the Innocent (2005)

by Harlan Coben

  Matt tried that now. He tried to deaden the sinking feeling in the pit of his b elly.

  He couldn't do it.

  The images were back now, terrible ones blended in with achingly wonderful m emories, the memories hurting most of all. He remembered a weekend he and Olivia had spent at a Victorian B&B in Lenox, Massachusetts. He remembered s preading pillows and blankets in front of the fireplace in the room and opening a bottle of wine. He remembered the way Olivia held the stem of the glass, the w ay she looked at him, the way the world, the past, his tentative, fearful steps a ll faded away, the way the fire reflected off her green eyes, and then he would t hink of her like that with another man.

  A new thought hit him then-- one so awful, so unbearable he nearly lost control o f his car: Olivia was pregnant.

  The light turned red. Matt almost drove through it. He slammed on the brakes at t he last moment. A pedestrian, already starting across the street, jumped back a nd waved his fist at him. Matt kept both hands on the wheel.

  Olivia had taken a long time to conceive.

  They were both in their mid-thirties and in Olivia's mind the clock was ticking.

  She so badly wanted to start a family. For a long time their attempts at c onception hadn't gone well. Matt had started to wonder-- and not just idly-- if t he fault lay with him. He had taken some pretty good beatings in prison. During h is third week there, four men had pinned him down and spread-eagled his legs w hile a fifth kicked him hard in the groin. He had nearly passed out from the p ain.

  Now suddenly Olivia was pregnant.

  He wanted to shut down his brain, but it wouldn't happen. Rage started to seep i n. It was better, he thought, than the hurt, than the awful gut-wrenching ache o f having something he cherished ripped away from him again.

  He had to find her. He had to find her now.

  Olivia was in Boston, a five-hour journey from where he now was. Screw the house i nspection. Just drive up, have it out with her now.

  Where was she staying?

  He thought about that. Had she told him? He couldn't remember. That was another t hing about having cell phones. You don't worry so much about things like that.

  What difference did it make if she was staying at the Marriott or the Hilton?

  She was on a business trip. She would be moving about, out at meetings and d inners, rarely in her room.

  Easiest, of course, to reach her by cell phone.

  So now what?

  He had no idea where she was staying. And even if he did, wouldn't it make more s ense to call first? For all he knew, that might not even be her hotel room he'd s een on the camera phone. It might have belonged to Blue-Black Hair. And suppose h e did know the hotel. Suppose he did show up and pounded on the door and then, w hat, Olivia would open it in a negligee with Blue-Black standing behind her, a t owel wrapped around his waist? Then what would Matt do? Beat the crap out of h im? Point and shout "Aha!"?

  He tried calling her on the camera phone again. Still no answer. He didn't leave a nother message.

  Why hadn't Olivia told him where she was staying?

  Pretty obvious now, isn't it, Matt ol' boy?

  The red curtain came down over his eyes.

  Enough.

  He tried her office, but the call went directly into her voice mail: "Hi, this i s Olivia Hunter. I'll be out of the office until Friday. If this is important, y ou can reach my assistant, Jamie Suh, by pressing her extension, s ix-four-four--"

  That was what Matt did. Jamie answered on the third ring.

  "Olivia Hunter's line."

  "Hey, Jamie, it's Matt."

  "Hi, Matt."

  He kept his hands on the wheel and talked using a hands-free, which always felt w eird-- like you're a crazy person chatting with an imaginary friend. When you t alk on a phone, you should be holding one. "Just got a quick question for you."

  "Shoot."

  "Do you know what hotel Olivia's staying in?"

  There was no reply.

  "Jamie?"

  "I'm here," she said. "Uh, I can look it up, if you want to hold on. But why d on't you just call her cell? That's the number she left if any client had an e mergency."

  He was not sure how to reply to that without sounding somehow desperate. If he t old her he had tried that and got the message, Jamie Suh would wonder why he c ouldn't simply wait for her to reply. He wracked his brain for something that s ounded plausible.

  "Yeah, I know," he said. "But I want to send her flowers. You know, as a s urprise."

  "Oh, I see." There was little enthusiasm in her voice. "Is it a special o ccasion?"

  "No." Then he added extra-lamely: "But hey, the honeymoon is still on." He l aughed at his own pitiful line. Not surprisingly, Jamie did not.

  There was a long silence.

  "You still there?" Matt said.

  "Yes."

  "Could you tell me where she's staying?"

  "I'm looking it up now." There was the tapping sound of her fingers on a k eyboard. Then: "Matt?"

  "Yes."

  "I have another call coming in. Can I call you back when I find it?"

  "Sure," he said, not liking this at all. He gave her his cell phone number and h ung up.

  What the hell was going on?

  His phone vibrated again. He checked the number. It was the office. Rolanda d idn't bother with hellos.

  "Problem," she said. "Where are you?"

  "Just hitting Seventy-eight."

  "Turn around. Washington Street. Eva is getting evicted."

  He swore under his breath. "Who?"

  "Pastor Jill is over there with those two beefy sons of hers. They threatened Eva."

  Pastor Jill. A woman who got her religious degree online and sets up "charities" w here the youth can stay with her as long as they cough up enough in food s tamps. The scams run on the poor are beyond reprehensible. Matt veered the car t o the right.

  "On my way," he said.

  Ten minutes later he pulled to a stop on Washington Street. The neighborhood was n ear Branch Brook Park. As a kid Matt used to play tennis here. He played c ompetitively for a while, his parents schlepping him to tournaments in Port Washington every other weekend. He was even ranked in the boys' f ourteen-and-under division. But the family stopped coming to Branch Brook way b efore that. Matt never understood what happened to Newark. It had been a t hriving, wonderful community. The wealthier eventually moved out during the s uburban migration of the fifties and sixties. That was natural, of course. It h appened everywhere. But Newark was abandoned. Those who left-- even those who t raveled just a few miles away-- never looked back. Part of that was the riots in t he late sixties. Part of that was simple racism. But there was something more h ere, something worse, and Matt didn't know exactly what it was.

  He got out of the car. The neighborhood was predominantly African American. So w ere most of his clients. Matt wondered about that. During his prison stint, he h eard the "n"-word more often than any other. He had said it himself, to fit in a t first, but it became less repulsive as time went on, which of course was the m ost repulsive thing of all.

  In the end he'd been forced to betray what he had always believed in, the l iberal suburban lie about skin color not mattering. In prison, skin color was a ll that mattered. Out here, in a whole different way, it mattered just as much.

  His gaze glided over the scenery. It got snagged on an interesting chunk of g raffiti. On a wall of chipped brick, someone had spray-painted two words in f our-foot-high letters: BITCHES LIE!

  Normally Matt would not stop and study something like this. Today he did. The l etters were red and slanted. Even if you couldn't read, you could feel the rage h ere. Matt wondered about the creator-- what inspired him to write this. He w ondered if this act of vandalism had diluted the creator's wrath-- or been the f irst step toward greater destruction.

  He walked toward Eva's building. Pastor Jill's car, a fully loaded Mercedes 560, w as there. One of her sons stood guard with his arms cro
ssed, his face set on s cowl. Matt's eyes started their sweep again. The neighbors were out and about.

  One small child of maybe two sat atop an old lawn mower. His mother was using it a s a stroller. She muttered to herself and looked strung out. People stared at Matt-- a white man was not unfamiliar here but still a curiosity.

  Pastor Jill's sons glared as he approached. The street went quiet, like in a Western. The people were ready for a showdown.

  Matt said, "How are you doing?"

  The brothers might have been twins. One kept up the stare. The other started l oading Eva's belongings into the trunk. Matt did not blink. He kept smiling and w alking.

  "I'd like you to stop that now."

  Crossed-Tree-Trunk-Arms said, "Who are you?"

  Pastor Jill came out. She looked over at Matt and scowled too.

  "You can't throw her out," Matt said.

  Pastor Jill gave him the high-and-mighty. "I own this residence."

  "No, the state owns it. You claim it's charitable housing for the city's y ouths."

  "Eva didn't follow the rules."

  "What rules are those?"

  "We are a religious institution. We have a strict moral code here. Eva here b roke it."

  "How?"

  Pastor Jill smiled. "I'm not sure that's any of your concern. May I ask your n ame?"

  Her two sons exchanged a glance. One put down Eva's stuff. They turned toward h im.

  Matt pointed at Pastor Jill's Mercedes. "Sweet wheels."

  The brothers frowned and strolled toward him. One cracked his neck as he s trutted. The other opened and closed fists. Matt felt his blood hum. Strangely e nough the death of Stephen McGrath-- the "slip"-- hadn't made him fearful of v iolence. Perhaps if he had been more aggressive that night, not less . . . but t hat wasn't what mattered now. He had learned a valuable lesson about physical c onfrontations: You can predict nothing. Sure, whoever lands the first blow u sually wins. The bigger man was usually victorious too. But once it got going, o nce the red tornado took hold of the combatants, anything could happen.

  The Neck Cracker said, "Who are you?" again.

  Matt would not risk it. He sighed and took out his camera phone. "I'm Bob Smiley, Channel Nine News."

  That stopped them.

  He pointed the camera in their direction and pretended to turn it on. "If you d on't mind, I'm going to film what you're doing here. The Channel Nine News van w ill be here for clearer shots in three minutes."

  The brothers looked back at their mother. Pastor Jill's face broke into a b eatific albeit phony smile.

  "We're helping Eva move," she said. "To better quarters."

  "Uh huh."

  "But if she'd rather just stay here . . ."

  "She'd rather stay here," Matt said.

  "Milo, move her things back into the apartment."

  Milo, the Neck Cracker, gave Matt the fish eye. Matt held up the camera. "Hold t hat pose, Milo." Milo and Fist Flex started to take the stuff out of the van.

  Pastor Jill hurried to her Mercedes and waited in the back. Eva looked down at Matt from the window and mouthed a thank-you. Matt nodded and turned away.

  It was then, turning away, not really looking at anything, that Matt saw the g ray Ford Taurus.

  The car was idling about thirty yards behind him. Matt froze. Gray Ford Tauruses w ere plentiful, of course, perhaps the most popular car in the country. Seeing t wo in a day would hardly be uncommon. Matt figured that there was probably a nother Ford Taurus on this very block. Maybe two or three. And he would not be s urprised to learn that another one might even be gray.

  But would it have a license plate that started with MLH, so close to his own i nitials of MKH?

  His eyes stayed glued to the license plate.

  MLH-472.

  The same car he'd seen outside his office.

  Matt tried to keep his breathing even. It could, he knew, be nothing more than a c oincidence. Taking a step back, that was indeed a strong possibility. A person c ould see the same car twice in a day. He was only, what, half a mile away from h is office. This was a fairly congested neighborhood. There was no big shock h ere.

  On a normal day-- check that: On pretty much any other day-- Matt would have let t hat logic win him over.

  But not today. He hesitated, but not for very long. Then he headed toward the c ar.

  "Hey," Milo shouted, "where you going?"

  "Just keep unloading, big man."

  Matt hadn't moved five steps when the front wheels of the Ford Taurus started to a ngle themselves to move out of the spot. Matt hurried his pace.

  Without warning, the Taurus jumped forward and cut across the street. The white t aillights came on and the car jerked back. Matt realized that the driver p lanned on making a K turn. The driver hit the brake and turned the steering w heel hard and fast. Matt was only a few feet from the back window.

  Matt yelled, "Wait!"-- as if that would do any good-- and broke into a sprint. He l eapt in front of the car.

  Bad move.

  The Taurus's tire grabbed gravel, made a little shriek, and shot toward him.

  There was no slowdown, no hesitation. Matt jumped to the side. The Taurus a ccelerated. Matt was off the ground now, horizontal. The bumper clipped his a nkle. A burst of pain exploded through the bone. The momentum swung Matt around i n midair. He landed face-first and tucked into a roll. He ended up on his back.

  For a few moments Matt lay there blinking into the sunlight. People gathered a round him. "You all right?" someone asked. He nodded and sat up. He checked his a nkle. Bruised hard but no break. Someone helped him to his feet.

  The whole thing-- from the moment he saw the car to the moment it tried to run h im down-- had maybe taken five, maybe ten seconds. Certainly no more. Matt s tared off.

  Someone had been-- at the very least-- following him.

  He checked his pocket. The cell phone was still there. He limped back toward Eva's apartment. Pastor Jill and her sons were gone. He checked to make sure Eva w as okay. Then he got into his own car and took a deep breath. He thought about w hat to do and realized that the first step was fairly obvious.

  He dialed her private line number. When Cingle answered, he asked, "You in your o ffice?"

  "Yup," Cingle said.

  "I'll be there in five minutes."

  Chapter 6

  AS SOON AS COUNTY HOMICIDE INVESTIGATOR Loren Muse opened her apartment door, t he waft of cigarette smoke attacked. Loren let it. She stood there and sucked i n a deep breath.

  Her garden apartment was on Morris Avenue in Union, New Jersey. She never u nderstood the term "garden." The place was a pit-- all brick, no personality, a nd nothing resembling green. This was New Jersey's version of purgatory, a way s tation, the place people stayed on the way up or down economic and social l adders. Young couples lived here until they could afford the house. Unlucky p ensioners returned here after the kids flew the coop.

  And, of course, single women on the verge of old-maidhood who worked too hard a nd entertained too little-- they ended up here too.

  Loren was thirty-four years old, a serial dater who, to quote her c igarette-toting mother who was currently on the couch, "never closed the sale."

  The cop-thing worked liked that. It initially attracted men and then sent them s currying when the commitment-aka-expiration date approached. She was currently d ating a guy named Pete whom her mother labeled a "total loser," and Loren had t rouble arguing with that assessment.

  Her two cats, Oscar and Felix, were nowhere in sight, but that was normal. Her m other, the lovely Carmen Valos Muse Brewster Whatever, lay sprawled on the c ouch watching Jeopardy! She watched the show nearly every day and had never g otten a question right.

  "Hey," Loren said.

  "This place is a pigsty," her mother said.

  "Then clean it. Or better yet, move out."

  Carmen had recently split with Husband Four. Her mother was a good-looking w oman-- far better looking than the plain daught
er who'd taken after her suicidal f ather. Still sexy, though now it was in a sort of sloppy-seconds way. Her looks w ere starting to droop, but she still landed better dates than Loren. Men loved Carmen Valos Muse Etcetera.

  Carmen turned back to the television and took another deep puff of the c igarette.

  Loren said, "I told you a thousand times not to smoke in here."

  "You smoke."

  "No, Ma, I quit."

  Carmen turned the big browns in her direction, blinking seductively out of h abit. "You quit?"

  "Yes."

  "Oh, come on. Two months? That's not quitting."

  "It's five months."

  "Still. Didn't you smoke in here?"

  "So?"

  "So what's the big deal? It's not like the smell is gone or anything. It's not l ike this is one of those fancy no-smoking hotel rooms. Right?"

  Her mother gave her the familiar judgmental eye, sizing Loren up the way she a lways did and finding her wanting the way she always did. Loren waited for the i nevitable "just trying to help" beauty tip: Your hair could use some shape, you s hould wear something clingier, why do you have to look like a boy, have you s een the new push-up bras at Victoria's Secret, would a little makeup kill you, s hort girls should never go out without heels . . .

  Carmen's mouth opened and the phone rang.

  "Hold that thought," Loren said.

  She picked up the receiver.

  "Yo, Squirt, it's moi."

  "Moi" was Eldon Teak, a sixty-two-year-old Caucasian grandfather who only l istened to rap music. Eldon was also the Essex County medical examiner.

  "What's up, Eldon?"

  "You catch the Stacked Nun case?"

  "That's what you're calling it?"

  "Until we come up with something funnier. I liked Our Lady with the Valley or Mount Saint Mountains, but no one else did."

  She gently rubbed her eyes with an index finger and thumb. "You got something f or me?"

  "I do."

  "Like?"

  "Like the death wasn't accidental."

  "She was murdered?"