Three Harlan Coben Novels (91 page)

T
he gun was in Grace’s ankle holster.

She started up the car. The Asian man sat next to her. “Head up the road and turn left.”

Grace was scared, of course, but there was an odd calmness too. Something about being in the eye of the storm, she guessed. Something was happening. There was a potential to find answers here. She tried to prioritize.

First: Get him far away from the children.

That was the number one thing here. Emma and Max would be fine. The teachers stayed outside until all the children were picked up. When she didn’t show, they would give an impatient sigh and bring them to the office. That old battleaxe of a receptionist, Mrs. Dinsmont, would gleefully cluck her tongue about the neglectful mother and make the children wait. There had been an incident about six months ago when Grace got caught up by construction and arrived late. She’d been wracked with guilt, picturing Max waiting like a scene from
Oliver Twist
, but when she got there he was in the office coloring a picture of a dinosaur. He wanted to stay.

The school was out of sight now. “Turn right.”

Grace obeyed.

Her captor, if that’s what you wanted to call him, had said that he was taking her to Jack. She did not know if that was true or not, but she somehow suspected that it was. She was sure, of course, that he
was not doing this out of the goodness of his heart. She had been warned. She had gotten too close. He was dangerous—she didn’t need to see the gun in his waistband to know that. There was a crackle around him, an electricity, and you knew, just knew, that this man always left devastation in his path.

But Grace desperately needed to see where this led. She had her gun in the ankle holster. If she stayed smart, if she was careful, she would have the element of surprise. That was something. So for now she would go along. There was really no alternative anyway.

She was worried about working the gun and the holster. Would the gun come out smoothly? Would the gun really just fire when she pulled the trigger? Did you really just aim and pull? And even if she could get the gun from the holster in time—something doubtful with the way this guy was watching her—what would she do? Point it at him and demand he take her to Jack?

She couldn’t imagine that working.

She couldn’t just shoot him either. Forget the ethical dilemma or the question of if she’d be brave enough to pull the trigger. He, this man, might be her only connection to Jack. If she killed him, where would that leave her? She’d have silenced her only solid clue, maybe her only chance, to find Jack.

Better to wait and play it out. As if she had a choice.

“Who are you?” Grace asked.

Total stone face. He took hold of her purse and emptied the contents into his lap. He went through it, sifting and tossing items into the backseat. He found her cell phone, removed the battery, threw it in the back.

She kept peppering him with questions—where is my husband, what do you want with us—but he continued to ignore her. When they reached a stoplight, the man did something that she did not expect.

He rested his hand on her bad knee.

“Your leg was damaged,” he said.

Grace was not sure how to respond to this. His touch was light, almost feathery. And then without warning his fingers dug down with steel talons. They actually burrowed beneath the kneecap. Grace
buckled. The tips of the man’s fingers disappeared into the hollow where the knee meets the shinbone. The pain was so sudden, so enormous, that Grace could not even scream. She reached out and grabbed his fingers, tried to pry them out of her knee, but there was absolutely no give. His hand felt like a concrete block.

His voice was barely a whisper. “If I dig in a little more and then pull . . .”

Her head was swimming. She was close to losing consciousness.

“ . . . I could tear your kneecap right off.”

When the light turned green, he let go. Grace nearly collapsed in relief. The whole incident had probably taken less than five seconds. The man looked at her. There was the smallest hint of a smile on his face.

“I’d like you to stop talking now, okay?”

Grace nodded.

He faced forward. “Keep driving.”

• • •

Perlmutter called in the APB. Charlaine Swain had had the good sense to get both the make and license plate. The car was registered to Grace Lawson. No surprise there. Perlmutter was in an unmarked car now, heading toward the school. Scott Duncan was with him.

“So who is this Eric Wu?” Duncan asked.

Perlmutter debated what to tell him but saw no reason to hold this back. “To date we know he broke into a house, assaulted the owner in such a way as to leave him temporarily paralyzed, shot another man, and my guess is, he killed Rocky Conwell, the guy who was following Lawson.”

Duncan had no response.

Two other police cars were already on the scene. Perlmutter did not like that—marked cars at a school. They’d had the good sense, at least, to not use their sirens. That was something. The parents picking up offspring reacted in two ways. Some hurried their kids to their cars, hands on their shoulders, shielding them as though from
gunfire. Others let curiosity rule the day. They walked over, oblivious or in a state of denial that there could be any danger in so innocent a setting.

Charlaine Swain was there. Perlmutter and Duncan hurried toward her. A young uniformed cop named Dempsey was asking her questions and taking notes. Perlmutter shooed him away and asked, “What happened?”

Charlaine told him about coming to school, keeping an eye out for Grace Lawson because of what he, Perlmutter, had said. She told him about seeing Eric Wu with Grace.

“There was no overt threat?” he asked.

Charlaine said, “No.”

“So she might have gone him with him voluntarily.”

Charlaine Swain flicked a glance at Scott Duncan, then back to Perlmutter. “No. She didn’t go voluntarily.”

“How do you know?”

“Because Grace came alone to pick up her kids,” Charlaine said.

“So?”

“So she wouldn’t just voluntarily leave them like that. Look, I couldn’t call you guys right away when I saw him. He was able to make me freeze from across a schoolyard.”

Perlmutter said, “I’m not sure I understand.”

“If Wu could do that to me from that far away,” Charlaine said, “imagine what he’d be able to do to Grace Lawson when he was right next to her, whispering in her ear.”

Another uniformed officer named Jackson came sprinting over to Perlmutter. His eyes were wide and Perlmutter could see he was trying everything he could not to panic. The parents picked up on it too. They took a step away.

“We found something,” Jackson said.

“What?”

He leaned in closer so no one would overhear. “A van parked two blocks away. I think you should come see this.”

• • •

She should use the gun now.

Grace’s knee throbbed. It felt as if someone had set off a bomb inside the joint. Her eyes were wet from holding back tears. She wondered if she’d be able to walk when they stopped.

She sneaked glances at the man who had hurt her so. Whenever she did, he was watching her, that bemused look still on his face. She tried to think, tried to organize her thoughts, but she kept flashing back to his hand on her knee.

He had been so casual about causing her such pain. It would have been one thing if he’d been emotional about it, one way or the other, if he’d been moved to either ecstasy or revulsion, but there had been nothing there. Like hurting someone was paperwork. No strain, no sweat. His boast, if you want to call it that, had not been idle: If he’d so desired, he could have twisted off her kneecap like a bottle top.

They had crossed the state line and were in New York now. She was on Interstate 287 heading toward the Tappan Zee Bridge. Grace did not dare speak. Her mind, naturally enough, kept going back to the children. Emma and Max would have come out of the school by now. They would have looked for her. Would they have been brought to the office? Cora had seen Grace in the schoolyard. So had several other mothers, Grace was sure. Would they say or do something?

This was all irrelevant and, more than that, a waste of mental energy. Nothing she could do about it. Time to concentrate on the task at hand.

Think about the gun.

Grace tried to rehearse in her mind how it would go. She would reach down with both hands. She would pull her cuff up with her left and grab the weapon with her right. How was it strapped in? Grace tried to remember. There was a strip covering the top, wasn’t there? She had snapped it into place. It kept the gun secure, so it wouldn’t jerk around. She’d have to unsnap that. If she just tried to pull the gun free, it would get caught.

Okay, good. Remember that: Unsnap first. Then pull.

She thought about timing. The man was incredibly strong. She had seen that. He probably had a fair amount of experience with
violence. She would have to wait for an opportunity. First—and this was obvious—she couldn’t be driving when she made her move. They would either need to be at a stoplight or parked or . . . or better, wait until they were getting out of the car. That might work.

Second, the man would have to be distracted. He watched her a lot. He was also armed. He had a weapon in his waistband. He would be able to draw it out far faster than she could. So she had to make sure that he was not looking at her—that his attention was, in some way, diverted.

“Take this exit.”

The sign read
ARMONK
. They had only been on 287 for maybe three or four miles. They were not going to be crossing the Tappan Zee Bridge. She had thought that perhaps the bridge would have provided another opportunity. There were tollbooths there. She could have tried to escape or somehow signal the toll worker, though she couldn’t imagine that working. Her captor would be watching her if they’d pulled up to the tollbooth. He would, she bet, have put his hand on her knee.

She veered to the right and up the ramp. She began to work it out in her head again. When you really thought about it, Grace’s best bet would be to wait until they reached their destination. For one thing, if indeed he really was taking her to Jack, well, Jack would be there, right? That made some sense.

But more than that, when they stopped the car, they would both have to get out. Obvious, yes, but it would provide an opportunity. He would get out on his side. She would get out on hers.

This could be her diversion.

Again she started rehearsing it in her head. She would open the car door. As she swung her legs out, she’d pull up the cuff. Her legs would be on the ground and blocked by the car. He wouldn’t see. If she timed it right, he would be getting out on his side of the car at the same time. He’d turn his back. She’d be able to pull out the weapon.

“Take the next right,” he said. “And then the second left.”

They were moving through a town Grace didn’t know. There
were more trees here than in Kasselton. The houses looked older, more lived-in, more private.

“Pull into the driveway over there. Third on the left.”

Grace’s hands stayed tight on the wheel. She pulled into the driveway. He told her to stop in front of the house.

She took a breath and waited for him to open the door and get out.

• • •

Perlmutter had never seen anything like it.

The guy in the van, an overweight man with a standard issue mafiosa sweat suit, was dead. His last few moments had not been pleasant. The big man’s neck was, well, flat, totally flat, as if a steam-roller had somehow managed to roll over only the man’s throat, leaving his head and torso intact.

Daley, never one at a loss for words, said, “Serious grossness.” Then he added, “He looks familiar.”

“Richie Jovan,” Perlmutter said. “Works low level for Carl Vespa.”

“Vespa?” Daley repeated. “He’s involved in this?”

Perlmutter shrugged. “This has to be Wu’s handiwork.”

Scott Duncan was turning white. “What the hell is going on?”

“It’s simple, Mr. Duncan.” Perlmutter turned to face him. “Rocky Conwell worked for Indira Khariwalla, a private investigator you hired. The same man—Eric Wu—murdered Conwell, killed this poor schmuck, and was last seen driving away from that school with Grace Lawson.” Perlmutter moved toward him. “You want to tell us what’s going on now?”

Another police car screeched to a stop. Veronique Baltrus came flying out. “Got it.”

“What?”

“Eric Wu at yenta-match.com. He was using the name Stephen Fleisher.” She sprinted over to them, the raven hair tied back in a tight bun. “Yenta-match sets up Jewish widows and widowers. Wu had three online flirtations going on at the same time. One woman is from Washington, DC. Another lives in Wheeling, West Virginia. And the last one, a Beatrice Smith, resides in Armonk, New York.”

Perlmutter broke into a run. No doubt, he thought. That was where Wu had gone. Scott Duncan followed. The ride to Armonk would take no more than twenty minutes.

“Call the Armonk Police Department,” he shouted to Baltrus. “Tell them to send every available unit right away.”

G
race waited for the man to get out.

The lot was wooded so that the house was hard to see from the road. There were cathedral points and lots of deck space. Grace could see an aging barbecue. There were a string of lights, the old lantern kind, but the lanterns were weathered and torn. There was a rusted swing set in the back, like ruins from another era. There had been parties here once. A family. People who liked to entertain friends. The house had the feel of a ghost town, as if you expected tumbleweeds to roll past.

“Turn off the ignition.”

Grace ran it over again. Open the door. Swing the legs out. Pull out the gun. Take aim . . .

And then what? Tell him to put his hands up? Just shoot him in the chest? What?

She flicked off the ignition and waited for him to get out first. He reached for the door handle. She readied herself. His eyes were on the front door of the house. She slid her hand down a little.

Should she go for it now?

No. Wait until he starts getting out. Don’t hesitate. Any hesitation and she would lose the edge.

The man stopped with his hand on the handle. Then he turned around, made a fist, and hit Grace so hard in the lower ribs she
thought the whole cage would cave in like a bird’s nest. There was a thud and a crack.

Pain exploded across Grace’s side.

She thought that her whole body would simply give out. The man grabbed her head with one hand. With the other he traced his hand down the side of her rib cage. His index finger came to rest on the spot he’d just hit, at the bottom of the rib cage.

His voice was gentle. “Please tell me how you got that picture.”

She opened her mouth but nothing came out. He nodded as if he’d expected that. His hand dropped off her. He opened the car door and got out. Grace was dizzy from the pain.

The gun, she thought. Get the goddamn gun!

But he was already on the other side of the car. He opened her door. His hand took hold of her neck, his thumb on one side, his index finger on the other. He squeezed the pressure points and started to lift. Grace tried to stay with him. The movement jarred her ribs. It felt like someone had jammed a screwdriver between two bones and was jerking it up and down.

He dragged her out by the neck. Every step was a new adventure in pain. She tried not to breathe. When she did, even that slight expansion of the ribs made the tendons feel like they were being freshly ripped. He yanked her toward the house. The front door was unlocked. He turned the knob, pushed it open, and tossed her inside. She fell hard, nearly passing out.

“Please tell me how you got that picture.”

He slowly moved toward her. Fear cleared her head. She talked fast.

“I picked up a packet of film at the Photomat,” she began.

He nodded in the way someone does when they are not listening. He kept coming closer. Grace kept talking and tried to scoot back. There was nothing on his face, a man going about a mundane task, planting seeds, hammering a nail, putting in a buy order, whittling wood.

He was on her now. She tried to struggle but he was ridiculously strong. He lifted her enough to flip her onto her stomach. The ribs banged against the floor. A different pain, a new pain, seared through her. Her vision started going hazy. They were still in the front foyer.
He straddled her back. She tried to kick, but there was nothing behind it. He pinned her down.

Grace couldn’t move.

“Please tell me how you got that picture.”

She felt the tears coming, but she would not let herself cry. Stupid. Macho. But she would not cry. She said it again, about going to the Photomat, and getting that packet. Still straddling her back, his knees on the other side of her hips, he put his index finger on the damaged bottom of the rib cage. Grace tried to buck. He found the spot where it hurt the most and rested the tip of his finger right there. For a moment he did not do anything. She bucked more. She flung her head back and forth. She flailed. He just waited a second. Then another.

And then he jammed the finger between two broken ribs.

Grace screamed.

The voice unchanged: “Please tell me how you got that picture.”

Now she did cry. He let her. She started explaining again, changing her words, hoping it would sound more believable, more convincing. He did not say a word.

He rested the index finger on the damaged rib again.

That was when a cell phone rang.

The man sighed. He put his hands on her back and lifted himself off. The ribs screamed again. Grace heard a whimpering sound and realized that it was coming from her. She made herself stop. She managed to glance over her shoulder. He kept his eyes on her, took the phone from his pocket, snapped it open.

“Yes.”

One thought in her head: Go for the gun.

He stared down at her. She almost didn’t care. Going for the gun right now would be suicide, but her thoughts were base—escape the pain. Whatever the cost. Whatever the risk. Escape the pain.

The man kept the phone by his ear.

Emma and Max. Their faces floated toward her in something of a haze. Grace encouraged the vision. And something odd happened then.

Lying there, still on her stomach, her cheek pressed to the floor,
Grace smiled. Actually smiled. Not from feelings of maternal warmth, though that might be part of it, but with specific memory.

When she was pregnant with Emma, she told Jack that she wanted to do natural childbirth and that she did not want to take any drugs. She and Jack dutifully attended Lamaze class every Monday night for three months. They practiced breathing techniques. Jack would sit behind her and rub her belly. He would go “hee hee hoo hoo.” She would copy him. Jack even bought a shirt that read “Coach” on the front and “Team Healthy Baby” on the back. He wore a whistle around his neck.

When the contractions began, they rushed to the hospital all prepared, all ready for their hard work to pay off dividends. Once there, Grace felt a stronger contraction. They started doing their breathing. Jack would go “hee hee hoo hoo.” Grace would follow suit. It worked wonderfully well right up until the very moment Grace started to, well, started to feel pain.

Then the insanity of their plan—when did “breathing” become a euphemism for “painkiller”?—became apparent. It washed away the macho idiocy of “taking the hurt,” a concept idiotically male in the first place, and reason, calm reason, finally came to her.

She reached out then, grabbed a part of Jack’s anatomy, pulled him close so he could hear her. She told him to find an anesthesiologist. Now. Jack said he would, the moment she released said anatomy. She obliged. He ran and found an anesthesiologist. But by then it was too late. The contractions were too far along.

And the reason Grace was smiling now, some eight years after the fact, was that the pain that day was at least this bad, probably worse. She had taken it. For her daughter. And then, miraculously, she had been willing to risk it again for Max.

So bring it on, she thought.

Maybe she was delirious. Nothing maybe about it. She was. But she didn’t care. The smile stayed in place. Grace could see Emma’s beautiful face. She saw Max’s face too. She blinked and they were gone. But that didn’t matter anymore. She looked at the cruel man on the phone.

Bring it on, you sick son of a bitch. Bring it on.

He finished with his phone call. He moved back toward her. She was still on her stomach. He straddled her again. Grace closed her eyes. Tears squeezed out of them. She waited.

The man took hold of both of her hands and pulled them behind her back. He wrapped duct tape around them and stood. He pulled her so that she was on her knees, her hands bound behind her back. The ribs ached but the pain was manageable for now.

She looked up at him.

He said, “Don’t move.”

He turned away and left her alone then. She listened. She heard a door open and then the sound of footsteps.

He was heading down into the basement.

She was alone.

Grace struggled to free her arms, but they were wrapped tightly. No way to reach the gun. She debated trying to stand and run, but that would be futile at best. The position of her arms, the searing pain in her ribs, and of course, the fact that she was a major gimp under the best of circumstances—add it up and it didn’t look like a sound alternative.

But could she slip her hands under herself?

If she could do that, if she could get her hands, even bound, to the front of her body, she could go for the gun.

It was a plan.

Grace had no idea how long he’d be gone—not long, she figured—but she had to chance it.

Her shoulders rolled back in their sockets. Her arms straightened. Every movement—every breath—set the ribs afire. She fought through it. She stood and bent at the waist. She forced her hands down.

Progress.

Still standing, she bent the knees and squirmed. She was getting close. Footsteps again.

Damn, he was heading back up the stairs.

She was caught in the middle, her bound hands under her buttocks.

Hurry, dammit. One way or the other. Put the hands back behind her or keep going.

She chose to keep going. Keep going forward.

This was going to end here and now.

The footsteps were slow. Heavier. It sounded like he was dragging something with him.

Grace pushed harder. Her hands were stuck. She bent more at the waist and knees. The pain made her head swim. She closed her eyes and swayed. She pulled up, willing to dislocate her shoulders if it would help her get through.

The footsteps stopped. A door closed. He was here.

She forced her arms through. It worked. They came out in front of her.

But it was too late. The man was back. He stood in the room, not five feet from her. He saw what she had done. But Grace did not notice that. She was, in fact, not looking at the man’s face at all. She stared openmouthed at the man’s right hand.

The man let go. And there, falling to the floor by his side, was Jack.