Fear the Worst: A Thriller Read Online Free PDF Page B

said. “Since Syd was twelve.”
    “Is your ex-wife remarried?”
    “She has a boyfriend.” I paused. “You know those commercials for Bob’s Motors? That guy yelling at the camera?”
    “Oh my, that’s him? That’s her boyfriend?”
    I nodded.
    “I always hit the mute when that comes on,” she said. That made me smile. First time in a while. “You don’t like him,” she said.
    “I’d like to mute him in person,” I said.
    Veronica hesitated, then asked, “So you haven’t remarried or anything?”
    “No.”
    “I can’t see someone like you being single forever.”
    I’d been seeing a woman occasionally before Syd disappeared. But even if my life hadn’t been turned upside down in the last few weeks, that relationship’s days had been numbered. Spectacular in the sack can trump needy and loony for a week or two, but after that, the head starts to take over and decides enough is enough.
    “You think it’s possible,” I said, “my daughter was meeting someone here? Not working here formally, but, I don’t know, doing something off the books? Because I think she was getting paid in cash.”
    I’d taken one of my many pics of Syd from my pocket, put it on the table, just to look at her.
    “I’m going to be honest with you here,” Veronica said.
    “Yes?”
    “Sometimes,” and she lowered her voice slightly, “we don’t do everything on the up-and-up here.”
    I leaned in slightly. “What do you mean?”
    “What I mean is, a lot of times, we pay the help under the table. Not everything, of course. But here and there, saves us a bit with the taxman, you know?”
    “Sure.”
    “But what I’m saying is, even if your daughter’d been here, getting paid in cash—and that could end up biting us in the ass, pardon my French—I’d tell you, because no parent should go through that, not knowing what’s happened to his child.”
    I nodded, looked down at Syd’s face.
    “She’s very beautiful.”
    “Thank you.”
    “She has beautiful hair. She looks a little bit… Norwegian?”
    “From her mother’s side,” I said. My mind wandered. “Too bad your cameras don’t work. If Syd had ever met someone in your lot…”
    Veronica hung her head, embarrassed. “I know. What can I say. We have the cameras mounted so people will think there’s surveillance, but they’re not hooked up to anything. Maybe, if we were part of a larger chain…”
    I nodded, picked up Syd’s picture and slipped it back into my jacket.
    “May I show you a picture?” Veronica asked.
    I said, “Of course.”
    She went into her purse and pulled out a computer printout snapshot of a boy, no more than six months old, wearing a Thomas the Tank Engine shirt.
    “What’s his name?”
    “Lars.”
    “That’s different. What made you choose that?”
    “I didn’t,” she said. “My daughter did. It’s her husband’s father’s name.” She gave me a second to let it sink in. “This is my grandson.”
    I was momentarily speechless. “I’m sorry, I thought—”
    “Aren’t you adorable,” Veronica Harp said. “I had Gwen when I was only seventeen. I don’t look so bad for a grandmother, do I?”
    I had pulled myself together. “No, you don’t,” I said.
    Pregnant at seventeen .
    “Thank you for the coffee,” I said.
    Veronica Harp put the baby picture away. “I just know you’ll find her, that everything will be okay.”
    *   *   *
    W E ARE RENTING A PLACE ON C APE C OD , right on the beach. Sydney’s five years old. She’s been to the beach in Milford, but it can’t compare to this one that seems to go on forever. Sydney is mesmerized upon first seeing it. But she soon gets over her wonderment and is running down to the water’s edge, getting her feet wet, scurrying back to Susanne and me, giggling and shrieking .
    After a while, we think she’s had enough sun, and we suggest going back to the small beach house—not much more than a shack, really—for sandwiches. We are trudging along,