Tell No One (2001)

by Harlan Coben

  Griffin Scope looked puzzled. "Good news, Hoyt?"

  Hoyt tried a smile. "Very good news, I think."

  "Wonderful," Scope said. He glanced at Wu. Wu nodded but stayed where he was. Scope said, "So tell me this good news, Hoyt. I'm all atwitter."

  Hoyt cleared his throat. "First of all, you have to understand. I never meant to harm you. In fact, I went to great lengths to make sure nothing incriminating ever got out. But I also needed to save my daughter. You can understand that, can't you?"

  A shadow flickered across Scope's face. "Do I understand the desire to protect a child?" he asked, his voice a quiet rumble. "Yes, Hoyt, I think I do."

  A horse neighed in the distance. All else was silence. Hoyt licked his lips and held up the manila envelope.

  "What's that, Hoyt?"

  "Everything," he replied. "Photographs, statements, tapes. Everything that my daughter and Stephen Beck had on your son."

  "Are there copies?"

  "Only one," Hoyt said.

  "Where?"

  "In a safe place. An attorney has it. If I don't call him in an hour and give him the code, he releases them. I don't mean this as a threat, Mr. Scope. I would never reveal what I know. I have as much to lose as anyone."

  "Yes," Scope said. "You do at that."

  "But now you can leave us alone. You have it all. I'll send the rest. There is no need to hurt me or my family."

  Griffin Scope looked at Larry Gandle, then at Eric Wu. The two perimeter men with the weapons seemed to tense. "What about my son, Hoyt? Someone shot him down like a dog. Do you expect me to just let that go?"

  "That's just it," Hoyt said. "Elizabeth didn't do it."

  Scope narrowed his eyes in what was supposed to be profound interest, but I thought I saw something else there, something akin to bemusement. "Pray tell," he said. "Then who did?"

  I heard Hoyt swallow hard. He turned and looked at me. "David Beck."

  I wasn't surprised. I wasn't angry either.

  "He killed your son," he continued quickly. "He found out what was going on and he took vengeance."

  Scope made a production of gasping and putting his hand on his chest. Then he finally looked at me. Wu and Gandle turned my way too. Scope met my eyes and said, "What do you have to say in your defense, Dr. Beck?"

  I thought about it. "Would it do any good to tell you he's lying?"

  Scope didn't reply to me directly. He turned to Wu and said, "Please bring me that envelope."

  Wu had the walk of a panther. He headed toward us, smiling at me, and I felt a few of my muscles contract instinctively. He stopped in front of Hoyt and put out his hand. Hoyt handed him the envelope. Wu took the envelope with one hand. With the other ' I've never seen anyone move so fast ' he snatched away Hoyt's gun as though from a child, and tossed it behind him.

  Hoyt said, "What the'?"

  Wu punched him deep in the solar plexus. Hoyt fell to his knees. We all stood and watched as he dropped to all fours, retching. Wu circled, took his time, and placed his kick squarely on Hoyt's rib

  cage. I heard something snap. Hoyt rolled onto his back, blinking, his arms and legs splayed.

  Griffin Scope approached, smiling down at my father-in-law. Then he held up something in the air. I squinted. It was small and black.

  Hoyt looked up, spitting out blood. "I don't understand," he managed.

  I could see what was in Scope's hand now. It was a microcassette player. Scope pressed the play button. I heard first my own voice, then Hoyt's:

  "Elizabeth didn't kill Brandon Scope."

  "I know. I did."

  Scope snapped off the tape recorder. Nobody spoke. Scope glared down at my father-in-law. As he did, I realized a number of things. I realized that if Hoyt Parker knew that his house was bugged, he'd also know that it was more than likely that the same would be true of his car. That was why he left the house when he spotted us in the backyard. That was why he waited for me in the car. That was why he interrupted me when I said that Elizabeth didn't kill Brandon Scope. That was why he confessed to the murder in a place where he knew they'd be listening. I realized that when he patted me down, he did indeed feel the wire that Carlson had put on my chest, that he wanted to make sure that the feds, too, would hear everything and that Scope wouldn't bother frisking me. I realized that Hoyt Parker was taking the fall, that while he had done many terrible things, including betraying my father, this had all been a ruse, a last chance at redemption, that in the end, he, not I, would sacrifice himself to save us all. I also realized that for his plan to work, he had to do one more thing. So I stepped away. And even as I heard the FBI helicopters start to descend, even as I heard Carlson's voice through a megaphone shout for everyone to freeze, I watched Hoyt Parker reach into his ankle holster, pull out a gun, and fire it three times at Griffin Scope. Then I watched him turn the gun around.

  I shouted "No!" but the final blast smothered it out.

  Chapter 46

  We buried Hoyt four days later. Thousands of uniformed cops showed up to pay their respects. The details of what had happened at the Scope estate weren't out yet, and I wasn't sure they ever would be. Even Elizabeth's mother hadn't pushed for answers, but perhaps that had more to do with the fact that she was delirious with joy over her daughter's return from the dead. It made her not want to ask too many questions or look at the cracks too closely. I could relate.

  For now, Hoyt Parker had died a hero. And maybe that was true. I'm not the best judge.

  Hoyt had written a long confession, basically restating what he had told me in the car. Carlson showed it to me.

  "Does this end it?" I asked.

  "We still have to make a case against Gandle and Wu and some of the others," he said. "But with Griffin Scope dead, everyone's cutting deals now."

  The mythical beast, I thought. You don't chop off its head. You stab it in the heart.

  "You were smart to come to me when they kidnapped that little boy," Carlson said to me.

  "What was my alternative?"

  "Good point." Carlson shook my hand. "Take care of yourself, Dr. Beck."

  "You too," I said.

  You may want to know if Tyrese ever goes down to Florida and what happens to TJ and Latisha. You may be wondering if Shauna and Linda stay together and what that means to Mark. But I can't tell any of that because I don't know.

  This story ends now, four days after the death of Hoyt Parker and Griffin Scope. It is late. Very late. I am lying in bed with Elizabeth, watching her body rise and fall in sleep. I watch her all the time, I don't close my eyes much. My dreams have perversely reversed themselves. It is in my dreams now that I lose her ' where she is dead again and I am alone. So I hold her a lot. I am clingy and needy. So is she. But we'll work that out.

  As though she feels my eyes on her, Elizabeth rolls over. I smile at her. She smiles back and I feel my heart soar. I remember the day at the lake. I remember drifting on that raft. And I remember my decision to tell her the truth.

  "We need to talk," I say.

  "I don't think so."

  "We're not good at keeping secrets from each other, Elizabeth. It's what caused this mess in the first place. If we had just told each other everything..." I didn't finish.

  She nods. And I realize that she knows. That she's always known.

  "Your father," I say. "He always thought you killed Brandon Scope."

  "That's what I told him."

  "But in the end'" I stop, start again. "When I said in the car that you didn't kill him, do you think he realized the truth?"

  "I don't know," Elizabeth says. "I like to think that maybe he did."

  "So he sacrificed himself for us."

  "Or he tried to stop you from doing it," she says. "Or maybe he died still thinking I killed Brandon Scope. We'll never really know. And it doesn't matter."

  We look at each other.

  "You knew," I say, my chest hitching. "From the beginning. You'"

  She hushes me with a finger on my lips.
"It's okay."

  "You put all that stuff in the safety-deposit box," I say, "for me."

  "I wanted to protect you," she says.

  "It was in self-defense," I say, again remembering the feel of the gun in my hand, the sickening backfire when I pulled the trigger.

  "I know," she says, wrapping her arms around my neck and pulling me close. "I know."

  You see, I was the one who was home when Brandon Scope broke into our house eight years ago. I was the one lying alone in the bed when he sneaked up with the knife. We struggled. I fumbled for my father's gun. He lunged again. I shot and killed him. And then, in a panic, I ran. I tried to gather my thoughts, figure out what to do. When I came to my senses, when I returned to the house, the body was gone. So was the gun. I wanted to tell her. I was going to at the lake. But in the end, I never said anything about it. Until now.

  Like I told you earlier, if I had just told the truth from the get-go...

  She pulls me closer.

  "I'm here," Elizabeth whispers.

  Here. With me. It would take a while to accept that. But I would. We hold each other and drift off to sleep. Tomorrow morning we would wake up together. And the morning after that too. Her face would be the first I'd see every day. Her voice would be the first I'd hear. And that, I knew, would always be enough.

  THE END OF TELL NO ONE

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