Barclay, Linwood Novel 08 - Never saw it coming Read Free Page A

place was as Keisha had so briefly described it. Empty. Shelves cleared, filing cabinets half open, nothing inside them. No generic landscape pictures or diplomas or anything else on the walls.
    But on the floor, several discarded fast-food containers. A pizza box, a Big Mac container still smeared with special sauce. Several empty beer cans.
    “Someone’s been here,” Dwayne said. “Someone’s been
living
here.”
    There was a spacious foyer, then a short corridor that serviced four examining rooms. Marcia was moving that way, opening one door, then another, Dwayne and Keisha running to keep up with her.
    When she opened the last door, she screamed. “Oh God!”
    A second later, Keisha and Dwayne found her on her knees next to Justin, who was lying on the floor, dressed in a pair of jeans and a black T-shirt, feet bare. His shoes and socks were scattered alongside him, and a winter coat was rolled up and tucked under his head as a pillow.
    The young man’s eyes were closed.
    An orangey opaque pill container lay on its side a foot away from his head. Dwayne bent over at the waist, one leg raised behind him, and snatched it off the floor.
    “Marcia,” he said. “Aren’t these the sleeping pills you were on a year ago?”
    “Justin!” she said. “Wake up!”
    “It’s full of pills,” he said. “It doesn’t look like he’s taken any.”
    Justin stirred. “What, what’s going on?”
    Marcia pulled him into her arms. “Are you okay? Are you all right?”
    Groggily, he said, “I’m okay. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, Mom. I’m so sorry.”
    Now Dwayne had seen something else on the floor. A sheet of paper, with something scribbled on it. He grabbed it, saw what was written on it, handed it to Keisha without saying a word.
    It read: “I know I’ve been a huge pain, Mom. Maybe your life will be better now.”
    “My word,” Keisha whispered. Dwayne shook his head, looked at the pill container in his hand.
    “God, if we’d been a few minutes later . . .” he whispered back.
    “Justin, listen to me,” Marcia said. “Have you taken anything? Have you taken any pills?”
    “No, no, I just . . . I just had some beers, that’s all. I was going to take them later, maybe. I don’t know. I don’t know what I was going to do. I’m sorry if I scared you.”
    Marcia clung to him and began to sob as he patted her head. Before Dwayne knelt down next to his wife and wrapped his arms around her and his stepson, he said to Keisha, “I’ll see that you get your money this afternoon.”
    Keisha Ceylon smiled modestly.
    Justin weakly put his own arms around his mother and stepfather. His face was buried in his mother’s neck, his eyes closed. But then they opened, and fixed on Keisha.
    Justin winked at her.
    And Keisha winked back.

Two
    Ellie Garfield had been dreaming that she was already dead. But then, just before the dream became a reality, she opened her eyes.
    With what little energy she had, she tried to move, but she was secured, tied in somehow. She wearily lifted a bloody hand from her lap and touched her fingers to the strap that ran across her chest, felt its familiar texture, its smoothness. A seat belt.
    She was in a car. She was sitting in the front seat of a car.
    She looked around and realized it was her own car. But she wasn’t behind the steering wheel. She was buckled into the passenger seat.
    She blinked a couple of times, thinking there must be something wrong with her vision because she couldn’t make anything out beyond the windshield. There was nothing out there. No road. No buildings. No street lights.
    Then it dawned on her that it wasn’t a problem with her eyes.
    There really was nothing out there. Only stars.
    She could see them twinkling in the sky. It was a beautiful evening, if she overlooked the part about how all the blood was draining from her body.
    It was difficult to hold her head up, but with what strength she still had, she looked around. As she took in the starkness, the