Darkest Fear

by Harlan Coben

  "I just wonder," Myron said.

  "What?"

  "Who was the serial killer here? Did his father really do it? Or was it all Stan?"

  "Doubt we'll ever know," Win said.

  "Probably not."

  "It shan't matter," Win said. "They'll get him for Melina Garston."

  "I guess," Myron said. Then he frowned and repeated, " 'Shan't'?"

  Win shrugged. "So is it finally over, my friend?"

  Myron's leg did that nervous jig again. He stopped it and said, "Jeremy."

  "Ah," Win said. "Are you going to tell him?"

  Myron looked out the window and saw nothing. "Win's credo about selfishness would say yes."

  "And Myron's credo?"

  "I don't know that it's much different," Myron said.

  Jeremy was playing basketball at the Y. Myron stepped into the bleachers, the rickety kind that shake with each step, and sat. Jeremy was still pale. He was thinner than the last time Myron had seen him, but there'd been a growth spurt over the last few months. Myron realized how fast changes take place for the young and felt a deep, hard thud in his chest.

  For a while, he just watched the flow of the scrimmage and tried to judge his son's play objectively. Jeremy had the tools, Myron could see that right away, but there was plenty of rust on them. That wouldn't be a problem though. Again with the young. Rust doesn't stay long on the young.

  As Myron watched the practice, his eyes widened. He felt his insides shrivel. He thought again about what he was about to do, and a swelling tide rose inside of him, overwhelming him, pulling him under.

  Jeremy smiled when he spotted Myron. The smile cleaved Myron's heart in two even pieces. He felt lost, adrift. He thought about what Win had said, about what a real father was, and he thought about what Esperanza had said. He thought about Greg and Emily. He wondered if he should have spoken to his own father about this, if he should have told him that this wasn't a hypothetical, that the bomb had indeed landed, that he needed his help.

  Jeremy continued to play, but Myron could see that the boy was distracted by his presence. Jeremy kept sneaking quick glances toward the stands. He played a little harder, picked up the pace a bit. Myron had been there, done that. The desire to impress. It had driven Myron, maybe as much as wanting to win. Shallow, but there you have it.

  The coach had his players run a few more drills and then he lined them up on the baseline. They finished up with the aptly named "suicides," which was basically a series of gut-heaving sprints broken up by bending and touching different lines on the floor. Myron might be nostalgic for many things connected to basketball. Suicides were not one of them.

  Ten minutes later, with most of the kids still trying to catch their breath, the coach gathered his troops, gave out schedules for the rest of the week, and dispersed the boys with a big handclap. Most of them headed toward the exit, slinging backpacks over their shoulders. Some went into the locker room. Jeremy walked over to Myron slowly.

  "Hi," Jeremy said.

  "Hi."

  Sweat dripped off Jeremy's hair, his face coated and flushed from exertion. "I'm going to shower," he said. "You want to wait?"

  "Sure," Myron said.

  "Cool, I'll be right back."

  The gymnasium emptied out. Myron stood and picked up an errant basketball. His fingers found the grooves right away. He took a few shots, watching the bottom of the net dance as the ball swished through. He smiled and sat back down, still holding the ball. A janitor came in and swept the floor Zamboni-style. His keys jangled. Someone flipped off the overhead lights. Jeremy came back not long after that. His hair was still wet. He, too, had a backpack over his shoulder.

  As Win would say, "Showtime."

  Myron gripped the ball a little tighter. "Sit down, Jeremy. We need to talk."

  The boy's face was serene and almost too beautiful. He slid the backpack off his shoulder and sat down. Myron had rehearsed this part. He had looked at it from all sides, all the pluses and minuses. He had made up his mind and changed it and made it up again. He had, as Win put it, properly tortured himself.

  But in the end, he knew there was one universal truth: Lies fester. You try to put them away. You jam them in a box and bury them in the ground. But eventually they eat their way out of coffins. They dig their way out of graves. They may sleep for years. But they always wake up. When they do, they're rested, stronger, more insidious.

  Lies kill.

  "This is going to be hard to understand--" He stopped. Suddenly his rehearsed speech sounded so damn canned, filled with "It's nobody's fault" and "Adults make mistakes too" and "It doesn't mean your parents love you any less." It was patronizing and stupid and--

  "Mr. Bolitar?"

  Myron looked up at the boy.

  "My mom and dad told me," Jeremy said. "Two days ago."

  His chest shuddered. "What?"

  "I know you're my biological father."

  Myron was surprised and yet he wasn't. Some might say that Emily and Greg had made a preemptive strike, almost like a lawyer who reveals something bad about his own client because he knows the opposition will do it. Lessen the blow. But maybe Emily and Greg had learned the same lesson he had about lies and how they fester. And maybe, once again, they were trying to do what was best for their boy.

  "How do you feel about it?" Myron asked.

  "Weird, I guess," Jeremy said. "I mean, Mom and Dad keep expecting me to fall apart or something. But I don't see why it has to be such a big deal."

  "You don't?"

  "Sure, okay, I see it, but"--he stopped, shrugged--"it's not like the whole world's turned inside out or anything. You know what I mean?"

  Myron nodded. "Maybe it's because you've already had your world turned inside out."

  "You mean being sick and all?"

  "Yes."

  "Yeah, maybe," he said, thinking about it. "Must be weird for you too."

  "Yeah," Myron said.

  "I've been thinking about it," Jeremy said. "You want to hear what I've come up with?"

  Myron swallowed. He looked into the boy's eyes--serenity, yes, but not through innocence. "Very much," he said.

  "You're not my dad," he said simply. "I mean, you might be my father. But you're not my dad. You know what I mean?"

  Myron managed a nod "But"--Jeremy stopped, looked up, shrugged the shrug of a thirteen-year-old--"but maybe you can still be around."

  "Around?" Myron repeated.

  "Yeah," Jeremy said. He smiled again and pow, Myron's chest took another blow. "Around. You know."

  "Yeah," Myron said, "I know."

  "I think I'd like that."

  "Me too," Myron said.

  Jeremy nodded. "Cool."

  "Yeah."

  The gym clock grunted and pushed forward. Jeremy looked at it. "Mom's probably outside waiting for me. We usually stop at the supermarket on the way home. Want to come?"

  Myron shook his head. "Not today, thanks."

  "Cool." Jeremy stood, watching Myron's face. "You okay?"

  "Yeah."

  Jeremy smiled. "Don't worry. It's going to work out."

  Myron tried to smile back. "How did you get to be so smart?"

  "Good parenting," he said. "Combined with good genes."

  Myron laughed. "You might want to consider a future in politics."

  "Yeah," Jeremy said. "Take it easy, Myron."

  "You too, Jeremy."

  He watched the boy walk out the door, again with the familiar gait. Jeremy didn't look back. There was the sound of the door closing, the echoes, and then Myron was alone. He turned toward the basket and stared at the hoop until it blurred. He saw the boy's first step, heard his first word, smelled the sweet clean of a young child's pajamas. He felt the smack of a ball against a glove, bent over to help with his homework, stayed up all night when he had a virus, all of it, like his own father had, a whirl of taunting, aching images, as irretrievable as the past. He saw himself hovering in the boy's darkened doorway, the silent
sentinel to his adolescence, and he felt what remained of his heart burst into flames.

  The images scattered when he blinked. His heart started beating again. He stared again at the basket and waited. This time nothing blurred. Nothing happened.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  The author wishes to thank Sujit Sheth, M.D., Department of Pediatrics, Babies and Children's Hospital in New York, Anne Armstrong-Coben, M.D., Department of Pediatrics, Babies and Children's Hospital (and my love monkey), and Joachim Schulz, Executive Director, Fanconi Anemia Research Fund, all of whom offered up wonderful medical insights and then watched me take liberties with them; two fellow scribes, friends, and experts in their fields, Linda Fairstein and Laura Lippman; Larry Gerson, the inspiration; Nils Lofgren, for rocking me over the last hurdle; early reader and long-time bud Maggie Griffin; Lisa Erbach Vance and Aaron Priest for another job well done; Jeffrey Bedford, FBI Special Agent (and not a bad freshman dorm counselor); as always, Dave Bolt; and mostly, Jacob Hoye, my editor for all the Myron Bolitar books--and now a father. That dedication is for you, too, Jake. Thanks, dude.

  For those interested in becoming a bone marrow donor and perhaps saving a life, I urge you to contact the National Marrow Donor Program at www.marrow.org or 1-800-MARROW2. For more information on Fanconi anemia, check out www.fanconi.org.

  This book is a work of fiction. That means I make stuff up.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Harlan Coben is the author of six previous Myron Bolitar novels: The Final Detail, One False Move, Back Spin, the Edgar Award-and Shamus Award-winning Fade Away, Drop Shot, and Deal Breaker, which won an Anthony Award and received an Edgar Award nomination. He is also the author of Tell No One and Gone for Good. He lives in New Jersey with his wife and four children. Visit his website at www.harlancoben.com.

  Look for Harlan Coben's new novel of suspense

  GONE FOR GOOD

  Now Available in paperback from Dell

  1

  Three days before her death, my mother told me--these weren't her last words, but they were pretty close--that my brother was still alive.

  That was all she said. She didn't elaborate. She said it only once. And she wasn't doing very well. Morphine had already applied its endgame heart squeeze. Her skin was in that cusp between jaundice and fading summer tan. Her eyes had sunken deep into her skull. She slept most of the time. She would, in fact, have only one more lucid moment--if indeed this had been a lucid moment, which I very much doubted--and that would be a chance for me to tell her that she had been a wonderful mother, that I loved her very much, and good-bye. We never said anything about my brother. That didn't mean we weren't thinking about him as though he were sitting bedside too.

  "He's alive."

  Those were her exact words. And if they were true, I didn't know if it would be a good thing or bad.

  We buried my mother four days later.

  When we returned to the house to sit shivah, my father stormed through the semi-shag in the living room. His face was red with rage. I was there, of course. My sister, Melissa, had flown in from Seattle with her husband, Ralph. Aunt Selma and Uncle Murray paced. Sheila, my soul mate, sat next to me and held my hand.

  That was pretty much the sum total.

  There was only one flower arrangement, a wonderful monster of a thing. Sheila smiled and squeezed my hand when she saw the card. No words, no message, just the drawing

  Dad kept glancing out the bay windows--the same windows that had been shot out with a BB gun twice in the past eleven years--and muttered under his breath, "Sons of bitches." He'd turn around and think of someone else who hadn't shown. "For God's sake, you'd think the Bergmans would have at least made a goddamn appearance." Then he'd close his eyes and look away. The anger would consume him anew, blending with the grief into something I didn't have the strength to face.

  One more betrayal in a decade filled with them.

  I needed air.

  I got to my feet. Sheila looked up at me with concern. "I'm going to take a walk," I said softly.

  "You want company?"

  "I don't think so."

  Sheila nodded. We had been together nearly a year. I've never had a partner so in sync with my rather odd vibes. She gave my hand another I-love-you squeeze, and the warmth spread through me.

  Our front-door welcome mat was harsh faux grass, like something stolen from a driving range, with a plastic daisy in the upper left-hand cover. I stepped over it and strolled up Downing Place. The street was lined with numbingly ordinary aluminum-sided split-levels, circa 1962. I still wore my dark gray suit. It itched in the heat. The savage sun beat down like a drum, and a perverse part of me thought that it was a wonderful day to decay. An image of my mother's light-the-world smile--the one before it all happened--flashed in front of my eyes. I shoved it away.

  I knew where I was headed, though I doubt if I would have admitted it to myself. I was drawn there, pulled by some unseen force. Some would call it masochistic. Others would note that maybe it had something to do with closure. I thought it was probably neither.

  I just wanted to look at the spot where it all ended.

  The sights and sounds of summer suburbia assaulted me. Kids squealed by on their bicycles. Mr. Cirino, who owned the Ford/Mercury dealership on Route 10, mowed his lawn. The Steins--they'd built up a chain of appliance stores that were swallowed up by a bigger chain--were taking a stroll hand in hand. There was a touch football game going on at the Levines' house, though I didn't know any of the participants. Barbecue smoke took flight from the Kaufmans' backyard.

  I passed by the Glassmans' old place. Mark "the Doof" Glassman had jumped through the sliding glass doors when he was six. He was playing Superman. I remembered the scream and the blood. He needed over forty stitches. The Doof grew up and became some kind of IPO-start-up zillionaire. I don't think they call him the Doof anymore, but you never know.

  The Marianos' house, still that horrid shade of phlegm yellow with a plastic deer guarding the front walk, was on the bend. Angela Mariano, our local bad girl, was two years older than us and like some superior, awe-inducing species. Watching Angela sunning in her backyard in a gravity-defying ribbed halter top, I had felt the first painful thrusts of deep hormonal longing. My mouth would actually water. Angela used to fight with her parents and sneak smokes in the toolshed behind her house. Her boyfriend drove a motorcycle. I ran into her last year on Madison Avenue in midtown. I expected her to look awful--that was what you always hear happens to that first lust-crush--but Angela looked great and seemed happy.

  A lawn sprinkler did the slow wave in front of Eric Frankel's house at 23 Downing Place. Eric had a space-travel-themed bar mitzvah at the Chanticleer in Short Hills when we were both in seventh grade. The ceiling was done up planetarium style--a black sky with star constellations. My seating card told me that I was sitting at "Table Apollo 14." The centerpiece was an ornate model rocket on a green fauna launching pad. The waiters, adorned in realistic space suits, were each supposed to be one of the Mercury 7. "John Glenn" served us. Cindi Shapiro and I had sneaked into the chapel room and made out for over an hour. It was my first time. I didn't know what I was doing. Cindi did. I remember it was glorious, the way her tongue caressed and jolted me in unexpected ways. but I also remember my initial wonderment evolving after twenty minutes or so into, well, boredom--a confused "what next?" along with a naive "is that all there is?"

  When Cindi and I stealthily returned to Cape Kennedy's Table Apollo 14, ruffled and in fine post-smooch form (the Herbie Zane Band serenading the crowd with "Fly Me to the Moon"), my brother, Ken, pulled me to the side and demanded details. I, of course, too gladly gave them. He awarded me with that smile and slapped me five. That night, as we lay on the bunk beds, Ken on the top, me on the bottom, the stereo playing Blue Oyster Cult's "Don't Fear the Reaper" (Ken's favorite), my older brother explained to me the facts of life as seen by a ninth-grader. I'd later learn he was mostly wrong (a little too much emphasis on the breast),
but when I think back to that night, I always smile.

  "He's alive ..."

  I shook my head and turned right at Coddington Terrace by the Holders' old house. This was the same route Ken and I had taken to get to Burnet Hill Elementary School. There used to be a paved path between two houses to make the trip shorter. I wondered if it was still there. My mother--everyone, even kids, had called her Sunny--used to follow us to school quasi-surreptitiously. Ken and I would roll our eyes as she ducked behind trees. I smiled, thinking about her overprotectiveness now. It used to embarrass me, but Ken would simply shrug. My brother was securely cool enough to let it slide. I wasn't.

  I felt a pang and moved on.

  Maybe it was just my imagination, but people began to stare. The bicycles, the dribbling basketballs, the sprinklers and lawn mowers, the cries of touch footballers--they all seemed to hush as I passed. Some stared out of curiosity because a strange man strolling in a dark gray suit on a summer evening was something of an oddity. But most, or again so it seemed, looked on in horror because they recognized me and couldn't believe that I would dare tread upon this sacred soil.

  I approached the house at 47 Coddington Terrace without hesitation. My tie was loosened. I jammed my hands in my pockets. I toed the spot where curb met pavement. Why was I here? I saw a curtain move in the den. Mrs. Miller's face appeared at the window, gaunt and ghostlike. She glared at me. I didn't move or look away. She glared some more--and then to my surprise, her face softened. It was as though our mutual agony had made some sort of connection. Mrs. Miller nodded at me. I nodded back and felt the tears begin to well up.

  You may have seen the story on 20/20 or PrimeTime Live or some other television equivalent of fish wrap. For those who haven't, here's the official account: On October 17 eleven years ago, in the township of Livingston, New Jersey, my brother, Ken Klein, then twenty-four, brutally raped and strangled our neighbor Julie Miller.

  In her basement. At 47 Coddington Terrace.

  That was where her body was found. The evidence wasn't conclusive as to if she'd actually been murdered in that poorly finished subdwelling or if she'd been dumped postmortem behind the water-stained zebra-striped couch. Most assume the former. My brother escaped capture and ran off to parts unknown--at least, again, according to the official account.