Chapters (57)
- Cover
- Dedication
- Foreword
- Prologue
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-One
- Twenty-Two
- Twenty-Three
- Twenty-Four
- Twenty-Five
- Twenty-Six
- Twenty-Seven
- Twenty-Eight
- Twenty-Nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-One
- Thirty-Two
- Thirty-Three
- Thirty-Four
- Thirty-Five
- Thirty-Six
- Thirty-Seven
- Thirty-Eight
- Thirty-Nine
- Forty
- Forty-One
- Forty-Two
- Forty-Three
- Forty-Four
- Forty-Five
- Forty-Six
- Forty-Seven
- Forty-Eight
- Forty-Nine
- Fifty
- Praise for Linwood Barclay
- Also by Linwood Barclay
- About the Publisher
“So who got the car?”
“He sold it, privately, to this son of a bitch by the name of Arnie Gloster, a condom salesman.”
“Get out.”
“Not kidding you. Worked for one of the big pharmaceutical companies, drove all over New England selling the things out of the trunk.” He grinned. “You could stuff enough cases in the back end of this car for the whole eastern seaboard. So, he put a lot of miles on it, and he didn’t take much better care of it than the first guy. So now, I’ve been teaching a few years, and I’m married, but I’ve never given up hope of buying that car back.”
“Quick question.”
“Go ahead.”
“How long did you stay mad at your mom?”
Bruce pursed his lips. “Long time.” He pointed. “Check it out.”
About a hundred yards up, a deer emerged from the woods on the right side of the road and sprinted across, disappearing into the forest on the other side. “Whoa,” Katie said, taking her foot off the gas and tapping the brake. “Glad we weren’t any closer.”
“Just hold off a second . . .”
“What?”
“There,” he said, still pointing. Two smaller deer darted across the road in pursuit of the larger one. “She’s got kids.”
“Aww,” said Katie. “I’ve seen the odd deer, but never a family.”
All three had slipped into the woods, so Bruce gave Katie a nod to get back up to speed.
“Don’t you think it’s weird we haven’t seen another Arrival?” Katie asked.
“Just as well,” Bruce said. “So, anyway. I would keep tabs on this condom salesman, and one day, I’m driving through Malden, and there’s this black Caddy parked out front of Jenken’s Drugs. This’d be 1970. I’m thinking, is that my dad’s car? So, out of curiosity, I pull over a block up and walk back to check it out. And sure enough, it was.”
“How could you tell?”
“When my dad first got the car, second day I think it was, he backed into a fire hydrant. Couldn’t believe it. Had the car two days! He put this little dimple in the chrome bumper, on the back right, way down below the fin. Dad never got it fixed. He left it there as a reminder to himself, to be careful. And he also believed, as long as that dimple was there, the rest of the car wouldn’t get hit. So, I looked, and the dimple was there.”
“Wow. So, let me guess. Condom Man comes back and you make a deal.”
“Not exactly,” Bruce said.
“So, he sold it and you got it from the next guy.”
“Wrong again. The windows were open, and I look inside, and the keys are in the ignition. And I thought, the dumb son of a bitch. Anyone could steal this car. This special car, this car that was my father’s legacy.”