Deadly News: A Thriller (17 page)

“I’m hanging up now.”

“Oh, I would not do that.”

“Oh?”

“You see, there is a bomb attached to your phone, and when you hang up.” He paused, then whispered, “Boom.”

Bill stopped breathing. He stared at the old beige phone sitting on the countertop. Nothing seemed amiss. No one had been in here. The only—

“Oh, you’re too easy, Billy Boy. Don’t worry, I would never be so crude. There is no bomb. Not on your day off. I just needed your attention. Now that I have it, listen carefully. You may want to write this down. I know at your age, things start slipping. Are you ready?

He went on before Bill replied. “Tonight when you go into work— Sorry, I mean tomorrow, what, three hours and twenty-seven minutes from now? You will go into work, and someone will leave something for you, a folder. It will have things inside of it, things which you are not to look at. And when you get this folder, you will open it. There will be a blank sheet of paper inside with a single name written on it.” A pause. “Unless there are two. No matter, one or two, what’s the difference except more letters and ink?

“You will see these names, remember them. Then at some point during your shift, you will recall those names, and you will think, I should look at the medical files. Then you will take the originals—or you may make copies, but originals would be better—and you will place these documents, sans their own folder or folders into the folder you received with the blank sheet of paper with one or two names upon it.”

There was a pause, but Bill was too confused and caught off guard to fill it.

“Ah, yes, I left out something. Staple or use a paperclip to bind these files together. We wouldn’t want things getting mixed.” He chuckled.

“I—”

“After,” the voice interrupted, “you’ve done this, you will close the folder. Then you will take a single piece of tape and use it to seal the folder. You then must place your signature on the tape—if you have one of those signature stamps, all the better. Once this is done, simply leave the folder with who you found it with, and all will be done and handled, and your obligation will come to a close.”

“My obligation!”

“Yes William Henry Williams, social security number zero two zero two two eight nine eight nine, who lives on seventy-three Jackson Street, who is married to Matilda Lillian O’Keefe, born to Cornelius and Elizabeth Kelly. Yes, William H., who makes three-hundred and twenty-nine thousand a year as a general surgeon; who with this salary purchased a small, modest boat on January second, and who uses this boat on holidays and when the mood strikes.” He paused, and his voice grew darker somehow, deeper maybe. “Yes, William, who is even now standing in his kitchen, wife Matilda by his side looking worried, who is even now looking around as though he could locate the source of his growing unease. Perhaps—though this we truly can’t know—he is wondering about his children, his grandchildren Melissa, and Jacob, Tommy, Bryan, Kaitlyn, and Matilda, after her grandmother. Who hopes that we can’t know that… even now… they are fast asleep some of them, while two more are out with their parents, eating dinner, at the Olive Garden, and others are home in their beds with someone they’ve only just met. His name, by the way, is Michael—Mike for short—and the things he’s doing to your little girl… I won’t bore you with the details. Suffice it to say that she and her girlfriend are having problems, and she went out looking for a solution in the form of a big, dumb, handsome man, and found it.”

A torrent of words was trying to escape Bill, but nothing made it out.

“You should let your mouth hang open like that more often. It suits you.

“Call your brood if you wish, you can confirm what I’ve said. I think I’ve convinced you, but if not, I won’t take offence.

“And tell the police if you must. I would strongly recommend against it.” Another pause. “No, the best sequence of actions for you would be exactly as I described. What you do after that does not concern we.” He waited, Bill said nothing.

“Mr Williams, are you still with us?”

“I’m here.”

“Good. Were those instructions clear?”

Bill shook his head. Matilda was crying. Goddamn, of course she could read him, how scared he was. Forty-four years of marriage, plus some amount he couldn’t now recall before then—had it been sophomore year?—of course she could read him like a book, and not a particularly challenging one either. Maybe he wore a similar expression to when he’d gotten the news about Tom Senior, who had been in an accident. She’d been by his side then, too, and maybe that’s what he looked like to her now.

He forced out words: “Someone will leave a folder for me. Don’t read it, just check the names on top, and put their files in the folder. Sign and seal it. Then leave it… Wherever I got it.”

“Almost, but I won’t hold it against you. Order is important, just remember that.” The line went dead.

Bill held the phone to his ear for several long moments, then set it gently down on the receiver.

“God, what is it?”

“Matty, they knew everything.” He looked around. Could they hear him, see him, even now?
Even now, your child sleeps.
He ran a hand over his face, collapsed onto one of the stools, almost missed it. Matilda caught him.

“Bill! What is it!”

“They want me to do something.” He looked up at her. “I think I’m going to have to do it.”

Bill and Matilda pause their shared story, and everyone around the once more dwindling fire is silent.

Jesus, you think. You look at the faces surrounding you. All are somber, even the quiet woman.

The things that happened to Abby were bad, but at least it was only threats against her, really. Not everyone she cared about.

“The folder,” Abby says, looking in the direction of the floor. “Your name is William, not Bill. W, not B.” She looks up at the doctor and his wife. “W. Williams, that was the name on top.”

Both husband and wife look up at this.

“It was?” Bill asks.

Abby nods. “I can remember it now, the letter I in the name, you know, like Will I am. And I wondered what else W could stand for besides William, since I didn’t think someone would be named William Williams.”

The doctor smiles a smile that says he’s heard all the jokes before.

“W. Williams, that was the name I searched for, but…”

“It’s common,” the wife says.

“Yeah. And a lot of people with W as a middle initial.”

You can see Abby’s breathing heavily, despite not having moved much while the tale was told.

“And here we are.”

“Coincidence?” the long-haired man asks.

“I don’t believe in coincidences,” the wife says.

“I do,” the scruffy man says. He shakes his head. “But this, this I don’t think is one. What are the odds? Low, right? I mean…”

“So this is about the three of you?” the thirteen-year-old asks. “Do you think there’s any connection to the rest of us?” She looks around the fire, looking for an answer.

You have none. You would have said no before, but now… But now, anything seems possible.

“I can’t think of anything weird, lately,” the champagne woman says.

“Other than this,” the man with the suit-jacket puts in, “nothing. Not that I noticed.” He looks around the fire. “Anyone else?”

Shaking of heads, shrugging.

“What about you?” Abby asks, looking directly at you.

“Me?” You shake your head. “I mean, this is odd, but no, nothing else.”

She puts her bottom lip in her mouth. “Did you do it then?” she asks the doctor and wife.

He nods. “Just like he said, a folder was left for me.” He frowns. “A nurse I’d never seen before. Wouldn’t be the first time I didn’t notice someone new…” He looks away. “Now I wonder.”

“And nothing happened to our family,” the wife says. “That much was true.”

“Did the police do anything?”

“They might have, but we didn’t have a chance to tell them. After that folder, nothing happened. Then, last night, Matty and I were having dinner. We made reservations. When we got there, right on our table, was a folder, the same one.”

“‘Sorry to trouble you again,’” the wife recited. “‘This will be the last time we require your assistance. Terms are the same.’”

“And there was an address. Where I was supposed to drop off the folder.”

“Where?”

“I don’t know.” He looked at his wife questioningly.

“Uptown somewhere, near that foreign billiards place.”

“On 4th?” the scruffy man asks.

You look at him. He’s very stiff, one hand clutching tight on his left knee.

“Yeah, know it?”

He nods. “I live near there.”

Everyone looks at him.

“Do you remember the exact address?”

They both shake their heads.

Bill says, “I only remember the bar because I’ve passed by it before, and it always stood out to me.”

There’s a silence, then the thirteen-year-old breaks it. “Coincidence?” She says this with a weak smile.

Children, you think. They don’t seem to know when attempts at levity will bring the opposite.

“That’s maybe four of us,” Abby says. “There’s…” she counts, “Ten?” She frowns. “Huh. So almost half. What are the chances there’s some connection to the rest of us?”

“But, they couldn’t know we’d make it.”

“What car were you all on?”

Car numbers are called out. You discover Abby was in your car; strange you didn’t notice her. Everyone else was in a different car.

“You were in One?” the champagne woman asks the thirteen-year-old, astonished.

The girl shrugs. “I’m young and flexible. My head still hurts.” She arches her spine. “Back too. But I think I’m okay.”

“But, the car, it was…”

“I don’t know. I got lucky.”

More silence.

“Why has no one come to rescue us?” the champagne bottle woman asks.

There’s no answer.

“How long have we been here? Shouldn’t they have come by now?”

The long-haired man next to her puts his tongue in his cheek, shifts in his spot on the floor. “Yeah, I’ve had to piss like five times now, and am about ready to again. I don’t know how often I usually go, but it has to be at least a few hours since the crash.”

“And not even a peep,” the woman adds.

The scruffy man is nodding, but just looks at his feet. Next to him, the man with the suit jacket has removed it from his lap, and twists the thing around his fingers.

“Okay,” Abby says, standing and pacing around the outside of the circle. “So what, someone,
someones
, are trying to kill not just me, but at least two of you? Because you see something you shouldn’t?” She shakes her head in disgust. “But you guys,” she gestures at the doctor and his wife, “were given the folder intentionally. It wasn’t an accident like with me.”

“Maybe it wasn’t an accident,” the thirteen-year-old says. “Maybe Sven was in cahoots with them.”

“Sven?” Abby asks.

“Cahoots? the long-haired man asks.

“You mean Soren? No, I know Soren. I’ve known him for years. He owed me, and so he was just paying me back.”

“Exactly. Payback’s a bitch.”

Abby shakes her head. “By giving me the story. A big one, apparently. He was trying to help.”

“I don’t know, seems suspicious.”

“It’s not Soren!” Abby snaps.

The girl looks shocked. “Sorry, I—” She shrugs one shoulder. “I’m just trying to help.”

The wife puts a hand on the girl’s shoulder.

Abby stops pacing, standing near the middle of the circle. The way the fire lights her face makes it look more frightening than it should. “So did you deliver the folder?”

“Oh, dear, no.”

“Didn’t we say? That was just a few— Well, that was tonight, earlier. We had dinner.”

“We had reservations, and weren’t going to let some fruitcake ruin our plans.”

“I wonder now if they expected that.” The doctor shakes his head. “How could they have known? I mean, even coordinating just you getting on, Abby.”

“No, that makes sense. They controlled me, told me exactly when to get on, then changed their minds. Or, I guess they didn’t, you just didn’t act according to their plans.”

“They told you to get on? How?”

Abby sighs and walks back to her seat. “God, there’s so much to tell. I’m more scared than ever to leave anything out now, in case it’s useful, in case one of you”—she waves her hand across the group—“recognizes it.”

“That’s pretty much all of our story, go on.”

“Yes,” the husband says. “I’m trying to think of the names I got folders for. I’ll interrupt you if I remember.”

His wife lights up. “Oh, I think one was—”

He puts a dirty finger to her lips. “We’ll compare.”

She smiles and nods.

His finger lingers just too long on her lips, and you look away, at Abby.

Her lips are flat together, and she has a deep line between her eyebrows. “What part was I at? The station, then the phone call, bomb, uh, yeah, yeah, and then, okay.” She looks around. “Did I tell you about the second crime?”

“What crime?” the thirteen-year-old asks.

“K, I’ll start there. Stop me if I told it.” She rubs her eyes. “I’m all of a sudden tired. Getting hard to remember.”

“You look like you haven’t slept in a year,” the thirteen-year-old says.

“I feel like that too. But it’s only been a day or two.” She shrugs. “You’ll see why soon.”

“Wait,” the scruffy man says. “Weren’t you stuck somewhere?”

“Yeah,” the champagne woman agrees. “The FBI left you? Right?”

“Oh, yes. I guess they happened simultaneously. I mean, that was why they left me. I was safe there. If I had tried to leave, I would have found I was locked in.

“Okay, I’ll start there then.”

Abby slept without meaning to. She was sleeping too much, and it seemed to just make her more tired.

She looked around the unfamiliar room, and quickly remembered where she was and what was going on. She wanted to leave the room, but now was more scared than when she had lay down. That was dumb, she thought, she’d just been out there. There were no monsters lurking, waiting for her to come out so they could—what?

She wondered what she’d been so afraid of as a kid, what did she used to think monsters would do? Eat her?