Read Online No Time for Goodbye by Linwood Barclay - Free Book Online

it with the volume down while we were up in the study?
    “I went to her house at lunch,” Grace said.
    Even when they were eight, you couldn’t keep a lid on things. Five years and she’d be a teenager. Jesus.
    “Whoever let you see it shouldn’t have,” I said.
    “I thought the cop was mean,” she said.
    “What cop? What are you talking about?”
    “The one on the show? He lives in a trailer? One of those shiny ones? Who said it was weird that Mom was the only one left? I could tell what he was hinting. He was hinting that Mom did it. That she killed everybody.”
    “Yeah, well, he was an asshole.”
    Grace whipped her head around and looked at me. “Fox pass,” she said.
    “Just swearing isn’t a fox pass,” I said, shaking my head, not wanting to get into it.
    “Did Mom like her brother? Todd?”
    “Yes. She loved him. She had fights with him, just like lots of brother and sisters do, but she loved him. And she didn’t kill him or her mother or her father, and I’m sorry you saw that show and heard that asshole—yes, asshole—detective suggest such a thing.” I paused. “Are you going to tell your mother that you saw the show?”
    Grace, still a bit dumbstruck by my shameless use of a bad word, shook her head no. “I think she’d freak out.”
    That was probably true, but I didn’t want to say so. “Well, maybe you should talk to her about it sometime, when everyone’s having a good day.”
    “Today’s going to be good,” Grace said. “I didn’t see any asteroids last night, so we should be okay at least until tonight.”
    “Good to know.”
    “You should probably stop walking with me now,” Grace said. Up ahead, I saw some schoolkids about her age, maybe even her friends. More kids were funneling onto our street from side streets. The school was visible three blocks up.
    “We’re getting close,” Grace said. “You can watch me from here.”
    “Okay,” I said. “Here’s what we’re going to do. You start pulling ahead of me. I’ll do my old man walk. Like Tim Conway.”
    “Who?”
    I started shuffling, and Grace giggled. “Bye, Dad,” she said, and started pouring on the speed. I kept my eyes on her as I took my tiny steps, being overtaken by other children walking and on bikes and skateboards and inline skates.
    She didn’t glance back. She was running to catch up with friends, shouting, “Wait up!” I slipped my hands into my pockets, thought about getting back to the house and having a few private moments with Cynthia.
    That was when the brown car drove past.
    It was an older American model, fairly generic, an Impala I think, a bit of rust around the wheel wells. Windows tinted, but it was one of those cheap tint jobs, the glass covered with air bubbles, like the car had measles or something.
    I stood and watched as it headed down the street, down to the last corner before the school, where Grace was chattering away with two of her friends.
    The car stopped at the corner, a few yards away from Grace, and my heart was in my mouth for a moment.
    And then one of the brown car’s rear taillights started to flash, the car turned right and disappeared down the street.
    Grace and her friends, aided by a crossing guard in a bright orange vest and wielding a huge stop sign, made it across the street and onto school property. To my amazement, she looked back and waved at me. I raised my hand in return.
    So okay, there was a brown car. But no man had jumped out of it and run after our daughter. No man had jumped out and run after anyone else’s kid, either. If the driver happened to be some crazed serial killer—as opposed to a perfectly sane serial killer—he wasn’t up to any serial killing this morning.
    It appeared to be some guy going to work.
    I stood there another moment, watched as Grace was swallowed up by a throng of fellow students, and felt a sadness wash over me. In Cynthia’s world, everyone was plotting to take away your loved ones.
    Maybe, if I hadn’t