Harlan Coben 3 Novel Collection

by Harlan Coben

  And, of course, it grows blurry in the dark of those woods.

  Here is the quick yet thorough update on Loren Muse: Muse remains Muse. And I’m thankful for that. Governor Dave Markie hasn’t called for my resignation yet and I haven’t offered it. I probably will and I probably should, but as of right now, I’m hanging in.

  Raya Singh ended up leaving Most Valuable Detection to partner up with none other than Cingle Shaker. Cingle says that they’re looking for a third “hottie” so they can call their new agency “Charlie’s Angels.”

  The plane lands. I get off. I check my BlackBerry. There is a short message from my sister, Camille:

  Hey, bro—Cara and I are going to have lunch in the city and shop. Miss and love you, Camille

  My sister, Camille. It is fantastic to have her back. I can’t believe how quickly she had become a full-fledged and integral part of our lives. But the truth is, there is still a lingering tension between us. It is getting better. It will get better still. But the tension is there and unmistakable, and sometimes we go over the top in our efforts to combat it by calling each other “bro” and “sis” and saying that we “miss” and “love” each other all the time.

  I still don’t have Camille’s entire backstory. There are details she is leaving out. I know that she started with a new identity in Moscow, but didn’t stay long. There were two years in Prague and another in Begur on the Costa Brava of Spain. She came back to the United States, moved around some more, got married and settled outside Atlanta, ended up divorced three years later.

  She never had kids, but she is already the world’s greatest aunt. She loves Cara, and the feeling is more than reciprocated. Camille is living with us. It is wonderful—better than I could have hoped—and that truly eases the tension.

  Part of me, of course, wonders why it took so long for Camille to come home—that’s where the majority of the tension comes from, I think. I understand what Sosh said about her wanting to protect me, my reputation, my memories of my father. And I know that she understandably was afraid of Dad while he still breathed.

  But I think that there is more to it.

  Camille chose to keep silent about what happened in those woods. She never told anyone what Wayne Steubens had done. Her choice, right or wrong, had left Wayne free to murder more people. I don’t know what would have been the right thing to do—if coming forward would have made it better or worse. You could argue that Wayne still would have gotten away with it, that he might have run off or stayed in Europe, that he would have been more careful about his killings, gotten away with more. Who knows? But lies have a way of festering. Camille thought that she could bury those lies. Maybe we all did.

  But none of us got out of those woods unscathed.

  As for my romantic life, well, I am in love. Simple as that. I love Lucy with all my heart. We are not taking it slow—we plunged right in, as if trying to make up for lost time. There is a maybe unhealthy desperation there, an obsession, a clinging-as-though-to-a-life-raft quality in what we are. We see a lot of each other, and when we’re not together I feel lost and adrift and I want to be with her again. We talk on the phone. We e-mail and text-message incessantly.

  But that’s love, right?

  Lucy is funny and goofy and warm and smart and beautiful and she overwhelms me in the best way. We seem to agree on everything.

  Except, of course, my taking this trip.

  I understand her fear. I know all too well how fragile this all is. But you can’t live on thin ice either. So here I am again, in Red Onion State Prison in Pound, Virginia, waiting to learn a few last truths.

  Wayne Steubens enters. We are in the same room as our last meeting. He sits in the same place.

  “My, my,” he says to me. “You’ve been a busy boy, Cope.”

  “You killed them,” I say. “After all is said and done, you, the serial killer, did it.”

  Wayne smiles.

  “You planned it all along, didn’t you?”

  “Is anyone listening in to this?”

  “No.”

  He puts up his right hand. “Your word on that?”

  “My word,” I say.

  “Then, sure, why not. I did, yes. I planned the killings.”

  So there it is. He too has decided that the past needs to be faced.

  “And you carried it out, just like Mrs. Perez said. You slaughtered Margot. Then Gil, Camille and Doug ran. You chased them. You caught up to Doug. You murdered him too.”

  He raises his index finger. “I made a miscalculation there. See, I jumped the gun with Margot. I meant her to be last because she was already tied up. But her neck was so open, so vulnerable…I couldn’t resist.”

  “There are a few things I couldn’t figure out at first,” I say. “But now I think I know.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “Those journals the private detectives sent to Lucy,” I say.

  “Ahh.”

  “I wondered who saw us in the woods, but Lucy got that one right. Only one person could have known: the killer. You, Wayne.”

  He spreads his hands. “Modesty prevents me from saying more.”

  “You were the one who gave MVD the information they used in those journals. You were the source.”

  “Modesty, Cope. Again I plead modesty.”

  He is enjoying this.

  “How did you get Ira to help?” I ask.

  “Dear Uncle Ira. That addle-brained hippie.”

  “Yes, Wayne.”

  “He didn’t help much. I just needed him out of the way. You see—and this might shock you, Cope—but Ira did drugs. I had pictures and proof. If it came out, his precious camp would have been ruined. So would he.”

  He smiles some more.

  “So when Gil and I threatened to bring it all back,” I say, “Ira got scared. Like you said, he was somewhat addle-brained then—he was a lot worse now. Paranoia clouded his thinking. You were already serving time—Gil and I could only make things worse by bringing it all back. So Ira panicked. He silenced Gil and tried to silence me.”

  Another smile from Wayne.

  But there is something different in the smile now.

  “Wayne?”

  He doesn’t speak. He just grins. I don’t like it. I replay what I’d just said. And I still don’t like it.

  Wayne keeps smiling.

  “What?” I ask.

  “You’re missing something, Cope.”

  I wait.

  “Ira wasn’t the only one who helped me.”

  “I know,” I say. “Gil contributed. He tied Margot up. And my sister was there too. She helped get Margot into those woods.”

  Wayne squints and puts his forefinger and thumb half-an-inch part. “You’re still missing one teensy-weensy thing,” he says. “One itsy-bitsy secret I’ve kept all these years.”

  I am holding my breath. He just smiles. I break the silence.

  “What?” I ask again.

  He leans forward and whispers, “You, Cope.”

  I can’t speak.

  “You’re forgetting your part in this.”

  “I know my part,” I say. “I left my post.”

  “Yes, true. And if you hadn’t?”

  “I would have stopped you.”

  “Yes,” Wayne says, drawing out the word. “Precisely.”

  I wait for more. It doesn’t come.

  “Is that what you wanted to hear, Wayne? That I feel partially responsible?”

  “No. Nothing that simple.”

  “What then?”

  He shakes his head. “You’re missing the point.”

  “What point?”

  “Think, Cope. True, you left your post. But you said it yourself. I planned it all out.”

  He cups his hands around his mouth and his voice drops to a whisper again.

  “So answer me this: How did I know you wouldn’t be at your post that night?”

  Lucy and I drive out to the woods.

  I already got permission
from Sheriff Lowell, so the security guard, the one Muse had warned me about, just waves us through. We park in the condo lot. It is strange—neither Lucy nor I had been here in two decades. This housing development hadn’t existed back then, of course. But still, after all this time, we know just where we are.

  Lucy’s father, her dear Ira, had owned all this land. He had come up here all those years ago, feeling like Magellan discovering a new world. Ira probably looked out at these woods and realized his lifelong dream: a camp, a commune, a natural habitat free from the sins of man, a place of peace and harmony, whatever, something that would hold his values.

  Poor Ira.

  Most crimes I see start with something small. A wife angers her husband over something inconsequential—where the remote control is, a cold dinner—and then it escalates. But in this case, it was just the opposite. Something big got the ball rolling. In the end, a crazy serial killer had started it all. Wayne Steubens’s lust for blood set everything in motion.

  Maybe we all facilitated him in one way or another. Fear ended up being Wayne’s best accomplice. EJ Jenrette had taught me the power of that too—if you make people fearful enough, they will acquiesce. Only it hadn’t worked in his son’s rape case. He hadn’t been able to scare Chamique Johnson. He hadn’t been able to scare me either.

  Maybe that was because I had already been scared enough.

  Lucy carries flowers, but she should know better. We don’t place flowers on tombstones in our tradition. We place stones. I also don’t know who the flowers are for—my mother or her father. Probably both.

  We take the old trail—yes, it is still there, though it’s pretty overgrown—to where Barrett found my mother’s bones. The hole where she lay all these years is empty. The remnants of yellow crime-scene tape blow in the breeze.

  Lucy kneels down. I listen to the wind, wonder if I hear the cries. I don’t. I don’t hear anything but the hollow of my heart.

  “Why did we go into the woods that night, Lucy?”

  She doesn’t look up at me.

  “I never really thought about that. Everyone else did. Everyone wondered how I could have been so irresponsible. But to me, it was obvious. I was in love. I was sneaking away with my girlfriend. What could be more natural than that?”

  She puts the flowers down carefully. She still won’t look at me.

  “Ira didn’t help Wayne Steubens that night,” I say to the woman I love. “You did.”

  I hear the prosecutor in my voice. I want him to shut up and go away. But he won’t.

  “Wayne said it. The murders were carefully planned—so how did he know I wouldn’t be at my post? Because it was your job to make sure that I wasn’t.”

  I can see her start to grow smaller, wither.

  “That’s why you could never face me,” I say. “That’s why you feel like you’re still tumbling down a hill and can’t stop. It’s not that your family lost the camp or their reputation or all the money. It’s that you helped Wayne Steubens.”

  I wait. Lucy lowers her head. I stand behind her. Her face drops in her hands. She sobs. Her shoulders shake. I hear her cries, and my heart breaks in two. I take a step toward her. The hell with this, I think. This time, Uncle Sosh is right. I don’t need to know everything. I don’t need to bring it all back.

  I just need her. So I take that step.

  Lucy holds up a hand to stop me. She gathers herself a piece at a time.

  “I didn’t know what he was going to do,” she says. “He said he’d have Ira arrested if I didn’t help. I thought…I thought he was just going to scare Margot. You know. A stupid prank.”

  Something catches in my throat. “Wayne knew we got separated.”

  She nods.

  “How did he know?”

  “He saw me.”

  “You,” I say. “Not us.”

  She nods again.

  “You found the body, didn’t you? Margot’s, I mean. That was the blood in the journal. Wayne wasn’t talking about me. He was talking about you.”

  “Yes.”

  I think about it, about how scared she must have been, how she probably ran to her father, how Ira would have panicked too.

  “Ira saw you in blood. He thought…”

  She doesn’t speak. But now it makes sense.

  “Ira wouldn’t kill Gil and me to protect himself,” I say. “But he was a father. In the end, with all his peace, love and understanding, Ira was first and foremost a father like any other. And so he’d kill to protect his little girl.”

  She sobs again.

  Everyone had kept quiet. Everyone had been afraid—my sister, my mother, Gil, his family, and now Lucy. They all bear some of the blame, and they all paid a stiff price. And what about me? I like to excuse myself by claiming youth and the need to, what, sow some wild oats. But is that really any excuse? I had a responsibility to watch the campers that night. I shirked it.

  The trees seem to close in on us. I look up at them and then I look at Lucy’s face. I see the beauty. I see the damage. I want to go to her. But I can’t. I don’t know why. I want to—I know it is the right thing to do. But I can’t.

  I turn instead and walk away from the woman I love. I expect her to call out for me to stop. But she doesn’t. She lets me go. I hear her sobs. I walk some more. I walk until I am out of the woods and back by the car. I sit on the curb and close my eyes. Eventually she will have to come back here. So I sit and wait for her. I wonder where we will go after she comes out. I wonder if we will drive off together or if these woods, after all these years, will have claimed one last victim.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I’m not an expert in much, so it’s a good thing I know generous geniuses who are. This might sound like name-dropping, but I was helped by my friends and/or colleagues Dr. Michael Baden, Linda Fairstein, Dr. David Gold, Dr. Anne Armstrong-Coben, Christopher J. Christie, and the real Jeff Bedford.

  Thanks to Mitch Hoffman, Lisa Johnson, Brian Tart, Erika Imranyi, and everyone at Dutton. Thanks to Jon Wood at Orion and Françoise Triffaux at Belfond. Thanks to Aaron Priest and everyone at the creatively dubbed Aaron Priest Literary Agency.

  Lastly, I would like to give a special thanks to the brilliant Lisa Erbach Vance, who has learned over the past decade to deal splendidly with my moods and insecurities. You rock, Lisa.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Winner of the Edgar Award, the Shamus Award and the Anthony Award, Harlan Coben is the #1 bestselling author of thirteen previous novels, including Promise Me, The Innocent, Just One Look, No Second Chance, Gone for Good and Tell No One, as well as the popular Myron Bolitar novels. His books are published around the world in more than thirty-three languages. He lives in New Jersey with his wife and four children.

  ALSO BY HARLAN COBEN

  Deal Breaker

  Drop Shot

  Fade Away

  Back Spin

  One False Move

  The Final Detail

  Darkest Fear

  Tell No One

  Gone for Good

  No Second Chance

  Just One Look

  The Innocent

  Promise Me

  The Woods

  DUTTON

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  Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.); Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England; Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd); Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd); Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi—110 017, India; Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, North Shore 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd); Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Afr
ica

  Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  Published by Dutton, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  First printing, April 2008

  Copyright © 2008 by Harlan Coben

  All rights reserved

  REGISTERED TRADEMARK—MARCA REGISTRADA

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

  Coben, Harlan, 1962-

  Hold tight / by Harlan Coben.

  p. cm.

  eISBN : 978-0-525-95060-8

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

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  In loving memory of my children’s four grandparents:

  Carl and Corky Coben Jack and Nancy Armstrong

  We miss all of you very much

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2