A Tap on the Window by Linwood Barclay Page A

always on my mind. It was true all through this period, but even now, after all this time, that’s still the case. Almost like a low-pitched hum, no matter what you’re doing, that’s always there in the background.
    I thought about what he was like, the things we did together. Moments. Mental snapshots. Some of the memories were pleasant, some less so. Some of them were like signposts along a journey.
    When Scott was eight, the school called because he’d been in a fight with another boy. Donna couldn’t get away from work, but I was between jobs, so I headed over. I found him sitting on a bench in the office, staring down into his lap, his legs just barely long enough to touch the floor with the tips of his sneakers. He was swinging his feet back and forth.
    “Hey,” I said, and he looked up. His eyes were red, but he was not crying at that moment. I sat down beside him, our thighs touching, and he leaned into me.
    “I thought I was doing the right thing,” he said.
    “Start from the beginning.”
    “Mickey Farnsworth threw a rock at a car and I told the teacher. She told me she was busy and I guess she forgot to do anything about it and at recess Mickey said I was a tattletale and started beating me up and we got into a fight and now we’re both in trouble.”
    “Where’s Mickey?” I asked.
    “His mom came and got him. She called me a tattletale, too.”
    That really pissed me off, but I had to let it go. The thing was, Scott had some history here. Of tattling. He didn’t like to see others getting away with things, but seeing that justice was done often had a way of backfiring for him.
    Welcome to the world.
    “It’s wrong to throw rocks at cars, right?” he asked.
    “It is.”
    “And you and Mom say it’s wrong to do nothing when people break the law. Isn’t it against the law to throw rocks at cars?”
    “It is.”
    “So why am I being suspended?”
    I put my arm around him and patted his shoulder. I couldn’t think of anything to say that wouldn’t make me a hypocrite. I gave it my best shot.
    “Sometimes doing the right thing hurts.” I paused. “Sometimes, doing the right thing is not always worth doing. It’s hard to be right all the time. It’s not an easy way to live your life.”
    “Don’t you always do what’s right?” Scott asked, turning his head to look at me.
    “I’ll always try to where you’re concerned,” I said.
    He rested his head against my chest. “The principal wants to talk to you.”
    “Okay.”
    “And you have to take me home.”
    “Okay.”
    “Am I going to be punished?”
    “You have been already,” I said. “For the wrong things, for the wrong reasons.”
    “I don’t understand, Dad.”
    “Me, neither,” I said. “Me, neither.”
    * * *
    As I went in search of the Skilling residence, I gave more thought to what I was doing, and why I was doing it. I needed to know Claire Sanders was okay. I needed to know, having been dragged unwittingly into this mess, whether my actions had put her at risk. If they had, I’d have to see what I could do about it. I didn’t like to see kids in trouble.
    Yeah, but you don’t mind scaring the shit out of them when it suits you
.
    I was confident I’d find her. I couldn’t recall, offhand, how many times I’d been hired to track down missing kids—easily twenty—and only once had I failed. And that was because the kid—a twelve-year-old boy—came home on his own before I could find him.
    When I finally did find Claire—at a boyfriend’s place, a kids’ hostel in L.A., some beach down in Florida—what would the plan be then? Drag her back to Griffon?
    Hardly.
    But I’d tell her that people back home were worried about her. I’d recommend that she call her folks. I’d give her shit for getting me involved.
    That’d be it for me.
    Sean Skilling would lead me to Hanna, and Hanna would lead me to Claire. One way or another.
    I found the Skilling residence about half a mile away, on Dancey. It had