Three Harlan Coben Novels (42 page)

“Whew,” Rachel said.

“Why are you here?”

“I’m buying food.”

“No, I mean—”

“I know what you meant,” she interrupted. “My mother moved into a condo development in West Orange.”

A few of the strands had escaped her ponytail and fell across her face. It took all my willpower to stop from pushing them away.

Rachel glanced away and then back at me. “I heard about your wife and daughter,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

“Thank you.”

“I wanted to call or write but . . .”

“I heard you got married,” I said.

She wiggled the fingers on her left hand. “Not anymore.”

“And that you were an agent with the FBI.”

Rachel put her hand back down. “Also not anymore.”

More silence. Again I don’t know how long we stood there. The
cashier had moved on to the next shopper. Zia came up behind us. She cleared her throat and jammed her hand toward Rachel. “Hi, I’m Zia Leroux,” she said.

“Rachel Mills.”

“Good to meet you, Rachel. I’m Marc’s practice partner.” Then, thinking about it, she added: “We’re just friends.”

“Zia,” I said.

“Oh, right, sorry. Look, Rachel, I’d love to stay and chat, but I have to run.” She jerked her thumb toward the exit to emphasize the point. “You two talk. Marc, I’ll meet you back here later. Great meeting you, Rachel.”

“Same here.”

Zia rushed off. I shrugged. “She’s a great doctor.”

“I bet she is.” Rachel took hold of her cart. “I have someone waiting in the car, Marc. It was good seeing you.”

“You too.” But surely, with all I’d lost, I must have learned something, right? I couldn’t just let her go. I cleared my throat and said, “Maybe we should get together.”

“I’m still living in Washington. I head back tomorrow.”

Silence. My insides turned to jelly. My breathing was shallow.

“Good-bye, Marc,” Rachel said. But those hazel eyes were wet.

“Don’t go yet.”

I tried to keep the pleading out of my voice, but I don’t think I was successful. Rachel looked at me, and she saw everything. “What do you want me to say here, Marc?”

“That you want to get together too.”

“That’s all?”

I shook my head. “You know that’s not all.”

“I’m not twenty-one anymore.”

“Neither am I.”

“The girl you loved is dead and gone.”

“No,” I said. “She’s right in front of me.”

“You don’t know me anymore.”

“So let’s get reacquainted. I’m not in a rush.”

“Just like that?”

I tried to smile. “Yeah.”

“I live in Washington. You live in New Jersey.”

“So I’ll move,” I said.

But even before the impetuous words came out, even before Rachel made that face, I could recognize my own false bravado. I couldn’t just leave my parents or dump my business with Zia or—or abandon my ghosts. Somewhere between my lips and her ears the sentiment crashed and burned.

Rachel turned to leave then. She did not say good-bye again. I watched her push the cart toward the door. I saw it automatically swing open with an electric grunt. I saw Rachel, the love of my life, disappear again without so much as a backward glance. I stayed still. I did not follow her. I felt my heart tumble and shatter, but I did nothing to stop her.

Maybe I hadn’t learned anything, after all.

I drank
.

I am not a big drinker—pot had been my elixir of choice during my younger days—but I found an old bottle of gin in a cabinet over the sink. There was tonic in the fridge. I have an automatic icemaker in the freezer. You do the math.

I still lived in the old Levinsky house. It is much too big for me, but I don’t have the heart to let it go. It feels like a portal now, a lifeline (albeit a fragile one) to my daughter. Yes, I know how that sounds, but selling it now would be like closing a door on her. I can’t do that.

Zia wanted to stay with me, but I begged off. She did not push it. I thought about the corny Dan Fogelberg (not Dan Somebody) song where the old lovers talk until their tongues get tired. I thought about Bogie questioning the gods who would allow Ingrid Bergman into his, of all possible, gin joints. Bogie drank after she left. It seemed to help him. Maybe it would help me too.

The fact that Rachel could still pack this kind of wallop annoyed the hell out of me. It was stupid and childish really. Rachel and I had first met during summer break between my sophomore and junior years of college. She was from Middlebury, Vermont, and supposedly a distant cousin of Lenny’s wife, Cheryl, though no one could ascertain the exact relationship. That summer—the summer of all summers—Rachel stayed with Cheryl’s family because Rachel’s folks were going through a nasty divorce. We were introduced, and like I said before, it took some time for the bus to smack into me. Maybe that’s what made it all the more potent when it did.

We began to date. We doubled a lot with Lenny and Cheryl. The
four of us spent every weekend at Lenny’s summer house on the Jersey shore. It was indeed a glorious summer, the kind of summer everyone should experience at least once in a lifetime.

If this were a movie, we’d be cueing up the montage music. I went to Tufts University while Rachel was starting out at Boston College. First scene of the montage, well, they’d probably have us on a boat on the Charles, me paddling, Rachel holding a parasol, her smile tentative then mocking. She’d splash me and then I’d splash her and then the boat would tip. It never happened, but you get the point. Next maybe there would be a picnic scene on campus, a shot of us studying in the library, our bodies entwined on a couch, me staring mesmerized as Rachel reads from her textbook, her glasses on, absentmindedly tucking a hair behind her ear. The montage would probably close on two bodies tussling under a white satin sheet, even though no college student uses satin sheets. Still, I’m thinking cinematic here.

I was in love.

During one Christmas break, we visited Rachel’s grandmother, a card-carrying yenta from the old school, in a nursing home. The old woman took both our hands in hers and declared us
beshert
which is a Yiddish word that means predestined or fated.

So what happened?

Our ending was not an uncommon one. We were young, I guess. During my senior year, Rachel decided that she wanted to spend a semester in Florence. I was twenty-two. I got pissed off and while she was away, I slept with another woman—a one-night stand with a featureless coed from Babson. It meant absolutely nothing. I understand that makes it no better, but maybe it should. I don’t know.

Anyway, someone at the party told someone else and eventually it got back to Rachel. She called me from Italy and broke it off, just like that, which I saw as something of an overreaction. Like I said, we were young. At first, I was too proud (read: too stupid) to beg and then, when I started soaking in the repercussions, I called and wrote letters and sent flowers. Rachel never responded. It was over. We were done.

I stood and stumbled to my desk. I fished out the key I had taped under the credenza and unlocked the bottom drawer. I lifted off the files and found my secret stash underneath. No, not drugs. The past. Rachel things. I found the familiar photo and pulled it into view. Lenny and Cheryl still have this picture in their den, which had, understandably
enough, angered Monica to no end. It was a photograph of the four of us—Lenny, Cheryl, Rachel, and I—at a formal during my senior year. Rachel is wearing a spaghetti-strap black dress and the thought of the way it clung to her shoulders still takes my breath away.

A long time ago.

I’ve moved on, of course. Per my life plan, I went to medical school. I always knew that I wanted to be a doctor. Most doctors I know will tell you the same. It is rarely a decision you come to late.

And I dated too. I even had other one-night stands (remember Zia?), but—and this is going to sound pitiful—even after all these years, I never go through a day without thinking, at least fleetingly, about Rachel. Yes, I know that I’ve romanticized the romance, if you will, completely out of proportion. Had I not made that stupid blunder, I would probably not be living in some blissful alternative universe, still entwined on the couch with my beloved. As Lenny once pointed out in a moment of naked honesty, if my relationship with Rachel had been that great, it surely could have survived this most hackneyed of speed bumps.

Am I saying that I never loved my wife? No. At least, I think the answer is no. Monica was beautiful—right-away beautiful, nothing slow about the way her looks hit you—and passionate and surprising. She was also wealthy and glamorous. I tried not to compare—that is a terrible way to live your life—but I could not help but love Monica in my smaller, less bright, post-Rachel world. Given time, the same might have happened had I stayed with Rachel, but that’s using logic and in matters of the heart, logic need not apply.

Over the years, Cheryl grudgingly kept me informed on what Rachel was up to. Rachel, I’d learned, had gone into law enforcement and become a federal agent in Washington. I can’t say I was totally surprised. Three years ago, Cheryl told me that Rachel had gotten married to an older guy, a senior fed. Even after all this time—Rachel and I had been broken up eleven years by then—I felt my insides cave in. I realized with a heavy thud just how badly I’d messed up. I’d always assumed somehow that Rachel and I were biding our time, living in some sort of suspended animation, until we inevitably came to our senses and got back together. Now she had married someone else.

Cheryl saw my face and has never again spoken to me about Rachel.

I stared at the picture and heard the familiar SUV pull up. No surprise there. I did not bother walking to the door. Lenny had a key. He never knocked anyway. He’d know where I was. I put away the photograph as Lenny entered the room carrying two enormous, brightly clad paper cups.

Lenny held up the Slurpees from 7-Eleven. “Cherry or cola?”

“Cherry.”

He handed it to me. I waited.

“Zia called Cheryl,” he said in way of explanation.

I had figured that. “I don’t want to talk about it,” I said.

Lenny hopped onto the couch. “Me neither.” He reached into his pocket and took out a thick sheaf of papers. “The will and the final stuff on Monica’s estate. Read it whenever.” He picked up the remote control and began to flip. “Don’t you have any porno?”

“No, sorry.”

Lenny shrugged and settled on a college basketball game on ESPN. We watched a few minutes in silence. I broke it.

“Why didn’t you tell me Rachel was divorced?”

Lenny grimaced in pain and raised his palm as if stopping traffic.

“What?” I said.

“Brain freeze.” He rode it out. “I always drink these things too fast.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I thought we weren’t going to talk about it.”

I looked at him.

“It’s not that simple, Marc.”

“What’s not?”

“Rachel has been through some tough times.”

“So have I,” I said.

Lenny watched the game a little too closely.

“What happened to her, Lenny?”

“It’s not my place.” He shook his head. “You haven’t even seen her in, what, fifteen years?”

Fourteen actually. “Something like that.”

His eyes scanned the room and rested on a photograph of Monica and Tara. He looked away and sipped his Slurpee. “Have to stop living in the past, my friend.”

We both settled back and pretended to watch the game. Stop living in the past, he’d said. I looked at the photograph of Tara and wondered if Lenny was talking about more than Rachel.

Edgar Portman picked up the leather dog leash. He jingled the end. Bruno, his champion bull mastiff, clattered toward the sound at full speed. Bruno had won a Best in Breed at the Westminster Dog Show six years ago. Many believed that he had what it took to earn Best in Show. Edgar chose instead to retire Bruno. A show dog is never home. Edgar wanted Bruno with him.

People disappointed Edgar. Dogs never.

Bruno stuck out his tongue and wagged his tail. Edgar clipped the leash onto the collar. They would go for an hour. Edgar looked down at his desk. There, on the shiny veneer, sat a cardboard package, identical to the one he had received eighteen months earlier. Bruno whimpered. Edgar wondered if it was a whimper of impatience or if he could sense his master’s dread. Maybe both.

Either way, Edgar needed air.

The package from eighteen months ago had undergone every possible forensic test. The police had learned nothing. Edgar was relatively certain, based on that past experience, that the incompetents in law enforcement would find nothing again. Eighteen months ago, Marc had not listened to him. That mistake, Edgar hoped, would not be repeated.

He started for the door. Bruno led the way. The air felt good. He stepped outside and sucked in a deep breath. It did not change his outlook, but it helped. Edgar and Bruno started down the familiar route, but something made Edgar veer to the right. The family plot. He saw it every day, so often that he no longer saw it, so to speak. He never visited the stones. But today, suddenly, he felt drawn. Bruno, surprised by the deviation in his routine, grudgingly followed.

Edgar stepped over the small fence. His leg throbbed. Old age. These walks were getting more difficult. He had begun using a walking stick a lot of the time—he had purchased one purportedly used by Dashiell Hammet during a TB stint—but for some reason, Edgar never took it with him when he was with Bruno. It felt wrong somehow.

Bruno hesitated and then leapt the fence. They both stood in front of the two most recent headstones. Edgar tried not to ponder about life and death, about wealth and its relativity to happiness. That sort of lint
picking was best left to others. He realized now that he had probably not been a very good father. He had learned, however, from his father, who learned from his. And in the end, perhaps his aloofness had saved him. Had he loved his children fully, had he been deeply involved in their lives, he doubted that he could have survived their deaths.

The dog began to whimper again. Edgar looked down at his companion, deep into his eyes. “Time to go, boy,” he said softly. The front door of the house opened. Edgar turned and spotted his brother Carson, rushing toward him. Edgar saw the look on his brother’s face.

“My God,” Carson called out.

“I assume you saw the package.”

“Yes, of course. Did you call Marc?”

“No.”

“Good,” Carson said. “It’s a hoax. It has to be.”

Edgar did not reply.

“You don’t agree?” Carson said.

“I don’t know.”

“You can’t possibly think that she’s still alive.”

Edgar gave the leash a gentle tug. “Best to wait for the tests to come back,” he said. “Then we’ll know for certain.”

I like to work night hours. I always have. I am lucky in my career choice. I love my job. It is never a chore or drudgery or something I do simply to put food on the table. I disappear into my work. Like a troubled athlete, I forget everything when I’m playing my game. I enter the zone. I am at my best.

This night, however—three nights after seeing Rachel—I was off duty. I sat alone in my den and flipped stations. I, like most males of our species, hit the remote too frequently. I can watch several hours of nothing. Last year, Lenny and Cheryl got me a DVD player, explaining to me that my VCR was heading the way of the eight-track. I checked the clock on it now. A few minutes after nine. I could pop in a DVD and still get to bed by eleven.

I had just removed the rental DVD from its box and was about to stick it into the machine—they do not have a remote that does that yet—when I heard a dog bark. I rose. A new family had moved in two houses down. They had four or five young kids, something like that. Hard to say when a family has that many. They seem to blur into one
another. I had not introduced myself yet, but I had seen in their yard an Irish wolfhound, who was approximately the size of a Ford Explorer. The bark, I believed, was his.

I pushed the curtain aside. I looked out the window, and for some reason—a reason I cannot properly articulate—I was not surprised by what I saw.

The woman stood in the exact same spot where I had seen her eighteen months earlier. The long coat, the long hair, the hands in the pockets—all the same.

I was afraid to let her out of my sight, but then again, I did not want her to see me. I dropped to my knees and slid to the side of the window, super-sleuth-style. With my back and cheek pressed against the wall, I considered my options.

First off, I was now not watching her. That meant she could leave and I wouldn’t notice. Hmm, not good. I had to risk a look. That was the first thing.

I turned my head and sneaked a peek. Still there. The woman was still out front, but she had moved a few steps closer to my front door. I had no idea what that meant exactly. So now what? How about going to the door and confronting her? That seemed a pretty good move. If she ran, well, I guess that I would pursue.

I risked another glimpse, just a quick head turn, and when I did, I realized that the woman was staring directly at my window. I fell back. Damn. She’d seen me. No way around it. My hands grabbed the bottom of the window, readying to open it, but she had already started hurrying up the block.

Oh no, not this time.

I was wearing surgical scrubs—every doctor I know has a few pairs for lounge-wear use—and I was barefoot. I sprinted to the door and threw it open. The woman was almost to the top of the block. When she saw me at the door, she stopped the hurry-walk and broke into an all-out run.