Six Years

by Harlan Coben

"Just paying my respects," I said, shaking the young man's hand. "I'm very sorry for your loss. The entire college is."

  He shook my hand and said nothing. We all stood in that front foyer like three awkward strangers who hadn't yet been introduced at a cocktail party. Eric broke the deadlock. "I couldn't find my cleats," he said.

  "You left them in the car."

  "Oh, right. I'll just grab them and head back."

  He rushed back out the door. We both watched him, perhaps with the same thoughts about his fatherless future looming in front of us. There was nothing more to learn here. It was time for me to let this family be.

  "I better be going," I said. "Thank you for your time."

  "You're welcome."

  As I turned toward the door, my line of vision swung past the living room.

  My heart stopped.

  "Professor Fisher?"

  My hand was on the doorknob. Seconds passed. I don't know how many. I didn't turn the knob, didn't move, didn't even breathe. I just stared into the living room, across the Oriental rug, to a spot above the fireplace.

  Delia Sanderson again: "Professor?"

  Her voice was very far away.

  I finally let go of the knob and moved into the living room, across the Oriental carpet, and stared up above the fireplace. Delia Sanderson followed me.

  "Are you okay?"

  No, I wasn't okay. And I hadn't been wrong. If I had questions before, they all ended now. No coincidence, no mistake, no doubt: Todd Sanderson was the man I saw marry Natalie six years ago.

  I felt rather than saw Delia Sanderson standing next to me. "It moves me," she said. "I can stand here for hours and find something new."

  I understood. There was the soft morning glow hitting the side, the pinkness that comes with the new day, the dark windows as though the cottage had once been warm but was now abandoned.

  It was Natalie's painting.

  "Do you like it?" Delia Sanderson asked me.

  "Yes," I said. "I like it very much."

  Chapter 17

  I sat on the couch. Delia Sanderson didn't offer me coffee this time. She poured two fingers' worth of Macallan. It was early and as we've already learned I am not much of a drinker, but I gratefully accepted it with a shaking hand.

  "Do you want to tell me what this is about?" Delia Sanderson asked.

  I wasn't sure how to explain this without sounding insane, so I started with a question. "How did you get that painting?"

  "Todd bought it."

  "When?"

  "I don't know."

  "Think."

  "What's the difference?"

  "Please," I said, trying to keep my voice steady. "Could you just tell me when and where he bought it?"

  She looked up, thinking about it. "The where I don't remember. But the when . . . it was our anniversary. Five, maybe six years ago."

  "It was six," I said.

  "Again with six," she said. "I don't understand any of this."

  I saw no reason to lie--and worse, I saw no way to say this in a way that would soften the blow. "I showed you a photograph of a sleeping woman, remember?"

  "It was only two minutes ago."

  "Right. She painted that picture."

  Delia frowned. "What are you talking about?"

  "Her name is Natalie Avery. That was her in the photograph."

  "That . . ." She shook her head. "I don't understand. I thought you taught political science."

  "I do."

  "So are you some kind of art historian? Is that woman a Lanford alum too?"

  "No, it's not like that." I looked back at that cottage on the hill. "I'm looking for her."

  "The artist?"

  "Yes."

  She studied my face. "Is she missing?"

  "I don't know."

  Our eyes met. She didn't nod, but she didn't have to. "She means a great deal to you."

  It wasn't a question, but I answered it anyway. "Yes. I realize that this is making no sense."

  "It isn't," Delia Sanderson agreed. "But you believe that my husband knew something about her. That's why you're really here."

  "Yes."

  "Why?"

  Again I saw no reason to lie. "This will sound insane."

  She waited.

  "Six years ago, I saw your husband marry Natalie Avery in a small chapel in Vermont."

  Delia Sanderson blinked twice. She rose from the couch and started to back away from me. "I think you better leave."

  "Please just listen to me."

  She closed her eyes, but, hey, you can't close your ears. I talked fast. I explained about going to the wedding six years ago, about seeing Todd's obituary, about coming to the funeral, about believing that maybe I was mistaken.

  "You were mistaken," she said when I finished. "You have to be."

  "So that painting. It's a coincidence?"

  She said nothing.

  "Mrs. Sanderson?"

  "What are you after?" she asked in a soft voice.

  "I want to find her."

  "Why?"

  "You know why."

  She nodded. "Because you're in love with her."

  "Yes."

  "Even though you saw her marry another man six years ago."

  I didn't bother responding. The house was maddeningly quiet. We both turned and looked back at that cottage on the hill. I wanted it to change somehow. I wanted the sun to rise a little higher or to see a light on in one of the windows.

  Delia Sanderson moved a few yards farther away from me and took out her phone.

  "What are you doing?" I asked.

  "I googled you yesterday. After you called me."

  "Okay."

  "I wanted to make sure that you were who you said you were."

  "Who else would I be?"

  Delia Sanderson ignored my question. "There was a picture of you on the Lanford website. Before I opened the door, I checked through the peephole to make sure."

  "I'm not following."

  "Better to be safe than sorry, I figured. I worried that maybe whoever murdered my husband . . ."

  I understood now. "Would come back for you?"

  She shrugged.

  "But you saw it was me."

  "Yes. So I let you in. But now I'm wondering. I mean, you came here under false pretenses. How do I know that you aren't one of them?"

  I wasn't sure what to say.

  "So for right now I'm keeping my distance, if that's okay with you. I'm standing pretty close to the front door. If I see you start to rise, I hit this button for nine-one-one and run. Do you understand?"

  "I'm not with--"

  "Do you understand?"

  "Of course," I said. "I won't move from this seat. But can I ask you a question?"

  She gestured for me to go ahead.

  "How do you know I don't have a gun?"

  "I've been watching since you entered. There'd be no place for you to conceal it in that outfit."

  I nodded. Then I said, "You don't really believe I'm here to hurt you, do you?"

  "I don't. But like the saying goes, better safe than sorry."

  "I know that story about a wedding in Vermont sounds crazy," I said.

  "It does," Delia Sanderson said. "And yet, it's too crazy to be a lie."

  We gave it another moment. Our eyes wandered back to that cottage up on the hill.

  "He was such a good man," Delia Sanderson said. "Todd could have made a fortune in private practice, but he worked almost exclusively for Fresh Start. You know what that is?"

  The name was not entirely unfamiliar, but I couldn't place it. "I'm afraid that I don't."

  She actually smiled at that. "Wow, you really didn't do your homework before you came. Fresh Start is the charity Todd founded with some other Lanford graduates. It was his passion."

  I remembered it now. There had been a mention of it in his obituary, though I didn't know it had any connection to Lanford. "What did Fresh Start do?"

  "They operated on cleft palates overseas
. They worked on burns and scars and performed various other necessary cosmetic surgeries. The procedures were life-changing. Like the name, they gave people a fresh start. Todd dedicated his life to it. When you said that you saw him in Vermont, I knew that couldn't be true. He was working in Nigeria."

  "Except," I said, "he wasn't."

  "So you're telling this widow that her husband lied to her."

  "No. I'm telling her that Todd Sanderson was in Vermont on August twenty-eighth, six years ago."

  "Marrying your ex-girlfriend, the artist?"

  I didn't bother replying.

  A tear ran down her cheek. "They hurt Todd. Before they killed him. They hurt him badly. Why would someone do something like that?"

  "I don't know."

  She shook her head.

  "When you say they hurt him," I said slowly, "do you mean that they did more than kill him?"

  "Yes."

  Again I didn't know how to ask the question with any sort of sensitivity, so I settled on directness: "How did they hurt him?"

  But even before she replied, I thought that maybe I knew the answer.

  "With tools," Delia Sanderson said, a sob coming to her throat. "They cuffed him to a chair and tortured him with tools."

  Chapter 18

  When my plane landed back in Boston, there was a message on my new phone from Shanta Newlin. "I heard you got kicked off campus. We should talk."

  I called her back as I walked through the airport terminal. When Shanta picked up, she asked me where I was.

  "Logan Airport," I said.

  "Nice trip?"

  "Delightful. You said we needed to talk."

  "In person. Come straight to my office from the airport."

  "I'm not welcome on campus," I said.

  "Oh, right, I forgot for a second. Judie's again? Be there in an hour."

  Shanta was sitting at the corner table when I arrived. She had a drink in front of her. The drink was bright pink and had a pineapple on top. I pointed at it.

  "All you're missing is a little umbrella," I said.

  "What, you figured me as more a scotch-and-soda girl?"

  "Minus the soda."

  "Sorry. With me, the fruitier the drink, the better."

  I slid into the chair across from her. Shanta picked up the drink and took a sip from the straw.

  "I heard you were involved in a student attack," she said.

  "Are you working for President Tripp now?"

  She frowned over her fruity drink. "What happened?"

  I told her the whole story--Bob and Otto, the van, the self-defense killing, the escape from the van, the roll down the hill. Her expression didn't change, but I could see the wheels moving behind her eyes.

  "You told the police this?"

  "Sort of."

  "What do you mean, sort of?"

  "I was pretty drunk. They seem to think I fabricated the bit about being kidnapped and killing a guy."

  She looked at me as though I were perhaps the biggest fool ever to inhabit this planet. "Did you really tell the police that part?"

  "At first. Then Benedict reminded me that maybe it wasn't the best idea to admit to killing a man, even if it was in self-defense."

  "You get your legal advice from Benedict?"

  I shrugged. Once again I thought about keeping my mouth shut. I had been warned, hadn't I? There was also the promise. Shanta sat back and sipped her drink. The waitress came over and asked what I wanted. I pointed at the fruity drink and indicated that I wanted a "virgin" one of those too. I don't know why. I hate fruity drinks.

  "What did you really learn about Natalie?" I asked.

  "I told you."

  "Right, nothing, zippo, zilch. So why did you want to see me?"

  The portobello sandwich came for her, the turkey BLT on rye for me. "I took the liberty of ordering for you," she said.

  I didn't touch the sandwich.

  "What's going on, Shanta?"

  "That's what I want to know. How did you meet Natalie?"

  "What difference does that make?"

  "Humor me."

  Once again she was asking all the questions, and I was giving all the answers. I told her how we met at the retreats in Vermont six years ago.

  "What did she tell you about her father?"

  "Just that he was dead."

  Shanta kept her eyes on mine. "Nothing else?"

  "Like what?"

  "Like, I don't know"--she took a deep sip and shrugged theatrically--"that he used to be a professor here."

  My eyes widened. "Her father?"

  "Yep."

  "Her father was a professor at Lanford?"

  "No, at Judie's Restaurant," Shanta said with an eye roll. "Of course at Lanford."

  I was still trying to clear my head. "When?"

  "He started about thirty years ago. He taught here for seven years. In the political science department."

  "You're kidding?"

  "Yes, that's why I called you here. Because I'm such a top-notch kidder."

  I did the math. Natalie would have been very young when her father started teaching here--and still a kid when he left. Maybe she didn't remember being here. Maybe that was why she didn't say anything. But wouldn't Natalie have at least known about it? Wouldn't she have said, "Hey, my father taught here too. Same department as you."

  I thought about how she came to campus with those sunglasses and hat on, how she wanted to see so much of it, how she had grown pensive during the walks on the commons.

  "Why wouldn't she tell me?" I asked out loud.

  "I don't know."

  "Was he fired? Where did they go afterward?"

  She shrugged. "A better question might be, why did Natalie's mom start using her maiden name?"

  "What?"

  "Her father's name was Aaron Kleiner. Natalie's mother's maiden name was Avery. She changed it back. And she changed Natalie and Julie's name to her maiden name too."

  "Wait, when did her father die?"

  "So Natalie never told you?"

  "I just got the impression it was a long time ago. Maybe that's it. Maybe he died and that's why they left campus."

  Shanta smiled. "I don't think so, Jake."

  "Why?"

  "Because here's where it gets really interesting. Here's where Daddy is just like his little girl."

  I said nothing.

  "There is no report he ever died."

  I swallowed. "So where is he?"

  "Like father, like daughter, Jake."

  "What the hell does that mean?" But maybe I already knew.

  "I looked into where Professor Aaron Kleiner is now," Shanta said. "Guess what I found?"

  I waited.

  "That's right--zippo, nada, zilch, nothing. Since he left Lanford a quarter century ago, there has been absolutely no sign of Professor Aaron Kleiner."

  Chapter 19

  I found old yearbooks in the school library.

  They were in the basement. The books smelled of mold. The glossy pages stuck together as I tried to flip through them. But there he was. Professor Aaron Kleiner. The picture was fairly unremarkable. He was a nice-enough-looking man with the usual posed smile, aiming for happiness but landing somewhere closer to awkward. I stared at his face to see if I could spot any resemblance to Natalie. There might have been. Hard to say. The mind can play tricks, as we all know.

  We have a tendency to see what we want to see.

  I stared at his face as though it would give me some kind of answer. It didn't. I checked through the other yearbooks. There was nothing more to learn. I scanned through the political science pages and stopped at a group picture taken in front of Clark House. All of the professors and support staff were there. Professor Kleiner stood right next to department chair Malcolm Hume. The smiles in this photograph were more relaxed, more natural. Mrs. Dinsmore still looked to be about a hundred years old.

  Wait. Mrs. Dinsmore . . .

  I tucked one of the yearbooks under my arm and hurried to
ward Clark House. It was after hours, but Mrs. Dinsmore lived at the office. Yes, I had been suspended and was supposed to be off campus, but I doubted that campus police would open fire. So I walked across the quad where the students roamed, with a book I hadn't checked out of the library. Look at me, living on the edge.

  I remembered walking here that day six years ago with Natalie. Why hadn't she said anything? Had there been any sign? Did she grow quiet or slow her step? I didn't remember. I just remember yapping happily away about the campus like some freshman tour guide after too many Red Bulls.

  Mrs. Dinsmore looked up at me over her half-moon reading glasses. "I thought you were out of here."

  "Maybe in body," I said, "but am I ever far from your heart?"

  She rolled her eyes. "What do you want?"

  I put the yearbook down in front of her. It was open to the group picture. I pointed at Natalie's father. "Do you remember a professor named Aaron Kleiner?"

  Mrs. Dinsmore took her time. The reading glasses were mounted to a chain around her neck. She removed them, cleaned them with quaking hands, and put them back on again. Her face was still as stone.

  "I remember him," she said softly. "Why do you ask?"

  "Do you know why he was fired?"

  She looked up at me. "Who said he was fired?"

  "Or why he left? Is there anything you can tell me about what happened to him?"

  "He hasn't been here in twenty-five years. You were maybe ten when he left."

  "I know."

  "So why are you asking?"

  I didn't even know how to dance around that question. "Do you remember his children?"

  "Little girls. Natalie and Julie."

  No hesitation. That surprised me. "You remember their names?"

  "What about them?"

  "Six years ago I met Natalie at a retreat in Vermont. We fell in love."

  Mrs. Dinsmore waited for me to say more.

  "I know this sounds crazy, but I'm trying to find her. I think she may be in danger, and maybe it has something to do with her father, I don't know."

  Mrs. Dinsmore kept her eyes on me another second or two. She let her reading glasses drop back to her chest. "He was a good professor. You'd have liked him. His classes were lively. He was terrific at energizing the students."

  Her gaze dropped back to the photograph in the yearbook.

  "In those days, some of the younger professors doubled as dorm monitors. Aaron Kleiner was one of them. He and his family lived on the bottom floor of the Tingley dormitory. The students loved them. I remember one year, the students chipped in and bought a swing set for the girls. They all built it on a Saturday morning in the courtyard behind Pratt."

  She looked off wistfully. "Natalie was an adorable little girl. How does she look now?"

  "She's the most beautiful woman in the world," I said.