Three Harlan Coben Novels (96 page)

“So you had to silence Geri. You’re a criminal defense attorney. You repped criminals. And one of them helped you find a hit man named Monte Scanlon.”

Sandra said, “You can’t prove any of this.”

“The years pass,” Grace went on. “My husband is now Jack Lawson.” Grace stopped and remembered what Carl Vespa had said about Jack Lawson seeking her out. Something there still didn’t mesh. “We have children now. I tell Jack I want to go back stateside. He doesn’t want to. I push him on it. We have kids. I want to be back in the United States. That’s my fault, I guess. I wish he had just told me the truth—”

“And how would you have reacted, Grace?”

She thought about it. “I don’t know.”

Sandra Koval smiled. “Neither, I guess, did he.”

It was, Grace knew, a fair point, but this was not the time for that sort of contemplation. She pressed on. “We ended up moving to New York. But I don’t know what happened next, Sandra, so you’re going to have to help me with this part. I think what with the anniversary and with Wade Larue coming free, Sheila Lambert—or maybe even Jack—decided it was time to tell the truth. Jack never slept well. Maybe they both needed to ease their guilt, I don’t know. You couldn’t go along with that, of course. They might be granted forgiveness but not you. You had Geri Duncan killed.”

“And again I ask: The proof of that is . . . ?”

“We’ll get to that,” Grace said. “You’ve lied to me from the start, but you did tell the truth about one thing.”

“Oh goodie.” The sarcasm was thick now. “What was that?”

“When Jack saw that old picture in the kitchen, he did look up Geri Duncan on the computer. He found out she’d died in a fire, but
he suspected it was no accident. So he called you. That was the nine-minute phone call. You were afraid he was about to crack, so you knew that you had to strike fast. You told Jack that you’d explain everything but not over the phone. You set up a meet off the New York Thruway. Then you called Larue and told him that this would be a perfect time to get his revenge. You figured Larue would have Wu kill Jack, not hold him like that.”

“I don’t have to listen to this.”

But Grace did not stop. “My big mistake was showing you the photograph that first day. Jack didn’t know I’d made a copy. There it was, a photograph of your dead brother and his new identity for all the world to see. You needed to keep me quiet too. So you sent that guy, the one with my daughter’s lunchbox, to scare me off. But I didn’t listen. So you used Wu. He was supposed to find out what I knew and then kill me.”

“Okay, I’ve had enough.” Sandra Koval stood. “Get out of my office.”

“Nothing to add?”

“I’m still waiting for proof.”

“I don’t really have any,” Grace said. “But maybe you’ll confess.”

She laughed at that one. “What, you don’t think I know you’re wired? I haven’t said or done one thing that’ll incriminate me.”

“Look out the window, Sandra.”

“What?”

“The window. Look down at the sidewalk. Come on, I’ll show you.”

Grace limped toward the huge picture window and pointed down. Sandra Koval moved warily, as if she expected that Grace would push her through it. But that wasn’t it. That wasn’t it at all.

When Sandra Koval looked down, a small gasp escaped her lips. On the sidewalk below them, pacing like two lions, were Carl Vespa and Cram. Grace turned away and started for the door.

“Where are you going?” Sandra asked.

“Oh,” Grace said. She wrote something down on a piece of paper.
“This is Captain Perlmutter’s phone number. You have your choice. You can call and leave with him. Or you can take your chances with the sidewalk.”

She put the piece of paper on the conference table. And then, without looking back, Grace left the room.

S
andra Koval chose to call Captain Stuart Perlmutter. She then lawyered up. Hester Crimstein, the legend herself, was going to represent her. It would be a tough case to make, but the DA thought, because of certain developments, that he could do it.

One of those developments was the return of Allaw’s redheaded member, Sheila Lambert. When Sheila read about the arrest—and the media appeal for her help—she came forward. The man who shot her husband fit the description of the man who threatened Grace at the supermarket. His name was Martin Brayboy. He’d been caught and had agreed to testify for the prosecution.

Sheila Lambert also told prosecutors that Shane Alworth had been at the concert that night but that he had decided at the last minute not to go backstage and confront Jimmy X. Sheila Lambert wasn’t sure why he’d changed his mind, but she speculated that Shane realized John Lawson was too high, too wired, too willing to snap.

Grace was supposed to find comfort in that, but she’s not sure she did.

Captain Stuart Perlmutter had hooked up with Scott Duncan’s old boss, Linda Morgan, the U.S. attorney. They managed to turn one of the men from Carl Vespa’s inner circle. Rumor has it they’ll be arresting him soon, though it will be hard to nail him on Jimmy X’s murder. Cram called Grace one afternoon. He told her
Vespa wasn’t fighting back. He stayed in bed a lot. “It’s like watching a slow death,” he told her. She didn’t really want to hear it.

Charlaine Swain brought Mike home from the hospital. They returned to their regularly scheduled lives. Mike is back at work. They watch TV together now instead of in separate rooms. Mike still falls asleep early. They’ve upped their lovemaking somewhat, but it’s all too self-conscious. Charlaine and Grace have become close friends. Charlaine never complains but Grace can see the desperation. Something, Grace knows, will soon give.

Freddy Sykes is still recuperating. He put his house up for sale and is buying a condo in Fair Lawn, New Jersey.

Cora remained Cora. Enough said on that subject.

Evelyn and Paul Alworth, Jack’s—or in this case, she should say, Shane’s—mother and brother, have also come forward. Over the years Jack had used the trust money to pay for Paul’s schooling. When he started working with Pentocol Pharmaceuticals, Jack moved his mother into that condominium development so they could be closer. They had lunch together at the condo at least once a week. Both Evelyn and Paul wanted very much to be a part of the children’s lives—they were, after all, Emma and Max’s grandmother and uncle—but they understood that it would be best to take it slow.

As for Emma and Max, they handled the tragedy in very different ways.

Max likes to talk about his father. He wants to know where Daddy is, what heaven is like, if Daddy really sees them. He wants to be assured that his father can still observe the key events of his young life. Grace tries to answer him the best she can—tries to sell it, as it were—but her words have the stilted hollow of the dubious. Max wants Grace to make up “Jenny Jenkins” rhymes with him in the tub, like Jack used to do, and when she does, Max laughs and he sounds so much like his father that Grace thinks her heart might explode right then and there.

Emma, her father’s princess, never talks about Jack. She does not ask questions. She does not look at photographs or reminisce. Grace tries to facilitate her daughter’s needs, but she is never sure what
approach to take. Psychiatrists talk about opening up. Grace, who has suffered her share of tragedies, is not so sure. There is, she’s learned, something to be said for denial, for severing and compartmentalizing.

Strangely enough, Emma seems happy. She’s doing well in school. She has lots of friends. But Grace knows better. Emma never writes poetry anymore. She won’t even look at her journal. She insists now on sleeping with her door shut. Grace stands outside her daughter’s bedroom at night, often very late, and sometimes she thinks she hears soft sobs. In the morning, after Emma goes to school, Grace checks her daughter’s room.

Her pillow is always wet.

People naturally assume that if Jack were still alive, Grace would have a lot of questions for him. That’s true, but she no longer cares about the details of what a stoned, scared kid of twenty did in the face of that devastation and aftermath. In hindsight he should have told her. But then again suppose he had? Suppose Jack had told her right in the beginning? Or a month into their relationship? A year? How would she have reacted? Would she have stayed? She thinks about Emma and Max, about the simple fact that they are here, and the road untraveled brings a shiver.

So late at night, when Grace lies alone in their too-large bed and talks to Jack, feeling very strange because, really, she doesn’t believe he’s listening, her questions are more basic: Max wants to sign up for the Kasselton traveling soccer team, but isn’t he too young for that kind of commitment? The school wants to put Emma in an accelerated English program, but will that put too much pressure on her? Should we still go to Disney World in February, without you, or will that be too painful a reminder? And what, Jack, should I do about those damn tears on Emma’s pillow?

Questions like that.

Scott Duncan came by a week after Sandra’s arrest. When she opened the door, he said, “I found something.”

“What?”

“This was in Geri’s stuff,” Duncan said.

He handed her a beat-up cassette. There was no label on it but faintly, in black ink, someone had written:
ALLAW
.

They moved silently into the den. Grace stuck the cassette in her player and pressed the play button.

“Invisible Ink” was the third song.

There were similarities to “Pale Ink.” Would a court of law have found Jimmy guilty of plagiarism? It would be a close call, but Grace figured that the answer, after all these years, was probably no. There were plenty of songs that sounded alike. There was also a fine line between influence and plagiarism. “Pale Ink,” it seemed to her, probably straddled that blurry line.

So much that went wrong did—straddled a blurry line, that is.

“Scott?”

He did not turn toward her.

“Don’t you think it’s time we cleared the air?”

He nodded slowly.

She was not sure how to put this. “When you found out your sister was murdered, you investigated with a passion. You left your job. You went all out.”

“Yes.”

“It wouldn’t have been hard to find out she had an old boyfriend.”

“Not hard at all,” Duncan agreed.

“And you would have found out that his name was Shane Alworth.”

“I knew about Shane before all this. They dated for six months. But I thought Geri had died in a fire. There was no reason to follow up with him.”

“Right. But now, after you talked to Monte Scanlon, you did.”

“Yes,” he said. “It was the first thing I did.”

“You learned that he’d disappeared right around the time of your sister’s murder.”

“Right.”

“And that made you suspicious.”

“To put it mildly.”

“You probably, I don’t know, checked his old college records, his
old high school records even. You talked to his mom. It wouldn’t have taken much. Not when you’re looking for it.”

Scott Duncan nodded.

“So you knew, before we even met, that Jack was Shane Alworth.”

“Yes,” he said. “I knew.”

“You suspected him of killing your sister?”

Duncan smiled, but there was no joy in it. “A man is dating your sister. He breaks up with her. She’s murdered. He changes identity and disappears for fifteen years.” He shrugged. “What would you think?”

Grace nodded. “You told me you like to shake the cages. That was the way to make progress in a case.”

“Right.”

“And you knew that you couldn’t just ask Jack about your sister. You had nothing on him.”

“Right again.”

“So,” she said, “you shook the cage.”

Silence.

“I checked with Josh at the Photomat,” Grace said.

“Ah. How much did you pay him?”

“A thousand dollars.”

Duncan snorted. “I only paid him five hundred.”

“To put that picture in my envelope.”

“Yes.”

The song changed. Allaw was now singing a song about voices and wind. Their sound was raw, but there was potential there too.

“You cast suspicion on Cora to distract me from pressuring Josh.”

“Yes.”

“You insisted I go with you to see Mrs. Alworth. You wanted to see her reaction when she saw her grandchildren.”

“More cage shaking,” he agreed. “Did you see the look in her eyes when she saw Emma and Max?”

She had. She just hadn’t known what it meant or why she ended up living in a condo right on Jack’s route to work. Now, of course, she did. “And because you were forced to take a leave, you couldn’t
use the FBI for surveillance. So you hired a private detective, the one who used Rocky Conwell. And you put that camera in our house. If you were going to shake the cage, you’d need to see how your suspect would react.”

“All true.”

She thought of the end result. “A lot of people died because of what you did.”

“I was investigating my sister’s murder. You can’t expect me to apologize for that.”

Blame, she thought again. So much of it to go around. “You could have told me.”

“No. No, Grace, I could never trust you.”

“You said our alliance was temporary.”

He looked at her. There was something dark there now. “That,” he said, “was a lie. We never had an alliance.”

She sat up and turned the music down.

“You don’t remember the massacre, do you, Grace?”

“That’s not uncommon,” she said. “It’s not amnesia or anything like that. I was hit so hard in the head I was in a coma.”

“Head trauma,” he said with a nod. “I know all about it. I’ve seen in it lots of cases. The Central Park jogger, for one. Most cases, like yours, you don’t even remember the days before it.”

“So?”

“So how did you get into the front pit that night?”

The question, coming out of nowhere like that, made her sit up. She searched his face for a give. There was none. “What?”

“Ryan Vespa, well, his father scalped the ticket for four hundred bucks. The members of Allaw got them from Jimmy himself. The only way to get up there was to shell out a ton of dough or know someone.” He leaned forward. “How did you get into that front pit, Grace?”

“My boyfriend got tickets.”

“That would be Todd Woodcroft? The one who never visited you at the hospital?”

“Yes.”

“You sure about that? Because before you said you don’t remember.”

She opened her mouth and then closed it. He leaned closer.

“Grace, I talked to Todd Woodcroft. He didn’t go to the concert.”

Something inside her chest lurched to the side. Her body went cold.

“Todd didn’t visit you because you’d broken up with him two days before the show. He thought it’d be weird. And you know what, Grace? Shane Alworth broke up with my sister on that same day. Geri never went to the concert. So who do you think Shane took instead?”

Grace shivered and felt the tremor spread. “I don’t understand.”

He pulled out the photograph. “This is the original Polaroid I had blown up and put into your envelope. My sister wrote the date on the back. The picture was taken the day before the concert.”

She shook her head.

“That mystery woman on the far right, the one we can barely see? You thought it was Sandra Koval. Well, maybe, Grace—just maybe—that’s you.”

“No . . .”

“And maybe, while we’re looking for more people to blame, maybe we should wonder about the pretty girl who distracted Gordon MacKenzie so the others could get to Jimmy X. We know it wasn’t my sister or Sheila Lambert or Sandra Koval.”

Grace kept shaking her head, but then she flashed back to that day at the beach, the first time she laid eyes on Jack, that feeling, that instant grab of the gut. Where had that come from? It was the kind of thing you feel . . .

. . . when you’ve met someone before.

The strangest sort of déjà-vu. The kind where you’ve already connected with someone, gotten that first head rush of infatuation. You hold hands, and when the turmoil begins, there’s that stomach-dropping feel of his hand slipping from yours. . . .

“No,” Grace said, more firmly now. “You got it wrong. It can’t be. I’d have remembered that.”

Scott Duncan nodded. “You’re probably right.”

He stood and popped the cassette out of the machine. He handed it to her. “This is all just crazy conjecture. I mean, for all we know, maybe that mystery woman was the reason Shane didn’t go backstage. Maybe she talked him out of it. Or maybe he realized that there was something more important right there, in that front pit, than anything he could find in a song. Maybe, even three years later, he made sure he found it again.”

Scott Duncan left then. Grace stood and headed into her studio. She had not painted since Jack’s death. She put the cassette into her portable player and pressed the play button.

She picked up a brush and tried to paint. She wanted to paint him. She wanted to paint Jack—not John, not Shane. Jack. She thought it would come out muddled and confused, but that wasn’t what happened at all. The brush soared and danced across the canvas. She started thinking again about how we can never know everything about our loved ones. And maybe, if you think about it hard, we don’t even know everything about ourselves.

The cassette ended. She rewound it and started it again. She worked in a delirious and delightful frenzy. Tears ran down her cheeks. She did not brush them away. At some point she glanced at a clock. Soon it would be time to stop. School would be letting out. She had to get the kids. Emma had piano today. Max had traveling-team soccer practice.

Grace grabbed her purse and locked the door behind her.