Pending – Chapter Thirty-One

Catch up on the previous chapters here

Brandon frowned at the photo of C. J. O’Connell, aka Bentley Beckett. “Wait, who’s this guy in the book?”

Art looked toward the back room where Adam and Kent hadn’t emerged yet. “I’m pretty sure Mr. Suit would prefer it if we didn’t make any assumptions about the book.”

Nell snorted and wrapped both hands around her mug. She’d made herself a mocha. “That’s the author.”

“The au …” Brandon blinked, then bent over her phone again.

Art tilted his head. “So I think we can say that’s Cal, at least in his own mind.”

“You don’t look surprised,” she murmured, raising her drink for a sip.

Her boss shrugged. “Once you accept a basic premise, a lot of pieces fall into place. O’Connell’s writing about a real woman who got away, check. So Cal’s his self-insert into the fanfiction of his own life.” He raised an eyebrow. “And Rosie’s not a serial killer.”

“There isn’t a serial killer,” Brandon protested.

Nell set the mug down and reached over to tap the side of her phone so she wouldn’t change the picture showing. “This guy is.”

Brandon held it up like she just needed to look again. “You’re saying this guy killed your friends.”

She nodded. She didn’t want to say it, but two of them had certainly been murdered. Someone was behind it, and Beckett’s behavior was definitely suspicious.

God, one of Kent’s dad’s friends let himself get beat up over this? If they all sent Beckett after Hillier, then why weren’t they keeping an eye on his house? Surely somebody could’ve stepped in before the freaking hospital had to get involved. You only needed one swing to get in the assault with a deadly weapon thing, right? Someone didn’t have to actually almost die.

“There’s an FBI agent who didn’t want you to see that photo,” Art pointed out. “Something’s up, and it’s big, so memorize the face and keep an eye out for it, because that face has a habit of circling Nell and deciding she doesn’t need people in her life.”

Brandon used the phone to point to the door leading to the back. “How long has Kent been in your life?” he asked Nell.

She shrugged, mostly to stall. Since I was nineteen was the truth, but they thought they’d known her since she was eighteen. She had to do the math instead. “Since 2016.” God, which made her what in their minds—fifteen? A fifteen-year-old, meeting a twenty-five-year-old, and why had Kent agreed to such a large age gap?

Art nudged her foot under the table. It wasn’t quite a kick. From his smirk, she figured he was doing the same math, and remembering Kent’s headcanon about Rosie’s boyfriend.

Brandon shook his head. “Man, none of this adds up.”

“No,” she agreed. “It shouldn’t, actually. That’s kind of the point.”

The door jingled, and Nell waved for Art to stay seated, because it was Mary. She got up, but paused when Mary greeted her with, “Lots of dark cars with tinted windows out there today. I feel like I’m in a spy movie.”

Nell looked to the large front windows, but she hadn’t seen any pass by. Granted, she hadn’t been out here the whole time, but since she’d been sitting here with Art and Brandon … she moved closer to the window, almost unconsciously hugging the wall to keep from giving someone a clear shot. Eyes, camera, gun … it didn’t matter.

Adam’s car was parked out there, and of course it was a dark one with tinted windows. It wasn’t like Adam was undercover or anything, but it was the sort of car that called attention to itself and warned you that someone official was driving. He’d only ever come alone to see them, and if he had a partner, they would’ve come in the same car, anyway, so …

Beckett was probably in Iowa. Adam said the address he got was hours from here, but it wasn’t inconceivable he would’ve passed near Colchester if he was headed from Kalamazoo to someplace further west. It wasn’t the direct route, of course, but a man who’d beaten up a federal agent probably wasn’t interested in direct routes as much as avoiding being spotted. Say, by someone in a dark car with tinted windows.

Gacy drove something that looked like an undercover cop car. When he was getting ready to dump one of his victim’s bodies, he’d cruised past a bridge and heard radio chatter about an unmarked being in the area. They’d seen him and thought he was a cop, so it wasn’t exactly unprecedented that Beckett would drive a dark car with tinted windows.

Mary joined her. “See, that’s one of them.”

“I know who drove that one. It’s been here a while.”

“Huh.” Mary tilted her head. “There’s at least one more, then. Did we have an alien spaceship landing? Any, what do you call them, travelers?”

“Little green men?” Art suggested.

She shook her head, not looking at him. “That’s the old term.”

Nell glanced over at Mary, but she wasn’t sure how to ask what the non-racist phrase was these days. It wasn’t creatures from another planet that had her worried, anyway. Really, there was only one creature on this planet at the top of her mind, but … hours away. Hillier got put in the hospital, but he said he’d given the wrong address.

Still an Iowa address.

“Look, there,” Mary added, nodding as a similar-looking car pulled in from the other direction, moving slowly, and then edged over to the curb across the street and parked.

“Nell?” Art asked, and from the corner of her eye she saw him take her phone from Brandon and come up to the other window, just to the side of the door, like he wanted to be sure he could go back and forth between the screen and the face of the man getting out of the car.

He was too old, for one thing. Beckett was maybe thirty, but the man across the way, scanning the buildings on their side of the street as he reached back in for a messenger bag, was likely near sixty. A fit sixty, but this was broad daylight, and that wasn’t stage makeup. His hair was dark and threaded with gray, which they could see better when he turned his head to check the traffic before crossing the street and angling toward the front door of Pending.

Nell’s heart tried to drop into her stomach, but her stomach dropped into her shoes.

“Nell?” Brandon said sharply, also getting up. He frowned, though, because no, this man wasn’t Beckett.

“Kent,” she croaked, then shook her head and tried to turn to call toward the back room, but her eyes stuck on the man who’d just reached this sidewalk. “Kent!”

The man started to open the door at a normal speed and then paused, slowing, when he realized that he was confronted by a group of people. His eyes passed over all of them quickly, bright and assessing, but there wasn’t anyone behind the counter, so he calculated and looked at Art. “Sorry, uh … I’m looking for Adam Scott. That’s his car out there.”

Kent swung open the back door and did the same sweep to see what was happening, then … froze.

Art frowned, glancing back at him, then to the newcomer, then to Nell. “Nell?”

“Nell?” the man echoed, slowly turning to look at her. Rather, his head turned slowly, but his eyes finally pulled away from Kent as he looked at her face and not just her hair and her clothes. “Oh my God, Nell!” He moved to hug her, which was wrong, because he should’ve hugged Kent first, and he shouldn’t even be here, and Nell wasn’t used to dad hugs. She figured Gran had kept her up on the whole mom hug side of things, but dad hugs were foreign.

Art started to ask something, maybe if she was okay, but then Kent joined them, and one of the man’s arms released her to go around him and pull them both in, squashed together, and she was hidden down here because both of them were tall, with the same broad shoulders, and a lot of the same facial features, and maybe it was okay, but also maybe …

Kent pulled back first. “Dad, what …?”

“They got him.” Owen shook his head, looking back and forth between the two of them, maybe trying to overlay the faces he knew with the ones he saw now, unable to keep from grinning. “They got him. I was here—well, nearby, they wouldn’t let me be part of it—but they got him, and they told me to come talk to Adam Scott, so I called, and they said he was out, so I explained who I was, and they said to come here, to Colchester, and …”

“I’m Adam Scott,” Adam said, sounding miffed.

“Are you?” Even though he probably didn’t want to, Owen let go of the two of them and offered Adam his hand. “Owen Cooper. I owe you a world of thanks.”

“Owen …?” Adam shook his head and his frown suddenly blossomed into shock. “You’re …?”

Owen grinned. “Kent’s dad? Yeah.”

“Kent’s last name is Harris,” Mary pointed out. “So’s Nell’s. Art, can I do my order?”

“Sure, Mary.” Art nodded for the others to take a seat, or at least get out of the way.

“They got him,” Owen told Adam. “Just a couple hours ago. He finally showed, they got him, he’s in custody. It’s over.” He turned back to Kent and Nell. “It’s over.”

Kent guided her into a chair before she collapsed, but even in her shock she thought his knees had gone a little wobbly, too. “You’re sure?” Kent cleared the gravel out of his throat. “Positive?”

“Fingerprints match,” he said, and he even laughed. “He had his ID on him, too, but they did prints, and bingo. It’s him. We’ve got him.” If possible, the grin got broader. “You can come home.”

Uh, hold up.

“They’re already home,” Mary told Owen. She’d drifted over after filling up her coffee. “Why do you want them to leave?”

Kent’s hand found Nell’s knee under the table and gave it a squeeze, but she wasn’t sure which way it was supposed to go: if he wanted to reassure her that he’d correct his dad, or if he didn’t want her to get upset at what Mary said.

“We’ll figure it out,” Owen said, waving either Mary or her comment away with a dismissive hand. “The point is … my God.” He shook his head, swiping at the tears in his eyes. “Just look at you two. It’s finally over.”

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Chapter Thirty-Two