The One That Got Away Read online

  THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY

  Joe Clifford

  PRAISE FOR THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY

  “A great book! I devoured it. Taut, pacey and with a powerful sense of place, Joe Clifford’s The One Got Away is an intelligent and astutely observed piece of American small-town noir.” —Paula Hawkins, New York Times bestselling author of The Girl on the Train and Into the Water

  “Joe Clifford is a gifted storyteller with a knack for crafting characters who are entirely human. The One That Got Away is dark and unforgiving, a chilling crime novel with the perfect touch of tenderness that will keep readers turning the pages with haste. This is one book you won’t be able to put down. —Mary Kubica, New York Times bestselling author of The Good Girl and Every Last Lie

  “The mystery of The One That Got Away sucked me in, but it was the emotional punch of Alex Salerno’s return home that broke my heart. With its sharply observed characters and setting and crime-thriller pace, its tough exterior belies a vast, unexpected tenderness. I cannot not quit thinking about this book.” —Emily Carpenter, author of Burying the Honeysuckle Girls and The Weight of Lies

  “It’s not often that I read a top-notch thriller with layers of emotion buried within each page. On the surface, Joe Clifford’s story of a young woman who survived a kidnapping and returns to her hometown to investigate a seemingly similar disappearance is compulsively readable, but when you dig a little deeper, you discover there’s so much more to unpack. The One That Got Away is by far Clifford’s best and most fully realized novel to date, and might well be the most rewarding thriller I’ve read this year.” —Jennifer Hillier, author of Jar of Hearts

  “Joe Clifford crafts a unique detective story with a flawed central character in Alex Salerno. His true skill lies in that he was able to make the Northeastern town of Reine into the co-central character, one even more flawed than Alex. Its life is even more sullied, darker and full of worse choices than hers ever could have been, and that is the gritty magic of the book. Read the novel for the last few pages, which are delicious in their noir conclusion.” —Ryan Sayles, author of Albatross

  “This seething story of small-town noir should appeal to fans of Jeffery Deaver’s The Bone Collector.” —Publishers Weekly

  Copyright © 2018 by Joe Clifford

  All rights reserved. No part of the book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.

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  The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Cover design by Zach McCain

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  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  The One That Got Away

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Also by the Author

  Preview from Thieves by Steven Max Russo

  Preview from The Bad Kind of Lucky by Matt Phillips

  Preview from Harbinger by Frank Zafiro and Jim Wilsky

  This book is dedicated to my mother Toni Lynn,

  my grandmother Helen, my Aunt Patty,

  and all my Upstate New York relatives.

  And I will always remember her this way.

  Standing on the hill behind the football field,

  her yellow hair shining like straw in the autumn sun…

  THEN

  She lost track of time, how long she’d been locked underground. Must’ve been several days by now. The pungent stench of urine filled the black, empty spaces like the alleyway behind the bus station. Her stomach gnawed, hunger panged, sliced at her guts, like a feral animal trapped inside her rib cage, mouth too dry to produce the spit to swallow. When she first woke, submerged in total darkness, she clawed at the concrete, beat her fists against the wall of whatever this prison was. She screamed until she couldn’t hear her own voice anymore.

  Then she slumped to the floor and waited.

  She was going to die here.

  But not before something very bad happened to her first.

  NOW

  CHAPTER ONE

  On the overpass leading into Reine, the small Upstate New York town where Alex Salerno had grown up, some smart ass had spray painted “Abandon all hope ye who enter here.” There was only the one road in off the 87, making the concrete billboard the perfect platform for free advertising. Mostly pissed-off punks who had been scaling the trestles since Alex was a little girl. Drunk on blackberry brandy, draped in black, tempting fate on midnight tracks where freight trains rumbled alongside the Hudson River all night long. Anything to mark territory, stake a claim. Make voices of discontent heard. Every spring the town sent in a cleaning crew. The following fall, another tag. As Alex drove closer to the bridge, she made out the hastily scrawled response: “You need hope to lose it, asshole.” Point. Counterpoint. Alex imagined respectable suburban professionals, mothers with small children, housewives driving this same route every day, seeing the graffiti and wondering what was wrong with kids today because they had never been young and didn’t remember what outrage felt like.

  It took her a while to find the campus. Even when she lived up here, Alex hadn’t spent much time at Uniondale University, the private college on the hill with its fake ponds and planted sod. Sitting on a bench burnished with names she’d never heard of, Alex took in the sprawling campus, the packs of giggling girls and cocksure boys. Alex had nothing against learning or higher education. She read books. In another life, she might’ve done well in college. But with each passing minute she felt increasingly uncomfortable among the rich kids shuttled in from Connecticut and the Hamptons.

  Why had she agreed to this meeting in the first place? Because someone wanted to tell her story again, had offered to shine the spotlight once more.

  The October sun lingered in a stubborn autumn sky, creating the illusion that there was time left. Late-afternoon clouds rolled in, the horizon growing darker. Alex pulled up her black hoodie and jammed hands in pockets. The college was a strange choice for an interview. Albany would’ve made more sense. Troy, Schenectady. Even Rensselaer. That’s where the press was, the little big towns of Upstate New York. Which definitely did not include Reine. The longer she sat there, amid the quaint woodsy backdrop and postmodern metal sculptures, the more pathetic she felt. It had been years since she escaped that basement. Who would want to talk to her now? After all this time? Back then, they wrote stories about her. Back then, she was, if not national news, at least part of local lore. The girl who’d risen from the dead, emerged untouched, still pure. The one that got away. No one else would have to die.

  Then another girl died, and Alex’s story turned cautionary tale, an unpleasant reminder that promises get broken and nothing gold can stay.

  Alex pulled her Parliaments, stashed them, pulled them again. A jogger stomped past and she flinched. She checked her phone. No missed calls, no unanswered texts. Opened her email. No update from Noah Lee, the reporter, saying that he was running late, no messages about crossed wires, a misunderstanding over what time or where they were supposed to meet. She contemplated heading back to her car, digging for his number among the clutter; it was in there somewhere, but she knew once she crossed the quad she wasn’t coming back. She’d hit the 87 back to the city, where she’d do w
hat she always did. Run off, find a party, score something to make her forget she’d ever been this needy.

  A college kid with a backpack draped over his shoulder headed toward her, pleasant smile plastered on his smooth, youthful face like he needed to borrow something. Alex hid her cigarettes. Students were always bumming smokes at the bar, despite having way more money than she ever would. But the kid did not want a cigarette.

  “I’m Noah,” he said. “You must be Alex.” He slipped the bag off his shoulder, dropping it between his feet and plopping down beside her.

  She sucked on her smoke, biting the inside of her cheek, an anxious habit that had created a permanent nub, soft candy she chewed when nerves got the best of her.

  Noah pointed at the tall light pole, a big sign with red slashes through all the things you weren’t allowed to do. “Campus is smoke free.”

  “I thought this was an interview?” Alex dropped the cigarette, squashing the burning ember beneath the heel of her Chuck Taylors. “For a newspaper?”

  “Yup. The Codornices. Uniondale’s student publication.”

  The meeting had been set up via email, details arranged digitally. Why hadn’t she taken six seconds to verify the name of the newspaper?

  “I mean, I’m hoping they’ll run it,” Noah said. “No guarantee. Not too much competition though. I live in the same dorm as the editor. Mainly I need the interview for my final project.”

  “Final project?”

  “Beats and Deadlines. It’s a journalism class—”

  “How old are you?”

  “Nineteen.”

  “You got to be shitting me.”

  “I’m sorry. Did I say something wrong?”

  Of course no mainstream press would want to talk to her now. Not after all this time. It had been years since Alex Salerno mattered. How many kids—girls, boys, teens, toddlers, babies—had been stolen over the past dozen years? Hundreds? Thousands? Hers was no longer even the latest abduction to come out of Reine. Certainly not the most infamous. Not after Kira Shanks went missing. The day Kira Shanks disappeared, Alex’s fifteen minutes were up.

  She stared at her old Civic across the quad, rusting in the metered section of the parking lot. A jangle of clipped wires barfed out a hole in the dash from where the stereo had been stolen. The prospect of driving two hours without music, back to a tiny rented room, sounded as appealing as playing freshman comp Q&A. She hated that sick part inside her that longed for the attention.

  “Just ask your questions,” she said.

  “Sean Riley? The detective who rescued you?”

  “What about him?” Alex leaned back on the bench. Just hearing Riley’s name cracked the fragile parts inside her, unleashed the emotional shrapnel she’d learned to keep hidden. Talking about being snatched, imprisoned against her will? No problem. If she pretended hard enough, she could imagine somebody else’s life. Dissociation, that’s what her therapist called it, a strategy trauma victims employed to stay safe. Thinking about Riley made her feel things. Tender things. Vulnerable things.

  Alex braced for what came next. Because just as she was inextricably linked to Riley, Alex was forever tied to that other girl. The bigger deal. The sexier story. The Mary Sue to her outcast. And if Noah Lee said her name right now, Alex swore she’d scream.

  But of course he did.

  “And, y’know, Kira Shanks.”

  There had been no reason for Alex to believe this interview would lead to anything beneficial. There was no money in it. No prospective job offers. It was a long drive up from NYC, costing gas money she didn’t have, shifts off from the bar she couldn’t afford, time spent in a town full of painful memories. But at least the focus would be on her. Her struggle, her victory. The one good thing she’d done with her life: she’d survived.

  Alex glanced around uneasy, trying to figure a way to bolt without looking smaller than she already felt. How do you explain you’re sick of competing with a dead girl without sounding petty? What happened to Kira Shanks was terrible. Of course she felt bad for her. But by living, Alex thought she’d won. Turned out by not dying, she’d lost.

  “Does it feel weird to be back up here?” Noah asked, pen in hand.

  “No. Why would it?”

  “Because it’s not far from here where it happened.”

  “Where what happened?” Alex knew what he meant.

  “Um,” Noah stammered. “Do you feel, like, an affinity?”

  “To what?”

  “Kira Shanks. Because of her disappearance. Like you’re both part of the same curse on this town. The other girls, too. But I can’t talk to them. They’re all, y’know, dead. You’re the only one who’s not.”

  Noah had been, what, seven, when Alex was taken? Twelve by the time Kira went missing? He knew the whole story or they wouldn’t be sitting here. Alex Salerno had been the last of several young girls kidnapped by a man named Kenneth Parsons, who was currently serving several, concurrent life sentences far away without chance of parole. He’d die in prison. Kira Shanks had been murdered by a different man altogether. Five long years separated the crimes. Nothing tied the two cases together. Alex fought against her quickening pulse.

  “When you wrote,” she said, “it was to interview me. Why are you asking about Kira Shanks? Like I had anything to do with it?”

  “I didn’t mean you were involved.”

  “Wasn’t even the same guy who took her. Everyone knows that. Parsons took me and killed those other girls. They arrested Benny-what’s-his-name for Kira.”

  “Brudzienski. Benny Brudzienski.”

  “There’s no connection between what happened to her and me.”

  “Some people think Parsons had help—”

  “A rumor, something the media drummed up for ratings. Parsons and Benny never even met. That’s been proven.” Alex was repeating what the police and Riley had promised her. Even now she couldn’t keep those wolves away.

  “Parsons could’ve had a partner,” Noah said. “They found other DNA.”

  “I know what they found. I was there, remember? Parsons confessed, copped to everything, pled out. Gave up every kill, every body. Hand-delivered detectives to each gravesite. Why would Parsons cover for anyone? His plea bargain with the DA is the only reason I am here.” It had taken Alex a long time to squelch fears that another monster lurked in the dark, waiting to drag her back to hell. It was a never-ending losing fight. “Parsons is in prison because of me.”

  “Not exactly because of you.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “He got time for the others. Technically. He didn’t do anything to you.”

  “Didn’t do anything to me? You know what that was like? Being locked underground, not knowing if I’d live or die, get raped, or something worse? I’m supposed to what? Feel lucky? Grateful? Because Parsons got picked up before he had a chance to do me like he did the others? Because Riley found me in that bunker, half-starved and nearly dead of dehydration? I was seventeen years old. Couple years younger than you are now. You have any idea how terrified I was?”

  “I didn’t mean—”

  “You keep saying that, Noah. You didn’t mean this. You’re sorry for that. Why did you want to interview me? If what I went through wasn’t tragic enough for you?”

  “I need to write this paper. It’s very important to my grade.”

  “What’s that got to do with me?”

  “I messed up, okay? I jumped the gun and made enemies of your friend, Sean Riley. Detective Riley. This paper I’m writing accounts for seventy-five percent of my grade. I had this big idea for a real investigative piece because of how he doesn’t think he did it and my prof loves frontline reporting—he worked with my dad—muckraker shit, undercover journalism. The sixties.” He rolled his eyes. “I had the whole story mapped out. The cop who cracked the case changes his mind. Grants last-minute reprieve. Like the Life of David Gale.”

  “What are you talkin
g about? Who doesn’t believe what?”

  “Detective Riley?” Noah said, surprised. “How he doesn’t believe Benny Brudzienski did it? Killed Kira Shanks? Riley’s working with the Brudzienski family to get the murder charges dismissed. Although it’s technically a disappearance, right? Since they never found the body. That’s part of the enduring mystery, how they never found the body. Brings up all kinds of interesting legal ramifications. Don’t you and Riley talk anymore?”

  “Why would we?”

  “I thought after…”

  “After what?”

  “Nothing,” Noah said.

  “Why do you care so much about Benny Brudzienski?”

  “I told you. It’s an exposé.” Noah fished around his rucksack, retrieving a black and white composition notebook, the same kind Alex used to fill with the names of hard rock bands inside ballpoint pentagrams. He sat upright, clearing his throat, projecting confidence. “Seven years ago this November, Reine High senior Kira Shanks went missing, the latest in a string of horrific abductions to rock the small Upstate New York town. Benny Brudzienski, hulking man-child with a third-grade IQ, was sought in connection with the crime. Blood and DNA found at the Idlewild Motel just off the interstate where Benny worked as a handyman linked him to the scene. However, questions remain. Before police could swoop in and make an arrest, Benny had an ‘accident.’” Noah did air quotes with his fingers. “Now Benny Brudzienski sits in a posh state hospital on the taxpayer’s dime pretending he can’t talk because he fell off his bicycle and hit his head after concerned citizens took matters into their own hands, unwilling to be victimized anymore. Some call it vigilante justice. But not this reporter. Where is the justice for Kira Shanks?” Noah closed his book. “Pretty good, eh?”