Three Harlan Coben Novels

by Harlan Coben

  “Just hear me out, okay? I’m trying to find Aimee Biel—”

  “No.”

  “—and if I find her, there’s an excellent chance I’ll find your daughter too. I’m telling you. Look, you checked me out, right? That’s how you know about Win.”

  Rochester stopped, waited.

  “You must have heard this is what I do. I help people when they’re in trouble. I dropped that girl off and now she’s gone. I owe it to her parents to find her.”

  Rochester looked at the Twins. In the distance Myron heard a car radio, the song fading in and then fading out. The song was “We Built This City on Rock-n-Roll” by Starship.

  The second worst song in the world, Myron thought.

  Ascot Bite started singing along, “We built este ciudad, we built este ciudad, we built este ciudad . . .” Hippy Art Teacher, still holding Myron’s legs, started bobbing his head, clearly digging his colleague’s vocals.

  “I’m telling the truth,” Myron said.

  “Either way,” Rochester said, “if you’re telling the truth or not, the Twins here. They’ll find out. See? You can’t lie to them. Once they hurt you some, you’ll tell us everything we need to know.”

  “But by then it’s too late,” Myron said.

  “They won’t take long.” Rochester looked at Art Teacher.

  Art Teacher said, “Half an hour, hour max.”

  “That’s not what I meant. I’ll be too hurt. I won’t be able to function.”

  “He has a point,” Art Teacher said.

  “We leave marks,” Ascot added, flashing his teeth.

  Rochester thought about it.

  “Orville, where did you say he was before he came home?”

  Art Teacher—Orville—gave him Randy Wolf’s address and told him about the diner. They’d been tailing him, and Myron hadn’t picked up on it. Either they were very good or Myron was awfully rusty—or both. Rochester asked Myron why he visited both places.

  “The house is where her boyfriend lives,” Myron said. “But he wasn’t home.”

  “You think he has something to do with it?”

  Myron knew better to answer in the positive. “Just talking to Aimee’s friends, see what was up with her. Who better than her boyfriend?”

  “And the diner?”

  “I met a source. I wanted to see what they had on your daughter and Aimee. I’m trying to find a connection between them.”

  “So what have you learned so far?”

  “I’m just starting.”

  Rochester thought some more. Then he shook his head slowly. “Way I heard it, you picked up the Biel girl at two A.M.”

  “That’s right.”

  “At two A.M.,” he repeated.

  “She called me.”

  “Why?” His face reddened. “Is it because you like picking up high school girls?”

  “That’s not it.”

  “Oh, I suppose you gonna tell me it was innocent?”

  “It was.”

  Myron could see the anger mounting. He was losing him.

  “You watch that trial with that perv Michael Jackson?”

  The question confused Myron. “A little, I guess.”

  “He sleeps with little boys, right? He admits it. But then he says, ‘Oh but it’s innocent.’ ”

  Now Myron saw where this was going.

  “And here you are, just like that, telling me you pick up pretty high school girls, late at night. At two A.M. And then you say, ‘Oh, but it’s innocent.’ ”

  “Listen to me—”

  “Nah, I think I listened enough.”

  Rochester nodded for the Twins to go ahead.

  Enough time had passed. Win was, Myron hoped, in place. He was probably waiting for one last distraction. Myron couldn’t move, so he tried something else.

  Without warning, Myron let loose a scream.

  He screamed as long and as loud as he could, even after Orville the Art Teacher snapped a fist into his teeth.

  But the scream had the desired effect. For a second, everyone looked at him. Just for a second. No more.

  But that was enough.

  An arm snaked around Rochester’s neck as a gun appeared at his forehead. Win’s face materialized next to Rochester’s.

  “Next time,” Win said, crinkling his nose, “please refrain from buying your cologne at your local Exxon station.”

  The Twins were greased lightning. They were off Myron in under a second. Art Teacher took to the far corner. Ascot Bite flipped behind Myron and pulled him up, using Myron as a shield. He had a gun out now too. He put it against the back of Myron’s neck.

  Stalemate.

  Win kept his arm around Rochester’s neck. He squeezed the windpipe. Rochester’s face darkened red as the oxygen drained away. His eyes rolled back. A few seconds later, Win did something a little surprising: He released his grip on the throat. Rochester retched and sucked in a deep breath. Using him as a shield, Win’s gun stayed near the back of the man’s head but now angled toward Art Teacher.

  “Cutting off his air supply, what with that awful cologne,” Win said, by way of an explanation. “It was too merciful.”

  The Twins studied Win as though he were something little and cute they’d stumbled across in the forest. They did not appear to be afraid of him. As soon as Win had come upon the scene, they’d coordinated their movements as if they’d done this before.

  “Sneaking up like that,” Hippy Art Teacher said, smiling at Win. “Dude, that was one radical move.”

  “Far out,” Win said. “Like, dig it.”

  He frowned. “Are you mocking me, man?”

  “Tripping. Groovy. Flower power.”

  Art Teacher looked at Ascot Bite as if to say, Do you believe this guy?

  “Man oh man, dude, you don’t know who you’re messing with.”

  “Put your weapons down,” Win said, “or I’ll kill you both.”

  The Twins smiled some more, enjoying this.

  “Dude, you ever do, like, math?”

  Win gave Art Teacher the flat eyes. “Like, yah.”

  “See, we got two guns. You got one.”

  Ascot Bite rested his head on Myron’s shoulder. “You,” he said to Win, excited, licking his lips. “You shouldn’t threaten us.”

  “You’re right,” Win said.

  All eyes were on the gun pressed near Rochester’s temple. That was the mistake. It was like a classic magician’s trick. The Twins had not wondered why Win had released his grip on Rochester’s throat. But the reason was simple:

  It was so that Win—using Rochester’s body to block their view—could ready his second gun.

  Myron tilted his head a little to the left. The bullet from the second gun, the one that had been hidden behind Rochester’s left hip, struck Ascot Bite square in the forehead. He was dead instantly. Myron felt something wet splash on his cheek.

  At the same time, Win fired the first gun, the one that had been at Rochester’s head. That bullet slammed into Art Teacher’s throat. He went down, his hands clawing at what had been his voice box. He may have been dead or at least bleeding to death. Win didn’t chance it.

  The second bullet hit the man square between the eyes.

  Win turned back to Rochester. “Breathe funny and you end up like them.”

  Rochester made himself stay impossibly still. Win bent down next to Myron and started ripping off the duct tape. He looked down at Ascot Bite’s dead body.

  “Chew on that,” Win said to the corpse. He turned back to Myron. “Get it? The biting, chew on that?”

  “Hilarious. Where’s Mrs. Seiden?”

  “She’s safe, out of the house, but you’ll need to make up a cover story for her.”

  Myron thought about that.

  “Did you call the police?” Myron asked.

  “Not yet. In case you wanted to ask some questions.”

  Myron looked at Rochester.

  “Talk to him downstairs,” Win said, handing Myron a gun.
“I’ll pull the car into the garage and start the cleanup.”

  CHAPTER 24

  The cleanup.

  Myron had some idea of what Win meant, though they wouldn’t discuss it directly. Win had holdings all over the place, including a tract of land in a secluded section of Sussex County, New Jersey. The property was eight acres. Most of it was undeveloped woods. If you ever tried to trace down ownership, you’d find a holding company from the Cayman Islands. You would find no names.

  There was a time when Myron would have been upset over what Win had done. There was a time when he would have mustered up all his moral outrage. He would give his old friend long, complicated musings about the sanctity of life and the dangers of vigilantism and all that. Win would look at him and utter three words:

  Us or them.

  Win probably could have given the “stalemate” another minute or two. He and the Twins might have come to an understanding. You go, we go, no one gets hurt. That sort of thing. But that wasn’t meant to be.

  The Twins were as good as dead the moment Win entered the scene.

  The worst part was that Myron no longer felt bad about it. He would shrug it off. And when he’d started doing that, when he knew that killing them was the prudent thing to do and that their eyes would not haunt his sleep . . . that was when he knew it was time to stop doing this. Rescuing people, playing along that flimsy line between good and bad—it robbed a little sliver of your soul.

  Except maybe it didn’t.

  Maybe playing along that line—seeing the other side of it—just grounded you in awful reality. The fact is this: A million Orville the Art Teachers or Jeb the Ascots aren’t worth the life of even one innocent, of one Brenda Slaughter or one Aimee Biel or one Katie Rochester or, as in the case overseas, the life of his soldier son, Jeremy Downing.

  It might seem amoral to feel this way. But there it was. He applied this thinking to the war too. In his most honest moments, the ones he dare not speak out loud, Myron didn’t care that much about the civilians trying to scrape by in some dump-hole desert. He didn’t care if they got democracy or not, if they experienced freedom, if their lives were made better. What he did care about were the boys like Jeremy. Kill a hundred, a thousand, on the other side, if need be. But don’t let anyone hurt my boy.

  Myron sat across from Rochester. “I wasn’t lying before. I’m trying to find Aimee Biel.”

  Rochester just stared.

  “You know that both girls used the same ATM?”

  Rochester nodded.

  “There has to be a reason why. It’s not a coincidence. Aimee’s parents don’t know your daughter. They don’t think Aimee knew her either.”

  Rochester finally spoke. “I asked my wife and kids,” he said, his voice soft. “None of them think Katie knew Aimee.”

  “But the two girls went to the same school,” Myron said.

  “It’s a big school.”

  “There’s a connection. There has to be. We’re just missing it. So what I need you and your family to do is start searching for that connection. Ask Katie’s friends. Look through her stuff. Something links your daughter and Aimee. We find it, we’ll be that much closer.”

  Rochester said, “You’re not going to kill me.”

  “No.”

  His eyes traveled upstairs. “Your guy made the right move. Killing the Twins, I mean. You let them go, they’d have tortured your mother until she cursed the day you were born.”

  Myron chose not to comment.

  “I was stupid to hire them,” Rochester said. “But I was desperate.”

  “If you’re looking for forgiveness, go to hell.”

  “I’m just trying to make you understand.”

  “I don’t want to understand,” Myron said. “I want to find Aimee Biel.”

  Myron had to go to the emergency room. The doctor looked at the bite on his leg and shook his head.

  “Jesus, you get attacked by a shark?”

  “A dog,” Myron lied.

  “You should put it down.”

  Win took that one: “Already done.”

  The doctor used sutures and then bandaged it up. It hurt like hell. He gave Myron some antibiotics and pills for the pain. When they left, Win made sure Myron still had the gun. He did.

  “You want me to stay around?” Win said.

  “I’m fine.” The car accelerated down Livingston Avenue. “Are those two guys taken care of?”

  “Gone forever.”

  Myron nodded. Win watched his face.

  “They’re called the Twins,” Win said. “The older one with the ascot, he would have bitten off your nipples first. That’s how they warm up. One nipple, then the other.”

  “I understand.”

  “No lecture on overreacting?”

  Myron’s fingers touched down on his chest. “I really like my nipples.”

  It was late by the time Win dropped him off. Near his front door, Myron found his cell phone on the ground where he’d dropped it. He checked the caller ID. There were a bunch of missed calls, mostly business related. With Esperanza in Antigua on her honeymoon, he should have stayed in touch. Too late to worry about that now.

  Ali had also called him.

  A lifetime ago he had told her that he’d come by tonight. They had joked about him stopping by for a late-night “nooner.” Man, was that really today?

  He debated waiting until morning, but Ali might be worried. Plus, it would be nice, really nice, to hear the warmth in her voice. He needed that, in this crazy, exhausting, hurting day. He was sore. His leg throbbed.

  Ali answered on the first ring. “Myron?”

  “Hey, hope I didn’t wake you.”

  “The police were here.”

  There was no warmth in her voice.

  “When?”

  “A few hours ago. They wanted to talk to Erin. About some promise the girls made in your basement.”

  Myron closed his eyes. “Damn. I never meant to involve her.”

  “She backed your story, by the way.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I called Claire. She told me about Aimee. But I don’t understand. Why would you make the girls promise something like that?”

  “To call me, you mean?”

  “Yes.”

  “I overheard them talking about driving with someone who was drunk. I just didn’t want that to happen to them.”

  “But why you?”

  He opened his mouth but nothing came out.

  “I mean, you just met Erin that day. That was the first time you ever talked to her.”

  “I didn’t plan it, Ali.”

  There was a silence. Myron didn’t like it.

  “We okay?” he asked.

  “I need a little time with this,” she said.

  He felt his stomach clench.

  “Myron?”

  “Sooo,” he said, stretching out the word, “I guess there’s no rain check on that nooner?”

  “This isn’t the time for jokes.”

  “I know.”

  “Aimee is missing. The police came around and questioned my daughter. This might be routine for you, but this isn’t my world. I’m not blaming you, but . . .”

  “But?”

  “I just . . . I just need time.”

  “ ‘Need time,’ ” Myron repeated. “That sounds a whole lot like ‘need space.’ ”

  “You’re making a joke again.”

  “No, Ali, I’m not.”

  CHAPTER 25

  There was a reason Aimee Biel wanted to be dropped off on that cul-de-sac.

  Myron showered and threw on a pair of sweats. His pants had blood on them. His own. He remembered that old Seinfeld routine about laundry detergent commercials that talk about getting out bloodstains, how if you have bloodstains on your clothes, maybe laundry wasn’t your biggest worry.

  The house was silent, except for those customary house noises. When he was a kid, alone at night, those noises would scare him. Now they were just the
re—neither soothing nor alarming. He could hear the slight echo as he walked across the kitchen floor. The echo only happened when you were alone. He thought about that. He thought about what Claire had said, about him bringing violence and destruction, about him still not being married.

  He sat alone at the kitchen table of his empty house. This was not the life he’d planned.

  Man plans, God laughs.

  He shook his head. Truer words.

  Enough wallowing, Myron thought. The “plans” part got his mind back on track. To wit: What had Aimee Biel been planning?

  There was a reason she chose that ATM. And there was a reason she chose that cul-de-sac.

  It was almost midnight when Myron got back in his car and started north to Ridgewood. He knew the way now. He parked at the end of the cul-de-sac. He turned off the car. The house was dark, just like two nights ago.

  Okay, now what?

  Myron went through the possibilities. One, Aimee actually went into that house at the end of the cul-de-sac. The woman who’d answered the door before, the slim blonde with the baseball cap, had lied to Loren Muse. Or maybe the woman didn’t know. Maybe Aimee was having a fling with her son or was a friend of her daughter’s, and this woman didn’t know about it.

  Doubtful.

  Loren Muse was no idiot. She had been at that door a fair amount of time. She would have checked into those angles. If they existed, she would have followed up.

  So Myron ruled that out.

  That meant that this house had been a diversion.

  Myron opened the car door and stepped out. The road was silent. There was a hockey goal at the end of the cul-de-sac. This was probably a neighborhood with kids. There were only eight houses and almost no traffic. The kids probably still played on the street. Myron spotted one of those roll-out basketball hoops in one of the driveways. They probably did that too. The cul-de-sac was a little neighborhood playground.

  A car turned down the block, just like when he’d dropped Aimee off.

  Myron squinted toward the headlights. It was midnight now. Only eight houses on the street, all with lights out, all tucked in for the evening.

  The car pulled up behind his and came to a stop. Myron recognized the silver Benz even before Erik Biel, Aimee’s father, got out. The light was dim, but Myron could still see the rage on his face. It made him look like an annoying little boy.