Panic

4

E van had never felt so alone. A shiver took hold of him and he willed himself to calm down. He had to find Carrie and his father. He’d left messages for Carrie; surely she’d call back soon. Her quitting her job stunned him, and a sick twist roiled his gut. She left you a note, she quit her job, maybe she doesn’t want anything more to do with you. He didn’t want to consider the possibility. So he focused on finding his father. An itinerary, penned in his father’s tight, precise handwriting, wasn’t on the refrigerator in its usual spot, but he found it folded underneath the phone. The itinerary listed a number for the Blaisdell Hotel in Sydney.

‘Mitchell Casher’s room, please,’ Evan said to the clerk.

The night clerk – it was almost four in the morning Sydney time – was pleasant but firm. ‘I’m sorry, sir, but we don’t have a guest by that name.’

‘Please check again. C-A-S-H-E-R. Maybe they registered him wrong, put Mitchell as the last name.’

A pause. ‘I’m very sorry, sir, we don’t have a guest here named Mitchell Casher.’

‘Thanks.’ Evan hung up. He looked at Durless. ‘He’s not where he’s supposed to be. I don’t understand this at all.’

Durless took the itinerary. ‘Let us find your dad, Evan. Let’s get a statement and a description while your mind’s fresh.’

Fresh. It’s not likely I could ever forget, he thought. Evan leaned back, staring up at the smoke-colored clouds through the back windshield of the police cruiser as it drove away from his house. His mind whirled in a strange, panicked dance of logic and emotion. He wondered where he would spend the night. A hotel. He would have to call his family’s friends; but both his parents, though successful, tended to keep their circle of acquaintances small. He would have to make funeral arrangements. He wondered how long it would take for the police to do an autopsy. He wondered at which church he should have his mother’s funeral. He wondered how it had been for his mother. If she had known. If she had suffered. If she had been afraid. That was the worst. Maybe the killers had come up behind her, the way that they had on Evan. He hoped she never knew, never suffered a pitch-black terror overpowering her heart.

He closed his eyes. Tried to reason past the shock and grief. Otherwise he thought he might just break down. He needed a plan of attack. First, find his dad. Contact his dad’s local clients, see if they knew whom he worked for in Australia. Second, find Carrie. Third

… he closed his eyes. Make sense of the horror as to who wanted his mother dead.

But they looked on your computer. What if this isn’t about her? What if it’s about you? The thought chilled him, infuriated him, broke his heart in one swoop.

The police car, driven by a patrol officer who had been a responder to the initial 911 call, with Durless sitting in the front seat, turned out of the Cashers’ quiet, bungalow-remodeled neighborhood onto Shoal Creek Boulevard, a long thoroughfare that snaked through central and north Austin.

‘They staged the scene,’ Evan said, half to himself.

‘What’s that?’ Durless asked.

‘Staged. I mean, the killers murdered my mother, then were hanging me to fake a suicide. So you, initially, would think that I killed her and then killed myself.’

Durless said, ‘We would always look deeper than the surface.’

‘But it would be the first and most obvious theory.’

Evan’s cell phone rang in his pocket. He answered it.

‘Evan?’ It was Carrie.

‘Carrie, oh, God, I’ve been trying to find you-’

‘Listen. You’re in danger. Serious danger. You need to get your mother and come back to Houston. Immediately.’

‘My mother’s dead, Carrie. She’s dead.’

‘Evan. Oh, no. Where are you?’

‘With the police.’

‘Good. That’s good. Stay with them. Babe, I am so sorry. So sorry.’

‘What danger?’ Her first words rang in his head. ‘What the hell do you know about this?’

Suddenly a car passed them, cut them off hard, forcing the patrol car into a manicured front lawn, a blue Ford sedan skidding to a stop, Durless yelling, ‘Holy shit!’ as the brakes threw him forward into the windshield. Evan wasn’t buckled in and the brake-jam slammed him into the back of the front seat. He dropped the cell phone.

He looked through the front windshield, aware of Durless cussing, aware of the patrol cop opening the driver’s-side door.

On the other side of the windshield, the bald-headed man got out of the blue Ford. Raised a shotgun. Aimed it right at Evan.