by Harlan Coben
“No, I know you helped Clu cover it up. What I wasn’t sure about is if you knew what you were doing. It was why I asked you to look for Lucy—so I could see how deep your involvement was.”
“The void,” Myron said.
“What about it?”
“Did this help fill it?”
Sophie thought about it. “Strangely enough, the answer is yes, I think. It doesn’t bring Lucy back. But I feel as though she’s been properly buried now. I think we can begin to heal.”
“So we all just go on?”
Sophie smiled. “What else can we do?”
She nodded to Jared. Jared took his mother’s hand, and they started back for the dugout.
“I am very sorry,” Myron said.
Sophie stopped. She dropped her son’s hand and studied Myron for a moment, her eyes moving over his face. “You committed a felony by bribing those police officers. You put my family and me through years of agony. You probably contributed to my husband’s premature death. You had a hand in the deaths of Clu Haid and Billy Lee Palms. And in the end you made me commit horrible acts I always thought I was incapable of committing.” She stepped back toward her son, her gaze more tired now than accusatory. “I won’t hurt you any further. But if you don’t mind, I’ll let you keep your apology.”
She gave Myron a moment for rebuttal. He didn’t use it. They strode down the steps and disappeared, leaving Myron alone with the grass and the dirt and the bright stadium lights.
CHAPTER
39
In the lot Win frowned and holstered his .44. “No one even pulled a gun.”
Myron said nothing. He got into his car. Win got into his. Myron’s cellular phone rang before he had driven five minutes. It was Hester Crimstein.
“They’re dropping the charges,” she said to him. “Esperanza will be out tomorrow morning. They’re offering up a full exoneration and apology if we promise not to sue.”
“Will you accept that?”
“It’s up to Esperanza. But I think she’ll agree.”
Myron drove to Bonnie’s house. Her mother opened the door and looked angry. Myron pushed past her and found Bonnie alone. He showed her the note. She cried. He held her. He looked in on the two sleeping boys and stayed in the doorway until Bonnie’s mother tapped him on the shoulder and asked him to leave. He did.
He headed back to Win’s apartment. When he opened the door, Terese’s suitcase was by the entrance. She stepped into the foyer.
“You’re packed,” Myron said.
She smiled. “I love a man who misses nothing.”
He waited.
“I’m leaving in an hour for Atlanta,” she said.
“Oh.”
“I spoke to my boss at CNN. Ratings have been down. He wants me back on the air tomorrow.”
“Oh,” Myron said again.
Terese pulled at a ring on her finger. “You ever try a long-distance relationship?” she asked.
“No.”
“Might be worth a try.”
“Might be,” he said.
“I hear the sex is great.”
“That’s never been our trouble, Terese.”
“No,” she said. “It hasn’t.”
He checked his watch. “Only an hour, you said?”
She smiled. “Actually, an hour and ten minutes.”
“Whew,” he said, moving closer.
At midnight Myron and Win were in the living room watching television.
“You’ll miss her,” Win said.
“I’m flying down to Atlanta this weekend.”
Win nodded. “Best-case scenario.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning you are the pitiful, needy type who feels incomplete without a steady girlfriend. Who better than a career woman who lives a thousand miles away?”
More silence. They watched a repeat of Frasier on Channel 11. The show was starting to grow on them both.
“An agent represents his clients,” Win said during a commercial. “You’re his advocate. You can’t worry about the repercussions.”
“You really believe that?”
“Sure, why not?”
Myron shrugged. “Yeah, why not?” He watched another commercial. “Esperanza said I’m starting to get too comfortable with breaking the rules.”
Win said nothing.
“Truth is,” Myron said, “I’ve been doing it for a while. I paid off police officers to cover up a crime.”
“You didn’t know the severity.”
“Does that matter?”
“Of course it does.”
Myron shook his head. “We trample on that damned foul line until we can’t see it anymore,” he said softly.
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about us. Sophie Mayor said that you and I do the same thing she did. We take the law into our own hands. We break the rules.”
“So?”
“So it’s not right.”
Win frowned. “Oh, please.”
“The innocent get hurt.”
“The police hurt the innocent too.”
“Not like this. Esperanza suffered when she had nothing to do with any of this. Clu deserved to be punished, but what happened to Lucy Mayor was still an accident.”
Win drummed his chin with two fingers. “If we put aside an argument on the relative severity of drunk driving,” he said, “in the end it was not merely an accident. Clu chose to bury the body. The fact that he couldn’t live with it doesn’t excuse it.”
“We can’t keep doing this, Win.”
“Keep doing what?”
“Breaking the rules.”
“Let me pose a question to you, Myron.” Win continued his chin drumming. “Suppose you were Sophie Mayor and Lucy Mayor were your daughter. What would you have done?”
“Maybe the same thing,” Myron said. “Does that make it right?”
“Depends,” Win said.
“On?”
“On the Clu Haid factor: Can you live with yourself?”
“That’s it?”
“That’s it. Can you live with yourself? I know that I could.”
“And you’re comfortable with that?”
“With what?”
“With a world where people take the law into their own hands,” Myron said.
“Good lord, no. I’m not prescribing this remedy for others.”
“Just you.”
Win shrugged. “I trust my judgment. I’d trust yours too. But now you want to go back in time and take an alternate route. Life is not like that. You made a decision. It was a good one based on what you knew. A tough call, but aren’t they all? It could have worked out the other way. Clu might have smartened up from the experience, become a better person. My point is, you can’t concern yourself with distant, impossible-to-see consequences.”
“Just worry about the here and now.”
“Precisely.”
“And what you can live with.”
“Yes.
“So maybe next time,” Myron said, “I should opt for doing the right thing.”
Win shook his head. “You’re confusing the right thing with the legal or seemingly moral thing. But that’s not the real world. Sometimes the good guys break the rules because they know better.”
Myron smiled. “They cross the foul line. Just for a second. Just to do good. Then they scramble back into fair territory. But when you do that too often, you start smearing the line.”
“Perhaps the line is supposed to be smeared,” Win said.
“Perhaps.”
“On balance, you and I do good.”
“That balance might be better if we didn’t stray across the line so much—even if that meant letting a few more injustices remain injustices.”
Win shrugged. “Your call.”
Myron sat back. “You know what’s bothering me the most about this conversation?”
“What’s that?”
“That I don’t think it’ll change a
nything. That I think you’re probably right.”
“But you’re not sure,” Win said.
“No, I’m not sure.”
“And you still don’t like it.”
“I definitely don’t like it,” Myron said.
Win nodded. “That’s all I wanted to hear.”
CHAPTER
40
Big Cyndi was totally in orange. An orange sweatshirt. Orange parachute pants like something stolen from MC Hammer’s 1989 closet. Dyed orange hair. Orange fingernail polish. Orange—don’t ask how—skin. She looked like a mutant teenage carrot.
“Orange is Esperanza’s favorite color,” she told Myron.
“No, it’s not.”
“It’s not?”
Myron shook his head. “Blue is.” For a moment, he pictured a giant Smurf.
Big Cyndi mulled that one over. “Orange is her second favorite color?”
“Sure, I guess.”
Satisfied, Big Cyndi smiled and strung up a sign across the reception area that read WELCOME BACK, ESPERANZA!
Myron moved into his inner office. He made some calls, managed to do a little work, kept listening for the elevator.
Finally, the elevator dinged at 10:00 A.M. The doors slid open. Myron stayed put. He heard Big Cyndi’s squeal of delight; the floors below them almost evacuated at the sound. He felt the vibrations of Big Cyndi leaping to her feet. Myron stood now and still waited. He heard cries and sighs and reassurances.
Two minutes later Esperanza entered Myron’s office. She didn’t knock. As always.
Their hug was a little awkward. Myron backed off, shoved his hands in his pockets. “Welcome back.”
Esperanza tried a smile. “Thanks.”
Silence.
“You knew about my personal involvement the whole time, didn’t you?”
Esperanza said nothing.
“That’s the part I could never resolve,” Myron said.
“Myron, don’t—”
“You’re my best friend,” he continued. “You know I’d do anything for you. So I couldn’t for the life of me figure out why you wouldn’t talk to me. It made no sense. At first I thought you were angry at me for disappearing. But that isn’t like you. Then I thought you had an affair with Clu and you didn’t want me to know. But that was wrong. Then I thought it was because you had an affair with Bonnie—”
“Showing very poor judgment,” Esperanza added.
“Yes. But I’m hardly in a position to lecture you. And you wouldn’t be afraid to tell me about it. Especially with the stakes so high. So I kept wondering, What could be so bad that you wouldn’t talk to me? Win thought that the only explanation was that you did indeed kill Clu.”
“That Win,” Esperanza said. “Always the sunny side.”
“But even that wouldn’t do it. I’d still stick by you. You knew that. There is only one reason you wouldn’t tell me the truth—”
Esperanza sighed. “I need a shower.”
“You were protecting me.”
She looked at him. “Don’t get all mushy on me, okay? I hate when you do that.”
“Bonnie told you about the car accident. About my bribing the cops.”
“Pillow talk,” Esperanza said with a shrug.
“And once you were arrested, you made her swear to keep her mouth shut. Not for your sake or hers. But for mine. You knew that if the bribes ever became public, I’d be ruined. I’d committed a serious felony. I’d be disbarred or worse. And you knew that if I ever found out, you wouldn’t be able to stop me from telling the DA because it would’ve been enough to get you off.”
Esperanza put her hands on her hips. “Is there a point to this, Myron?”
“Thank you,” he said.
“Nothing to thank me for. You were too weak coming off Brenda. I was afraid you’d do something stupid. You have that habit.”
He hugged her again. She hugged him back. Nothing felt awkward this time. When they broke the embrace, he stepped back. “Thank you.”
“Stop saying that.”
“You are my best friend.”
“And I did it for my sake too, Myron. For the business. My business.”
“I know.”
“So do we still have any clients left?” she asked.
“A few.”
“Maybe we better get on the horn then.”
“Maybe,” he said. “I love you, Esperanza.”
“Shut up before I puke my guts out.”
“And you love me.”
“If you start singing ‘Barney,’ I’ll kill you. I’ve already done prison time. I’m not afraid to do more.”
Big Cyndi stuck her head in. She was smiling. With the orange skin, she looked like the most frightening jack-o’-lantern imaginable. “Marty Towey on line two.”
“I’ll take it,” Esperanza said.
“And I have Enos Cabral on line three.”
“Mine,” said Myron.
At the end of a wonderfully long workday Win came into the office. “I spoke to Esperanza,” he said. “We’re all doing pizza and old CBS Sunday at my place.”
“I can’t.”
Win arched an eyebrow. “All in the Family, M*A*S*H, Mary Tyler Moore, Bob Newhart, Carol Burnett?”
“Sorry.”
“The Sammy Davis episode of All in the Family?”
“Not tonight, Win.”
Win looked concerned. “I know you want to punish yourself,” he said, “but this is taking self-flagellation too far.”
Myron smiled. “It’s not that.”
“Don’t tell me you want to be alone. You never want to be alone.”
“Sorry, I got other plans,” Myron said.
Win arched the eyebrow, turned, left without another word.
Myron picked up the phone. He dialed the familiar number. “I’m on my way,” he said.
“Good,” Mom said. “I already called Fong’s. I got two orders of shrimp with lobster sauce.”
“Mom?”
“What?”
“I really don’t like their shrimp in lobster sauce anymore.”
“What? You’ve always loved it. It’s your favorite.”
“Not since I was fourteen.”
“So how come you never told me?”
“I have. Several times.”
“And what, you expect me to remember every little thing? So what are you trying to tell me, Myron, your taste buds are too mature for Fong’s shrimp with lobster sauce now? Who do you think you are, the Galloping Gourmet or something?”
Myron heard his father yell in the background. “Stop bothering the boy.”
“Who’s bothering him? Myron, am I bothering you?”
“And tell him to hurry,” Dad shouted. “The game’s almost on.”
“Big deal, Al. He doesn’t care.”
Myron said, “Tell Dad I’m on my way.”
“Drive slowly, Myron. There’s no rush. The game will wait.”
“Okay, Mom.”
“Wear a seat belt.”
“Sure thing.”
“And your father has a surprise for you.”
“Ellen!” It was Dad again.
“What’s the big deal, Al?”
“I wanted to tell him—”
“Oh stop being silly, Al. Myron?”
“Yeah, Mom?”
“Your father bought tickets to a Mets game. For Sunday. Just the two of you.”
Myron swallowed, said nothing.
“They’re playing the Tunas,” Mom said.
“The Marlins!” Dad shouted.
“Tunas, marlins—what’s the difference? You going to be a marine biologist now, Al? Is that what you’re going to do with your leisure time, study fish?”
Myron smiled.
“Myron, you there?”
“I’m on my way, Mom.”
He hung up. He slapped his thighs and stood. He said good night to Esperanza and Big Cyndi. He stepped into the elevator and managed a smile. Friends and lovers were great, h
e thought, but sometimes a boy just wanted his mom and dad.
HARLAN COBEN, winner of the Edgar Award, the Shamus Award, and the Anthony Award, is the author of eight other critically acclaimed novels: Deal Breaker, Drop Shot, Fade Away, Back Spin, One False Move, Darkest Fear, Tell No One, and Gone for Good. He lives in New Jersey with his wife and four children. Visit his website at www.harlancoben.com.
Published by
Dell Publishing
a division of
Random House, Inc.
1745 Broadway
New York, NY 10019
This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 1999 by Harlan Coben
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the Publisher, except where permitted by law. For information address: Delacorte Press, New York, New York.
Dell® is registered trademark of Random House, Inc., and the colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.
eISBN: 978-0-307-48481-9
v3.0_r2
