Gone The Next by Ben Rehder Read Free Book Online Page B

I’d misled her, and she could even alert Pierce that I’d been there. I was hoping I’d sized her up right.
    “You’re a pretty good liar,” she said.
    “Well, I prefer actor or even performance artist.”
    “No, I think liar sums it up pretty well.” But she seemed like she was teasing me, rather than being spiteful.
    “The truth is, sometimes I have to be less than honest about who I am. Like a cop working undercover.”
    “Wait a sec. You’re trying to catch a guy who might be scoring a paid vacation by faking a wrist injury, and you’re comparing yourself to a policeman who might catch a murderer or bust a major drug ring. Really?”
    “I know. It almost makes the cops sound a little silly, doesn’t it?”
    Finally, she laughed. A small laugh, but a laugh nonetheless.
    I said, “Here’s what I’d like to do. Let me take you out to dinner. My way of apologizing for unleashing my powers of deception on you.”
    She didn’t say anything. Just set my card down on the table and walked away. But when she gave me the check, she’d written her phone number on it.

12
     
    What he hadn’t expected was how paranoid he became after he had the girl. Emily. That was her new name. He had been nervous in the planning stages, and terrified during the actual execution of his plan, but he had assumed he would be calm and collected afterward. He wasn’t. If anything, he was even more on edge, because now he had so much more to lose. Especially now that Emily was adjusting. Asking about her parents less often. Starting to seek his attention. His approval. Settling in. It was all working exactly as he had hoped, and the thought of losing it now made him frantic.
    So he became anxious.
    Suspicious.
    And eventually he began to feel that he was being watched.
    Every car that passed was a cop, in plain clothes, trying to catch him during a moment of carelessness.
    Neighbors were spying on him from a distance through binoculars, or attempting to peek through the fence.
    The mail carrier had been tipped off. Same with the UPS driver. The meter reader. They had all been told to keep their eyes open and report what they saw.
    Every incoming phone call was a test, with the caller hoping to hear the babblings of a little girl in the background.
    It wasn’t true, though. It couldn’t be. He knew he was letting his imagination run away with him. He took Xanax, and that helped. Besides — even if it was true, which it wasn’t — what could they do if they did in fact suspect him?
    Absolutely nothing.
    They’d need evidence to do anything more than watch, and he hadn’t given them any. No matter how anxious he became, that was one thing he never doubted. He had left no evidence. And without evidence, they couldn’t get a search warrant. All they could do is put him under surveillance.
    He could handle that. It was important to go about his usual routine. Do the things he normally did. Don’t cut off contact with the outside world. Pretend that nothing had changed.
    And if worse came to worst, he was well prepared for virtually any scenario. He had a range of options and alternatives that nobody could imagine. Some were simple and pragmatic, while others were more drastic and potentially heartbreaking.
    But he was prepared to use any of them.

13
     
    “So you picked up the waitress?” Mia asked. “Wow. You don’t ever give it a rest, do you?”
    “I wouldn’t say ‘picked up.’”
    “Close enough. She gave you her number. Not exactly playing hard to get, either of you.”
    We were on her apartment patio, kicked back in lounge chairs, enjoying the relatively cool afternoon. She was drinking a beer in a frosty mug. I was drinking a Dr Pepper in an attractive aluminum can.
    “Hard for any mortal to resist my charms,” I said. Mia and I frequently shared the details of our dating lives. Okay, maybe I did a little more sharing than she did.
    “You gonna call her?”
    “Well, yeah, that’s the idea. I want to ask her