away a speck of imaginary dust from the top of his desk.

“So, are you back for the day?”

“No, actually, I’m not.”

He furrowed his brow.   “More family emergencies?” 

“Mr. Hogan, I’m going to need some time off.”

“Problems at home?”

“My husband passed away yesterday.”

Not exactly what he had expected.  I could see it in his face.  He was clearly stunned.  “Tom is dead?”