Gone for Good

by Harlan Coben

  McGuane smirked. "You're not growing soft on me, are you, John?

  "Not likely," the Ghost said. "But in moments of candor, I cannot help but wonder if it had to be this way."

  "You like hurting people, John."

  "I do."

  "You've always enjoyed it."

  The Ghost thought about that. "No, not always. But of course, the larger question is why?"

  "Why do you like hurting people?"

  "Not just hurting them. I enjoy killing them painfully. I choose strangulation because it is a horrible way to die. No quick bullet. No sudden knife slash. You literally gasp for your last breath. You feel the life-nourishing oxygen being denied you. I do that to them, up close, watching them struggle for a breath that never comes."

  "My, my." McGuane put down his snifter. "You must be a barrel of laughs at parties, John."

  "Oh indeed," he agreed. Then growing serious again, the Ghost said, "But why, Philip, do I get a rush from that? What happened to me, to my moral compass, that I feel my most alive while snuffing out someone's breath?"

  "You're not going to blame your daddy, are you, John?"

  "No, that would be too pat." He put down his drink and faced McGuane.

  "Would you have killed me, Philip? If I hadn't taken out the two men at the cemetery, would you have killed me?"

  McGuane opted for the truth. "I don't know," he said. "Probably."

  "And you're my best friend," the Ghost said.

  "You're probably mine."

  The Ghost smiled. "We were something, weren't we, Philip?"

  McGuane did not reply.

  "I met Ken when I was four," the Ghost continued. "All the kids in the neighborhood were warned to stay away from our house. The Asseltas were a bad influence that's what they were told. You know the deal."

  "Ido,"McGuanesaid.

  "But for Ken, that was a draw. He used to love to explore our house. I remember when we found my old man's gun. We were six, I think. I remember holding it. The feeling of power. It mesmerized us. We used the gun to terrify Richard Werner I don't think you know him, he moved away in the third grade. We kidnapped him once and tied him up. He cried and wet his pants."

  "And you loved it."

  The Ghost nodded slowly. "Perhaps."

  "I have a question," McGuane said.

  "I'm listening."

  "If your father owned a gun, why use a kitchen knife on Daniel Skinner?"

  The Ghost shook his head. "I don't want to talk about that."

  "You never have."

  "That's right."

  "Why?"

  He did not answer the question directly. "My old man found out about us playing with the gun," he said. "He beat me pretty good."

  "He did that a lot."

  "Yes."

  "Have you ever sought revenge on him?" McGuane asked.

  "On my father? No. He was too pitiful to hate. He never got over my mother walking out on us. He always thought she'd come back. He used to prepare for it. When he drank, he'd sit alone on the couch and talk to her and laugh with her and then he'd start sobbing. She broke his heart. I've hurt men, Philip. I've seen men beg to die. But I don't think I ever heard anything as pitiful as my father sobbing for my mother."

  From the floor, Joshua Ford made a low groan. They both ignored him.

  "Where is your father now?" McGuane asked.

  "Cheyenne, Wyoming. He dried out. He found a good woman. He's a religious nut now. Traded alcohol for God one addiction for another."

  "You ever talk to him?

  The Ghost's voice was soft. "No."

  They drank in silence.

  "What about you, Philip? You weren't poor. Your parents weren't abusive."

  "Just parents," McGuane agreed.

  "I know your uncle was mobbed up. He got you into the business. But you could have gone straight. Why didn't you?"

  McGuane chuckled.

  "What?"

  "We're more different than I thought."

  "How's that?"

  "You regret it," McGuane said. "You do it, you get a thrill from it, you're good at it. But you see yourself as evil." He sat up suddenly.

  "My God."

  "What?"

  "You're more dangerous than I thought, John."

  "How so?"

  "You're not back for Ken," McGuane said. And then, his voice dropping:

  "You're back for that little girl, aren't you?"

  The Ghost took a deep sip. He chose not to answer.

  "Those choices and alternate universes you were talking about," McGuane went on. "You think if Ken died that night, it would all be different."

  "It would indeed be an alternate universe," the Ghost said.

  "But maybe not a better one," McGuane countered. Then he added, "So what now?"

  "We'll need Will's cooperation. He's the only one who can draw Ken out."

  "He won't help."

  The Ghost frowned. "You, of alt people, know better." "His father?"

  McGuane asked. "No."

  "His sister?"

  "She's too far away," the Ghost said. "But you have an idea?" "Think," the Ghost said.

  McGuane did. And when he saw it, his face broke into a smile. "Katy Miller."

  Chapter Forty-Six.

  Pistillo kept his eyes on me, waiting for my reaction to his bombshell.

  But I recovered fast. Maybe this was beginning to make sense.

  "You captured my brother?"

  "Yes."

  "And you extradited him back to the United States?"

  "Yes."

  "So how come it wasn't in the papers?" I asked.

  "We kept it under wraps," Pistillo said.

  "Because you were afraid McGuane would find out?"

  "For the most part."

  "What else?"

  He shook his head.

  "You still wanted McGuane," I said.

  "Yes."

  "And my brother could still deliver."

  "He could help."

  "So you cut another deal with him."

  "We pretty much reinstated the old one."

  I saw a clearing in the haze. "And you put him in the witness protection program?"

  Pistillo nodded. "Originally we kept him in a hotel under protective custody. But by then a lot of what your brother had was old. He would still be a key witness probably the most important we'd have but we needed more time. We couldn't keep him in a hotel forever, and he didn't want to stay. Ken hired a big-time lawyer, and we worked out a deal. We found him a place in New Mexico. He had to report to one of our agents on a daily basis. We would call him to testify when we needed him. Any break in that deal, and the charges, including the murder charge from Julie Miller, could be reinstated."

  "So what went wrong?"

  "McGuane found out about it."

  "How?"

  "We don't know. A leak maybe. Whatever, McGuane sent out two goons to kill your brother."

  "The two dead men at the house," I said.

  "Yes."

  "Who killed them?"

  "We think your brother. They underestimated him. He killed them and ran again."

  "And now you want Ken back again."

  His gaze wandered over to the photographs on the refrigerator door.

  "Yes."

  "But I don't know where he is."

  "I know that now. Look, maybe we screwed up here. I don't know. But Ken needs to come in. We'll protect him, around-the-clock surveillance, a safe house, whatever he wants. That's the carrot. The stick is that his prison sentence is subject to his cooperation."

  "So what do you want from me?"

  "He'll reach out to you eventually."

  "What makes you so sure?"

  He sighed and stared at the glass.

  "What makes you so sure?" I asked again.

  "Because," Pistillo said, "Ken called you already."

  A block of lead formed in my chest.

  "There were two calls placed from a pay phone near your brother's
house in Albuquerque to your apartment," he went on. "One was made about a week before the two goons were killed. The other, right after."

  I should have been shocked, but I wasn't. Maybe it finally fit, only I didn't like how.

  "You didn't know about the calls, did you, Will?"

  I swallowed and thought about who, besides me, might answer the phone if Ken had indeed called.

  Sheila.

  "No," I said. "I didn't know about them."

  He nodded. "We didn't know that when we first approached you. It was natural to figure you were the one who answered the phone."

  I looked at him. "How does Sheila Rogers fit into this?"

  "Her fingerprints were found at the murder scene."

  "I know that."

  "So let me ask you, Will. We knew your brother had called you. We knew your girlfriend had visited Ken's house in New Mexico. If you were us, what would you have concluded?"

  "That I was somehow involved."

  "Right. We figured that Sheila was your go-between or something, that you'd been helping your brother out. And when Ken ran off, we figured you two knew where he was."

  "But now you know better."

  "That's correct."

  "So what do you suspect now?"

  "The same thing you do, Will." His voice was soft, and damn him I heard pity in it. "That Sheila Rogers used you. That she worked for McGuane. That she's the one who tipped him off about your brother. And that when the hit went wrong, McGuane had her killed."

  Sheila. Her betrayal pierced me deep, struck bone. To defend her now, to think I had been anything more to her than a dupe, would be to turn a blind eye in the worst way. You would have to be naive beyond Pollyanna, to have rose-tinted glasses melded onto your face, to not be able to see the truth.

  "I'm telling you all this, Will, because I was afraid you were about to do something stupid."

  "Like talk to the press," I said.

  "Yes and because I want you to understand. Your brother had two choices. Either McGuane and the Ghost find him and kill him, or we find him and protect him."

  "Right," I said. "And you guys have done a bang-up job of that so far."

  "We're still his best option," he countered. "And don't think McGuane will stop with your brother. Do you really think that attack on Katy Miller was a coincidence? For all your sakes, we need your cooperation."

  I said nothing. I could not trust him. I knew that. I could not trust anyone. That was all I had learned here. But Pistillo was especially dangerous. He had spent eleven years looking into his sister's shattered face. That kind of thing twists you. I knew about stuff like that, about wanting to the point of distortion. Pistillo had made it clear that he would stop at nothing to get McGuane. He would sacrifice my brother. He had jailed me. And most of all, he had destroyed my family. I thought about my sister running off to Seattle.

  I thought about my mom, the Sunny smile, and realized that the man sitting in front of me, this man who claimed to be my brother's salvation, had smothered it away. He had killed my mother no one could convince me that the cancer was not somehow connected to what she went through, that her immune system had not been another victim of that horrible night and now he wanted me to help him.

  I did not know how much of this was a lie. But I decided to lie right back. "I'll help," I said.

  "Good," he said. "I'll make sure the charges against you are dropped right away."

  I did not say thank you.

  "We'll drive you back if you'd like."

  I wanted to refuse, but I did not want to raise any warning flags. He wanted to deceive, well, I could try that too. So I said that would be fine. When I rose, he said, "I understand that Sheila's funeral is coming up."

  "Yes."

  "Now that there are no charges against you, you're free to travel."

  I said nothing.

  "Are you going to attend?" he asked.

  This time I told the truth. "I don't know."

  Chapter Forty-Seven.

  I couldn't stay at home waiting for I-don't-know-what, so in the morning, I went to work. It was a funny thing. I expected to be fairly worthless, but that wasn't the case at all. Entering Covenant House I can only compare the experience to an athlete strapping on his "game face" when he enters the arena. These kids, I reminded myself, deserve nothing less than my best. Cliche, sure, but I convinced myself and faded contentedly into my work.

  Sure, people came up to me and offered their condolences. And yes, Sheila's spirit was everywhere. There were few spots in this dwelling that did not hold a memory of her. But I was able to play through it.

  This is not to say I forgot about it or no longer wanted to pursue where my brother was or who killed Sheila or the fate of her daughter, Carly. That was all still there. But today there was not much I could do. I had called Katy's hospital room, but the blockade was still in place. Squares had a detective agency running Sheila's Donna White pseudonym through the airline computers and thus far, they had not gotten a hit. So I waited.

  I volunteered to work the outreach van that night. Squares joined me I had already filled him in on everything and together we disappeared into the dark. The children of the street were lit up in the blue of the night. Their faces were flat, no lines, sleek. You see an adult vagrant, a bag lady, a man with a shopping cart, someone lying in a box, someone begging for change with a diner paper coffee cup, and you know that they are homeless. But the thing about adolescents, about the fifteen-and sixteen-year-olds who run away from abuse, who embrace addiction or prostitution or insanity, is that they blend in better.

  With adolescents you cannot tell if they are homeless or just wandering.

  Despite what you hear, it is not that easy to ignore the plight of the adult homeless. It is too in-your-face. You may divert your eyes and keep walking and remind yourself that if you gave in, if you tossed them a dollar or some quarters, they'd just buy booze or drugs or whatever rationale sails your boat, but what you did, the fact that you just hurried by a human being in need, still registers, still causes a pang. Our kids, however, are truly invisible. They are seamlessly sewn into the night. You can neglect and there are no aftereflects.

  Music blared, something with a heavy Latin beat. Squares handed me a stack of phone cards to hand out. We hit a dive on Avenue A known for its heroin and started our familiar rap. We talked and cajoled and listened. I saw the gaunt eyes. I saw the way they scratched away at the imaginary bugs under their skin. I saw the needle marks and the sunken veins.

  At four in the morning, Squares and I were back in the van. We had not spoken to each other much in the last few hours. He looked out the window. The children were still out there. More seemed to come out as though the bricks bled them.

  "We should go to the funeral," Squares said.

  I did not trust my voice.

  "You ever see her out here?" he asked. "Her face when she worked with these kids?"

  I had. And I knew what he meant.

  "You don't fake that, Will."

  "I wish I could believe that," I said.

  "How did Sheila make you feel?"

  "Like I was the luckiest man in the world," I said.

  He nodded. "You don't fake that either," he said.

  "So how do you explain it all?"

  "I don't." Squares shifted into drive and pulled into the street. "But we're doing so much with our heads. Maybe we just need to remember the heart too."

  I frowned. "That sounds good, Squares, but I'm not sure it makes any sense."

  "How about this then: We go to pay our respects to the Sheila we knew."

  "Even if that was just a lie?"

  "Even if. But maybe we also go to learn. To understand what happened here."

  "Weren't you the one who said we might not like what we find?"

  "Hey, that's right." Squares wriggled his eyebrows. "Damn, I'm good."

  I smiled.

  "We owe it to her, Will. To her memory."

  He had a point. It c
ame back to closure. I needed answers. Maybe someone at the funeral could supply some and maybe the funeral in and of itself, the act of burying my faux beloved, would help the healing process. I couldn't imagine it, but I was willing to give anything a shot.

  "And there's still Carly to consider." Squares pointed out the window.

  "Saving kids. That's what we're all about, isn't it?"

  I turned to him. "Yeah," I said. And then: "And speaking of children."

  I waited. I could not see his eyes he often, like the old Corey Hart song, wore his sunglasses at night but his grip on the steering wheel tightened.

  "Squares?"

  His tone was clipped. "We're talking about you and Sheila here."

  "That's the past. Whatever we learn, it won't change that."

  "Let's concentrate on one thing at a time, okay?"

  "Not okay," I said. "This friendship thing. It's sup posed to be a two-way street."

  He shook his head. He started the van and drove. We fell into silence. I kept my eyes on his pockmarked, unshaven face. The tattoo seemed to darken. He was biting his lower lip.

  After some time he said, "I never told Wanda."

  "About having a child?"

  "A son," Squares said softly.

  "Where is he now?"

  He took one hand off the wheel and scratched at something on his face.

  The hand, I noticed, had a quake to it. "He was six feet under before he was four years old."

  I closed my eyes.

  "His name was Michael. I wanted nothing to do with him. I only saw him twice. I left him alone with his mother, a seventeen-year-old drug addict you wouldn't trust to watch a dog. When he was three years old, she got stoned and drove straight into a semi. Killed them both. I still don't know if it was suicide or not."

  "I'm so sorry," I said weakly.

  "Michael would be twenty-one now."

  I fumbled for something to say. Nothing was working, but I tried anyway. "That was a long time ago," I said. "You were just a kid."

  "Don't try to rationalize, Will."

  "I'm not. I just mean" I had no idea how to put it "if I had a child, I'd ask you to be the godfather. I'd make you the guardian if anything happened to me. I wouldn't do that out of friendship or loyalty. I'd do that to be selfish. For the sake of my kid."

  He kept driving. "There are some things you can never forgive."

  "You didn't kill him, Squares."

  "Sure, right, I'm totally blameless."

  We hit a red light. He flipped on the radio. Talk station. One of those radio infomercials selling a miracle diet drug. He snapped it off. He leaned forward and rested his forearms on the top of the steering wheel.

  "I see the kids out here. I try to rescue them. I keep thinking that if I save enough, I don't know, maybe it will change things for Michael. Maybe I can somehow save him." The sunglasses came off. His voice grew harder. "But what I know is what I've always known is that no matter what I do, I'm not worth saving."