The Goodbye Man. Jeffery Deaver

knocking him forward. Not quite to the ground but almost.

      He turned to face a furious Dalton Crowe.

       14.

      Oh my,” Larry Young said.

      He seemed to be considering confronting the man but Dalton Crowe outweighed Erick’s father by fifty pounds. He was intimidation personified. The big, swarthy man shot him a warrior’s glare and Larry stayed put.

      Shaw regarded Crowe calmly. He knew that the man wasn’t going to do more than try to rough him up a bit—especially given that they were within shouting distance of the Public Safety Office.

      The Youngs now relaxed somewhat, noting that Shaw didn’t seem troubled by the slap or bluster or glowering face.

      “Dalton,” Shaw said pleasantly.

      “You led me on a wild goose chase.”

      A phrase coined in Romeo and Juliet, by the witty and doomed Mercutio. Wild goose chase … While there was no TV in the Shaw household on the Compound, the children read and read and read. And often acted out plays, Shaw’s specialty being Henry V.

      Crowe continued, “There was no yellow fucking Volkswagen Beetle. That wasn’t sporting. You owe me that money.” A nod toward the check in Shaw’s hand. “That’s mine.”

      He reached for it. Shaw leaned forward and looked with utmost—and unnerving—calm right into Crowe’s eyes. The man eased back.

      Shaw could very well have waited until later: the privacy of a hotel or in his Winnebago or in the Youngs’ own living room. But because Adam Harper had died under his watch, and because Erick Young was sitting scared as a mouse in a holding cell and because Shaw’s shoulder still hurt from Dalton Crowe’s love tap, he decided that now was the perfect moment. He pulled his fountain pen from his jacket pocket. He looked to the Youngs. He asked, “Your bank account, it’s joint?”

      “Our …?”

      “Your checking account, both your names on it?”

      “Oh.” Emma looked perplexed. “Well, yes. But—”

      Crowe grumbled, “What’s this?”

      Shaw endorsed the check over to the Youngs and handed it to Larry. This is why he had no intention of returning the reward.

      “The fuck?” Crowe snapped.

      Shaw said to the couple, “Tanner won’t come cheap.”

      Emma said, “I know. But we’ll get a bank loan. We can’t accept this.”

      Crowe: “They can’t accept it.”

      “It’s done,” Shaw said.

      Crowe bristled, then seemed to sense this was a battle he could not win. He pointed a finger at Shaw. “I will get you for this, my friend.” He stalked off down the alley.

      Larry waved the check. “If there’s any left over—”

      “Get Erick some help. Better therapy than he’s had.”

      “We will,” Emma whispered.

      Shaw wanted to be gone. He said goodbye to the Youngs and walked back to the rental car. In his mind he heard the exchange between Stan Harper and himself.

       Then why did my son kill himself?

       I don’t know the answer to that.

      He now supplemented his response: Not yet.

       15.

      Through the windshield Shaw stared ahead at the redbrick walls of the Public Safety Office. He powered up his router and computer and went online, then composed an email to Mack.

      He started the car and pulled out of the alley.

      A half hour later he was back at the Tacoma RV park, after dropping the poor Kia at the rental company, offering a mea culpa that was heartfelt but not of much significance, given the damage waiver. The new paint job would be on Hertz. The clerk was unfazed.

      Stepping inside the homey Winnebago, he was thinking of what lay ahead. As he’d sat in that comfortable lawn chair in Silicon Valley not long ago, he’d been considering which of the two missions to strike out on: going after the reward for Erick and Adam, or driving back to the Compound in the Sierra Nevadas and pursuing the mystery involving his late father.

      A professor and amateur scientist—both the political and the natural variety—Ashton Shaw had made a discovery, one so significant and controversial that his life and those of his colleagues were put in danger. He warned his associates about the risks, and promptly moved his wife and three children to a large spread in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. There he learned survival skills and trained the children in the same edgy arts.

      Ashton appeared to the world to have given up exploring his discovery, while all the time secretly continuing to pursue it. He would travel to places unknown, presumably looking into more details surrounding his finding—whatever it might be.

      Shaw might have put his father’s concerns and secretive efforts down to the man’s growing breaks with reality had not several incidents occurred. First, there was Ashton’s untimely death and the deaths of several colleagues. Second, just last week, Shaw’s own close call with the people he believed were responsible for the deaths. They were a ruthless woman named Braxton and her hired killer, Droon, whom Shaw had been thinking of earlier. Shaw had evaded the pair and learned that his father’s discovery was hidden somewhere on the family land, near where Ashton had died, Echo Ridge.

      Shaw needed to find the secret. What on earth could it be? Something that exposed corruption in the government? Evidence of other crimes? An invention, maybe a drug that could topple a big pharma company? A military mystery?

      He didn’t try to guess.

       Never speculate without substantial facts.

      A good rule, one of his father’s. Shaw followed it closely much of the time.

      Yes, the secret was a burning question and, now that the reward job here was done, his plans to return to the quest would have put him on the road at first light.

      Would have …

      The quest would have to wait. Plans had changed.

      Because of an image seared into Colter Shaw’s mind; Adam Harper’s eerily calm leap into eternity.

      His phone dinged with an incoming email. He read the thread, which began with his query to Mack.

      To: [email protected]

      From: [email protected]

      Re: Request for information

      Please find any available information about a self-help-style organization called “Foundation” or “the Foundation.” Logo is an infinity sign. There’s a facility located near Snoqualmie Gap, Washington State.

      To: [email protected]

      From: [email protected]

      Re: Request for information

      Probably the Osiris Foundation, a California C corporation (for profit; unusual, since most of these organizations prefer 501(c)(3) status, nonprofit). Link to the home page for their website is below. Self-help operation of some kind. Very little information on Clearnet, nothing on the dark web. No Wikipedia listing. No social media accounts—Facebook, Twitter, YouTube. That is unusual too. I found several online ads for the organization on websites offering help for bereavement, terminal or serious illness,