The Stranger
Page 28

“Meat Loaf,” Adam said with a nod. “Nice.”
“Right?”
“Wait, since when do you have a female vocalist?”
“We don’t.”
“But ‘Paradise’ is a male-female duet.”
“I know.”
“A rather aggressive one,” Adam continued, “with all the ‘Will you love me forever’s and him pleading for her to let him sleep on it.”
“I know.”
“And you guys do it without a female vocalist?”
“I do both parts,” Gribbel said.
Adam sat up, tried to picture this. “You do the male-female duet yourself?”
“Always.”
“That must be a hell of a rendition.”
“You should hear me do ‘Don’t Go Breaking My Heart.’ One second I’m Elton. The next, Kiki Dee. Brings tears to your eyes, really. Speaking of which . . .”
“What?”
“You and Corinne need a night out. I mean, you do anyway. If those bags under your eyes get any heavier, you’ll have to pay surcharge when you check in for your flight.”
Adam frowned. “Reaching.”
“Come on, it wasn’t that bad.”
“We all set up for Mike and Eunice Rinsky tomorrow?”
“That’s why I wanted to see you.”
“Problem?”
“Nope, but Mayor Gush-something-ski wants to talk to you about the Rinsky eviction. He’s got some town hall at seven and asked if you could stop by after. I texted you the address.”
Adam checked his phone. “Yeah, okay, I guess we should hear him out.”
“I’ll let his people know. Have a good night, my man.”
Adam checked his watch. He was surprised to see that it was six o’clock already. “Good night.”
“Let me know if we’re on for tomorrow.”
“Will do.”
Gribbel took off then, leaving Adam alone. Adam stopped and listened for a second. The sounds were distant, the office in its slow nightly death throes. Okay, so back up a step. Play it through. Go back to what he knew for certain.
One, he knew that Corinne had gone to school yesterday. Two, around lunchtime, Kristin had seen Corinne pull out of the school parking lot. Three . . . okay, no three, but . . .
Tollbooths.
If Corinne had gone any distance at all, there would be a record of it via the tollbooths. The school was near tolls on the Garden State Parkway, so that would show up in her E-ZPass records. Would Corinne remember to pocket her E-ZPass for the tolls? Probably not. E-ZPass was the kind of thing you stuck on your windshield and forgot about. There were times when it worked the opposite way, when Adam had rented a car and driven through the E-ZPass lanes, forgetting that he didn’t have his E-ZPass.
Worth a try anyhow.
He found the E-ZPass website via a Google search, but it required both an account number and a password. He didn’t have them—had never, in fact, gone on the website—but they’d be on the bills at home. Okay, good. Time to go home anyway.
He grabbed his jacket and hurried to the car. When he merged onto Interstate 80, his mobile rang. It was Thomas.
“Where’s Mom?”
He debated how to play it, but now was not the time for detailed honesty. “She’s away.”
“Where?”
“I’ll tell you about it later.”
“Will you be home for dinner?”
“I’m on my way now. Do me a favor. Take burgers out of the freezer for you and your brother. I’ll grill them when I get home.”
“I don’t really like those burgers.”
“Too bad. I’ll see you in half an hour.”
He flipped through the music stations as he drove, searching for some nonexistent perfect song that would be, as Stevie Nicks might sing, “hauntingly familiar” yet not played so often as to beat it into submission. When he did find such a song—a rarity—it was always the last verse, and so the flipping would start anew.
When he pulled onto his street, Adam was surprised to see the Evanses’ Dodge Durango in the driveway. Tripp Evans was getting out of the vehicle as Adam pulled in beside him. The two men greeted each other with handshakes and slaps on the back. Both were wearing business suits with loosened ties, and suddenly, the lacrosse draft at the American Legion Hall, just three days earlier, seemed very far away.
“Hey, Adam.”
“Hey, Tripp.”
“Sorry to just stop by like this.”
“No worries. What can I do for you?”
Tripp was a big man with big hands. He was the kind of guy who never looked comfortable in a business suit. The shoulders were too tight or one sleeve was too long, something, so that he was always adjusting himself and you could see all he really wanted to do was rip the damn thing off. Lots of guys looked like that to Adam. Somewhere along the way, the suit had been strapped to them like the proverbial straitjacket, and now they simply couldn’t get it off.
“I was hoping to talk to Corinne for a sec,” Tripp said.
Adam stood there, hoping nothing showed on his face.
“I texted her a few times,” Tripp continued, “but, uh, she hasn’t replied. So I just figured I’d stop by.”
“Can I ask what it’s about?”
“No big deal, really,” he said in a voice that for a guy as forthright as Tripp felt awfully forced. “It’s just some lacrosse business.”
Might be just Adam’s imagination. Might be just the craziness of the past couple of days. But it felt as though some sort of tension was gathering in the air between them.
“What kind of lacrosse business?” Adam asked.
“The board met last night. Corinne never showed. Which was odd, I guess. I wanted to fill her in on some stuff, that’s all.” He looked toward the house as though he expected her to appear at the door. “It can wait.”
“She’s not here,” Adam said.
“Okay, fine. Just tell her I stopped by.” Tripp turned and met Adam’s eye. That tension in the air seemed to thicken. “Everything okay?”
“Yeah,” Adam said. “I’m fine.”
“Let’s grab a beer soon.”
“I’d like that.”
Tripp opened his car door. “Adam?”
“Yeah?”
“I’ll be honest here,” Tripp said. “You look a little rattled.”
“Tripp?”
“What?”