59
ANSON
We were in the Kid’s room. Paul, Vincent, and me. We’d closed the door, but there was no lock. There was a quick discussion about whether or not to block the door with a chair before we decided against it. There was no need to draw attention.
Vincent was doing that pacing thing, crossing the small space like a trapped bull before turning on his heels and strutting back, his nostrils flaring with each breath. “We should have fucking left. I knew it. I goddamn knew it.”
“You didn’t know shit,” Paul muttered. When his brain caught up with his mouth and realized he’d just said that to Vincent, he looked up with wide, fear-filled eyes. “I mean, how could you? How could any of us?”
Vincent’s only response was a soft grunt as he stomped across the room again.
“I think it’s a mistake,” the Kid said. “How could Meagan have been at your house in Simpsonville? What are the odds of that? I think maybe you just saw someone who looks like her, that’s all.”
Paul said, “I think the Kid’s got a crush on his pretty doctor, and it’s clouding his impressionable young mind.”
Beneath the dark pattern of healing bruises, the Kid’s face flushed red, but he didn’t deny it.
I was busy trying to ignore all of them.
In my head, I played the images of that day.
More and more of them came back to me with each pass, building on what Paul had helped me recall earlier.
The Kid was right: it made absolutely no sense that Meagan would be there.
Or that I’d run into her again here. There was too much chance involved in that.
Too much randomness. Logic told me it couldn’t be true, but with each pass through my mind, the images became clearer, sharper, and her face came into focus.
I was sure.
I didn’t want to be, but I was.
Other images had grown clearer, too. I thought of the vans I had seen before the fire started, the men crawling around the house, and I turned to the Kid and nodded at the laptop on his bedside table. “Are you able to look up companies on that thing? The way you did Van Man and Sam Porter?”
The Kid reached for the laptop and powered it on. “Sure. What company?”
“Talbot Enterprises.”
The name had been painted on the sides of the white vans.
When Paul heard the name, he flipped through the sketches in his notepad until he found one with the vans.
“It’s probably bogus. Might as well say Red’s Carpet Cleaning.
Maybe the vans were stolen. Bad guys wouldn’t be stupid enough to show up at a crime scene with the name of their current employer stamped across their vehicles.
Were they wearing t-shirts that said ‘Suspect’ across the front, too?
I bet whoever was in charge had a ball cap that said ‘Top Baddie’ on it. ”
Vincent glared at him. “Stop talking.”
“Whatever,” Paul muttered.
“If they were in a hurry,” I told the Kid, “if they didn’t expect to get caught, they might show up like that. They were in and out fast. It’s isolated. They didn’t see me, and there was nobody else out there to see them.”
The Kid had been typing. He stopped. “Talbot Enterprises is real. I’m not sure why they would be in South Carolina, though. Best I can tell, they don’t have any branches in that state. They’re based out of Chicago.”
“What do they do?”
He tapped a few keys and studied the screen.
“Lots of stuff. The company was founded by a guy named Arthur Talbot fourteen years ago. Looks like he started in residential real estate, then got into accounting services and software development. They do a lot of commercial real estate and development now, too. It’s a pretty big company.
Over a thousand employees. Even more if you factor in subcontractors.
There’s a list of projects here a mile long. ”
Mr. Carter was an accountant.
Did he work for Talbot Enterprises?
“Is there any kind of employee log? Do you see someone named Simon Carter?”
The Kid went back to typing. After a few seconds, he frowned. “Nobody named Carter.”
Vincent stopped pacing. “What about—”
“I’m already looking,” the Kid replied without looking up. A second later, he shook his head. “I don’t see Meagan either.”
“Do we even know if that’s her real name?” Paul asked.
I thought back to the police report I’d seen on Detective Moss’s table.
When Stash had been arrested, it was Meagan who bailed him out.
I imagined they asked for a driver’s license when you posted bail.
Some sort of identification. Unless she had a fake ID to back it up, Meagan was probably her real name.
There was a knock at the door. It opened, and Ruddy stuck his head in.
“There you are.” He stepped into the room with the clipboard in his hand.
“The three of you haven’t filled this out yet.
” He glanced at the Kid. “Well, four of you, if you’re up for it.
” He got a better look at the Kid, the bruises, and walked it back.
“You don’t have to. Not if you don’t want to. ”
Vincent took the clipboard from him and scribbled in “.38” next to his name, then looked at me. “I’ve seen you shoot. No fucking way you’re getting a gun.”
“I have a knife,” I told him. “I don’t want a gun.”
Paul raised both palms and shook his head. “I’m a lover, not a fighter. I’ll be in the back capturing your death on paper so future generations can sing your praises.”
In the hallway behind Ruddy stood Detective Moss.