Gone for Good

by Harlan Coben

  Unconditionally. Without a flinch. Sheila had known that. It had mattered to her.

  Sheila's mother at least, I assumed it was Mrs. Rogers came in about twenty minutes into the ceremony. She was a tall woman. Her face had the dry, brittle look of something left too long in the sun. Our eyes met. She looked a question at me, and I nodded a yes. As the service continued, I turned and glanced at her every once in a while. She sat perfectly still, listening to the words about her daughter with something approaching awe.

  At one point, when we rose as a congregation, I saw something that surprised me. I'd been gazing over the sea of familiar faces, when I spotted a familiar figure with a scarf covering most of her face.

  Tanya.

  The scarred woman who took "care" of that scum Louis Castman. Again I assumed that it was Tanya. I was fairly certain. Same hair, same height and build, and even though most of her face was covered, I could still see something familiar in the eyes. I had not really thought about it before, but of course there was a chance that she and Sheila had known each other from their days on the street.

  We sat back down.

  Squares spoke last. He was eloquent and funny and brought Sheila to life in a way I knew I never could. He told the kids how Sheila had been "one of you," a struggling runaway who'd fought her own demons. He remembered her first day here. He remembered watching Sheila bloom.

  And mostly, he said, he remembered watching her fall in love with me.

  I felt hollow. My insides had been scooped out, and again I was struck with the realization that this pain would be permanent, that I could stall, that I could run around and investigate and dig for some inner truth, but in the end, it would change nothing. My grief would forever be by my side, my constant companion in lieu of Sheila.

  When the ceremony ended, no one knew exactly what to do. We all sat for an awkward moment, no one moving, until Terrell started playing his trumpet again. People rose. They cried and hugged me all over again.

  I don't know how long I stood there and took it all in. I was thankful for the outpouring, but it made me miss Sheila all the more. The numb slid back up because this was all too raw. Without the numb, I wouldn't get through it.

  I looked for Tanya, but she was gone.

  Someone announced that there was food in the cafeteria. The mourners slowly milled toward it. I spotted Sheila's mother standing in a corner, both hands clutching a small purse. She looked drained, as if the vitality had leaked out from a still-open wound. I made my way toward her.

  "You're Will? "she said.

  "Yes."

  "I'm Edna Rogers."

  We did not hug or kiss cheeks or even shake hands.

  "Where can we talk?" she asked.

  I led her down the corridor toward the stairs. Squares picked up that we wanted to be alone and diverted foot traffic. We passed the new medical facility, the psychiatric offices, the drug treatment areas.

  Many of our runaways are new or expectant mothers. We try to treat them. Many others have serious mental problems. We try to help them too. And of course, a whole slew of them have a potpourri of drug problems. We do our best there too.

  We found an empty dorm room and stepped inside. I closed the door.

  Mrs. Rogers showed me her back. "It was a beautiful service," she said.

  I nodded.

  "What Sheila became " She stopped, shook her head. "I had no idea. I wish I could have seen that. I wish that she'd called and told me."

  I did not know what to say to that.

  "Sheila never gave me a moment of pride when she was alive." Edna Rogers tugged a handkerchief out of her bag as though someone inside were putting up a fight. She gave her nose a quick, decisive swipe, and then tucked it away again. "I know that sounds unkind. She was a beautiful baby. And she was fine in elementary school. But somewhere along the way" she looked away, shrugged "she changed. She became surly. Always complaining. Always unhappy. She stole money from my purse. She ran away time after time. She had no friends. The boys bored her. She hated school. She hated living in Mason. Then one day she dropped out of school and ran away. Except this time she never came back."

  She looked at me as if expecting a response.

  "You never saw her again?" I asked.

  "Never."

  "I don't understand," I said. "What happened?"

  "You mean what made her finally run away?"

  "Yes."

  "You think there was some big event, right?" Her voice was louder now, challenging. "Her father must have abused her. Or maybe I beat her.

  Something that explains it all. That's the way it works. Nice and tidy. Cause and effect. But there was nothing like that. Her father and I, we weren't perfect. Far from it. But it wasn't our fault either."

  "I didn't mean to imply "

  "I know what you were implying."

  Her eyes ignited. She pursed her lips and looked a dare at me. I wanted off this subject.

  "Did Sheila ever call you?" I said.

  "Yes."

  "How often?"

  "The last time was three years ago."

  She stopped, waiting for me to continue.

  I asked, "Where was she when she called?"

  "She wouldn't tell me."

  "What did she say?"

  This time it took her a long while to respond. Edna Rogers began to circle the room and look at the beds and the dressers. She fluffed a pillow and tucked in a sheet corner. "Once every six months or so, Sheila would call home. She was usually stoned or drunk or high, whatever. She'd get all emotional. She'd cry and I'd cry and she'd say horrible things to me."

  "Like what?"

  She shook her head. "Downstairs. What that man with the tattoo on his forehead said. About you two meeting here and falling in love. That true?"

  "Yes."

  She stood upright and looked at me. Her lips curled into what might pass for a smile. "So," she said, and I heard something creep into her voice, "Sheila was sleeping with her boss."

  Edna Rogers curled the smile some more, and it was like looking at a different person.

  "She was a volunteer," I said.

  "Uh-huh. And what exactly was she volunteering to do for you, Will?"

  I felt a shiver skitter down my back.

  "Still want to judge me?" she asked.

  "I think you should leave."

  "Can't take the truth, is that it? You think I'm some kind of monster.

  That I gave up on my kid for no good reason."

  "It's not my place to say."

  "Sheila was a miserable kid. She lied. She stole "

  "Maybe I'm beginning to understand," I said.

  "Understand what?"

  "Why she ran away."

  She blinked and then glared at me. "You didn't know her. You still don't."

  "Didn't you hear a thing that was said down there?"

  "I heard." Her voice grew softer. "But I never knew that Sheila.

  She'd never let me. The Sheila I knew "

  "In all due deference, I'm really not in the mood to hear you trash her any further."

  Edna Rogers stopped. She closed her eyes and sat on the edge of a bed.

  The room grew very still. "That's not why I came here."

  "Why did you come?"

  "I wanted to hear something good, for one thing."

  "You got that," I said.

  She nodded. "That I did."

  "What else do you want?"

  Edna Rogers stood. She stepped toward me, and I fought off the desire to move away. She looked me straight in the eye. "I'm here about Carly."

  I waited. When she did not elaborate, I said, "You mentioned that name on the phone."

  "Yes."

  "I didn't know any Carly then, and I don't know any now."

  She showed me the cruel, curled smile again. "You wouldn't be lying to me, would you, Will?"

  I felt a fresh shiver. "No."

  "Sheila never mentioned the name Carly?"

  "No."

&
nbsp; "You're sure about that?"

  "Yes. Who is she?"

  "Carly is Sheila's daughter."

  I was struck dumb. Edna Rogers saw my reaction. She seemed to enjoy it.

  "Your lovely volunteer never mentioned that she had a daughter, did she?"

  I said nothing.

  "Carly is twelve years old now. And no, I don't know who the father is. I don't think Sheila did either."

  "I don't understand," I said.

  She reached into her purse and took out a picture. She handed it to me. It was one of those newborn hospital shots. A baby wrapped in a blanket, new eyes blinking out, unseeing. I flipped it over. The handwriting said "Carly." The date of birth was written under it.

  My head began to spin.

  "The last time Sheila called me was on Carly's ninth birthday," she said. "And I spoke to her myself. Carly, that is."

  "So where is she now?"

  "I don't know," Edna Rogers said. "That's why I'm here, Will. I want to find my granddaughter."

  Chapter Twenty-Five.

  When I stumbled back home, Katy Miller was sitting by my apartment door, her knapsack between her splayed legs.

  She scrambled to her feet. "I called but..."

  I nodded.

  "My parents," Katy told me. "I just can't stay in that house another day. I thought maybe I could crash on your couch."

  "It's not a good time," I said.

  "Oh."

  I put the key in the door.

  "It's just that I've been trying to put it together, you know. Like we said. Who could have killed Julie. And I started wondering. How much do you know about Julie's life after you two broke up?"

  We both stepped inside the apartment. "I don't know if now is a good time."

  She finally saw my face. "Why? What happened?"

  "Someone very close to me died."

  "You mean your mother?"

  I shook my head. "Someone else close to me. She was murdered."

  Katy gasped and dropped the knapsack. "How close?"

  "Very."

  "A girlfriend?"

  "Yes."

  "Someone you loved?"

  "Very much."

  She looked at me.

  "What? "I said.

  "I don't know, Will. It's like someone murders the women you love."

  The same thought I'd earlier pushed away. Vocalized, it sounded even more ridiculous. "Julie and I broke up more than a year before her murder."

  "So you were over her?"

  I did not want to travel that route again. I said, "What about Julie's life after we broke up?"

  Katy fell onto the couch the way teenagers do, as if she had no bones.

  Her right leg was draped over the arm, her head back with the chin tilted up. She wore ripped jeans again and another top that was so tight it looked like the bra was on the outside. Her hair was tied back in a pony-tail. A few of the strands fell loose and onto her face.

  "I started thinking," she said, "if Ken didn't kill her, someone else did, right?"

  "Right."

  "So I started looking into her life at the time. You know, calling old friends, trying to remember what was going on with her, that kind of thing."

  "And what did you find?"

  "That she was pretty messed up."

  I tried to focus on what she was saying. "How so?"

  She dropped both legs to the floor and sat up. "What do you remember?"

  "She was a senior at Haverton."

  "No."

  "No?"

  "Julie dropped out."

  That surprised me. "You're sure?"

  "Senior year," she said. Then she asked, "When did you last see her, Will?"

  I thought about it. It had indeed been a while. I told her so.

  "So when you broke up?"

  I shook my head. "She ended it on the phone."

  "For real?"

  "Yes."

  "Cold," Katy said. "And you just accepted that?"

  "I tried to see her. But she wouldn't let me."

  Katy looked at me as though I'd just spouted the lamest excuse in the history of mankind. Looking back on it, I guess maybe she was right.

  Why hadn't I gone to Haverton? Why hadn't I demanded to meet face-to-face?

  "I think," Katy said, "Julie ended up doing something bad."

  "What do you mean?"

  "I don't know. Maybe that's going too far. I don't remember much, but I remember she seemed happy before she died. I hadn't seen her that happy in a long time. I think maybe she was getting better, I don't know."

  The doorbell rang. My shoulders slumped at the sound. I was not much in the mood for more company. Katy, reading me, jumped up and said, "I'll get it."

  It was a deliveryman with a fruit basket. Katy took the basket and brought it back into the room. She dropped it on the table. "There's a card," she said.

  "Open it."

  She plucked it out of the tiny envelope. "It's a condolence basket from some of the kids at Covenant House." She pulled something from an envelope. "A mass card too."

  Katy kept staring at the card.

  "What's the matter?"

  Katy read it again. Then she looked up at me. "Sheila Rogers?"

  "Yes."

  "Your girlfriend's name was Sheila Rogers?"

  "Yeah, why?"

  Katy shook her head and put down the card.

  "What is it?"

  "Nothing," she said.

  "Don't give me that. Did you know her?"

  "No."

  "Then what is it?"

  "Nothing." Katy's voice was firmer this time. "Just drop it, okay?"

  The phone rang. I waited for the machine. Through the speaker I heard Squares say, "Pick it up."

  I did.

  Without preamble, Squares said, "You believe the mother? About Sheila having a daughter?"

  "Yes."

  "So what are we going to do about it?"

  I had been thinking about it since I first heard the news. "I have a theory," I said.

  "I'm a-listening."

  "Maybe Sheila's running away had something to do with her daughter."

  "How?"

  "Maybe she was trying to find Carly or bring her back. Maybe she learned that Carly was in trouble. I don't know. But something."

  "Sounds semi-logical."

  "And if we can trace Sheila's steps," I said, "maybe we can find Carly."

  "And maybe we'll end up like Sheila."

  "A risk," I agreed.

  There was a hesitation. I looked over at Katy. She was staring off, plucking her lower lip.

  "So you want to continue," Squares said.

  "Yes, but I don't want to put you in danger."

  "So this is the part where you tell me I can step away at any time?"

  "Right, and then this is the part where you say you'll stick with me to the end."

  "Cue the violins," Squares said. "Now that we're past all that, Roscoe via Raquel just called me. He may have come up with a serious lead on how Sheila ran. You game for a night ride?"

  "Pick me up," I said.

  Chapter Twenty-Six.

  Philip McGuane saw his old nemesis on the security camera. His receptionist buzzed him.

  "Mr. McGuane?"

  "Send him in," he said.

  "Yes, Mr. McGuane. He's with "

  "Her too."

  McGuane stood. He had a corner office overlooking the Hudson River near the isle of Manhattan's southwestern tip. In the warmer months, the new mega-cruise ships with their neon decor and atrium lobbies glided by, some climbing as high as his window. Today nary a stir.

  McGuane kept flicking the remote on the security camera, keeping up with his federal antagonist Joe Pistillo and the female underling he had in tow.

  McGuane spent a lot on security. It was worth it. His system employed eighty-three cameras. Every person who entered his private elevator was digitally recorded from several angles, but what really made the system stand out was that the camera angles
were designed to shoot in such a way that anyone entering could be made to look as though they were also leaving. Both the corridor and elevator were painted spearmint green. That might not seem like much it was, in effect, rather hideous but to those who understood special effects and digital manipulation, it was key. An image on the green background could be plucked out and placed on another background.

  His enemies felt comfortable coming here. This was, after all, his office. No one, they surmised, would be brazen enough to kill someone on his own turf. That was where they were wrong. The brazen nature, the very fact that the authorities would think the same thing and the fact that he could offer up evidence that the victim had left the facility unharmed made it the ideal spot to strike.

  McGuane pulled out an old photograph from his top drawer. He had learned early that you never underestimate a person or a situation. He also realized that by making opponents underestimate him, he could finagle the advantage. He looked now at the picture of the three seventeen-year-old boys Ken Klein, John "the Ghost" Asselta, and McGuane. They'd grown up in the suburb of Livingston, New Jersey, though McGuane had lived on the opposite side of town from Ken and the Ghost. They hooked up in high school, drawn to each other, noticing or perhaps this was giving them all too much credit a kinship in the eyes.

  Ken Klein had been the fiery tennis player, John Asselta the psycho wrestler, McGuane the wow-'em charmer and student council president. He looked at the faces in the photograph. You would never see it. All you saw were three popular high school kids. Nothing beyond that facade. When those kids shot up Columbine a few years back, McGuane had watched the media reaction with fascination. The world looked for comfortable excuses. The boys were outsiders. The boys were teased and bullied. The boys had absent parents and played video games. But McGuane knew that none of that mattered. It may have been a slightly different era, but that could have been them Ken, John, and McGuane because the truth is, it does not matter if you are financially comfortable or loved by your parents or if you keep to yourself or fight to stay afloat in the mainstream.

  Some people have that rage.

  The office door opened. Joseph Pistillo and his young protegee entered. McGuane smiled and put away the photograph.

  "Ah, Javert," he said to Pistillo. "Do you still hunt me when all I did was steal some bread?"

  "Yeah," Pistillo said. "Yeah, that's you, McGuane. The innocent man hounded."

  McGuane turned his attention to the female agent. "Tell me, Joe, why do you always have such a lovely colleague with you?"