Gone for Good

by Harlan Coben

  I shook my head. I tried to think of something comforting or enlightening or at least distracting, but nothing broke through the filter. Every line I came up with sounded hackneyed and canned. Like most tragedies, it explained so much and yet told you nothing about the man.

  In the end, all I said was "You're wrong."

  He put the sunglasses back on and faced the road. I could see him shutting down.

  I decided to push it. "You talk about going to this funeral because we owe Sheila something. But what about Wanda?"

  "Will?"

  "Yeah."

  "I don't think I want to talk about this anymore."

  Chapter Forty-Eight.

  The early morning flight to Boise was uneventful. We took off from La Guardia which could be a lousier airport but not without a serious act of God. I got my customary seat in economy class, the one behind a tiny old lady who insists on reclining her seat against my knees for the duration of the flight. Studying her gray follicles and pallid scalp her head was practically in my lap helped distract me.

  Squares sat on my right. He was reading an article on himself in Yoga Journal. Every once in a while he would nod at something he read about himself and say, "True, too true, I am that." He did that to annoy me.

  That was why he was my best friend.

  I was able to keep the block up until we saw the WELCOME TO MASON, IDAHO sign. Squares had rented a Buick Skylark. We got lost twice on the trip. Even here, out in the supposed sticks, the strip malls dominated. There were all the customary mega-stores the Chef Central, the Home Depot, the Old Navy the country uniting in bloated monotony.

  The chapel was small and white and totally unspectacular. I spotted Edna Rogers. She stood outside by herself, smoking a cigarette.

  Squares pulled to a stop. I felt my stomach tighten. I stepped out of the car. The grass was burnt brown. Edna Rogers looked our way. With her eyes still on me, she let loose a long breath of smoke.

  I started toward her. Squares stayed by my side. I felt hollow, far away. Sheila's funeral. We were here to bury Sheila. The thought spun like the horizontal on an old TV set.

  Edna Rogers kept puffing on the cigarette, her eyes hard and dry. "I didn't know if you'd make it," she said to me.

  "I'm here."

  "Have you learned anything about Carly?"

  "No," I said, which was not really true. "How about you?"

  She shook her head. "The police aren't looking too hard. They say there is no record of Sheila having a child. I don't even think they believe she exists."

  The rest was a fast-forward blur. Squares interrupted and offered his condolences. Other mourners approached. They were mostly men in business suits. Listening in, I realized that most worked with Sheila's father at a plant that made garage-door openers. That struck me as odd, but at the time I didn't know why. I shook more hands and forgot every name. Sheila's father was a tall, handsome man. He greeted me with a bear hug and moved toward his co-workers. Sheila had a brother and a sister, both younger, both surly and distracted.

  We all stayed outside, almost as though we were afraid to begin the ceremony. People broke down into groups. The younger folks stayed with Sheila's brother and sister. Sheila's father stood in a semi-circle with the suited men, all nodding, with fat ties and hands in their pockets. The women clustered nearest the door.

  Squares drew stares, but he was used to that. He still had on the dust-ridden jeans, but he also wore a blue blazer and gray tie. He would have worn a suit, he said with a smile, but then Sheila would have never recognized him.

  Eventually the mourners started to filter into the small chapel. I was surprised by the large turnout, but everyone I'd met was there for the family, not Sheila. She had left them a long time ago. Edna Rogers slid next to me and put her arm through mine. She looked up and forced a brave smile. I still did not know what to make of her.

  We entered the chapel last. There were whispers about how "good"

  Sheila looked, how "lifelike," a comment I always found creepy in the extreme. I am not a religious fellow, but I like the way we of the Hebrew faith handle our dead that is, we get them in the ground fast.

  We do not have open caskets.

  I don't like open caskets.

  I don't like them for all the obvious reasons. Looking at a dead body, one that has been drained of both life force and fluids, embalmed, dressed nicely, painted up, looking either like something from Madame Tussaud's wax museum or worse, so "lifelike" you almost expect it to breathe or suddenly sit up, yeah, you bet that gives me the creeps. But more than that, what kind of lasting image did a corpse laid out like a lox leave on the bereaved? Did I want my final memory of Sheila to be here, lying with her eyes closed in a well-cushioned why were caskets always so well-cushioned? hermetically sealed box of fine mahogany?

  As I got on at the end of the line with Edna Rogers we actually stood on line to view this hollow vessel these thoughts became heavy, weighing me down.

  But there was no way out either. Edna gripped my arm a little too tightly. As we got closer, her knees buckled. I helped her stay upright. She smiled at me again, and this time, there seemed to be genuine sweetness in it.

  "I loved her," she whispered. "A mother never stops loving her child."

  I nodded, afraid to speak. We took another step, the process not so different from boarding that damn airplane. I almost expected a voice-over to say "Mourners in rows twenty-five and higher may now view the body." Stupid thought, but I let my mind dodge and veer. Anything to get away from this.

  Squares stood behind us, last in line. I kept my eyes diverted, but as we moved forward, there was that unreasonable hope again knocking at my chest. I don't think this is unusual. It happened even at my mother's funeral, the idea that it was all somehow a mistake, a cosmic blunder, that I would look down at the casket and it would be empty or it wouldn't be Sheila. Maybe that was why some people liked open caskets.

  Finality. You see, you accept. I was with my mother when she died. I watched her last breath. Yet I was still tempted to check the casket that day, just to make sure, just in case maybe God changed his mind.

  Many bereaved, I think, go through something like that. Denial is part of the process. So you hope against hope. I was doing that now. I was making deals with an entity I don't really believe in, praying for a miracle that somehow the fingerprints and the FBI and Mr. and Mrs.

  Rogers's ID and all these friends and family members, that somehow they were all wrong, that Sheila was alive, that she had not been murdered and dumped on the side of the road.

  But that, of course, did not happen.

  Not exactly anyway.

  When Edna Rogers and I arrived at the casket, I made myself look down.

  And when I did, the floor beneath me fell away. I started plummeting.

  "They did a nice job, don't you think?" Mrs. Rogers whispered.

  She gripped my arm and started to cry. But that was somewhere else, somewhere far away. I was not with her. I was looking down. And that was when the truth dawned on me.

  Sheila Rogers was indeed dead. No doubt about that.

  But the woman I loved, the woman I'd lived with and held and wanted to marry, was not Sheila Rogers.

  Chapter Forty-Nine.

  I did not black out, but I came close.

  The room did indeed spin. My vision did one of those in-and-out, closer-and-farther things. I stumbled toward, almost landing in the casket with Sheila Rogers a woman I had never seen before but knew too intimately. A hand shot out and gripped my forearm. Squares. I looked at him. His face was set. His color gone. Our eyes met and he gave me the slightest of nods.

  It hadn't been my imagination or a mirage. Squares had seen it too.

  We stayed for the funeral. What else really could we do? I sat there, unable to take my eyes off the stranger's corpse, unable to speak. I was overcome, my body quaking, but nobody paid any attention. I was, after all, at a funeral.

  After the casket was lowered
into the ground, Edna Rogers wanted us to come back to the house. We begged off, blaming the airlines for the tight flight schedule. We slipped into the rental car. Squares started it up. We waited until we were out of sight. Then Squares pulled over and let me lose it.

  "Let me see if we're on the same page here," Squares said.

  I nodded, quasi-composed now. Again I had to block, this time muffling the possible euphoria. I did not keep my eye on the prize or the big picture or any of that. I concentrated on the details, on the minutiae. I focused on one tree because there was no way I could handle seeing the whole forest.

  "All that stuff we learned about Sheila," he said, "her running away, her years on the streets, her selling drugs, her rooming with your old girlfriend, her fingerprints at your brother's place all that "

  "Applied to that stranger we just buried," I finished for him.

  "So our Sheila, I mean, the lady we both thought of as Sheila "

  "Did none of those things. And she was none of those things."

  Squares considered that. "Styling," he said.

  I managed a smile. "Most definitely."

  On the airplane, Squares said, "If our Sheila is not dead, then she's alive."

  I looked at him.

  "Hey," he said, "people pay big bucks to soak in this kind of wisdom."

  "And to think I get it for free."

  "So what do we do now?"

  I crossed my arms. "Donna White."

  "The pseudonym she bought from the Goldbergs?"

  "Right. Your people only ran an airline check?"

  He nodded. "We were trying to figure out how she got out west."

  "Can you get the agency to widen their search now?"

  "Sure, I guess."

  The flight attendant gave us our "snack." My brain kept whirring. This flight was doing me a ton of good. It gave me time to think.

  Unfortunately, it was also giving me time to shift realities, to see the repercussions. I fought that off. I didn't want hope clouding my thinking. Not yet. Not when I still knew so little. But still.

  "It explains a lot," I said.

  "Like?"

  "Her secrecy. Her not wanting her picture taken. Her having so few possessions. Her not wanting to talk about her past."

  Squares nodded.

  "One time, Sheila" I stopped because that was probably not her name "she slipped and mentioned growing up on a farm. But the real Sheila Rogers's father worked for a company that made garage-door openers. She was also terrified at the very idea of calling her parents because, put simply, they weren't her parents. I took it all to mean a terribly abusive past."

  "But it could just have easily have been someone in hiding."

  "Right."

  "So the real Sheila Rogers," Squares went on, his eyes looking up, "I mean, the one we just buried back there, she dated your brother?"

  "So it seems."

  "And her fingerprints were at the murder scene."

  "Right."

  "And your Sheila?"

  I shrugged.

  "Okay," Squares said, "So we assume the woman with Ken in New Mexico, the one the neighbors saw, that was the dead Sheila Rogers?"

  "Yes."

  "And they had a little girl with them," he went on.

  Silence.

  Squares looked at me. "Are you thinking the same thing I am?"

  I nodded. "That the little girl was Carly. And that Ken might very well be her father."

  "Yeah."

  I sat back and closed my eyes. Squares opened his snack, checked the contents, cursed them.

  "Will?"

  "Yeah."

  "The woman you loved. Any idea who she is?"

  With my eyes still closed, I said, "None."

  Chapter .

  Squares went home. He promised to call me the moment they got anything on the Donna White pseudonym. I headed home, bleeding exhaustion. When I reached my apartment door, I put the key in the lock. A hand touched down on my shoulder. I jumped back, startled.

  "It's okay," she said.

  Katy Miller.

  Her voice was hoarse. She wore a neck brace. Her face was swollen.

  Her eyes were bloodshot. Where the brace stopped under the chin, I could see the deep purple and yellow of bruising.

  "Are you okay?" I asked.

  She nodded.

  I hugged her gingerly, too gingerly, using just my arms, keeping my distance for fear of hurting her further.

  "I won't break," she said.

  "When did you get out?" I asked.

  "A few hours ago. I can't stay long. If my father knew where I was "

  I held up a hand. "Say no more."

  We pushed open the door and stepped inside. She grimaced in pain as she moved. We made our way to the couch. I asked her if she wanted a drink or something to eat. She said no.

  "Are you sure you should be out of the hospital?"

  "They said it's okay, but I need to rest."

  "How did you get away from your father?"

  She tried a smile. "I'm headstrong."

  "I see."

  "And I lied."

  "No doubt."

  She looked off with just her eyes she could not move her head and her eyes welled up. "Thank you, Will."

  I shook my head. "I can't help but feel it was my fault."

  "That's crap," she said.

  I shifted in my seat. "During the attack, you yelled out the name John. At least, I think that's what you said."

  "The police told me."

  "You don't remember?"

  She shook her head.

  "What do you remember?"

  "The hands on my throat." She looked off. "I was sleeping. And then someone was squeezing my neck. I remember gasping for air." Her voice fell away.

  "Do you know who John Asselta is?" I asked.

  "Yeah. He was friends with Julie."

  "Could you have meant him?"

  "You mean when I yelled John?" She considered that, "r don't know, Will. Why?"

  "I think" I remembered my promise to Pistillo about keeping her out of it "I think he may have had something to do with Julie's murder."

  She took that without blinking. "When you say have something to do with "

  "That's all I can say right now."

  "You sound like a cop."

  "It's been a weird week," I said.

  "So tell me what you got."

  "I know you're curious, but I think you should listen to the doctors."

  She looked at me hard. "What's that supposed to mean?"

  "I think you need to rest."

  "You want me to stay out of this?"

  "Yes."

  "You're afraid I'll get hurt again."

  "Very much so, yes."

  Her eyes caught fire. "I can take care of myself."

  "No doubt. But we're on very dangerous ground right now."

  "And what have we been on up to now?" louche. "Look, I need you to trust me here."

  "Will?"

  "Yeah."

  "You're not getting rid of me that easy."

  "I don't want to get rid of you," I said. "But I do need to protect you."

  "You can't," she said softly. "You know that."

  I said nothing.

  Katy slid closer to me. "I need to see this through. You, more than anyone, should understand."

  "I do."

  "Then?"

  "I promised I wouldn't say anything."

  "Promised who?"

  I shook my head. "Just trust me, okay?"

  She stood up. "Not okay."

  "I'm trying "

  "And if I told you to butt out, would you listen to me?"

  I kept my head down. "I can't say anything."

  She headed for the door.

  "Wait a second," I said.

  "I don't have time for this now," she said shortly. "My father will be wondering where I am."

  I stood. "Call me, okay?" I gave her the cell phone number. I'd already memorized hers.

&nb
sp; She slammed the door on her way out.

  Katy Miller reached the street. Her neck hurt like hell. She was pushing too hard, she knew that, but that could not be helped. She was fuming. Had they gotten to Will? It hadn't seemed possible, but maybe he was just as bad as all the rest. Or maybe not. Maybe he really believed he was protecting her.

  She would have to be even more careful now.

  Her throat was dry. She craved a drink, but swallowing was still a painful chore. She wondered when this would all be over. Soon, she hoped. But she would see this through to the end. She had promised herself that. There was no going back, no end, not until Julie's murderer had been brought to justice one way or the other.

  She headed south to i8th Street and then headed west into the meat-packing district. It was quiet now, in that lull between the daylight unloading and the perverse past-midnight nightlife. The city was like that, a theater that put on two different shows daily, changing props and sets and even actors. But day or night or even dusk, this street always had that rotted-meat smell. You could not get it out. Human or animal, Katy was not sure which.

  The panic was back.

  She stopped and tried to push it away. The feel of those hands clamped on her throat, toying with her, opening and closing her windpipe at will. Such power against such helplessness. He had stopped her breath. Think about that. He had squeezed her neck until she stopped breathing, until her life force began to ebb away.

  Just like with Julie.

  She was so lost in the horrible memory that she did not know he was there until he grabbed her elbow. She spun around. "What the ?"

  The Ghost did not loosen his grip. "I understand you were calling for me," he said in that purr voice. Then smiling, he added, "Well, here I am."

  Chapter -One.

  I sat there. Katy had every right to be mad. But I could live with her anger. It was far preferable to another funeral. I rubbed my eyes. I put my feet up. I think I might have fallen asleep I can't say for sure but when the phone rang, I was surprised to see it was morning. I checked the caller ID. It was Squares. I fumbled for the receiver and put it to my ear.

  "Hey," I said.

  He skipped the pleasantries. "I think we found our Sheila."

  Half an hour later, I entered the lobby of the Regina Hotel.

  It was less than a mile from our apartment. We had thought she had run across the country, but Sheila .. . what else was I supposed to call her? .. . had stayed that close.

  The detective agency Squares liked to use had little trouble tracking her down, especially since she'd gotten careless since her namesake's death. She had deposited money in First National and taken out a debit Visa card. You cannot stay in this city hell, most anyplace without a credit card. The days of signing into motels with a false name and paying cash are pretty much over. There are a few dives, dwellings not truly fit for human habitation, that might still look the other way, but almost everyplace else wants to, at the very least, take a credit card impression in case you steal something or seriously damage your room. The transaction doesn't necessarily go through the system like I said, they might just make an impression but you still need the card.