Darkest Fear

by Harlan Coben

  "True."

  "So how can you possibly know--?"

  "Denial," she interjected with a sigh. "The first step."

  He pointed a finger at her. "Don't hand me that psychology-major crap, Emily."

  "Moving quickly to anger," she continued.

  "You can't know--"

  "I've always known," she interrupted.

  Myron sat back. He stayed composed but underneath he could almost feel the fissure widening, his foundation starting to shift.

  "When I first got pregnant, I figured like you: I'd slept with Greg more, so it was probably his baby. At least, that's what I told myself." She closed her eyes. Myron stayed very still, the knot in his stomach tightening. "And when Jeremy was born, he favored me, so who was to say? But--and this is going to sound so goddamn stupid--a mother knows. I can't tell you how. But I knew. I tried to deny it too. I told myself I was just feeling guilty over what we'd done, and that this was God's way of punishing me."

  "How Old Testament of you," Myron said.

  "Sarcasm," she said with almost a smile. "Your favorite defense."

  "Your maternal intuition hardly counts as evidence, Emily."

  "You asked before about Sara."

  "Sara?"

  "Jeremy's sister. You wondered about her matching as a donor. She didn't."

  "Right, but you said there was only a one-in-four chance with siblings."

  "For full siblings, yes. But the match wasn't even close. Because she's only Jeremy's half sister."

  "The doctor told you this?"

  "Yes."

  Myron felt the stone footing beneath his feet give way. "So ... Greg knows?"

  Emily shook her head. "The doctor pulled me aside. Because of the divorce, I'm Jeremy's primary custodian. Greg has custody too, but the children live with me. I'm in charge of the medical decisions."

  "So Greg still believes ...?"

  "That Jeremy is his, yes."

  Myron was floundering in deep water with no land in sight. "But you said you've always known."

  "Yes."

  "Why didn't you tell me?"

  "Are you kidding? I was married to Greg. I loved him. We were starting our life together."

  "You still should have told me."

  "When, Myron? When should I have told you?"

  "As soon as the baby was born."

  "Aren't you listening? I just told you I wasn't sure."

  "A mother knows, you said."

  "Come on, Myron. I was in love with Greg, not you. You with your corny sense of morality--you would have insisted I divorce Greg and marry you and live some suburban fairy tale."

  "So instead you chose to live a lie?"

  "It was the right decision based on what I knew then. With hindsight"--she stopped, took a deep sip--"I probably would have done a lot of things differently."

  He tried to let some of it sink in, but it was a no-go. Another group of stroller-laced soccer moms entered the coffee shop. They took a corner table and started jabbering about little Brittany and Kyle and Morgan.

  "How long have you and Greg been separated?" Myron's voice sounded sharper than he intended. Or maybe not.

  "Four years now."

  "And you were no longer in love with him, right? Four years ago?"

  "Right."

  "Earlier even," he went on. "I mean, you probably fell out of love with him a long time ago, right?"

  She looked confused. "Right."

  "So you could have told me then. At least four years ago. Why didn't you?"

  "Stop cross-examining me."

  "You're the one who dropped this bombshell," he said. "How do you expect me to react?"

  "Like a man."

  "What the hell does that mean?"

  "I need your help. Jeremy needs your help. That's what we should be concentrating on."

  "I want some answers first. I'm entitled to that much."

  She hesitated, looked like she might argue, then nodded wearily. "If it'll help you get past this--"

  "Get past this? Like it's a kidney stone or something?"

  "I'm too tired to fight with you," she said. "Just go on. Ask your questions."

  "Why didn't you tell me before now."

  Her eyes drifted over his shoulder. "I almost did," she said. "Once."

  "When?"

  "Do you remember when you came to the house? When Greg first vanished?"

  He nodded. He had just been thinking about that day.

  "You were looking out the window at him. He was in the yard with his sister."

  "I remember," Myron said.

  "Greg and I were going through that nasty custody battle."

  "You accused him of abusing the children."

  "It wasn't true. You realized that right away. It was just a legal ploy."

  "Some ploy," Myron said. "Next time accuse him of war atrocities."

  "Who are you to judge me?"

  "Actually," Myron said, "I think I'm just the person."

  Emily pinned him with her eyes. "Custody battles are war without the Geneva Accords," she said. "Greg got nasty. I got nasty back. You do whatever you have to in order to win."

  "And that includes revealing that Greg wasn't Jeremy's father?"

  "No."

  "Why not?"

  "Because I won custody anyway."

  "That's not an answer. You hated Greg."

  "Yes."

  "Still do?" he asked.

  "Yes." No hesitation.

  "So why didn't you tell him?"

  "Because as much as I loathe Greg," she said, "I love Jeremy more. I could hurt Greg. I'd probably enjoy it. But I couldn't do that to my son--take away his father like that."

  "I thought you'd do anything to win."

  "I'd do anything to Greg," she said, "not Jeremy."

  It made sense, he guessed, but he suspected she was holding something back. "So you kept this secret for thirteen years."

  "Yes."

  "Do your parents know?"

  "No."

  "You never told anyone?"

  "Never."

  "So why are you telling me now?"

  Emily shook her head. "Are you being purposely dense, Myron?"

  He put his hands on the table. They weren't shaking. Somehow he understood that these questions came from more than mere curiosity; they were part of the defense mechanism, the internal barbed wire and moat he'd lavishly built to keep Emily's revelation from reaching him. He knew that what she was telling him was life altering in a way nothing he'd ever heard before was. The words my son kept floating through his subconscious. But they were just words right now. They'd get through eventually, he guessed, but for now the barbed wire and moat were holding.

  "You think I wanted to tell you? I practically begged you to help, but you wouldn't listen. I'm desperate here."

  "Desperate enough to lie?"

  "Yes," she said, again with no hesitation. "But I'm not, Myron. You have to believe that."

  He shrugged. "Maybe someone else is Jeremy's father."

  "Excuse me?"

  "A third party," he said. "You slept with me the night before your wedding. I doubt I was the only one. Could be one of a dozen guys."

  She looked at him. "You want your pound of flesh, Myron? Go ahead, I can take it. But this isn't like you."

  "You know me that well, huh?"

  "Even when you got angry--even when you had every right to hate me--you've never been cruel. It's not your way."

  "We're in uncharted waters here, Emily."

  "Doesn't matter," she said.

  He felt something well up, making it hard to breathe. He grabbed his mug, looked into it as though it might have an answer on the bottom, put it back down. He couldn't look at her. "How could you do this to me?"

  Emily reached across the table and put her hand on his forearm. "I'm sorry," she said.

  He pulled away.

  "I don't know what else to say. You asked before why I never told you. My main concern was always Jeremy's we
lfare, but you were a consideration too."

  "Bull."

  "I know how you are, Myron. I know you can't just shrug this off. But for now you have to. You have to find the donor and save Jeremy's life. We can worry about the rest after that."

  "How long has"--he almost said my son--"Jeremy been ill?"

  "We learned about it six months ago. When he was playing basketball. He started getting bruised too easily. Then he was short of breath for no reason. He started falling down ..." Her voice tailed off.

  "Is he in the hospital?"

  "No. He lives at home and goes to school and he looks fine, just a little pale. But he can't play competitive sports or anything like that. He seems to be doing well, but ... it's just a matter of time. He's so anemic and his marrow cells are so weak that something will get him. Either he'll contract a life-threatening infection or if he manages to get past that, malignancies will eventually develop. We treat him with hormones. That helps, but it's a temporary treatment, not a cure."

  "And a bone marrow transplant would be a cure?"

  "Yes." Her face brightened with an almost religious fervor. "If the transplant takes, he can be completely cured. I've seen it happen with other kids."

  Myron nodded, sat back, crossed his legs, uncrossed them. "Can I meet him?"

  She looked down. The sound of the blender, probably making a frappuccino, exploded while the espresso maker shrieked its familiar mating call to the various lattes. Emily waited for the noise to die down. "I can't stop you. But I'm hoping you'll do the right thing here."

  "That being?"

  "It's hard enough being thirteen years old and almost terminally ill. Do you really want to take away his father too?"

  Myron said nothing.

  "I know you're in shock right now. And I know you have a million more questions. But you have to forget that for now. You have to work through your confusion, your anger, everything. The life of a thirteen-year-old boy--our son--is at stake. Concentrate on that, Myron. Find the donor, okay?"

  He looked back toward the soccer moms, still cooing about their children. Listening to them, he felt an overwhelming pang.

  "Where can I find Jeremy's doctor?" he asked.

  4

  When the elevator doors opened into the reception area of MB SportsReps, Big Cyndi reached out to Myron with two arms the approximate circumference of the marble columns at the Acropolis. Myron almost leaped out of the way--involuntary survival reflex and all--but he stayed still and closed his eyes. Big Cyndi embraced him, which was like being wrapped in wet attic insulation, and lifted him into the air. "Oh, Mr. Bolitar!" she cried.

  He grimaced and rode it out. Eventually she put him back down as though he were a porcelain doll she was returning to a shelf. Big Cyndi is six-six and on the planetoid side of three hundred pounds, the former intercontinental tag-team wrestling champion with Esperanza, aka Big Chief Mama to Esperanza's Little Pocahontas. Her head was cube shaped and topped with hair spiked to look like the Statue of Liberty on a bad acid trip. She wore more makeup than the cast of Cats, her clothing form-fitted like sausage casing, her scowl the stuff of sumos.

  "Uh, everything okay?" Myron ventured.

  "Oh, Mr. Bolitar!"

  Big Cyndi looked like she was about to hug him again, but something stopped her, perhaps the stark terror in Myron's eyes. She picked up luggage that in her manhole-paw resembled a Close'N Play phonograph from the early seventies. She was that kind of big, the kind of big where the world around her always looked like a bad B-monster movie set and she was walking through a miniature Tokyo, knocking over power lines and swatting at buzzing fighter planes.

  Esperanza appeared in her office doorway. She folded her arms and rested against the frame. Even after her recent ordeal, Esperanza still looked immensely beautiful, the shiny black ringlets still falling over her forehead just so, the dark olive skin still radiant--the whole image a sort of gypsy, peasant-blouse fantasy. But he could see some new lines around the eyes and a slight slouch in the perfect posture. He'd wanted her to take time off after her release, but he knew she wouldn't. Esperanza loved MB SportsReps. She wanted to save it.

  "What's going on?" Myron asked.

  "It's all in the letter, Mr. Bolitar," Big Cyndi said.

  "What letter?"

  "Oh, Mr. Bolitar!" she cried again.

  "What?"

  But she didn't respond, hiding her face in her hands and ducking into the elevator as though entering a tepee. The elevator doors slid closed, and she was gone.

  Myron waited a beat and then turned to Esperanza. "Explanation?"

  "She's taking a leave of absence," Esperanza said.

  "Why?"

  "Big Cyndi isn't stupid, Myron."

  "I didn't say she was."

  "She sees what's going on here."

  "It's only temporary," Myron said. "We'll snap back."

  "And when we do, Big Cyndi will come back. In the meantime she got a good job offer."

  "With Leather-N-Lust?" Big Cyndi worked nights as a bouncer at an S&M bar called Leather-N-Lust. Motto: Hurt the ones you love. Sometimes--or so he had heard--Big Cyndi was part of the stage show. What part she played Myron had no idea nor had he worked up the courage to ask--another taboo abyss his mind did its best to circumvent.

  "No," Esperanza said. "She's returning to FLOW."

  For the wrestling uninitiated, FLOW is the acronym for the Fabulous Ladies of Wrestling.

  "Big Cyndi is going to wrestle again?"

  Esperanza nodded. "On the senior circuit."

  "Excuse me?"

  "FLOW wanted to expand its product. They did some research, saw how well the PGA is doing with the senior golf tour and ..." She shrugged.

  "A senior ladies' wrestling tour?"

  "More like retired," Esperanza said. "I mean, Big Cyndi is only thirty-eight. They're bringing back a lot of the old favorites: Queen Qaddafi, Cold War Connie, Brezhnev Babe, Cellblock Celia, Black Widow--"

  "I don't remember the Black Widow."

  "Before our time. Hell, before our parents' time. She must be in her seventies."

  Myron tried not to make a face. "And people are going to pay money to see a seventy-year-old woman wrestle?"

  "You shouldn't discriminate on the basis of age."

  "Right, sorry." Myron rubbed his eyes.

  "And professional women's wrestling is struggling right now, what with the competition from Jerry Springer and Ricki Lake. They need to do something."

  "And grappling old ladies is the answer?"

  "I think they're aiming more for nostalgia."

  "A chance to cheer on the wrestler of your youth?"

  "Didn't you go see Steely Dan in concert a couple of years ago?"

  "That's different, don't you think?"

  She shrugged. "Both past their prime. Both mining more on what you remember than what you see or hear."

  It made sense. Scary sense maybe. But sense. "How about you?" Myron asked.

  "What about me?"

  "Didn't they want Little Pocahontas to return?"

  "Yep."

  "Were you tempted?"

  "To what? Return to the ring?"

  "Yes."

  "Oh, sure," Esperanza said. "I busted my shapely ass working full-time while getting my law degree, so I could once again don a suede bikini and grope aging nymphs in front of drooling trailer trash." She paused. "Still, it is a step above being a sports agent."

  "Ha-ha." Myron walked over to Big Cyndi's desk. There was an envelope with his name scrawled across the top in glow-in-the-dark orange.

  "She wrote it in crayon?" Myron said.

  "Eye shadow."

  "I see."

  "So are you going to tell me what's wrong?" she asked.

  "Nothing," Myron said.

  "Bullshit," she said. "You look like you just heard Wham split up."

  "Don't bring that up," Myron said. "Sometimes, late at night, I still suffer flashbacks."

  Esperanza studied his face a
few more seconds. "This have something to do with your college sweetheart?"

  "Sort of."

  "Oh Christ."

  "What?"

  "How do I say this nicely, Myron? You are beyond moronic in the ways of women. Exhibits A and B are Jessica and Emily."

  "You don't even know Emily."

  "I know enough," she said. "I thought you didn't want to talk to her."

  "I didn't. She found me at my parents' place."

  "She just showed up there?"

  "Yep."

  "What did she want?"

  He shook his head. He still wasn't ready to talk about it yet. "Any messages?"

  "Not as many as we'd like."

  "Win upstairs?"

  "I think he went home already." She picked up her coat. "I think I'll do likewise."

  "Good night."

  "If you hear anything from Lamar--"

  "I'll call you."

  Esperanza put on her coat, flipping the glistening black flow out of the collar. Myron headed into his office and made a few phone calls, mostly of a recruiting nature. It was not going well.

  Several months ago, a friend's death had sent Myron into a tail-spin, causing him to--and we're using complex psychiatric jargon here--wig out. Nothing overly drastic, no nervous breakdown or institutional commitment. He had instead fled to a deserted Caribbean island with Terese Collins, a beautiful TV anchorwoman he didn't know. He had told no one--not Win, not Esperanza, not even Mom and Dad--where he was going or when he'd be back.

  As Win put it, when he wigged out, he wigged out in style.

  By the time Myron was forced to return, their clients were scattering into the night like kitchen help during an immigration bust. Now Myron and Esperanza were back, attempting to revive the comatose and perhaps dying MB SportsReps. This was no easy task. The competition in this business was a dozen starving lions, and Myron was one heavily limping Christian.

  The MB SportsReps office was nicely situated on Park Avenue and Forty-sixth Street in the Lock-Horne Building, owned by the family of Myron's college-and-current roommate, Win. The building was in a primo midtown location and offered up some semi-dazzling views of the Manhattan skyline. Myron soaked it in for a moment and then looked down at the suits speeding below. The sight of the working ants always depressed him, a chorus of "Is That All There Is?" playing in his head.

  He turned now toward his Client Wall, the one with action shots of all the athletes represented by MB SportsReps, which now looked as spotty and sparse as a bad hair transplant. He wanted to care, but unfair as it was to Esperanza, his heart wasn't really in it. He wanted to go back, to love MB and have that old hunger, but no matter how much he tried to stoke the old fire, it wouldn't flame up.

  Emily called about an hour later.

  "Dr. Singh doesn't have office hours tomorrow," Emily said. "But you can hook up during rounds tomorrow morning."