Innocent Bystander (7 page)

Emma handled her Nissan Leaf with the precision of a Formula One driver. She drove fast, but not fast enough to attract attention.

Burnett fretted over how the Leaf stood out. If the cops were trailing them, it would be easy to follow. He admired her commitment to the Green Movement, or whatever she called it. Right now, though, he wished they’d taken his car. If ever a car had been designed to blend in, it was the Toyota Camry.

He kept his eyes riveted on the side-view mirror. He’d asked her to adjust the mirror on his side so he could monitor the traffic behind them. A pair of headlights insisted on lurking a hundred feet back.

She turned right onto a busy, two-lane road. The vehicle behind them made a right and merged into traffic. Burnett kept his focus on the headlights. They kept pace with the Leaf.

Is it the sedan that had been parked across the street?

It astonished him how paranoid his thinking had become over the past twenty-four hours. Since Audrey had shown up at Henri’s apartment he hadn’t known what to believe, his mind questioning everything that had happened. This near constant state of uncertainty had begun to take a toll on him. He wasn’t sure who he could trust, except Emma. She remained the one constant in his life right now. Thank God she’d come by tonight.

“Can you speed up a little?” he asked.

Without asking why, she pressed the accelerator.

The headlights behind them maintained their distance.

Burnett squinted and tried to read the name of the upcoming side street. He recognized it. “Can you make a right here?”

“It’s not the way,” she said.

“Three more rights will bring us back.”

“You think we’re being followed?”

He nodded.

Emma tapped the brake and made a cautious right onto the street. The headlights that had trailed them slowed, but continued along the main avenue.

He twisted his body and stared out the back window. He clenched his teeth and prayed no other car would appear. The Leaf approached a stop sign. Behind them he saw only darkness.

“They’re gone,” she said. She watched him. His curved body sat rigid, and he remained fixated on the street. She touched him on the shoulder. He turned and faced her. “I really think they’re gone.”

She brought the Leaf to a stop at the intersection.

“Stay on this street a little longer,” he said when he realized she intended to make the right.

“Sure,” she said, her voice tinged with doubt.

He knew her primary concern was getting to the PI’s office as soon as possible.

Emma straightened out the wheel and the Leaf leapt forward. The road snaked through a suburban neighborhood. Mini-mansions with oversized yards lined the street.

His attention returned to the side-view mirror. Only darkness, broken by an occasional streetlamp, filled the mirror.

Then he thought he saw a vehicle behind them, its headlights out. Perhaps he’d imagined it. His paranoia seemed to grow by the minute.

He twisted his body again and locked an arm around the headrest. After an interminable wait, a dark sedan coasted beneath a streetlight.

“They’re still back there,” he said.

She checked the rearview mirror. “I don’t see anyone.”

“Keep watching.”

She watched darkness behind them in the mirror. She must have seen it because she jammed the accelerator to the floor. The Leaf tore down the street. It screeched to a halt at a stop sign. She spun the wheel to the right and the Leaf raced down a windy street. Burnett, awestruck by how quickly the all-electric car accelerated and took turns, clutched the armrest.

Two more rights deposited them back on the main road. He studied the numbers on the center console, the top one indicating how many miles the Leaf could travel before needing a recharge.

“You think we lost them?” she asked.

Burnett bit his lip and shook his head with uncertainty. Cars crowded the street. She accelerated the Leaf and passed an SUV. He watched and waited, hoping none of the vehicles behind them would follow suit. Ten seconds later another car duplicated their maneuver. The headlights fell in line behind them.

“Why are they following us?” she asked and smacked her palm against the wheel. “Why aren’t they looking for that scrawny little bitch?”

“You know why. They don’t believe she exists.”

“How can she not be on any security videos? How can no one have seen her?”

A familiar answer tried to sneak into his mind.

“It’s not fair, goddammit,” she said. “You tried to help him. You tried to save him.”

She stared straight ahead while the Leaf traveled slower and slower. He prepared to ask if she was okay when without warning she stomped on the brake. An instant later she jerked the wheel to the left. The Leaf skidded to a stop across the street and blocked both lanes. She shoved open the door.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

She didn’t reply. She jumped out and marched up to the black sedan idling thirty feet behind them. The sedan lurched backward. A box truck thwarted its retreat.

Burnett exited the Leaf but remained by the open door.

“Leave us alone, goddammit!” she screamed at the sedan’s windshield. “Go find that little bitch. She did this. You hear me in there? You find her.”

Burnett stood, frozen. He needed to race over and drag her back before she further complicated matters, but he couldn’t will himself forward.

“Come out here and talk to me face to face, you little weasels,” she yelled.

No one exited the sedan.

Car horns honked. Drivers and passengers cursed at her.

She didn’t seem to notice. “You find that little skank. You find her and you ask her why she killed Henri.”

Cars had stopped in both directions. She pivoted her head and appeared to realize she’d become the center of attention for dozens of people.

Head lowered, she backed away several steps. “You find her.” She glanced up. “And you get some answers from her.”

She returned to the Leaf. Burnett fell into his seat. She entered without a word, thrust the Leaf into gear, and drove off in silence.

The sedan did not follow.

* * *

Emma and Burnett sat across from Mr. Frank’s desk. The office was a room attached to the side of his house. She noted the homemade bookshelves, bursting with everything from mysteries to travel guides to self-help books, that filled three of the four walls. A flat Staples calendar covered a third of the desk, and a wobbly stack of books teetered on a corner.

Doesn’t this guy own a computer?
she wondered.

Mr. Frank, the PI, glanced at the note he’d just scribbled. “She actually told you she was from the future?” he said and chuckled.

A prickle of fear flashed through Emma’s chest. What would she do if he actually tracked Audrey down? At that moment, seated beside Burnett in the office, she believed she might kill her. Why turn her over to the police? No doubt she’d be tried as a juvenile and slapped on the wrist. She didn’t push Henri off the balcony, but she might as well have, considering his state of mind after her story.

“I bet the cops got a rise out of that,” Mr. Frank said. He rolled his chair back, then forward.

“That’s why we came to you,” she said. She estimated the man to be between fifty and fifty-five years old. Judging by the paint chips strewn across the floor and the water-damaged ceiling, she also guessed a couple extra bucks would be a priority.

“You believe us?” Burnett asked.

“I believe a girl showed up at his apartment and told you that story.”

“That’s more than the cops believe,” Burnett said.

Curiosity spread across Mr. Frank’s face.

“Nobody saw her but us,” Burnett said.

The PI jacked up a suspicious eyebrow. Without warning, the stack of books on the corner of his desk exploded toward Emma and Burnett. She leapt from her chair and leaned into Burnett, who’d covered his face to protect it from a flying travel guide.

As her pounding heart slowed, she watched a Siamese cat arch its back near the desk’s leading edge. It meowed and scratched the side of its neck with a flurry of strokes.

“No, Iris,” Mr. Frank said as he scooped up the cat with his right hand.

At her feet lay half-a-dozen books, two pens, a six-inch silver letter opener, and an assortment of paper clips. With several annoyed swipes of her sandal, she raked them beneath the desk.

Mr. Frank placed the animal in his lap, but she immediately crawled back onto the desk. “I hope she didn’t startle you.”

‘Startle’ doesn’t begin to describe it,
she thought. “It’s okay. Can you help us?”

“I can’t promise anything,” Mr. Frank said. “You haven’t given me much to work with.”

“We’ll double your usual fee if you can find her in twenty-four hours,” she said. The office felt much too warm. All she wanted was to get the meeting over with.

Mr. Frank chuckled. He scratched the four-day old stubble on his chin, ran his fingers through salt-and-pepper hair, then rolled up the sleeves on his checkered flannel shirt. “You have as much patience as your father.”

“This is important,” she said, knowing she’d stated the obvious.

“I know. I’m sorry for your loss. Both your losses.” He snatched the cat from his desk a second time and stood with it. “I’ll do everything I can. Twenty-four hours is next to impossible, but I’ll see if I can find something about who she is. Fair?”

“Yes,” Emma said. She sensed the feline watching her and faced away. On her list of favorite pets, cats occupied a spot between snakes and tarantulas.

It unnerved her as she and Burnett rose in unison. She deliberately inched closer to him.

The nearer she physically got to him, the safer she felt. Had he not been with her earlier, she wouldn’t have jumped from her car and confronted the cops. Something about him, something ineffable, buoyed her confidence. With all that had happened over the past twenty-four hours, she needed someone she could trust, someone she could depend on. More than that, she needed somebody who encouraged her to feel good about herself.

Michael Burnett was that person. She didn’t understand why, and at that moment it didn’t matter.

The following morning Burnett stood hunched over his father’s hospital bed. A helmet covering the older man’s head, and numerous tubes and wires running to and from his body, sent a shiver through him.

The doctors had informed him that the bleeding had been stopped, and pressure inside his skull relieved. They also advised him to prepare himself for a lengthy recovery. What the physicians had neglected to prepare him for was the shock of seeing his father pulsing with more tubes and wires than the vintage radios the old man collected.

He hadn’t seen his father in more than a week. In that time he appeared to have aged considerably. The lines creasing his brow and surrounding his eyes had deepened. The wisps of gray hair that snuck out from beneath the helmet had turned grayer.

His father was no doubt asleep, and for that he offered a silent thank you. It would make the conversation far less stressful. A nurse would tell him later that his son had stopped by.

He sat on the edge of the bed. “Since you’re asleep, and I don’t have much time, I’ll be brief. Henri’s dead, and he shouldn’t be. I need to find out why.”

“What happened?” his father asked, his voice a low grumble. His eyes fluttered open.

“You’re awake.”

“You knew. Otherwise you wouldn’t have stayed.”

Burnett clenched the soft railing at the head of the bed. “Jumped from his balcony.”

“Good God,” his father said and coughed. “And you need to find out why? Cops can’t handle it?”

“He was my friend.”

“He was barely out of his teens, Michael. Couldn’t you have found someone closer to your own age?”

Burnett wandered to the window. “Thanks for the understanding.”

“I’m sorry,” his father muttered. “But he always struck me as a bit immature. Not to mention unstable.”

Burnett leaned toward his Camry in the parking lot five floors below. “I quit my job this morning.”

“Okay.”

Two syllables conveyed a measure of disappointment Burnett could not stomach at that moment.

“Got any more news to cheer me up with this morning?” His father coughed again. “Why’d you need to go back to school? You’re not twenty-one anymore. Stop acting like it. You had a good, secure job. Couldn’t you be happy with that?”

“I want more.”

“We all want to change the world, Mikey, trust me. But most of us are satisfied just doing our part to keep it spinning. You think ’cause the two of you got good grades in science you were somehow special?”

“It’s about doing what I love.”

His father snorted his disapproval.

“I got a lot to do today,” Burnett said.

“Then why’d you stop by?”

“I don’t know.”

“Course you do. You came to hear me tell you that you’ll solve the mystery of why your friend took his life and everything’ll be okay.”

“Maybe.”

“But I can’t. And you know why?”

“Yeah. But you’re going to tell me anyway.”

“Because you’ve never followed through on one goddamn thing your whole life. Only reason you got a diploma is ’cause I nagged your ass. Only reason you’ve done anything is ’cause someone nagged your ass.” He coughed uncontrollably.

A tall nurse with jet-black hair and a crisp white uniform plowed into the room. She stood beside the bed as his coughing subsided.

“He needs to rest,” the nurse said. “Any sudden movements could start him bleeding again.”

“I’ll go.” He was three steps from the door, three steps from freedom, when his father beckoned him to return. At that moment he could have pretended he didn’t hear the request. In no time he’d be in his car and on his way out of the lot. He debated for a good ten seconds before returning to the side of the bed.

His father feebly grasped his hand.

“What I said,” his father whispered, “about you never finishing anything.”

“I know you didn’t mean it.”

“Course I did,” his father said, barely audible. He coughed twice and gripped his son’s hand just a bit tighter. “Prove me wrong.”

* * *

That evening Burnett descended the stairs of a lecture hall. Dr. Thaddeus Stone, his calculus professor, met him at the bottom step.

“What’s going on?” Stone asked. “The police have asked me about you twice in the past twenty-four hours.”

Burnett waited until the last two students, both in their fifties, exited the classroom. “They believe I killed Henri.”

Stone’s eyes widened. “I heard it was an accident.”

“Several people saw us struggling on the balcony. I was trying to stop him from jumping. They think we were fighting and I pushed him.” He shook his head, still in disbelief.

Stone shook his head in rhythm with his student. “You mean he jumped?”

Burnett’s head, still shaking side to side, transitioned to up and down.

“Need a lawyer?” Stone asked. “I know several good ones.”

“I hope not.”

Stone grabbed a pencil and paper from his desk. He jotted down a number. With his muscular, six-foot frame, weathered good-looks, and quiet self-confidence, he came across more like an aging movie star than a college professor.

Stone slipped him the paper. “Should you need one, heaven forbid, call me.”

Burnett pocketed it. Dr. Stone inspired trust, and God knew he needed allies. “Thanks,” he said, and left the room.

Remorse over his failure to prevent his friend’s suicide, combined with Farrow’s belief that he’d killed Henri, weighed on him. His mind lacked its usual sharpness, and he needed to be sharp.

It had been nearly twenty-one hours since he and Emma had spoken to Mr. Frank. So far they’d heard nothing from him.

Without Emma he realized he’d be lost. What impressed him most were her actions with the driver of the black sedan. She’d been impulsive and could have landed him in more trouble, but it was an action he envied. He berated himself for having remained by the car, and for not being more proactive in the hunt for Audrey. It was not Emma’s responsibility to take charge of the search.

His Galaxy S6 rang. He pressed it to his ear.

“Listen,” Emma said. “I just got a call from Mr. Frank. He might have something for us.”

“I hope so,” he said.

“Of course he might be jerking us around so we’ll double his pay. Let’s keep our fingers crossed. He wants us to meet him at seven-thirty. Can you give me a ride? Courtney needs my car.”

“Sure.”

“I’ll meet you in the parking lot in five minutes.”

Common sense, not to mention caution, dictated he temper his optimism. He found that difficult to do. With Audrey the key, he wanted nothing more than to grab her by the throat and demand some answers.

He exited the building and strode into the parking lot. A commotion on the far side of the lot snared his attention. An ambulance, its lights flashing, sat near the entrance.

From thirty yards away he watched the emergency medical technician lift Audrey’s body from the trunk of his silver Toyota Camry.