Three Harlan Coben Novels (63 page)

“Thank God,” she said to them—and the tears started rolling again. “My nightmare is finally over.”

Rachel was rushed to the hospital. I wanted to follow, but the police had other ideas. I spoke to Zia. I asked her to look in on Rachel for me.

The police questioned us for hours. They questioned Verne, Katarina, and me separately and then together. I think they believed us. Lenny was there. Regan and Tickner showed up, but it took some time. They’d been going through Bacard’s files per Lenny’s phone call.

Regan took the lead with me. “Long day, huh, Marc?”

I sat across from him. “Do I look in the mood for chitchat, Detective?”

“The woman goes by the name Lydia Davis. Her real name is Larissa Dane.”

I made a face. “Why does that name sound familiar?”

“She was a child actor.”

“Trixie,” I said, remembering. “On
Family Laughs
.”

“Yep, that’s her. Or at least, that’s what she says. Anyway, she claims this guy—we only know him as Heshy—kept her locked up and abused her. She said he forced her to do things. Your friend Verne thinks it’s all a scam. But that’s not important right now. She claims that she doesn’t know anything about your daughter.”

“How can that be?”

“She says they were just hired hands. That Bacard came to Heshy with this scheme about asking for ransom for a kid they hadn’t kidnapped. Heshy loved the idea. Lot of money—and since they didn’t really have the kid, there was almost no risk.”

“She says they had nothing to do with the shooting at my house?”

“That’s right.”

I looked at Lenny. He saw the problem too. “But they had my gun. The one they used on Katarina’s brother.”

“Yeah, we know. She claims that Bacard gave it to Heshy. To set you up. Heshy shot Pavel and planted the gun so you and Rachel would take the fall.”

“How did they get Tara’s hair for the ransom drop? How did they get her clothes?”

“According to Ms. Dane, Bacard provided them.”

I shook my head. “So Bacard was the one who kidnapped Tara?”

“She claims not to know.”

“How about my sister? How did she get involved?”

“Again she claims it was Bacard. He gave them Stacy’s name as a fall guy. Heshy gave Stacy the money and told her to cash it at a bank. Then he killed her.”

I looked over at Tickner, then back at Regan. “It doesn’t add up.”

“We’re still working on it.”

Lenny said, “I have a question. Why did they come back after a year and a half and try it again?”

“Ms. Dane claims not to know for sure, but she suspects it was simple greed. She says Bacard called and asked if Heshy would want to make another million. He said yes. Going through Bacard’s records, he was clearly in financial trouble. We think she’s right. Bacard simply decided to take another bite of the apple.”

I rubbed my face. My ribs began to ache. “Did you find Bacard’s adoption records?”

Regan glanced at Tickner. “Not yet.”

“How can that be?”

“Look, we just got on this. We’ll find them. We’re going to check every adoption he’s ever made, especially anything involving a female eighteen months ago. If Bacard had Tara adopted, we’ll find out.”

I shook my head again.

“What is it, Marc?”

“That doesn’t make any sense. The guy has a decent thing going with this adoption scam. Why shoot me and Monica and up the ante to kidnapping and murder?”

“We don’t know,” Regan said. “I think we can all agree that there’s
more to the story. But the truth is, the most likely scenario right now is that your sister and an accomplice shot you and Monica and took the baby. She then brought it to Bacard.”

I closed my eyes and replayed it in my head. Could Stacy have really done that? Could she have broken into my house and shot me? I still couldn’t make myself believe. And then I thought of something.

Why hadn’t I heard the window break?

More than that, before I was shot, why hadn’t I heard
anything
? A window break, a doorbell, heck, a door opening. Why hadn’t I heard any of that? The answer, according to Regan, had been that I was blocking. But now I saw that wasn’t it.

“The granola bar,” I said.

“Pardon me?”

I turned to him. “Your theory is that I’m forgetting something, right? Stacy and her accomplice either broke the window or, I don’t know, rang the doorbell. I would have heard either one of those. But I didn’t. I remember eating my granola bar and then going down.”

“Right.”

“But see, I was pretty specific. I had the granola bar in my hand. When you found me, it was on the floor. How much had been eaten?”

“Maybe a bite or two,” Tickner said.

“Then your amnesia theory is wrong. I was standing over the sink eating the granola bar. I remember that. When you found me, that’s what I was doing. There is no time unaccounted for. And if it was my sister, why would she strip Monica, for Chrissake . . . ?” I stopped.

Lenny said, “Marc?”

Did you love her?

I stared straight ahead.

You know who shot you, don’t you, Marc?

Dina Levinsky. I thought about her bizarre visits to the house she’d grown up in. I thought about the two guns—one being mine. I thought about the CD-ROM hidden in the basement, in the spot Dina had told me about. I thought about those pictures taken in front of the hospital. I thought about what Edgar said about Monica seeing a psychiatrist.

And then an awful thought, one so terrible I might indeed have suppressed it, began to surface.

I feigned illness
and excused myself. I went to the bathroom and dialed Edgar’s phone number. My father-in-law himself answered. “Hello?”

“You said Monica was seeing a psychiatrist?”

“Marc? Is that you?” Edgar cleared his throat. “I just heard from the police. Those pissant fools had me convinced that you were behind all this—”

“I don’t have time for that now. I’m still trying to find Tara.”

“What do you need?” Edgar asked.

“Did you ever find out the name of her psychiatrist?”

“No.”

I thought about it. “Is Carson there?”

“Yes.”

“Put him on.”

There was a brief pause. I tapped my foot. Uncle Carson’s rich voice came over the line. “Marc?”

“You knew about those pictures, didn’t you?”

He didn’t reply.

“I checked our accounts. The money didn’t come from us. You paid for the private detective.”

“It had nothing to do with the shooting or kidnapping,” Carson said.

“I think it did. Monica told you the name of her psychiatrist, didn’t she? What was it?”

Again he did not reply.

“I’m trying to find out what happened to Tara.”

“She only saw him twice,” Carson said. “How can he help you?”

“He can’t. His name can.”

“What?”

“Just tell me, yes or no. Was his name Stanley Radio?”

I could hear him breathing.

“Carson?”

“I already spoke to him. He knows nothing—”

But I had already hung up. Carson wouldn’t say any more.

But Dina Levinsky might.

I asked Regan and Tickner if I was under arrest. They said no. I asked Verne if I could still borrow the Camaro.

“No problemo,” Verne said. Then squinting, he added, “Do you need my help?”

I shook my head. “You and Katarina are out of this now. It’s over for you.”

“I’m still here, if you need me.”

“I don’t. Go home, Verne.”

He surprised me with a big hug then. Katarina kissed my cheek. I let go and watched them drive off in the pickup. I headed toward the city. There was heavy traffic at the Lincoln Tunnel. It took me over an hour to get through the tolls. That gave me time to make some phone calls. I learned that Dina Levinsky shared an apartment in Greenwich Village with a friend.

Twenty minutes later, I knocked on her door.

When Eleanor Russell returned from lunch, there was a plain manila envelope on her chair. It was addressed to her boss, Lenny Marcus, and marked
PERSONAL AND CONFIDENTIAL
.

Eleanor had worked with Lenny for eight years. She loved him dearly. Having no family of her own—she and her husband, Saul, who had died three years before, had never been blessed with children—she had become something of a surrogate grandmother to the Marcuses. Eleanor even had photographs of Lenny’s wife, Cheryl, and their four children on her desk.

She studied the envelope and frowned. How had it gotten here? She peeked into Lenny’s office. He looked so harried. That was because Lenny had just returned from a homicide scene. The case involving his
best friend, Dr. Marc Seidman, had exploded back into the headlines. Normally Eleanor would not bother Lenny at a time like this. But the return address . . . well, she thought he should see it for himself.

Lenny was on the phone. He saw her enter and put his hand over the receiver. “I’m kinda busy,” he said.

“This came for you.”

Eleanor handed him the envelope. Lenny almost ignored it. Then Eleanor watched as he spotted the return address. He turned it over, then back again.

The return address simply read,
From a friend of Stacy Seidman.

Lenny put down the phone and tore open the envelope.

I don’t think Dina Levinsky was surprised to see me.

She let me in without a word. The walls were blanketed with her paintings, many hung at odd angles. The effect was dizzying, giving the entire apartment a Salvador Dalí feel. We sat in the kitchen. Dina offered to make tea. I said no. She put her hands on the table. I could see that her fingernails were bitten down past the cuticle. Had they been that way at my house? She seemed different now, sadder somehow. Her hair was straighter. Her eyes were downcast. It was as if she was transforming back to the pitiful girl I had known in elementary school.

“You found the pictures?” she asked.

“Yes.”

Dina closed her eyes. “I should have never led you to them.”

“Why did you?”

“I lied to you before.”

I nodded.

“I’m not married. I don’t enjoy sex. I do have troubles with relationships.” She shrugged. “I even have problems with telling the truth.”

Dina tried to smile. I tried to smile back.

“In therapy we’re taught to confront our fears. The only way to do that is to let the truth in, no matter how much it hurts. But see, I wasn’t even sure what the truth was. So I tried to lead you there.”

“You were back in the house before the night I saw you, weren’t you?”

She nodded.

“And that’s how you met Monica?”

“Yes.”

I kept going. “You two became friends?”

“We had something in common.”

“That being?”

Dina looked up at me, and I saw the pain.

“Abuse?” I said.

She nodded.

“Edgar sexually abused her?”

“No, not Edgar. Her mother. And it wasn’t sexual. It was more physical and emotional. The woman was very ill. You knew that, right?”

“I guess I did,” I said.

“Monica needed help.”

“So you introduced her to your therapist?”

“I tried. I mean, I set up an appointment for her with Dr. Radio. But it didn’t work out.”

“How come?”

“Monica was not the sort of woman who believed in therapy. She thought that she could best handle her own problems.”

I nodded. I knew. “At the house,” I said, “you asked me if I loved Monica.”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“She thought you didn’t.” Dina put her finger in her mouth, searching for a sliver of nail to bite. There was none. “Of course, she thought herself unworthy of love. Like me. But there was a difference.”

“What was that?”

“Monica felt that there was one person who could love her forever.”

I knew the answer here. “Tara.”

“Yes. She trapped you, Marc. You probably realize that. It wasn’t an accident. She wanted to get pregnant.”

Sadly, I was not surprised. Again I tried, as in surgery, to put the pieces together. “So Monica believed that I no longer loved her. She was afraid I wanted a divorce. She was troubled. She was crying at night.” I paused. I was saying this as much for my benefit as Dina’s. I didn’t want to keep following this train of thought, but there was no way to stop me. “She’s fragile. Her mind is frayed. And then she hears that phone message from Rachel.”

“That’s your ex-girlfriend?”

“Yes.”

“You still keep her picture in your desk drawer. Monica knew about that too. You keep mementos of her.”

I closed my eyes, remembering the Steely Dan CD in Monica’s car. College music. Music I had listened to with Rachel. I said, “So she hired a private detective to see if I was having an affair. He took those photographs.”

Dina nodded.

“So now she has proof. I’m going to leave her for another woman. I’m going to claim she’s unstable. I’ll say she’s an unfit mother. I’m a well-respected doctor, and Rachel has connections with law enforcement. We’d end up with custody of the only thing that really mattered to Monica. Tara.”

Dina rose from the table. She washed out a glass in the sink and then filled it with water. I thought again about what had happened that morning. Why hadn’t I heard the window break? Why hadn’t I heard the doorbell ring? Why hadn’t I heard the intruder enter?

Simple. Because there was no intruder.

Tears filled my eyes. “So what did she do, Dina?”

“You know, Marc.”

I squeezed my eyes shut.

“I didn’t think she’d really do it,” Dina said. “I thought she was just acting out, you know? Monica was so despondent. When she asked me if I knew how to get a gun, I thought she wanted to kill herself. I never thought . . .”

“She would shoot me?”

The air was suddenly heavy. Exhaustion overwhelmed me. I was too tired to cry anymore. But there was still more to unearth here. “You said she asked you to help her get a gun?”

Dina wiped her eyes and nodded.

“Did you?”

“No. I wouldn’t know how to get one. She said you had a gun at home, but she didn’t want something that could trace back. So she went to the only person she knew with seedy enough contacts to help.”

I saw it now. “My sister.”

“Yes.”

“Did Stacy get her a gun?”

“No, I don’t think so.”

“What makes you say that?”

“The morning you were both shot, Stacy came to see me. See, Monica and I had come up with the idea of going to Stacy together. So Monica mentioned me to her. She came and asked what Monica needed a gun for. I didn’t tell her because, well, I really wasn’t all that sure. Stacy ran out. I was in a panic. I wanted to ask Dr. Radio what to do, but my next session was that afternoon. I figured it could wait.”

“And then?”

“I still don’t know what happened, Marc. That’s the truth. But I know Monica shot you.”

“How?”

“I got scared. So I called your house. Monica answered. She was crying. She told me you were dead. She kept saying, ‘What have I done, what have I done?’ And then suddenly she hung up. I called back. But no one answered. I really didn’t know what to do. Then the TV had the story. When they said your daughter was missing . . . I didn’t understand. I thought they’d find her right away. But they never did. And I never heard anything about those pictures either. I hoped, I don’t know, I hoped leading you to those photographs might shed some light on what really happened. Not so much for the two of you. But for your daughter.”

“Why did you wait so long?”

Her eyes closed and for a moment, I thought that she might be praying. “I had a bad spell, Marc. Two weeks after you were shot, I was hospitalized with a breakdown. The truth is, I was so far gone I forgot about it. Or maybe I wanted to forget, I don’t know.”

My cell phone rang. It was Lenny. I picked it up.

“Where are you?” he asked.

“With Dina Levinsky.”

“Get over to Newark Airport. Terminal C. Now.”

“What’s going on?”

“I think,” Lenny said. Then he slowed down, caught his breath. “I think I may know where we can find Tara.”