A Tap on the Window by Linwood Barclay Page A

girl that came out.”
    “That’s what I’m saying.”
    “What the hell happened to Claire?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “Who was the second girl?” Haines asked.
    “No idea. A friend of Claire’s, obviously, but she wouldn’t tell me her name. Once we were down the road a short stretch, and I realized she wasn’t Claire and called her on it, she told me to keep acting like I thought it was her. In case anyone was watching.”
    Brindle made another snorting noise. “This is the craziest story I ever heard.”
    “No, wait,” Haines said. “If Claire was being, you know, stalked or something, and wanted to lose that person, that’d be a way to do it.”
    “That was what I was thinking,” I offered.
    Brindle was shaking his head. “This is horseshit.”
    “She demanded to get out of the car around Castleton and Berkeley,” I said. “I let her out.”
    The cops exchanged looks. Then Haines said, “Did Claire say anything, before she went into Iggy’s? That suggested she was about to switch places with someone else?”
    “No. If I’d known what they were planning, I wouldn’t have gone along with it.”
    “She say anything about where she might be going?”
    “Just home,” I said.
    “That’s probably what it was,” Haines said.
    “Huh?” said Brindle.
    “Some stalker—and not the creepy killer kind, but an ex-boyfriend or something—was bugging her and she needed to get away. Maybe to see a different boy. So she set her friend up as a decoy.” He smiled and shook his head in admiration. “Pretty damn clever when you think about it.”
    Brindle looked unconvinced.
    I said, “Except where’s Claire now?”
    “My bet,” Haines said, “is she’s with the boy she really wants to be with. Gettin’ it on somewhere. That’s probably what happened.”
    I said, to both of them, “How did you know to check Patchett’s?”
    Brindle pointed his thumb at Haines, who said, “She was known to go there, so it was kind of a starting point.”
    “Let me ask you again,” I said. “Are you looking for Claire because she’s done something, or is she missing? Have you some reason to be concerned for her?”
    Haines rubbed his chin, an awkward gesture designed to fill time. “I guess there’s always reason to be concerned about somebody when you can’t find them.” He clapped his hands together, rubbed them. “I guess we’re done here, Mr. Weaver. We’ll get out of your hair now.”
    “I hope you find her soon,” I said as the two of them started getting back into their car.
    Brindle locked eyes on me. “With a fishy story like the one you just told us, about some look-alike girl getting in your car, you better hope we do.”

SEVEN
    I watched as the cruiser did a three-point turn in the street and rolled back up to the corner, turned left, and disappeared. When I got into the house, Donna was standing there.
    “What’s going on?”
    “It’s okay,” I said.
    “I didn’t ask if everything was okay. I asked what’s going on.”
    “I gave one of Scott’s friends a ride last night. They’re trying to find her.”
    “Her?”
    “Yeah. Girl named Claire.”
    “You picked up a girl hitchhiking?”
    “Not . . . hitchhiking. She was out front of Patchett’s, asked for a lift. She recognized me, said she knew Scott.”
    “How would she recognize you?”
    “She said something about seeing me drop him off at school. It was raining. Look, if you’d been there, you’d have given her a ride, too.”
    “I might,” she said. “You don’t see the difference between my doing it and you doing it?”
    “Of course I do.”
    “I could do it without exposing myself to as much risk,” she said. “But you, picking up a young girl, late at night? That seemed like a good idea?”
    “I told you why I did it.”
    Her mouth opened slightly as something dawned on her. “I know why you did it. You thought she might
know
something. You think everyone may
know
something. You keep interrogating