Three Harlan Coben Novels (52 page)

“How long?”

“Two years.”

Regan spread his arms, all open and wide eyed. “See, Agent Tickner and I still aren’t sure why you called her. I mean, okay, you dated a long time ago. But if you haven’t been in touch at all”—he shrugged—“why her?”

I thought about how to put this and chose the direct route. “There’s still a connection.”

Regan nodded as if that explained a lot. “You were aware that she got married?”

“Cheryl—that’s Lenny’s wife—she told me.”

“And you knew her husband was shot?”

“I learned about it today.” Then, realizing that it had to be after midnight, “I mean, yesterday.”

“Rachel told you?”

“Cheryl told me.” Regan’s words from his late-night visit to my abode came back to me. “And then you said Rachel shot him.”

Regan looked back at Tickner. Tickner said, “Did Ms. Mills mention that to you?”

“What, that she shot her husband?”

“Yes.”

“You’re kidding, right?”

“You don’t believe it, do you?”

Lenny said, “What’s the difference what he believes?”

“She confessed,” Tickner said.

I looked at Lenny. Lenny looked away. I tried to sit up a little more. “Then why isn’t she in jail?”

Something dark crossed Tickner’s face. His hands clenched into fists. “She claimed the shooting was accidental.”

“And you don’t believe that?”

“Her husband was shot in the head at point-blank range.”

“So again I ask: Why isn’t she in jail?”

“I’m not privy to all the details,” Tickner said.

“What does that mean?”

“The local cops handled the case, not us,” Tickner explained. “They decided not to pursue it.”

I am neither a cop nor a great student of psychology, but even I could see that Tickner was holding something back. I looked at Lenny. His face was emotionless, which, of course, is not at all like Lenny. Tickner took a step away from the bed. Regan filled the void.

“You said you still felt a connection with Rachel?” Regan began.

“Asked and answered,” Lenny said.

“Did you still love her?”

Lenny couldn’t let that one go without comment. “Are you Ann Landers now, Detective Regan? What the hell does any of this have to do with my client’s daughter?”

“Bear with me.”

“No, Detective, I will not bear with you. Your questions are
nonsense.” Again I put my hand on Lenny’s shoulder. He turned to me. “They want you to say yes, Marc.”

“I know that.”

“They’re hoping to use Rachel as a motive for killing your wife.”

“I know that too,” I said. I looked at Regan. I remembered the feeling when I first saw Rachel at the Stop & Shop.

“You still think about her?” Regan asked.

“Yes.”

“Does she still think about you?”

Lenny was not about to surrender. “How the hell would he know that?”

“Bob?” I said. It was the first time I had used Regan’s first name.

“Yes.”

“What are you trying to get at here?”

Regan’s voice was low, almost conspiratorial. “Let me ask you one more time: Before the incident at the Stop & Shop, had you seen Rachel Mills since you broke up in college?”

“Jesus Christ,” Lenny said.

“No.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yes.”

“No communication at all?”

“They didn’t even pass notes during study hall,” Lenny said. “I mean, get on with it.”

Regan leaned away. “You went to a private detective agency in Newark to ask about a CD-ROM.”

“Yes.”

“Why today?”

“I’m not sure I understand.”

“Your wife has been dead for a year and a half. Why the sudden interest in the CD?”

“I’d just found it.”

“When?”

“The day before yesterday. It was hidden in the basement.”

“So you had no idea that Monica had hired a private detective?”

It took me a moment to answer. I thought about what I had learned since my beautiful wife’s death. She had been seeing a psychiatrist. She
had hired a private detective. She had hidden his findings in our basement. I hadn’t known about any of it. I thought about my life, my love of work, my wanting to keep traveling. Sure, I loved my daughter. I cooed on command and marveled at the wonder of her. I would die—and kill—to protect her, but in my honest moments, I knew that I had not accepted all the changes and sacrifices she’d brought to my life.

What kind of husband had I been? What kind of father?

“Marc?”

“No,” I said softly. “I had no idea she had hired a private investigator.”

“Do you have any idea why she did?”

I shook my head. Regan faded back. Tickner pulled out a manila folder.

“What’s that?” Lenny said.

“The contents of the CD.” Tickner looked at me one more time. “You never saw Rachel, right? Just that time in the supermarket.”

I did not bother answering.

Without fanfare, Tickner withdrew a photograph and handed it to me. Lenny snapped on his half-moon reading glasses and stood over my shoulder. He did that thing where you tilt your head up to look down. The photograph was black and white. It was a shot of Valley Hospital in Ridgewood. There was a date stamped on the bottom. The photograph had been taken two months before the shooting.

Lenny frowned. “The lighting is pretty good, but I’m not sure about the overall composition.”

Tickner ignored the sarcasm. “That’s where you work, is it not, Dr. Seidman?”

“We have an office there, yes.”

“We?”

“My partner and I. Zia Leroux.”

Tickner nodded. “There’s a date stamped on the bottom.”

“I can see that.”

“Were you in the office on that day?”

“I really don’t know. I’d have to check my calendar.”

Regan pointed to near the hospital entrance. “Do you see that figure over there?”

I looked harder, but I couldn’t make much out. “No, not really.”

“Just notice the length of the coat, okay?”

“Okay.”

Then Tickner handed me a second glossy. The photographer had used the zoom lens on this one. Same angle. You could see the person in the coat clearly now. She wore sunglasses, but there was no mistake. It was Rachel.

I looked up at Lenny. I saw the surprise on his face too. Tickner pulled out another photo. Then another. They were all taken in front of Valley Hospital. In the eighth one, Rachel entered the building. In the ninth one, taken one hour later, I exited alone. In the tenth, taken six minutes after that, Rachel went out the same doors.

At first, my mind could simply not soak in the implications. I was one big, swirling “Huh?” of bewilderment. There was no time to process. Lenny seemed stunned too, but he recovered first.

“Get out,” Lenny said.

“You don’t want to explain these photographs first?”

I wanted to argue, but I was too dazed.

“Get out,” Lenny said again, more forcefully this time. “Get out now.”

I sat up
in the bed. “Lenny?”

He made sure the door was closed. “Yes,” he said. “They think you did it. Check that, they think you and Rachel did it together. You two were having an affair. She killed her husband—I don’t know if they think you were involved with that or not—and then you both killed Monica, did who-knows-what with Tara, and came up with this scheme to rip off her father.”

“That makes no sense,” I said.

Lenny kept quiet.

“I was shot, remember?”

“I know.”

“So what, they think I shot myself?”

“I don’t know. But you can’t talk to them anymore. They have evidence now. You can deny a relationship with Rachel to the skies, but Monica was suspicious enough to hire a private detective. Then, Jesus, think about it. The private detective delivers. He takes those photographs and gives them to Monica. Next thing you know, your wife is dead, your kid is gone, and her father is out two million bucks. Skip ahead a year and a half. Her father is out another two million and you and Rachel are lying about being with one another.”

“We’re not lying.”

Lenny would not look at me.

“What about all I was saying,” I tried, “about how no one would go through all this? I could have just taken the ransom money, right? I didn’t have to hire that guy with the car and the kid. And what about my sister? Do they think I murdered her too?”

“Those pictures,” Lenny said softly.

“I never knew about them.”

He could barely look at me, but that didn’t stop him from reverting to our youth. “Well, duh.”

“No, I mean I don’t know anything about them.”

“You really haven’t seen her except for that time at the supermarket?”

“Of course not. You know all this. I wouldn’t hide it from you.”

He weighed that statement for too long. “You might hide it from Lenny the Friend.”

“No, I wouldn’t. But even if I would, there’s no way I could keep it from Lenny the Lawyer.”

His voice was soft. “You didn’t tell either one of us about this ransom drop.”

So there it was. “We wanted to keep it contained, Lenny.”

“I see.” But he didn’t. I couldn’t blame him. “Another thing. How did you find that CD in the basement?”

“Dina Levinsky came by the house.”

“Dina the fruitcake?”

“She’s had it rough,” I said. “You have no idea.”

Lenny waved off my sympathy. “I don’t understand. What was she doing at your house?” I filled him on the story. Lenny started making a face. When I finished, I was the one who said, “What?”

“She told you she was better now? That she was married?”

“Yes.”

“That’s bull.”

I stopped. “How do you know that?”

“I do some legal work for her aunt. Dina Levinsky has been in and out of asylums since she was eighteen. She even served time for aggravated assault a few years back. She’s never been married. And I doubt she’s ever had an art exhibit.”

I did not know what to make of that. I remembered Dina’s haunting face, the way the color ebbed away when she said,
“You know who shot you, don’t you, Marc?”

What the hell had she meant by that anyway?

“We need to think this through,” Lenny said, rubbing his chin. “I’m going to check with some of my sources, see what I can learn. Call me if anything comes up, okay?”

“Yeah, okay.”

“And promise me you won’t say another word to them. There is an excellent chance they’ll arrest you.” He raised a hand before I could protest. “They have enough for an arrest and maybe even an indictment. True, the
t
’s aren’t all crossed and the
i
’s aren’t all dotted. But think about that Skakel case. They had less there and they convicted him. So if they come back in here, promise me you won’t say a word.”

I promised because, yet again, the authorities were on the wrong track. Cooperating with them would not help find my daughter. That was the bottom line. Lenny left me alone. I asked him to shut off the lights. He did. But the room did not grow dark. Hospital rooms never get totally dark.

I tried to understand what was happening. Tickner had taken those strange photographs with him. I wished he hadn’t. I wanted to take another look because no matter how I laid it out, those pictures of Rachel at the hospital made no sense. Were they for real? Trick photography was a strong possibility, especially in this digital day and age. Could that be the explanation? Were they phonies, a simple cut-and-paste job? My thoughts veered toward Dina Levinsky again. What had her bizarre visit really been about? Why had she asked if I loved Monica? Why did she think I knew who shot me? I was considering all of this when the door opened.

“Is this the room belonging to the Stud in Scrubs?”

It was Zia. “Hey.”

She entered, gestured at my supine position with a sweep of her hand. “This supposed to be your excuse for missing work?”

“I was on call last night, wasn’t I?”

“Yep.”

“Sorry.”

“They woke my ass up instead, interrupting, I might add, a rather erotic dream.” Zia pointed with her thumb toward the door. “That big black man down the hall.”

“The one with the sunglasses on top of a shaved head?”

“That’s him. He a cop?”

“An FBI agent.”

“Any chance you can introduce us? Might make up for interrupting my dream.”

“I’ll try to do that,” I said, “before he arrests me.”

“After is okay too.”

I smiled. Zia sat on the edge of the bed. I told her what had happened. She didn’t offer a theory. She didn’t throw up a question. She just listened, and I loved her for it.

I was just getting to the part about being a serious suspect when my cell phone started ringing. Both of us, because of our training, were surprised. Cell phones in the hospital were a no-no. I reached it for quickly and brought it to my ear.

“Marc?”

It was Rachel. “Where are you?”

“Following the money.”

“What?”

“They did exactly what I thought,” she said. “They dumped the bag, but they haven’t spotted the Q-Logger in the pack of bills. I’m heading up the Harlem River Drive right now. They’re maybe a mile ahead of me.”

“We need to talk,” I said.

“Did you find Tara?”

“It was a hoax. I saw the kid they had with them. It wasn’t my daughter.”

There was a pause.

“Rachel?”

“I’m not doing so good, Marc.”

“What do you mean?”

“I took a beating. At the park. I’m okay, but I need your help.”

“Wait a second. My car is still at the scene. How are you following them?”

“Did you notice a Parks Department van on the circle?”

“Yes.”

“I stole it. It’s an old van, easy to hot-wire. I figured it wouldn’t be missed until the morning.”

“They think we did it, Rachel. That we were having an affair or something. They found photos on that CD. You in front of where I work.”

Cell-phone-static silence.

“Rachel?”

“Where are you?” she asked.

“I’m at New York Presbyterian Hospital.”

“Are you okay?”

“Banged up. But I’m fine, yeah.”

“The cops there?”

“The feds too. A guy named Tickner. You know him?”

Her voice was soft. “Yes.” Then, “How do you want to play it?”

“What do you mean?”

“Do you want to keep following them? Or do you want to turn it over to Tickner and Regan?”

I wanted her back here. I wanted to ask her about those photos and the phone call to my house. “I’m not sure it matters,” I said. “You were right from the beginning. It was a con job. They must have used someone else’s hair.”

More static.

“What?” I said.

“You know anything about DNA?” she asked me.

“Not much,” I said.

“I don’t have time to explain it, but a DNA test goes layer by layer. You start seeing things match up. It takes at least twenty-four hours before we can really say with any degree of certainty that there’s a match.”

“So?”

“So I just spoke to my lab guy. We’ve only had about eight hours. But so far, that second set of hairs that Edgar got?”

“What about them?”

“They match yours.” I wasn’t sure I heard correctly. Rachel made a sound that might have been a sigh. “In other words, he hasn’t ruled out that you’re the father. Just the opposite, in fact.”

I nearly dropped the phone. Zia saw it and moved closer. Again I focused and compartmentalized. Process. Rebuild. I considered my options. Tickner and Regan would never believe me. They would not allow me to go. They’d probably arrest us. At the same time, if I told them, I might be able to prove our innocence. On the other hand, proving my innocence was irrelevant.

Was there a chance my daughter was still alive?

That was the only question here. If she was, then I had to resort to our original plan. Confiding in the authorities, especially with their fresh suspicions, would not work. Suppose there was, as the ransom note said, a mole? Right now, whoever had picked up that bag of
money had no idea that Rachel was onto them. But what would happen if the cops and feds got involved? Would the kidnappers run, panic, do something rash?

There was something else here that I should be considering: Did I still trust Rachel? Those photographs had shaken my faith. I didn’t know what to believe anymore. But in the end, I had no choice but to treat those doubts as a distraction. I needed to focus on one goal. Tara. What would give me the best chance of finding out what really happened to her?

“How badly hurt are you?” I asked.

“We can do this, Marc.”

“I’m on my way, then.”

I hung up and looked at Zia.

“You have to help me get out of here.”

Tickner and Regan sat in the doctors’ lounge down the hall. A lounge seemed a strange name for this threadbare dwelling with too much light and a rabbit-ear TV set. There was a minifridge in the corner. Tickner had opened it. There were two brown-bag lunches in it, both with names written on them. It reminded him of elementary school.

Tickner collapsed on a couch with absolutely no springs. “I think we should arrest him now.”

Regan said nothing.

“You were awfully quiet in there, Bob. Something on your mind?”

Regan started scratching the soul patch. “What Seidman said.”

“What about it?”

“Don’t you think he had a point?”

“You mean that stuff about him being innocent?”

“Yes.”

“No, not really. You buy it?”

“I don’t know,” Regan said. “I mean, why would he go through all this with the money? He couldn’t have known we’d learn about that CD and decide to track him with E-ZPass and find him at Fort Tryon Park. And even if he had, why go through all that? Why jump on a moving car? Christ, he’s lucky he wasn’t killed. Again. Which brings us back to the original shooting and our original problem. If he and Rachel Mills did this together, why was he nearly killed?” Regan shook his head. “There are too many holes.”

“Which we are filling in one by one,” Tickner said.

Regan made a yes-no with a head tilt.

“Look at how many we plugged today by learning about Rachel Mills’s involvement,” Tickner said. “We just need to get her in here and sweat them both.”

Regan looked off again.

Tickner shook his head. “What now?”

“The broken window.”

“The one at the crime scene?”

“Yeah.”

“What about it?”

Regan sat up. “Play along with me, okay? Let’s go back to the original murder-kidnapping.”

“At the Seidman house?”

“Right.”

“Okay, go.”

“The window was broken from the outside,” Regan said. “That could be how the perp gained entry to the house.”

“Or,” Tickner added, “Dr. Seidman broke the window to throw us off.”

“Or he had an accomplice do it.”

“Right.”

“But either way, Dr. Seidman would have been in on the broken window, right? If he was involved, I mean.”

“Where are you going with this?”

“Just stay with me, Lloyd. We think Seidman was involved. Ergo, Seidman knew that the window had been broken to make it look like, I don’t know, a random break-in. Agreed?”

“I guess.”

Regan smiled. “Then how come he never mentioned the broken window?”

“What?”

“Read his statement. He remembers eating a granola bar and then—bam—nothing. No sound. No one sneaking up on him. Nothing.” Regan spread his hands. “Why doesn’t he remember hearing the window break?”

“Because he broke it himself to make it look like an intruder.”

“But see, if that’s the case, he would have kept the broken window in his story. Think about it. He breaks the window to convince us the perp broke in and shot him. So what would you say if you were him?”

Now Tickner saw where he was heading. “I’d say, ‘I heard the window break, I turned and bam, the bullets hit me.’ ”

“Exactly. But Seidman did none of that. Why?”

Tickner shrugged. “Maybe he forgot. He was seriously injured.”

“Or maybe—just stay with me—maybe he’s telling the truth.”

The door opened. An exhausted-looking kid in scrubs looked in. He saw the two cops, rolled his eyes, left them alone. Tickner turned back toward Regan. “But wait a second, you’ve caught yourself in a Catch-22.”

“How so?”

“If Seidman didn’t do it—if it really was a perp who broke the window—why didn’t Seidman hear it?”

“Maybe he doesn’t remember. We’ve seen this a million times. A guy getting shot and hurt that seriously loses some time.” Regan smiled, warming up to this theory. “Especially if he saw something that totally shocked him—something he wouldn’t want to remember.”

“Like his wife being stripped down and killed?”

“Like that,” Regan said. “Or maybe something worse.”

“What’s worse?”

A beeping sound came from the corridor. They could hear the nearby nurse’s station. Someone was bitching about a shift time or schedule change.

“We said we’re missing something,” Regan said slowly. “We’ve been saying that from the beginning. But maybe it’s just the opposite. We’ve been
adding
something.”

Tickner frowned.