by Harlan Coben
Shauna did not bother stopping at Reception and Reception knew better than to try to stop her. She pulled open the door and greeted me with the words "Lunch. Now."
"I told you. I'm going to be busy."
"Put on a coat," she said. "It's cold out."
"Look, I'm fine. The anniversary isn't until tomorrow anyway."
"You're buying."
I hesitated and she knew she had me.
"Come on, Beck, it'll be fun. Like in college. Remember how we used to go out and scope hot babes together?"
"I never scoped hot babes."
"Oh, right, that was me. Go get your coat."
On the way back to my office, one of the mothers gave me a big smile and pulled me aside. "She's even more beautiful in person," she whispered.
"Eh," I said.
"Are you and she ..." The mother made a together motion with her hands.
"No, she's already involved with someone," I said.
"Really? Who?"
"My sister."
We ate at a crummy Chinese restaurant with a Chinese waiter who spoke only Spanish. Shauna, dressed impeccably in a blue suit with a neckline that plunged like Black Monday, frowned. "Moo shu pork in a tortilla shell?"
"Be adventurous," I said.
We met our first day of college. Someone in the registrar's office had screwed up and thought her name was Shaun, and we thus ended up roommates. We were all set to report the mistake when we started chatting. She bought me a beer. I started to like her. A few hours later, we decided to give it a go because our real roommates might be assholes.
I went to Amherst College, an exclusive small-Ivy institution in western Massachusetts, and if there is a prep pier place on the planet, I don't know it. Elizabeth, our high school valedictorian, chose Yale. We could have gone to the same college, but we discussed it and decided that this would be yet another excellent test for our relationship. Again, we were doing the mature thing. The result? We missed each other like mad. The separation deepened our commitment and gave our love a new distance-makes-the-heart-grow-fonder dimension.
Nauseating, I know.
Between bites, Shauna asked, "Can you baby-sit Mark tonight?"
Mark was my five-year-old nephew. Sometime during our senior year, Shauna started dating my older sister, Linda. They had a commitment ceremony seven years ago. Mark was the by-product of, well, their love, with a little help from artificial insemination. Linda carried him to term and Shauna adopted him. Being somewhat old-fashioned, they wanted their son to have a male role model in his life. Enter me.
Next to what I see at work, we're talking Ozzie and Harriet.
"No prob," I said. "I want to see the new Disney film anyway."
"The new Disney chick is a babe and a half," Shauna said. "Their
hottest since Pocahontas."
"Good to know," I said. "So where are you and Linda going?"
"Beats the hell out of me. Now that lesbians are chic, our social
calendar is ridiculous. I almost long for the days when we hid in
closets."
I ordered a beer. Probably shouldn't have, but one wouldn't hurt.
Shauna ordered one too. "So you broke up with what's-her name," she said.
"Brandy."
"Right. Nice name, by the way. She have a sister named Whiskey?"
"We only went out twice."
"Good. She was a skinny witch. Besides, I got someone perfect for you."
"No, thanks," I said.
"She's got a killer bod."
"Don't set me up, Shauna. Please."
"Why not?"
"Remember the last time you set me up?"
"With Cassandra."
"Right."
"So what was wrong with her?"
"For one thing, she was a lesbian."
"Christ, Beck, you're such a bigot."
Her cell phone rang. She leaned back and answered it, but her eyes never left my face. She barked something and flipped the mouthpiece up. "I have to go," she said.
I signaled for the check.
"You're coming over tomorrow night," she pronounced.
I feigned a gasp. "The lesbians have no plans?"
"I don't. Your sister does. She's going stag to the big Brandon Scope formal."
"You're not going with her?"
"Nah."
"Why not?"
"We don't want to leave Mark without us two nights in a row. Linda has to go. She's running the trust now. Me, I'm taking the night off. So come over tomorrow night, okay? I'll order in, we'll watch videos with Mark."
Tomorrow was the anniversary. Had Elizabeth lived, we'd be scratching our twenty-first line in that tree. Strange as this might sound, tomorrow would not be a particularly hard day for me. For anniversaries or holidays or Elizabeth's birthday, I get so geared up that I usually handle them with no problems. It's the "regular" days that are hard. When I flip with the remote and stumble across a classic episode of The Mary Tyler Moore Show or Cheers. When I walk through a bookstore and see a new title by Alice Hoffman or Anne Tyler. When I listen to the O'Jays or the Four Tops or Nina Simone. Regular stuff.
"I told Elizabeth's mother I'd stop by," I said.
"Ah, Beck ..." She was about to argue but caught herself. "How about after?"
"Sure," I said.
Shauna grabbed my arm. "You're disappearing again, Beck."
I didn't reply.
"I love you, you know. I mean, if you had any sort of sexual appeal whatsoever, I probably would have gone for you instead of your sister."
"I'm flattered," I said. "Really."
"Don't shut me out. If you shut me out, you shut everyone out. Talk to me, okay?"
"Okay," I said. But I can't.
I almost erased the email.
I get so much junk email, spam, bulk emails, you know the drill, and I've become quite handy with the delete button. I read the sender's address first. If it's someone I know or from the hospital, fine. If not, I enthusiastically click the delete button.
I sat at my desk and checked the afternoon schedule. Chockfull, which was no surprise. I spun around in my chair and readied my delete finger. One email only. The one that made Homer shriek before. I did the quick scan, and my eyes got snagged on the first two letters of the subject.
What the '?
The way the window screen was formatted, all I could see were those two letters and the sender's email address. The address was unfamiliar to me. A bunch of numbers @comparama.com.
I narrowed my eyes and hit the right scroll button. The subject appeared a character at a time. With each click, my pulse raced a bit more. My breathing grew funny. I kept my finger on the scroll button and waited.
When I was done, when all the letters showed themselves, I read the subject again and when I did, I felt a deep, hard thud in my heart.
"Dr. Beck?"
My mouth wouldn't work. "Dr. Beck?"
"Give me a minute, Wanda."
She hesitated. I could still hear her on the intercom. Then I heard it click off.
I kept staring at the screen:
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Subject: E.P. + D.B /////////////////////
Twenty-one lines. I've counted four times already.
It was a cruel, sick joke. I knew that. My hands tightened into fists. I wondered what chicken-shitted son of a bitch had sent it. It was easy to be anonymous in emails ' the best refuge of the techno-coward. But the thing was, very few people knew about the tree or our anniversary. The media never learned about it. Shauna knew, of course. And Linda. Elizabeth might have told her parents or uncle. But outside of that...
So who sent it?
I wanted to read the message, of course, but something held me back. The truth is, I think about Elizabeth more than I let on-I don't think I'm fooling anyone there ' but I never talk about her or what happened. People think I'm being macho or brave, that I'm trying to spare my friends or shunning peo
ple's pity or some such nonsense. That's not it. Talking about Elizabeth hurts. A lot. It brings back her last scream. It brings back all the unanswered questions. It brings back the might-have-beens (few things, I assure you, will devastate like the might-have-beens It brings back the guilt, the feelings, no matter how irrational, that a stronger man ' a better man ' might have saved her.
They say it takes a long time to comprehend a tragedy. You're numb. You can't adequately accept the grim reality. Again, that's not true. Not for me anyway. I understood the full implications the moment they found Elizabeth's body. I understood that I would never see her again, that I would never hold her again, that we would never have children or grow old together. I understood that this was final, that there was no reprieve, that nothing could be bartered or negotiated.
I started crying immediately. Sobbing uncontrollably. I sobbed like that for almost a week without letup. I sobbed through the funeral. I let no one touch me, not even Shauna or Einda. I slept alone in our bed, burying my head in Elizabeth's pillow, trying to smell her. I went through her closets and pressed her clothes against my face. None of this was comforting. It was weird and it hurt. But it was her smell, a part of her, and I did it anyway.
Well-meaning friends ' often the worst kind ' handed me the usual clich+!s, and so I feel in a pretty good position to warn you: Just offer your deepest condolences. Don't tell me I'm young. Don't tell me it'll get better. Don't tell me she's in a better place. Don't tell me it's part of some divine plan. Don't tell me that I was lucky to have known such a love. Every one of those platitudes pissed me off. They made me ' and this is going to sound uncharitable ' stare at the idiot and wonder why he or she still breathed while my Elizabeth rotted.
I kept hearing that "better to have loved and lost" bullshit. Another falsehood. Trust me, it is not better. Don't show me paradise and then burn it down. That was part of it. The selfish part. What got to me more ' what really hurt ' was that Elizabeth was denied so much. I can't tell you how many times I see or do something and I think of how much Elizabeth would have loved it and the pang hits me anew.
People wonder if I have any regrets. The answer is, only one. I regret that there were moments I wasted doing something other than making Elizabeth happy.
"Dr. Beck?"
"One more second," I said.
I put my hand on the mouse and moved the cursor over the Read icon. I clicked it and the message came up:
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Subject: E.P. + D.B/////////////////////
Message: Click on this hyperlink kiss time, anniversary.
A lead block formed in my chest.
Kiss time?
It was a joke, had to be. I am not big on cryptic. I'm also not big on waiting.
I grabbed the mouse again and moved the arrow over the hyperlink I clicked and heard the primordial modem screech the mating call of machinery. We have an old system at the clinic. It took a while for the Web browser to appear. I waited, thinking Kiss time, how do they know about kiss time?
The browser came up. It read error.
I frowned. Who the hell sent this? I tried it a second time, and again the error message came up. It was a broken link.
Who the hell knew about kiss time?
I have never told anyone. Elizabeth and I didn't much discuss it, probably because it was no big deal. We were corny to the point of Pollyanna, so stuff like this we just kept to ourselves. It was embarrassing really, but when we kissed that first time twenty-one years ago, I noted the time. Just for fun. I pulled back and looked at my Casio watch and said, "Six-fifteen."
And Elizabeth said, "Kiss time."
I looked at the message yet again. I started getting pissed now. This was way beyond funny. It's one thing to send a cruel email, but...
Kiss time.
Well, kiss time was 6:15 P.M. tomorrow. I didn't have much choice. I'd have to wait until then.
So be it.
I saved the email onto a diskette just in case. I pulled down the print options and hit Print All. I don't know much about computers, but I know that you could sometimes trace the origin of a message from all that gobbledygook at the bottom. I heard the printer purr. I took another look at the subject. I counted the lines again. Still twenty-one.
I thought about that tree and that first kiss, and there in my tight, stifling office I started to smell the strawberry Pixie Stix.
Chapter 2
At home, I found another shock from the past.
I live across the George Washington Bridge from Manhattan ' in the typical American-dream suburb of Green River, New Jersey, a township with, despite the moniker, no river and shrinking amounts of green. Home is Grandpa's house. I moved in with him and a revolving door of foreign nurses when Nana died three years ago.
Grandpa has Alzheimer's. His mind is a bit like an old black-and-white TV with damaged rabbit-ear antennas. He goes in and out and some days are better than others and you have to hold the antennas a certain way and not move at all, and even then the picture does the intermittent vertical spin. At least, that was how it used to be. But lately ' to keep within this metaphor ' the TV barely flickers on.
I never really liked my grandfather. He was a domineering man, the kind of old-fashioned, lift-by-the-bootstraps type whose affection was meted out in direct proportion to your success. He was a gruff man of tough love and old-world machismo. A grandson who was both sensitive and unathletic, even with good grades, was easily dismissed.
The reason I agreed to move in with him was that I knew if I didn't, my sister would have taken him in. Linda was like that. When we sang at Brooklake summer camp that "He has the whole world in His hands," she took the meaning a little too much to heart. She would have felt obligated. But Linda had a son and a life partner and responsibilities. I did not. So I made a preemptive strike by moving in. I liked living here well enough, I guess. It was quiet.
Chloe, my dog, ran up to me, wagging her tail. I scratched her behind the floppy ears. She took it in for a moment or two and then started eyeing the leash.
"Give me a minute," I told her.
Chloe doesn't like this phrase. She gave me a look ' no easy feat when your hair totally covers your eyes. Chloe is a bearded collie, a breed that appears far more like a sheepdog than any sort of collie I've ever seen. Elizabeth and I had bought Chloe right after we got married. Elizabeth had loved dogs. I hadn't. I do now.
Chloe leaned up against the front door. She looked at the door, then at me, then back at the door again. Hint, hint.
Grandpa was slumped in front of a TV game show. He didn't turn toward me, but then again, he didn't seem to be looking at the picture either. His face was stuck in what had become a steady, pallid death-freeze. The only time I saw the death-freeze melt was when he was having his diaper changed. When that happened, Grandpa's lips thinned and his face went slack. His eyes watered and sometimes a tear escaped. I think he is at his most lucid at the exact moment he craves senility.
God has some sense of humor.
The nurse had left the message on the kitchen table: CALL SHERIFF LOWELL.
There was a phone number scribbled under it.
My head began to pound. Since the attack, I suffer migraines. The blows cracked my skull. I was hospitalized for five days, though one specialist, a classmate of mine at medical school, thinks the migraines are psychological rather than physiological in origin. Maybe he's right. Either way, both the pain and guilt remain. I should have ducked. I should have seen the blows coming. I shouldn't have fallen into the water. And finally, I somehow summoned up the strength to save myself ' shouldn't I have been able to do the same to save Elizabeth?
Futile, I know.
I read the message again. Chloe started whining. I put up one finger. She stopped whining but started doing her glance-at-me-and-the-door again.
I hadn't heard from Sheriff Lowell in eight years, but I still remembered him looming over my hospital bed,
his face etched with doubt and cynicism.
What could he want after all this time?
I picked up the phone and dialed. A voice answered on the first ring.
"Dr. Beck, thank you for calling me back."
I am not a big fan of caller ID ' too Big Brother for my tastes. I cleared my throat and skipped the pleasantries. "What can I do for you, Sheriff?"
"I'm in the area," he said. "I'd very much like to stop by and see you, if that's okay."
"Is this a social call?" I asked.
"No, not really."
He waited for me to say something. I didn't. "Would now be convenient?" Lowell asked.
"You mind telling me what it's about?"
"I'd rather wait until '"
"And I'd rather you didn't."
I could feel my grip on the receiver tighten.
"Okay, Dr. Beck, I understand." He cleared his throat in a way that indicated he was trying to buy some time. "Maybe you saw on the news that two bodies were found in Riley County."
I hadn't. "What about them?"
"They were found near your property."
"It's not my property. It's my grandfather's."
"But you're his legal custodian, right?"
"No," I said. "My sister is."
"Perhaps you could call her then. I'd like to speak with her too."
"The bodies were not found on Lake Charmaine, right?"
"That's correct. We found them on the western neighboring lot. County property actually."
"Then what do you want from us?"
There was a pause. "Look, I'll be there in an hour. Please see if you can get Linda to come by, will you?"
He hung up.
The eight years had not been kind to Sheriff Lowell, but then again, he hadn't been Mel Gibson to begin with. He was a mangy mutt of a man with features so extra-long hangdog that he made Nixon look as though he'd gotten a nip and tuck. The end of his nose was bulbous to the nth degree. He kept taking out a much used hanky, carefully unfolding it, rubbing his nose, carefully refolding it, jamming it deep into his back pocket.
Linda had arrived. She leaned forward on the couch, ready to shield me. This was how she often sat. She was one of those people who gave you their full, undivided attention. She fixed you with those big brown eyes and you could look nowhere else. I'm definitely biased, but Linda is the best person I know. Corny, yes, but the fact that she exists gives me hope for this world. The fact that she loves me gives me whatever else I have left.