The Accident: A Thriller - Softcover

Barclay, Linwood

 
9780553591767: The Accident: A Thriller
Softcover
ISBN 10: 0553591762 ISBN 13: 9780553591767
Verlag: Random House Publishing Group, 2012

Inhaltsangabe

“If you like Harlan Coben, you’ll love Linwood Barclay.” —Peter Robinson, author of Bad Boy

Glen Garber, a contractor, has seen his business shaken by the housing crisis, and now his wife, Sheila, is taking a business course at night to increase her chances of landing a good-paying job. But she should have been home by now. With their eight-yearold daughter sleeping soundly, Glen soon finds his worst fears confirmed: Sheila and two others have been killed in a car accident. Grieving and in denial, Glen resolves to investigate the accident himself—and begins to uncover layers of lawlessness beneath the placid surface of their Connecticut suburb, secret after dangerous secret behind the closed doors. Propelled into a vortex of corruption and illegal activity, pursued by mysterious killers, and confronted by threats from neighbors he thought he knew, Glen must take his own desperate measures and go to terrifying new places in himself to avenge his wife and protect his child.

“The writing is crisp; the twists are jolting and completely unexpected.”—Stephen King, Entertainment Weekly

“Fast-paced and with an irresistible blend of suspense and tension.”—Tucson Citizen

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Linwood Barclay is a former columnist for the Toronto Star. He is the #1 internationally bestselling author of nine critically acclaimed novels, including The Accident, Never Look Away, Fear the Worst, Too Close to Home, and No Time for Goodbye. Multiple titles have been optioned for film. He lives near Toronto with his wife and has two grown children. He is currently at work on his latest thriller, to be published by Bantam in Summer 2012.

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ONE

If I'd known this was our last morning, I'd have rolled over in bed and held her. But of course, if it had been possible to know something like that--if I could have somehow seen into the future--I wouldn't have let go. And then things would have been different.



I'd been staring at the ceiling for a while when I finally threw back the covers and planted my feet on the hardwood floor.

"How'd you sleep?" Sheila asked as I rubbed my eyes. She reached out and touched my back.

"Not so good. You?"

"Off and on."

"I sensed you were awake, but I didn't want to bug you, on the off chance you were sleeping," I said, glancing over my shoulder. The sun's first rays of the day filtered through the drapes and played across my wife's face as she lay in bed, looking at me. This wasn't a time of day when people looked their best, but there was something about Sheila. She was always beautiful. Even when she looked worried, which was how she looked now.

I turned back around, looked down at my bare feet. "I couldn't get to sleep for the longest time, then I think I finally nodded off around two, but then I looked at the clock and it was five. Been awake since then."

"Glen, it's going to be okay," Sheila said. She moved her hand across my back, soothing me.

"Yeah, well, I'm glad you think so."

"Things'll pick up. Everything goes in cycles. Recessions don't last forever."

I sighed. "This one sure seems to. After these jobs I'm doing now, we got nothin' lined up. Some nibbles, did a couple of estimates last week--one for a kitchen, one to finish off a basement--but they haven't called back."

I stood up, turned and said, "What's your excuse for staring at the ceiling all night?"

"Worried about you. And . . . I've got things on my mind, too."

"What?"

"Nothing," she said quickly. "I mean, just the usual. This course I'm taking, Kelly, your work."

"What's wrong with Kelly?"

"Nothing's wrong with her. I'm a mother. She's eight. I worry. It's what I do. When I've done the course, I can help you more. That'll make a difference."

"When you made the decision to take it, we had the business to justify it. Now, I don't know if I'll even have any work for you to do," I said. "I just hope I have enough to keep Sally busy."

Sheila'd started her business accounting course mid-August, and two months in was enjoying it more than she'd expected. The plan was for Sheila to do the day-to-day accounts for Garber Contracting, the company that was once my father's, and which I now ran. She could even do it from home, which would allow Sally Diehl, our "office girl," to focus more on general office management, returning phone calls, hounding suppliers, fielding customer inquiries. There usually wasn't time for Sally to do the accounting, which meant I was bringing it home at night, sitting at my desk until midnight. But with work drying up, I didn't know how this was all going to shake down.

"And now, with the fire--"

"Enough," Sheila said.

"Sheila, one of my goddamn houses burned down. Please don't tell me everything's going to be fine."

She sat up in bed and crossed her arms across her breasts. "I'm not going to let you get all negative on me. This is what you do."

"I'm just telling you how it is."

"And I'm going to tell you how it will be," she said. "We will be okay. Because this is what we do. You and I. We get through things. We find a way." She looked away for a moment, like there was something she wanted to say but wasn't sure how to say it. Finally, she said, "I have ideas."

"What ideas?"

"Ideas to help us. To get us through the rough patches."

I stood there, my arms open, waiting.

"You're so busy, so wrapped up in your own problems--and I'm not saying that they aren't big problems--that you haven't even noticed."

"Noticed what?" I asked.

She shook her head and smiled. "I got Kelly new outfits for school."

"Okay."

"Nice ones."

I narrowed my eyes. "What are you getting at?"

"I've made some money."

I thought I already knew that. Sheila had her part-time job at Hardware Depot--about twenty hours a week--working the checkout. They'd recently installed these new self-checkout stations people couldn't figure out, so there was still work there for Sheila until they did. And since the early summer, Sheila had been helping our next-door neighbor--Joan Mueller--with her own books for a business she was running from her home. Joan's husband, Ely, had been killed on that oil rig off the coast of Newfoundland when it blew up about a year back. She'd been getting jerked around by the oil company on her settlement, and in the meantime had started running a daycare operation. Every morning four or five preschoolers got dropped off at her door. And on school days when Sheila was working, Kelly went to Joan's until one of us got home. Sheila had helped Joan organize a bookkeeping system to keep track of what everyone owed and had paid. Joan loved kids, but could barely finger count.

"I know you've been making some money," I said. "Joan, and the store. Everything helps."

"Those two jobs together don't keep us in Hamburger Helper. I'm talking about better money than that."

My eyebrows went up. Then I got worried. "Tell me you're not taking money from Fiona." Her mother. "You know how I feel about that."

She looked insulted. "Jesus, Glen, you know I would never--"

"I'm just saying. I'd rather you were a drug dealer than taking money from your mother."

She blinked, threw back the covers abruptly, got out of bed, and stalked into the bathroom. The door closed firmly behind her.

"Aw, come on," I said.



By the time we reached the kitchen, I didn't think she was angry with me anymore. I'd apologized twice, and tried to coax from Sheila details of what her idea was to bring more money into the house.

"We can talk about it tonight," she said.

We hadn't washed the dishes from the night before. There were a couple of coffee cups, my scotch glass, and Sheila's wine goblet, with a dark red residue at the bottom, sitting in the sink. I lifted the goblet onto the counter, worried the stem might break if other things got tossed into the sink alongside it.

The wineglass made me think of Sheila's friends.

"You seeing Ann for lunch or anything?" I asked.

"No."

"I thought you had something set up."

"Maybe later this week. Belinda and Ann and me might get together, although every time we do that I have to get a cab home and my head hurts for a week. Anyway, I think Ann's got some physical or something today, an insurance thing."

"She okay?"

"She's fine." A pause. "More or less."

"What's that mean?"

"I don't know. I think there's some kind of tension there, between her and Darren. And between Belinda and George, for that matter."

"What's going on?"

"Who knows," she said.

"So then, what are you doing today? You don't have a shift today, right? If I can slip away, you want to get lunch? I was thinking something fancy, like that guy who sells hot dogs by the park."

"I've got my course tonight," she said. "Some errands to run, and I might visit Mom." She shot me a look. "Not to ask her for money."

"Okay." I decided to ask nothing further. She'd tell me when she was ready.

Kelly walked into the room at the tail end of the conversation. "What's for breakfast?"

"You want cereal, cereal, or cereal?" Sheila asked.

Kelly appeared to ponder her choices. "I'll take cereal," she said, and sat at the table.

At our house, breakfast wasn't a sit-down family meal like dinner. Actually, dinner often wasn't, either, especially when I got held up at a construction site, or Sheila was...

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Verlag
Random House Publishing Group
Erscheinungsdatum
2012
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
0553591762
ISBN 13 
9780553591767
Einband
Taschenbuch
Anzahl der Seiten
480
Kontakt zum Hersteller
Nicht verfügbar
Verantwortliche Person
gpsr@libri.de
gpsr@libri.de

Friedensallee 273
Hamburg
22763
Deutschland

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