The Goodbye Man
- Автор: Дивер Джеффри
- Серия: Colter Shaw #2
- Год: 2020
- Язык: английский
- Год: G. P. Putnam’s Sons
- ISBN: 978-0-525-53597-3
- Жанр: Другие детективы
Электронная книга - «The Goodbye Man». Краткое содержание книги:
And then, chilled at the thought, Colter Shaw realized that the arching words in wrought iron over the entrance gate were reminiscent of yet another facility, infamous, from the past century.
The place was, at the same time, beautiful and unsettling. Anne DeStefano, the deprogrammer, had warned him to stay away. But he couldn’t. He hadn’t shared with her that he did indeed have a personal stake.
Adam Harper — who had risked everything to eradicate Erick Young’s sorrow — had died because of him.
And he now knew the death couldn’t be because of the crime at the church, which was a justifiable act of self-defense.
Everybody’s got the blues. Just live with it.
Adam’s father’s ironic phrasing. But sometimes you just couldn’t live with it, and Shaw should have known that.
His death was a question that had to be answered.
Another image lingered too: the brunette, alone among those at the site of Adam’s death who was so deeply saddened by his demise. And the hulking van driver’s whip-crack words to her... a correction of some sort. Then her shrinking, in revulsion, from his unwanted touch. Was she too at risk, like Adam, because of something at the Foundation?
Were other followers endangered as well?
Shaw’s career as a reward seeker, no, his essence was about survival. Saving lives. Finding the kidnap victim, the imperiled runaway, the serial killer stalking the sales clerk or college coed. And here he’d failed. Adam was dead. He needed to know why. And he needed to know if anyone else here was at risk.
Shaw looked at what he was doing as a reward job like any other, just without the reward. He’d come here to investigate. And, if anyone needed rescuing, he’d rescue them. If abuse needed to be exposed, then that’s what he’d do.
“You’re looking for Administration, Mr. Skye?” A voice from behind. It was another gray tunicked man. Also smiling. Also with still, careful eyes. He scanned Shaw’s rough-and-tumble outfit carefully, even though the metal detector would have reassured him that Shaw had nothing threatening on his person.
And how does he know my name?
From the tablet, of course, which he now slipped into a small shoulder bag.
He muttered, “I see it. Just looking over the place. Nice view.”
“Yessir.” The man remained impassive.
Shaw took the hint — the equivalent of a cop saying, “Move along” — and continued down the path. He passed a building marked LUGGAGE STORAGE, then a larger one, ASSISTANCE UNIT.
The next was Administration. It was larger than the others he’d just passed. He walked into the spotless, stark lobby and was greeted by a brunette at a reception desk. She was in her early thirties. Her outfit was the same as those worn by the women in the van who had driven down Highland Bypass to pick up Adam and Erick: pale blue top and black skirt.
And she wore a necklace — a purple infinity sign, just like Harvey Edwards had, the killer of the San Francisco journalist. Almost certainly answering the question of whether he’d been affiliated with the Foundation. This would be the necklace that the followers in the van had worn — the ones he couldn’t identify clearly in the distance.
Down a long corridor behind her, Shaw noted doors marked INTAKE, BUSINESS AFFAIRS, PLANNING, MEDIA. There were other offices too, though the corridor was dim and he couldn’t read those signs from here.
Yet another tablet was consulted. “Mr. Skye, go right on in.” Nodding to the INTAKE door.
This was an equally pristine room, about forty-by-forty feet. On the white-painted walls were unimaginative photos of sunsets or sunrises. On the back wall was stenciled in black ink:
On the side wall was another:
At the receptionist’s desk, near the door, sat another woman, presently on the phone. She was a blonde in her late twenties. She smiled and held up a just-wait-a-sec finger. Three other desks lined the back wall, and two were also occupied by young women, looking over their own pads. The tablets were mounted in stands so they could be viewed like monitors. These women also wore the blue and black outfits, along with the infinity jewelry. The only difference among them was in nail polish and accessories. All three women in the room were attractive and had radiant smiles and calm eyes. They, like everyone else Shaw had seen so far, were white.
There were several other applicants present as well. At the far desk was a balding man in a business suit, answering the employee’s questions. Speaking with the woman in the middle desk was a couple, apparently married, both middle aged and looking mildly embarrassed. They too were providing information, which was being recorded on this worker’s tablet. There was a third desk, on the far right, unoccupied. A tablet sat on this desk too, facedown.
When the receptionist hung up, she said, “Welcome, Mr. Skye.” She glanced at the pad and hesitated briefly. His sense was that she’d noted it had taken him a bit longer than normal to walk from the parking lot to Administration, as he’d stopped to assess the place.
“Your Intake specialist has been called away. It’ll just be a moment or two. There’s a bench outside. The weather’s not too bad today. Why don’t you wait there? I’ll come get you when she’s returned.”
He didn’t have much choice. There were no chairs in Intake or the Administration lobby.
“I guess. How old’s this place? Buildings look new.”
“Oh, I don’t really know. It’ll be ten minutes, tops.” Another of those smiles.
Shaw stepped out of Intake. As he passed the initial receptionist and nodded, she too smiled back. He noted that she turned her tablet slightly away.
On the porch he was greeted by the damp scent of pine sap once more, which never failed to take him back to his youth. In this instance, the memory was of stripping off his belt, slapping it around a tree and using it as a climbing sling to escape from what was pursuing him. Bears climb too but unless they’re really hungry they can be as lazy as anyone else. This one debated for a minute, seemingly confused about a prey that could both run and climb — and do both quickly. A new breed of predator maybe. Might be trouble. The creature had wandered off.
Musical tones rang out through the camp, the well-known opening fifteen-note theme of the “Ode to Joy” choral movement of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. They were played on a synthesizer, in a low register. The last note stretched out until it faded to silence. Then a woman’s soothing alto called out through speakers, “The time is four-thirty p.m.”
Just as he was about to sit on the rustic bench on the porch, he stopped, hearing an urgent call from behind the Administration building. It was a man’s and it was raw and troubled. He couldn’t make out the words at first. Then louder:
“No! No! Stop!” Followed by a faint cry: someone was in pain.
19
Shaw glanced about and saw no one was nearby — and no security cams, at least none visible, pointed his way.
He walked along the side of the building, ducking when he passed windows. He crouched behind a thick stand of myrtle and camellia, which was in brilliant red bloom.
In a grassy strip that separated the buildings on the east side of the camp from the woods, a slim blond man in tan slacks and a blazer and T-shirt stood between two others, big men, both in the gray tunics and both wearing ASSISTANCE UNIT badges. They gripped the civilian by his upper arms, as a third man approached.
It was the driver of the van that had come to collect Adam and Erick, the one who’d dressed down the brunette and tried to grope her.