You're Next

when they hired Kiki Dupleshney. Can you run it for me?’

‘Course. I’ll see if I can access the databases through a colleague’s log-in so it won’t be traceable. Plate number?’

Mike read it off.

Hank said, ‘What’s your callback number? Don’t worry, I’ll use a pay phone.’

Mike gave it to Hank, who recited it back twice, committing it to memory.

‘Listen, Mike, with the medical costs and making my… arrangements, I’m running a bit low. And you can’t exactly mail me a check.’

‘Hank, I’m sorry.’ Mike tapped his head in reproach. ‘I have cash. Plenty. I’ve just been totally-’

‘Of course. Don’t worry.’

Mike opened the bag at his feet and surveyed the money. ‘Is twenty grand enough?’

‘Too much.’

‘Not even close,’ Mike said.

‘I was thinking of slipping out of town away from watchful eyes anyway. And… well, all roads lead north, don’t they?’

The windshield threw back the road guide’s reflection, the red circles Mike had drawn standing out like a cluster of hives. He couldn’t deny that he sensed it, too, a narrowing, as if the last thirty-one years were a funnel to this one square inch of map. ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘I guess they do.’

‘I’ll head your way, and we can settle up in person. Hell, maybe I can even be of service.’ Hank gave a wry chuckle. ‘A last hurrah. I’ll call you when I’ve sourced that license plate. I have to figure out how to go about it covertly, so it could take a little time.’

A sign flew past. CHICO – 47 MILES.

‘It’s fine,’ Mike said. ‘I’m gonna need the time.’

The walkway rolled out before Mike like a concrete arrow leading to the front door. Standing at the curb, hands shoved in his pockets, cool wind biting at his ankles, his neck, he confronted the house.

His house.

Much had changed, but he recognized the porch and the asphalt roof shingles and the fanlike spread of the driveway. The louvered shutters, he realized, he’d inadvertently duplicated on the dream homes of Green Valley. The memory of this place pulled up through the murk, an anchor rising, dredging with it more details from the depths. He knew that the gnarled pine in the side yard smelled like Christmas when it rained, that the back patio dipped on the left side, that the gutter over the window there on the east corner used to drip patterns onto his pane. He recalled the large volcanic rocks that had once dotted the front walk, how he’d tried to tip one over once to catch a lizard, and when he’d held up his palms afterward, they were covered with blood. His mother in the kitchen brandishing a magazine at a circling blowfly – Let’s wave him out of here, honey. This little guy’s a bad omen. He half expected to see his father sitting on the front step, sleeves cuffed, smoking a flaking cigar. If he was alive, what would he look like now?

Inside, a young family was pulled up to a kitchen table, the scene glowing out at the dark street like something festive. Mike could see that there were no more yellow tiles sage incense and the mother clearing the dinner plates was smiling and joking her skin, tan even in winter, scented faintly of cinnamon. A minivan was parked in the driveway You like our new station wagon, champ? They have wood paneling, see, but it’s not real wood. Run your fingers there and he turned his face into the teeth of the breeze, eyes drifting across the Gages’ house mint trim Doberman bit the Sears repairman and taking in the old lady rocking on the porch swing, patient and lined like time itself. He looked down the length of the planned-community street to a fenced lake – yes, there was a lake he slips on a mossy rock and his father’s hand clamps down on his shoulder, firm and steady, saving him from a wet spill and it carried the odor of algae, giving the breeze its wet weight. The other way a hill fringed with dense stands of trees was crested by a yellow sign, rusted and battered with age. The sign proclaimed DEER X-ING, that broad black X hooking something buried in Mike’s thoughts and reeling it squirming to the deck Hey, Joe, you know any street names start with the letter X? How ’bout Fuckin’ Xanadu?

Shep was at his side, long forgotten. He spit in the gutter and kicked at the curb. Mike’s legs tingled. How long had he been standing here?

The old lady on the Gages’ porch set aside her knitting and rose, grimacing into the effort of it. Mike hurried over. ‘Ma’am, excuse me. I’m sorry to bother you. Have you lived here long?’

The woman paused, bunch-mouthed and wizened, at the screen door. Despite the prominent veins, her hands looked young and strong, and the crocheted shawl thrown across her shoulders gave off the pleasing aroma of coffee and cigarette smoke. ‘What’s long enough for you?’

‘So you’re Mrs?’

‘Geraldine Gage.’

His throat clicked dryly when he swallowed. ‘I’m a reporter looking into-’

She let go of the screen, which snapped closed, and gestured next door. ‘Saw you looking there. Been years since anyone came asking.’

‘About the incident?’ Mike asked carefully.

‘Is that what they’re calling it?’

‘How would you describe it?’

‘More like a non-incident. An entire family just up and vanishes one day? Not a trace left behind? After a while the bank quietly reclaimed the house, and then there was a new family in there, and then another. Life goes on. I suppose it has to.’

The porch swing jagged in the wind, creaking softly on its chains.

‘Do you think…? Did they seem the types to get tangled up in trouble?’

‘You mean, did they bring it on themselves?’ A dry chuckle. ‘If life’s taught me anything, it’s that you never know anything. But no, they sure as hell didn’t act like folks who played with fire. If they had any enemies, you’d never know it. That’s what was so shocking about the whole thing. They just didn’t seem the type that something like this would happen to.’ She shook her head, annoyed at herself. ‘Whatever that means.’

‘What was my-’ He caught himself. Cleared his throat. ‘What was their last name?’

‘Shouldn’t you know that,’ she asked, ‘if you’re writing an article?’

‘I’m doing a retrospective on a few cases like this. I sometimes get them mixed up.’

‘Their name was Trainor,’ she said. ‘With an o.’

Trainor.

He’d said it out loud, he realized, just to taste it in his mouth.

John and Danielle Trainor.

Michael Trainor.

After all these years, the childhood interrogations, the X-rays and dental assessments to determine his age, after the private-investigator bills, the database searches, the cemetery walks, after all that and more, at last: a name.

His.

The fake name given Kiki, “Trenley”, was kept close enough to the real one that it might ring a bell. But the real name was just as unfamiliar, and Mike was crestfallen over his inability to make it resonate.

Geraldine Gage had turned again to tug open the screen door.

‘What were they like?’ he blurted.

She paused, one slippered foot on the threshold. ‘Normal-type folks, like I said. Quite in love – they’d hold hands on walks, like honeymooners. We were fond of them. She was graceful, a little hippie-ish, and… I guess these days you’d say spunky. Long, beautiful black hair. And he was a nice fella. Used to lend Glen a hand with… you know, moving a couch, holding a ladder. A handsome guy. Looked a bit like… a bit like you, if memory serves.’ Her gaze intensified. ‘They had a boy.’

Mike nodded, since he didn’t trust his voice.

‘He’d be about your age now,’ she observed. ‘Michael, was it?’

‘I think that’s right.’