by Harlan Coben
“Hi,” he said.
“Hi, how was work?”
“Fine, good.” He still smiled. “I have a surprise.”
“Oh?”
Ron came over, bent down and kissed her cheek, tossed the brochure on the kitchen table. Betsy reached for it.
“A one-week cruise,” he said. “Look at the itinerary, Bets. I bookmarked the page with a Post-it note.”
She turned to the page and looked down. The cruise left Miami Beach and hit the Bahamas, St. Thomas and some private island owned by the ship.
“Same itinerary,” Ron said. “Exact same itinerary as on our honeymoon. The ship is different, of course. That old vessel isn’t running anymore. This one is brand-new. I got the top deck too—a cabin with a balcony. I even got someone to watch Bobby and Kari.”
“We can’t just leave the twins for a week.”
“Sure we can.”
“They’re still too vulnerable, Ron.”
The smile started fading. “They’ll be fine.”
He wants this gone, she thought. Not wrong, of course. Life goes on. This was his way of coping. He wanted it gone. And eventually, she knew, he will want her gone too. He might hang on for the twins, but all the good memories—that first kiss outside the library, the overnight at the shore, the spectacular sun-drenched honeymoon cruise, scraping that horrid wallpaper off at their starter home, that time at the farmers’ market when they started laughing so hard, tears ran down their faces—all of that was gone now.
When Ron sees her, he sees his dead son.
“Bets?”
She nodded. “Maybe you’re right.”
He sat down next to her and held her hand. “I talked to Sy today. They need a manager at the new Atlanta office. It would be a wonderful opportunity.”
He wants to run, she thought again. For now he wants her with him, but she will always bring him pain. “I love you, Ron.”
“I love you too, honey.”
She wanted him happy. She wanted to let him go because Ron did have that ability. He needed to run away. He couldn’t face it. He couldn’t run with her. She would always remind him of Spencer, of that terrible night on the roof of the school. But she loved him, needed him. Selfish or not, she was terrified of losing him.
“What do you think about Atlanta?” he asked.
“I don’t know.”
“You’ll love it.”
She had thought about moving but Atlanta was a long way to go. She had lived her whole life in New Jersey.
“It’s a lot to take in,” he said. “Let’s take one step at a time. First the cruise, okay?”
“Okay.”
He wants to be anywhere but here. He wants to go back. She would try, but it won’t work. You can’t go back. Not ever. Especially not when you have the twins.
“I’m going to go get changed,” Ron said.
He kissed her cheek again. His lips felt cold. Like he was already gone. She would lose him. Might take another three months or two years, but the only man she had ever loved would eventually leave. She could feel him pulling away even as he kissed her.
“Ron?”
He stopped with one hand on the stair’s railing. When he looked back, it was as though he’d been caught, as though he’d just missed a chance to make a clean escape. His shoulders sunk.
“I need to show you something,” Betsy said.
TIA sat in a Boston Four Seasons’s conference room while Brett, the office computer guru, toyed with the laptop. She checked the caller ID and saw it was Mike.
“On your way to the game?”
“No,” he said.
“What happened?”
“Adam’s not here.”
“He didn’t come home at all?”
“He came home, he hung out in his room a little and then he took off.”
“He left Jill alone?”
“Yes.”
“That’s not like him.”
“I know.”
“I mean, he’s been irresponsible and all, but leaving his sister without supervision . . .”
“I know.”
Tia thought a moment. “Did you try his cell phone?”
“Of course I tried his cell phone. How stupid do you think I am?”
“Hey, don’t take this out on me,” Tia said.
“Then don’t ask me questions like I’m a moron. Of course I called him. I called him several times. I even left—gasp—messages for him to call me back.”
Tia watched Brett pretend not to listen in. She moved away from him.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean—”
“Me neither. We’re both on edge.”
“So what should we do?”
“What can we do?” Mike said. “I’ll wait here.”
“And if he doesn’t come home?”
There was a pause.
“I don’t want him at the party,” Mike said.
“I agree.”
“But if I go over and stop him . . .”
“That would be weird too.”
“What do you think?” he asked.
“I think you should go over and stop him anyway. You can try to be subtle about it.”
“How would that work?”
“I don’t know. The party won’t start for a couple of hours probably. We can think about it.”
“Yeah, okay. Maybe I’ll get lucky and find him before that.”
“Did you try calling his friends’ houses? Clark or Olivia’s?”
“Tia.”
“Right, of course you did. Should I come home?”
“And do what?”
“I don’t know.”
“Nothing you can do here. I got it under control. I shouldn’t have even called.”
“Yes, you should have. Don’t try to protect me from stuff like this. I want to be kept in the loop.”
“I will, don’t worry.”
“Call me when you hear from him.”
“Okay.”
She hung up.
Brett looked up from the computer. “Problem?”
“You were listening?”
Brett shrugged. “Why don’t you check his E-SpyRight report?”
“Maybe I’ll tell Mike to do that later.”
“You can do it from here.”
“I thought I could only get it off my own computer.”
“Nah. You can access it anywhere you have an Internet connection.” Tia frowned. “That doesn’t sound secure.”
“You still need your ID and password. You just go to the E-SpyRight page and sign in. Maybe your kid got an e-mail or something.”
Tia thought about it.
Brett moved to his laptop and typed something in. He spun it toward her. The E-SpyRight home page was up. “I’m going to, like, grab a soda downstairs,” he said. “You want something?”
She shook her head.
“All yours,” Brett said.
He headed for the door. Tia slid into the chair and began typing. She brought up the report and asked for anything that came in to- day. There was almost nothing, just a quick instant-message conversation with the mysterious CeeJay8115.
CeeJay8115: What’s wrong?
HockeyAdam1117: His mother approached me after
school.
CeeJay8115: What did she say?
HockeyAdam1117: She knows something.
CeeJay8115: What did you tell her?
HockeyAdam1117: Nothing. I ran.
CeeJay8115: We will discuss tonight.
Tia read it again. Then she took out her cell phone and hit the speed dial. “Mike?”
“What?”
“Find him. Find him no matter what.”
RON held the photograph.
He stared at it, but Betsy could tell he had stopped seeing it. His body language was beyond troubling. He twitched and stiffened. He put the picture on the table and crossed his arms over his chest. He picked it up again.
“What does this change?” he asked.
He started
blinking rapidly, the way a stutterer might when he’s trying to get out a particularly difficult word. The sight terrified Betsy. Ron hadn’t done that rapid blink in years. Her mother-in-law had explained that Ron had gotten beaten up a lot when he was in second grade and hid it from her. That was when the blink started. It had gotten better as he’d gotten older. It barely surfaced now. Even after they heard about Spencer, Betsy hadn’t seen the blink.
She wished that she could take the picture back. Ron had come home and tried to reach out and she’d slapped his hand away.
“He wasn’t alone that night,” she said.
“So?”
“Didn’t you hear what I said?”
“Maybe he went out with his friends first. So what?”
“Why didn’t they say anything?”
“Who knows? They were scared, maybe Spencer told them not to, or maybe, probably, you got the date wrong. Maybe he saw them briefly and then went out. Maybe this picture was taken earlier in the day.”
“No. I confronted Adam Baye at school—”
“You what?”
“I waited until school ended. I showed him the photograph.” Ron just shook his head.
“He ran away from me. There was definitely something there.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know. But remember Spencer had a bruise by his eye when the police found him.”
“They explained that. He probably passed out and fell on his face.”
“Or maybe someone hit him.”
Ron’s voice grew soft. “No one hit him, Bets.”
Betsy said nothing. The blinking got worse. Tears started spilling down Ron’s cheeks. She reached for him but he pulled away.
“Spencer mixed pills and alcohol. Do you understand that, Betsy?”
She said nothing.
“Nobody forced him to steal that bottle of vodka from our cabinet. Nobody forced him to take those pills from my medicine chest. Where I left them. Just in view. We know that, right? That was my prescription bottle that, yes, I just left out. The ones I kept asking for renewals when, really, I should have been over the pain and moved on, right?”
“Ron, it’s not . . .”
“Not what? You don’t think I see it?”
“See what?” she asked. But she knew. “I don’t blame you, I swear.”
“Yeah, you do.”
She shook her head. But he never saw it. Ron was up and out the door.
12
NASH was ready to strike.
He waited in the lot at the Palisades Mall in Nyack. The mall was pure Americana ginormous. Yes, the Mall of America outside Min- neapolis was bigger, but this mall was newer, crammed with huge megastores in a megamall, none of those cute little eighties-trendy boutiques. They had warehouse price clubs, expansive chain book-stores, an IMAX theater, an AMC with fifteen screens, a Best Buy, a Staples, a full-size Ferris wheel. The corridors were wide. Everything was big.
Reba Cordova had gone into Target.
She had parked her Aberdeen green Acura MDX far away from the entrance. That would help, but this would still be risky. They parked the van next to her Acura, on the driver’s side. Nash had come up with the plan. Pietra was currently inside following Reba Cordova. Nash had also gone into Target briefly—to make a quick purchase.
Now he waited for Pietra’s text.
He had considered the mustache, but no, that would not do here. Nash needed to look open and trusting. Mustaches did not do that. Mustaches, especially the bushy one he had used with Marianne, dominate a face. If you ask for a description, few witnesses go beyond the mustache. So it often worked.
But not for this.
Nash stayed in the car and prepared. He fixed his hair in the rearview mirror and ran the electric razor over his face.
Cassandra had liked it when he was clean-shaven. Nash’s beard had a tendency to get heavy and could scratch her by five o’clock.
“Please shave for me, handsome,” Cassandra would tell him with that sideways glance that made his toes curl. “Then I will cover your face with kisses.”
He thought about that now. He thought about her voice. His heart still ached. He had long ago accepted that it would always hurt. You live with pain. The hole would always be there.
He sat in the driver’s seat and watched the people walk back and forth in the mall parking lot. They were all alive and breathing while his Cassandra was dead. Her beauty had no doubt rotted away by now. It was hard to imagine.
His cell phone buzzed. A text from Pietra:
At checkout. Leaving now.
He gave his eyes a quick swipe with his forefinger and thumb and climbed out of the car. He opened the back door of the van. His purchase, a Cosco Scenera 5-Point Convertible Car Seat, the cheapest in the store at forty bucks, was out of the box.
Nash glanced behind him.
Reba Cordova wheeled a red shopping cart with several plastic bags in it. She looked harried and happy, like so many of the suburban sheep. He wondered about that, about their happiness, if it was real or self-inflicted. They had everything they wanted. The nice house, two cars, financial security, children. He wondered if that was all women needed. He wondered about the men at the office who provided this life for them and if they felt likewise.
Behind Reba Cordova, he could see Pietra. She was keeping her distance. Nash took in the surroundings. An overweight man with hippie hair, a rat-nest beard, and a tie-dyed shirt hoisted up his plumber-butt jeans and started toward the entrance. Disgusting. Nash had seen him circle around in his beat-up Chevy Caprice, spending minutes searching for a closer space that would save him from walking ten seconds. America the Fat.
Nash had positioned the van’s side door to be near the Acura’s driver’s side. He leaned in and started fiddling with the car seat. The driver’s side mirror was positioned so he could see her approach. Reba clicked her remote control and the back hatch opened. He waited till she was close.
“Darn!” he said. He said it loud enough for Reba to hear but in a voice that seemed more amused than annoyed. He stood upright and scratched his head as if confused. He looked at Reba Cordova and smiled in the most nonthreatening manner possible.
“Car seat,” he said to her.
Reba Cordova was a pretty woman with small doll-like features. She looked up and gave him a nod of sympathy.
“Who wrote these installation instructions,” he continued, “NASA engineers?”
Reba smiled now, commiserating. “It’s ridiculous, isn’t it?”
“Totally. The other day I was setting up Roger’s Pack ’n Play— Roger’s my two-year-old. Do you have one of those? A Pack ’n Play, I mean.”
“Sure.”
“It was supposed to be easy to fold up and put away, but, well, Cassandra—that’s my wife—she says I’m just hopeless.”
“So is my husband.”
He laughed. She laughed. She had, Nash thought, a very nice laugh. He wondered if Reba’s husband appreciated it, if he was a funny man and liked to make his wife with the doll-like features laugh and if he still stopped and marveled at the sound.
“I hate to bother you,” he said, still being Mr. Friendly, hands down and spread, “but I have to pick up Roger at Little Gym and, well, Cassandra and I are both sticklers for safety.”
“Oh, so am I.”
“So I wouldn’t dream of picking him up without a car seat and I forgot to switch our other into this car and so I stopped here to buy one . . . well, you know how it is.”
“I do.”
Nash held up the manual and just shook his head. “Do you think maybe you could take a quick look?”
Reba hesitated. He could see it. A primal reaction—more a reflex. He was, after all, a stranger. We are trained by both biology and society to fear the stranger. But evolution has given us societal niceties too. They were in a public parking lot and he seemed like a nice man, a dad and all, and he had a car seat and, well, it would be rude to say no, wouldn’t it?
&nb
sp; These calculations all took mere seconds, no more than two or three, and in the end, politeness beat out survival.
It often did.
“Sure.”
She put her bundles in the back of the car and started over. Nash leaned into his own van. “I think it’s just this one strap over here. . . .”
Reba moved closer. Nash stood up to give her room. He glanced around. The fat guy with the Jerry Garcia beard and tie-dyed tee was still waddling toward the entrance, but he wouldn’t notice anything that did not involve a doughnut. And sometimes, it is indeed best to hide in plain sight. Don’t panic, don’t rush, don’t make a fuss.
Reba Cordova leaned in and that spelled her doom.
Nash watched the exposed back of her neck. It took seconds. He reached in and pushed the spot behind her earlobe with one hand, while covering her mouth with the other. The move effectively shut off the blood to her brain.
Her legs kicked out feebly, but only for a few seconds. He dug in harder and Reba Cordova went still. He slid her in, hopped in behind her, closed the door. Pietra followed up. She shut Reba’s car door. Nash took her keys from Reba’s hand. He used the remote to lock her car. Pietra moved to the driver’s seat of their van.
She started it up.
“Wait,” Nash said.
Pietra turned. “Shouldn’t we hurry?”
“Stay calm.”
He thought a moment.
“What is it?”
“I will drive the van,” he said. “I want you to take her vehicle.”
“What? Why?”
“Because if we leave it here, they will realize that this is where she was grabbed. If we move her car, we may be able to confuse them.”
He tossed her the keys. Then he used the plastic cuffs to tie Reba down. He jammed a cloth in her mouth. She started to struggle.
He cupped her delicate, pretty face in both hands, almost as though he were about to kiss her.
“If you escape,” he said, staring into those doll-like eyes, “I will grab Jamie instead. And it will be bad. Do you understand?”
The sound of her child’s name froze Reba.
Nash moved to the front seat. To Pietra he said, “Just follow me. Drive normally.”
And they started on their way.
MIKE tried to relax with his iPod. Aside from hockey, he had no other outlet. Nothing truly relaxed him. He liked family, he liked work, he liked hockey. Hockey would only last so much longer. The years were catching up. Hard thing to admit. A lot of his job was standing in an operating room for hours at a stretch. In the past, hockey had helped keep him in shape. It probably was still good for the cardio, but his body was taking a beating. His joints ached. The muscle pulls and minor sprains came in greater frequency and extended their stays.