Too Close to Home

I sped past the four clients we had in that part of the town, and I didn’t need to knock on anyone’s door to see if the work had been done. I could see for myself. All the yards had been cut, the edges neatly trimmed, the driveways blown free of clippings.

I called Ellen again. “Anything?”

“No,” she said.

“Did you try calling Penny?” I hated to suggest it, knowing Ellen wouldn’t get a warm reception if she called the Tucker house and got Penny’s mother or father.

“Already did it,” Ellen said. “I got Penny. Derek’s not there.”

“I’ll stay on it as long as I can,” I said, and ended the call.

“This kid of yours,” Randy said. “He’s starting to strike me as some sort of a problem child, you know? You thought about getting him counseling or anything like that?”

I ignored him.

Maybe Derek and Drew had gone for a drink after work. Derek was too young for a bar, but there was no reason they couldn’t have popped into a fast-food place, or a Dairy Queen, for something to help cool them down after a hot day.

But why wasn’t he answering his phone?

I was worried. Not panicked, but definitely worried. But there was one other stop I needed to make before I started sounding any alarms.

“Hey, Cutter,” Randy said from the backseat, “it’s nearly six-twenty. I’m at least gonna want to take a piss before this thing at the Walcott.”

“One more stop,” I said, turning the town car around and heading back in the direction we’d just come from. “Just hold your horses. It’s not like they’re going to start without you. You walk in a couple minutes late, it’ll just build the suspense.”

“That’s probably true,” Finley mused.

I tried not to think about what sort of trouble Derek and Drew might have stumbled into. But if they were being stalked by the kind of people who thought nothing of taping your fingers into a hedge trimmer, then-

No, better not to think too long on that.

The only thing left to check that I could think of was to go by Drew’s house, see if he’d already been dropped off. If he had, that would mean, presumably, that Derek was somewhere between Drew’s place and ours.

Or that something had happened to Derek between Drew’s place and ours.

I parked out front of the house on Stonywood, still half hidden by tall shrubs that hugged the sidewalk.

“Two minutes,” I said to Randy, and was out of the Grand Marquis before he could object. I left the motor running so he could enjoy the A/C.

I trotted up the walkway between the hedges, mounted the steps to the front door, and rang the bell. After ten seconds or so, I leaned on the buzzer again. Now I could hear footsteps inside the house, approaching the door.

It opened wide, and there was a man standing there. Not Drew, but a silver-haired man in his fifties, glasses, a white shirt and nicely pressed tan slacks, slippers. He had a folded newspaper in his hand.

“May I help you?” he asked quietly.

I was a bit surprised to see this man and not Drew’s mother. Hadn’t Drew said his father had passed away? Maybe an uncle. But I was also pretty sure Drew had mentioned that he was looking after his mother on his own.

“I was looking for Drew,” I said.

“Who’s that again?” the man said.

“Drew,” I repeated. Maybe he was hard of hearing.

“Drew?” he said. “No Drew here.”

“No no,” I said. “This is the house. I’m looking for Drew Lockus. He lives here, with his mother.”

“Don’t think so,” the man said. “My name’s Harley, and I live here alone. My wife, she passed away a few years ago.”

I took a step back, looked at the house, said, “Big guy? Could be a football player? Short hair?”

“Oh yeah,” Harley said. “That sounds like the fella that’s been standing out here on the sidewalk every morning, waiting for some lawn service truck to pick him up. That the guy you’re looking for?”

FORTY

"What’s with you?” Randy asked, putting down his window as I walked slowly back to the town car. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

I had a very bad feeling. Something was very, very wrong.

“The fuck?” the mayor said. “Hello? Earth to Cutter!”

“Shut up, Randy,” I said.

“What?”

“Shut the fuck up for a minute.” I stood there by the car, thinking, trying to put it together. If Drew didn’t live here, if this wasn’t his house. .

I thought back to the times I’d dropped him off. How I’d see him in my rearview mirror, standing on the sidewalk, watching me leave. How I’d never seen him go in or come out of that house. How the very first time I’d seen him, he’d been using the hedges to shield himself.

I felt my knees weaken when it hit me.

Drew had been following me.

Telling me he lived there, with his mother, it was all bullshit, so I wouldn’t realize he’d been following me.

But if he was meeting me here every day, then he had to get here somehow-