Terrified (15 page)

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Authors: Kevin O'Brien

Tags: #Mystery, #Thriller

BOOK: Terrified
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In the dark, near-barren living room, he stood at his window and watched Megan across the way. She was at her computer, and earlier she’d been watching TV. Whenever she’d poured another glass of wine, so had he. He was shirtless, and absently ran his hand over his taut, rippled stomach as he spied on her.
He wondered if she was on
Matefinder.com
right now. He’d watched her on some of those dates. None of those guys had been worthy of her. She must have known it, too, because none of them had even gotten a kiss good night.
He was glad to see she was becoming more discreet. His opinion of Lisa had gone down a notch when she’d had an affair with that dumpy married lawyer two years ago. He’d never been able to figure out what she’d seen in him. He’d figured she couldn’t possibly get too serious about him, and maybe that had been the lure. Still, he couldn’t believe she’d let that guy fuck her. He’d gotten so upset about it he’d actually considered killing the two of them during one of their Best Western liaisons. But then she’d soon come to her senses, and dumped the bastard.
It had taken him a while, but he’d come to forgive her.
It just proved to him that she was very sexual, and what she really needed was someone like him.
Watching her now, he rubbed his crotch. He was about to unbuckle his belt when she got up and pulled the curtains closed. But he didn’t move. He saw her shadow wandering around on the other side of those thin curtains. He saw her reaching for the lamp. Then her living room was dark, too. They were both standing there in the dark.
She was on her way up to bed.
He thought about how it would be lying beside her.
“Soon,” he whispered to himself.
 
 
It was 1:17
AM
according to the digital clock on her nightstand. She always had a tough time falling asleep when she was alone in the house. What had made her think tonight would be any different?
Throwing back the covers, Megan switched on the nightstand light, and then grabbed her robe from the foot of her brass bed. Maybe one more glass of pinot grigio would do the trick. She’d probably end up with a hangover in the morning, but at this point, she didn’t care.
Switching on the lights, Megan shuffled downstairs.
With a full glass of wine on her desk, she started the computer and brought up
Google.com
again. Every two or three weeks, she searched the Web for
Dr. Glenn Swann
for any recent activity. Sometimes, she’d select
Image
for a new picture of him. The most current shot she’d found was from an interview he’d given in prison four years ago. He’d still insisted he hadn’t murdered his wife. Though life behind bars had aged him, Glenn was still an attractive man. The gray along his temples made him look distinguished, and the Illinois State Department of Corrections orange jumpsuit with the V-neck top resembled his old scrubs.
The most recent news story she’d read about Glenn had been a year ago, a brief article from the
Chicago Tribune
explaining that Dr. Glenn Swann was working with his lawyer to have DNA evidence gathered and tested so his case could be reopened. He’d been waging that campaign for the last six years.
Checking
Dr. Glenn Swann
on Google had become routine for her—and kind of a pain, too. Each time Megan checked—only to find nothing new—she had to go into her computer’s Control Panel and delete her Internet history. Then the next time she used her computer, she’d have to reenter all her passwords. Still, it was worth the bother—just to make certain Josh never stumbled across that name while tinkering on her computer.
She typed
Dr. Glenn Swann
in the Google search window, then clicked on the
News
tab and hit
Enter.
Megan waited for the results to come up on the screen. They usually varied from a new production of
Swan Lake
to something Glenn Beck had just done.
“Oh, my God,” she whispered, glancing at the first result:
 
DNA Clears Doctor Jailed 14 Years For Wife’s Murder
Chicago Tribune – 5 days ago
… showed surgeon,
Dr. Glenn Swann,
44, who has served 14 years in Illinois State Prison for the murder of his wife, Lisa Densmore Swann, to be innocent …
Dr. Glenn Swann,
14 Years in Jail, Innocent
—NBC Chicago
Convicted Wife-Murderer
Dr. Glenn Swann
– Cleared
—
wgntv.com
All 127 news articles
 
She stared at the monitor and kept shaking her head. The listing of other articles—online and in newspapers across the country—filled the rest of the screen. She felt sick to her stomach.
She clicked on the
Chicago Tribune
article.
DNA Clears Doctor Jailed 14 Years
For Wife’s Murder
 
Winnetka Surgeon Proven the Wrong Man in
Notorious Garbage Bag Murder
 
TESTS SHOW HIS MISSING WIFE NOT THE MURDER VICTIM
There, below the headline and two sub-headlines, was a recent photo of Glenn in a suit jacket, shirt, and khakis, flanked by a couple of men in business suits, and surrounded by newsmen and photographers. Any other man might have looked happy to be released from jail, but Glenn was scowling at the camera. The caption read:
A FREE MAN: The Illinois State Board of Pardons unanimously voted to release Dr. Glenn Swann (center, between his lawyers), who served 14 years of a life sentence after he was wrongly convicted of murdering his wife.
Beside that photo was just about the last thing Megan wanted to see—a photograph of Lisa Densmore Swann. She remembered the charity ball at which it had been taken. She was smiling, but looked a bit melancholy. Then again, maybe she just saw the sadness in the picture because she remembered what her life had been like at the time. The caption beneath her likeness read:
PRESUMED DEAD: Lisa Densmore Swann disappeared two weeks before the remains of a woman believed to be her were discovered in several trash bags at various locations along Chicago’s North Shore. Recent DNA tests have proven otherwise, and Illinois State Police are reopening the case.
The article was from Monday, which meant Glenn had been a free man for five days now.
Having served in the prison hospital, the once-respected surgeon indicated he intends to return to medicine in private practice,
the story said. The piece went on to explain that DNA testing had proven his missing wife was not the Garbage Bag Murder victim—despite a match in burn marks and blood type. The police were now trying to determine the true identity of the dismembered woman. Some detectives looking into the disappearance of Lisa Densmore Swann back in 1996 claimed the scene of her apparent suicide on an Iowa bridge appeared “staged.” Illinois and Iowa State Police intended to reopen the investigation into Mrs. Swann’s disappearance.
Megan anxiously checked some of the other articles. Each one of them ran that same photo of
Lisa Densmore Swann
. She still looked like that woman. How many thousands of people had seen that photo earlier this week?
Megan felt her stomach lurch. She suddenly stood up, knocking over her desk chair. She ran to the powder room, fell to her knees in front of the toilet, and vomited. Flushing the toilet, she plopped down on the tiled floor and leaned against the bathroom wall. Her throat was on fire. Tears streamed down her face.
She closed her eyes, but kept seeing that image of Lisa Densmore Swann. It was online on countless news sites and in scores of newspapers.
Curled up on the bathroom floor, Megan took several deep breaths. She thought of the wrong number just ninety minutes ago, and that man asking for
Lisa.
She could still hear him snickering.
C
HAPTER
T
EN
Wilmette, Illinois
 
I
n a Perry Ellis dark blue suit, with the collar of his white shirt casually open, he sat in the upper deck of the Metra Train. Dr. Glenn Swann had been in the city for a conference with a high-priced public relations consultant, Alan Goldman. But Glenn had stormed out of the meeting.
The train rocked a bit, and he held on to his computer notebook to keep it from sliding off his lap. He was online looking up other public relations firms.
It was 12:30 in the afternoon, and the train car didn’t have many passengers, which was just fine by him. He didn’t like being packed in with a bunch of lowlifes. He’d put up with fourteen years of that, and didn’t have to anymore.
Glenn peered out the window at the trees with their leaves changing colors. Beyond the brilliant foliage, he glimpsed the parks, the quaint shops, restaurants, and the beautiful homes where he lived on Chicago’s North Shore. As soon as the Illinois State Supreme Court had ordered DNA testing of his late wife’s hair samples with forensic evidence from the remains they’d fished from those garbage bags, Glenn had known he’d be cleared. That same day they’d issued the order, he’d instructed his accountant to work with a Realtor to find him a condominium on the lake. While still incarcerated, he’d purchased his luxury condo on Sheridan Road for 1.1 million. It was on the seventeenth floor—second from the top—with three bedrooms, three baths, a media room, and a view of the lake. He’d worked online with an interior decorator—quite a sexy-looking bitch, too—so the place had been completely furnished and ready for him when he’d received his pardon. He’d hired a personal assistant to make sure he’d had a Mercedes in his parking spot, clothes in his closet, food stocked in his fridge, and liquor in the butler’s pantry. Even the cable had been hooked up ahead of time.
After working so many years under a bunch of incompetent doctors at the prison hospital, he’d vowed to go into private practice so he’d never have to take orders from morons again. He’d already picked out a location for his office in Wilmette, and the sexy interior decorator was giving the place a top-of-the-line makeover for him right now.
Around the time the Illinois State Board of Pardons had met to review the DNA test findings, Glenn had realized he needed to hire a PR whiz to help drum up some patient-clients. This Goldman asshole, who had just wasted two hours of his time, had come highly recommended. But the guy had sounded just like his lawyer.
“Have you considered it might be a little too soon to start your business, Dr. Swann?” he’d wanted to know. They’d been sitting on the black leather couch in Goldman’s office—with a silver bowl of fruit, muffins, and scones, and two cups of coffee on the mahogany coffee table in front of them. The guy’s office had floor-to-ceiling windows with a killer view of Michigan Avenue.
“Don’t you want to wait until things are completely resolved?” Goldman continued. About thirty, and skinny in a light gray suit that complemented his olive complexion, he balanced an iPad on his thigh. He’d glance down at it whenever he seemed uncomfortable. “You’ve been cleared of your wife’s murder,” he’d said, looking at his iPad. “But you still might be implicated in the death of this woman who was dismembered. While we wait for those findings, I can help you steadily build up a clientele—as well as a reputation that would put you in good standing again with the North Shore community.…”
Goldman wanted to plant positive articles about him in Chicago newspapers and magazines—especially the slick monthlies catering to the rich, country club crowd. Glenn liked that. But then the son of a bitch had the nerve to suggest he volunteer at a battered women’s shelter downtown for a few months.
“What?” Glenn asked hotly. His coffee cup and saucer clanked and almost tipped over as he set them down on the table. “Are you kidding me?”
“The bottom line is, Dr. Swann,” Goldman said, eyes on his iPad again, “you may have been exonerated of the murder charges, but people still remember you as—um, a wifebeater… .”
Glaring at him, Glenn shook his head over and over.
“I’m sorry,” Goldman continued. “But people won’t want anything to do with you—unless they figure you’re making amends. It’ll help them change their minds about you if you’ve volunteered to help battered women… .”
“Fuck that!” Glenn barked. With a sweep of his arm, he knocked the iPad out of Goldman’s hand. It sailed across the room and smashed against his mahogany desk.
“Jesus,” the thin man muttered, shrinking back on the sofa.
“I already did my penance, asshole!” Glenn jumped to his feet. “I already paid for everything I ever did to that bitch, fourteen years I paid! I don’t have to apologize to anyone! If you think I’m going to work in some filthy, stinking shelter to impress a bunch of people I don’t give a shit about, you’ve got your head up your ass… .”
He’d said a few other things before stomping out of there, but he really couldn’t remember.
“Wilmette, next stop, Wilmette!” the conductor announced, strolling down the aisle, collecting tickets.
Glenn closed his notebook, tucked it in its case, and then stood up. He walked along the upper deck railing and down the curved narrow stairwell. His cell phone rang. He paused on the bottom step to retrieve it from his jacket pocket. He thought Goldman might be calling with some other harebrained proposal. But it was an unknown caller sending a text.
The train doors whooshed open. Glenn impatiently shoved the phone back in his pocket and hurried to the exit. Stepping out to the platform, he headed toward the parking lot. He pulled out the phone again, but couldn’t read the message in the sun’s glare.
He took out his keys and unlocked his Mercedes with the remote. Ducking into the front seat, he tossed his case on the passenger seat, then checked his phone again for the text, which had a photo attachment.
“What the hell?” he murmured.
LISA LOOKS LOVELIER THAN EVER, DOESN’T SHE?
it said.
An image came up on the screen of his phone. It was his missing wife. She was blond now. She stood on a street corner with a takeout cup of coffee in her hand. Obviously, she’d had no idea someone was photographing her at the time. She wore a trench coat, belted at the waist. She looked older, of course, but the bitch was still beautiful.
Squinting at the picture, Glenn wondered if he could blow up the image and find the name of a cafe on the coffee cup, or a license plate on one of the cars in the background, a reflection of the skyline in one of the windshields. There had to be a way of figuring out where she was.
The phone rang again, and Glenn answered it immediately. “Yes, hello?”
“How does it work with a pardon?” the man on the other end asked.
Sitting behind the wheel of his parked Mercedes, Glenn held the phone to his ear. “Who the hell is this?” he whispered.
“You already served time for her murder,” the man said. “Do the rules of double jeopardy apply? Wouldn’t that be nice, Glenn? Once you find her, you could kill her, and the police wouldn’t be able to touch you—”
“Who is this? Goddamn it!”
There was a pause. “I’ll take you to her,” the man said finally, “for the right price. Are you interested?”
Glenn thought about the fourteen years she’d let him rot in jail.
“Yes,” he told the man. “Yes, I’m very interested.”
 
 
Seattle
 
“What’s going on?” he wanted to know.
Megan sat on a bench in the courtyard shopping plaza behind Whole Foods, just down the block from Destination Rent-a-Car. Everyone at work called it
Whole Paycheck
. On nice days, Megan bought a salad there, then ate outside. She wore her green blazer from work, and her hair was pulled back in a ponytail. The half-eaten container of salad was on the bench beside her.
She’d telephoned Josh at school a half hour ago and left him a message. Now he was calling back.
“I just wanted to make sure you’re okay,” she said into her cell, “and find out what time you’re coming home.”
“
Make sure I’m okay?
” he said on the other end. Kids were talking and laughing in the background. “I’m fine, and I’ve got basketball practice, so I’ll probably be home at around a quarter to six—same as usual. What gives? You never call me at school. Are
you
okay?”
“Yes, fine,” she replied. “I was just checking… .”
“Mom, you’ve been acting weird ever since I got back from Darren’s yesterday. Did something happen on Saturday night?”
Megan hesitated. She didn’t want to say anything to him. But she couldn’t help feeling Josh was in danger. If Glenn was indeed homing in on her, he was bound to go after Josh, too. In fact, she wouldn’t put it past him to hurt Josh—just to pay her back.
“Mom, are you there?”
“Yes,” she sighed. “It’s just that—well, I got a strange phone call while you were gone on Saturday night—”
“You mean, like, some perv dialed you up?”
“It was probably nothing, but it had me worried. You haven’t noticed anyone following you around today, have you?”
“Did this guy threaten you?” Josh asked, suddenly concerned.
“No, honey, he didn’t. But he—well, I’m just being cautious, that’s all. Like I said, it’s probably nothing—”
“Do you think it’s one of the guys you dated from Matefinder?” he asked.
“I doubt it,” she replied. “You didn’t answer my question earlier. Have you noticed anything peculiar in the last few days—anyone following you or any strange phone calls?”
She heard one of Josh’s friends yelling at him in the background.
“Yeah, hold on, I’ll be there in a sec!” he yelled back.
“Josh?” she said, hanging on his response.
“Yeah, Mom, I’m here,” he said. “I haven’t noticed anything weird going on. If this guy hasn’t called back since Saturday, it’s probably nothing, you know? Listen, I gotta go… .”
“Okay, Josh. I’ll see you tonight.”
“Bye, Mom,” he said. Then she heard him disconnect on the other end.
Megan clicked off. She didn’t feel any better. In fact, Josh probably thought she was losing her mind. And he wouldn’t be far off thinking that way.
She hadn’t slept at all Saturday night. Twice she’d gone to her bedroom closet and taken her suitcase from the top shelf—only to put it away again. If someone knew where she was, it was too late for her and Josh to run away. Besides, what would she tell Josh? How would she explain why they suddenly had to sneak away in the middle of the night with whatever could fit in the car? How could she explain they’d have to start someplace else and change their identities? How could she tell him the truth about his father?
She’d gone back online and scanned over at least thirty more articles about Dr. Glenn Swann’s release from prison. She’d wanted to learn everything she could: his plans, where he was living, the names of his attorneys—anything that might indicate what his next move would be. She’d tried Google for his address, and even called directory assistance for Chicago and the surrounding areas, asking for a new listing for Dr. Glenn Swann. The closest she’d come was a
Dr. Glenn Swann, DDS
, in Lake Forest. She should have known Glenn wouldn’t be listed.
All day Sunday, she’d been a wreck from lack of sleep, worrying about Josh and waiting for him to come home. When he’d finally rolled in at five in the afternoon, she’d been edgy and irritable toward him, the poor kid. The phone had rung twice, and she’d practically jumped out of her skin both times. The calls had been from Darren and a basketball buddy, Pat Hannah, both wanting to talk with Josh.
On the way to work this morning, she’d repeatedly checked her rearview mirror to see if anyone was following her. And sitting in the courtyard now, with her half-eaten salad beside her on the bench, she scrutinized every man who passed by or emerged from one of the boutique stores. She couldn’t help thinking Glenn—or someone working for him—was watching her, maybe stalking Josh, too.
Megan told herself she was overreacting. She’d known Glenn would someday be released from prison—if his horrible temper didn’t get him killed while he was in there. But it really shouldn’t have changed anything. How could Glenn know she was here? She’d been so careful. No one knew she was in Seattle.
No one.
Not even her father, who was still alive. She’d told Josh all four of his grandparents were dead. But Glenn’s mother was still alive, too, as far as Meg knew. And so were his sister and brother-in-law, Audrey and Jim Kruger, and their daughter, Candy, who was now thirty-one or thirty-two. It was funny to think of her teenage niece as a grown woman.
She’d told Josh that she and his dad were both only children. She’d made up an elaborate story about how practically all of the old family photos and negatives—including pictures of their wedding—had been lost by the movers when she and his dad had relocated from Portland to Seattle. “All we got back for those lost pictures was a measly two hundred dollars off our bill,” she’d lied.

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