Look Both Ways by Linwood Barclay

Author:Linwood Barclay
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2022-06-07T00:00:00+00:00

Twenty-One

“Goddamn it!” Sandra said. “Pick up!”

Why weren’t the kids answering their phones?

Using Lisa Carver’s cell, Sandra had tried to raise Archie, then Katie, and struck out both times. She was this close to slipping into panic mode. Crazy cars were knocking people off left, right, and center and she couldn’t get hold of the kids.

But panic was not an option. She needed to keep a clear head. If she could manage to do that nine months earlier, when the police knocked on her door to tell her there’d been an accident, she could do it.

Even in the midst of all this current chaos—the burning fire truck, the Arrivals acting like a pack of wolves, Lisa Carver dead and missing a leg—her mind went back to that night.

It was nearly midnight when Sandra heard, first, the doorbell, then someone rapping hard. Her first thought was that it had to be Adam. He’d gone out on a late-night run to help some woman get her car started, and somehow, she figured, he’d lost his keys and couldn’t get into the house. But as she descended the stairs, blue and red beams of light strobed through the window and bounced off the walls. Before opening the door, she glanced outside and saw a Garrett Island police car idling at the curb, wisps of exhaust from the tailpipe caught in the soft glare of a streetlight.

She opened the door. Standing there was Joe Bridgeman. She recognized him immediately. They’d spoken many times. Run into each other at the local fish and chip joint, ended up in the same lineup at the ATM. Garrett Island was a small enough place that it was hardly a coincidence when you bumped into people you knew.

His jaw was set firmly, and he took his hat off before he said, “Sandra.”

She knew it had to be bad. She knew it had to be about Adam.

Sandra could barely make out the sentences coming out of Joe’s mouth. What she heard were key words. She heard “Adam.” She heard “Pelican Point.” She heard “accident.” She heard “asleep at the wheel.” She heard “so sorry.” She heard “pronounced dead at the scene.”

The disjointed words were enough to put it all together.

Once she was over the initial shock—and really, had that happened yet?—the first thing she thought about, even before she considered what this loss meant to her, was how it would devastate Katie and Archie.

For a millisecond, she had this wild, irrational idea that maybe she could keep the news from them. Stall. Tell them their father had gone on a trip to Bolivia to look for hard-to-find motorcycle parts. Postpone their grief.

Which, of course, was ridiculous. Because within seconds of Chief Joe showing up at her door, the kids were coming down the stairs, Archie in a pair of Batman pajamas he’d had since he was eight, had refused to retire, and, somehow, still managed to fit into, and Katie in one of her father’s old Harley-Davidson T-shirts that came down to her knees.

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