Gone for Good

by Harlan Coben

  "What is?"

  "That your brother would be insensitive enough to sleep with Julie."

  "It wasn't his fault. He asked me if I was over her. I told him I was."

  "You gave him the green light," she said.

  "Yes."

  "But then you ended up following him."

  "You don't understand," I said.

  "No, I do," Katy said. "We all do stuff like that."

  Chapter Thirty-Six.

  I fell into such a deep sleep that I never heard him sneak up on me.

  I had found fresh sheets and blankets for Katy, made sure she was comfortable on the couch, taken a shower, tried to read. The words swam by in a murky haze. I'd go back and reread and re-forget the same paragraph over and over again. I signed on to the Internet and surfed.

  I did a few push-ups, sit-ups, yoga stretches Squares had taught me. I did not want to lie down. I did not want to stop, to let the grief catch me again unawares.

  I was a worthy adversary, but eventually sleep managed to corner and take me down. I was out, falling in a totally dreamless pit, when I felt a jerk on my hand and heard the click. Still asleep, I tried to pull my hand back to my side, but it would not move.

  Something metallic dug into my wrist.

  My eyelids were fluttering open when he leapt on top of me. He landed hard, knocking the wind out of my lungs. I gulped as whoever he was straddled my chest. His knees pinned down my shoulders. Before I could mount any sort of serious struggle, my attacker yanked my free hand to the side above my head. I didn't hear the click this time, but I felt the cold metal close around my skin.

  Both of my hands were cuffed to the bed.

  My veins flooded with ice. For a moment I simply shut down, just as I always had during physical altercations. I opened my mouth, about to scream or at least say something. My attacker grabbed the back of my head and pulled me forward. Without hesitation, he ripped off a piece of duct tape and covered my mouth. Then, for good measure, he started winding a fresh band of tape around the back of my skull and over my mouth, ten maybe fifteen times, as if he were shrink-wrapping my head.

  I could no longer speak or cry out. Breathing was a chore I had to suck the air through my broken nose. It hurt like hell. My shoulders ached from the cuffs and his body weight. I struggled, which was totally futile. I tried to buck him off me. More futile. I wanted to ask him what he wanted, what he planned to do now that I was helpless.

  And that was when I thought about Katy alone in the other room.

  The bedroom was dark. My assailant was no more than a shadow to me. He wore a mask of some kind, something dark, but I could not see what, if anything, was on it. Breathing was becoming nearly impossible. I snorted through the pain.

  Whoever he was, he finished taping my mouth. He hesitated for only a second before bouncing off me. And then, as I watched in helpless horror, he headed for the bedroom door, opened it, stepped into the room where Katy was sleeping, and closed the door behind him.

  My eyes bulged. I tried to scream, but the tape muffled any sound. I bucked like a bronco. I kicked and flailed. No progress.

  Then I stopped and listened. For a moment there was nothing. Pure silence.

  And then Katy screamed.

  Oh Christ. I bucked some more. Her scream had been brief, cut off midway, as though someone had turned off a switch. Panic took full flight now. Full, red-alert panic. I jerked hard on both cuffs. I twisted my head back and forth. Nothing.

  Katy screamed again.

  The sound was fainter this time the gasp of a wounded animal. No way anyone would hear it, and even if they did, nobody would react. Not in New York. Not at this time of night. And even if they did even if someone called the police or rushed to her rescue it would be too late.

  I freaked out then.

  My sanity felt as though it were being torn in two. I went nuts. I thrashed around, seizure style. My nose hurt like hell. I swallowed some of the fibers from the duct tape. I struggled some more.

  But I made no progress.

  Oh God. Okay, calm down. Be cool. Think a second.

  I turned my head toward my right cuff. It did not feel that tight.

  There was give there. Okay, maybe, if I went a little slower, I could pull my hand out. That was it. Calm down. Try to narrow your hand, squeeze it through.

  So I tried. I tried to will my hand into something thinner. I rounded my palm by forcing the bottom of my thumb toward the bottom of my pinky. Then I pulled down, slowly at first, then with more force. No go. The skin bunched around the metal ring and then started ripping. I did not care. I kept pulling.

  It wasn't working.

  The other room had gone quiet.

  I strained my ears for a sound. Any sound at all. Nothing. I tried to curl up my body, tried to lift myself off the bed so hard that, I don't know, maybe the bed would lift up too. Just an inch or two and then maybe it'd break on the way down. I bucked some more. The bed did indeed slide a few inches out. But it was not doing any good.

  I was still trapped.

  I heard Katy scream again. And in a scared, panic-filled voice, she shouted, "John "

  And then she was cut off again.

  John, I thought. She'd said John.

  Asselta?

  The Ghost.. .

  Oh no, please, oh God, no. I heard something muffled.

  Voices. A groan maybe. Like something being smothered by a pillow. My heart beat wildly against my rib cage. The fear struck at me from every angle. I flung my head from side to side, looked for something, anything.

  The phone.

  Could I.. . ? My legs were still free. Maybe I could swing them up, grab the phone with my feet, drop the receiver into my hand. From there I could, I don't know, maybe dial 911 or o. My feet were already on the rise. I contracted the muscles in my abdomen, lifted my legs, swung them to the right. But I was still in hysteria mode. My weight teetered to the side. I lost control of my legs. I pulled back up, trying to regain balance, and when I did, my foot hit the phone.

  The receiver clattered to the floor.

  Damn.

  Now what? My mind snapped I mean, I totally lost it. I thought of animals caught in those claw traps, the ones who gnaw off a limb to escape. I thrashed to exhaustion, at my wit's end and about to give up, when I remembered something Squares had taught me.

  Plow pose.

  That's what it was called. In Hindu: Halasana. You usually do it from a shoulder stand. You lie on your back and flip your legs all the way over your head as you lift your hips. Your toes would touch the floor behind your head. I did not know if I could go that far, but it didn't matter. I crunched my stomach and swung my legs up as hard as I could.

  I threw them back behind me. The balls of my feet thudded against the wall. My chest was up against my chin, making it harder than ever to breathe.

  I pushed against the wall with my legs. The adrenaline kicked in. The bed slid away from the wall. I pushed some more, got enough room.

  Okay, good. Now for the hard part. If the cuffs were too tight, if they did not allow my wrists to turn within them, I would either not be able to make it or dislocate both shoulders. No matter.

  Silence, dead silence, from the other room.

  I let my legs fall toward the floor. I was doing, in effect, a back somersault off the bed. The weight of my legs gave me the momentum and in a stroke of luck my wrists turned in the cuffs. My feet landed hard. I went with it, scraping the front of my thighs and abdomen on the low headboard.

  When I finished, I was standing up behind the bed.

  My hands were still cuffed. My mouth was still taped. But I was standing. I felt another surge of adrenaline.

  Okay, now what?

  No time. I bent my knees. I lowered my shoulder to the back of the headboard and I drove the bed toward the door as if I were an offensive lineman and the bed was a tackle sled. My legs moved like pistons. I did not hesitate. I did not let up.

  The bed crashed into the door.


  The collision was jarring. Pain knifed down my shoulder, my arms, my spine. Something popped and hot pain flooded my joints. Ignoring it, I pulled back and rammed the door again. Then again. The tape made my scream audible only in my own ears. The third time, I pulled extra hard on both cuffs at the precise moment the bed made contact with the wall.

  The bed rails gave way.

  I was free.

  I pushed the bed away from the door. I tried unwrapping the tape from my mouth, but it was taking too long. I grabbed the knob and turned it. I flung open the door and leapt into the darkness.

  Katy was on the floor.

  Her eyes were closed. Her body was limp. The man was straddling her chest. He had his hands on her throat.

  He was choking her.

  Without hesitation, I launched myself at him, rocket-like. It seemed to take me a long time to reach him, as if I were leaping through syrup. He saw me coming had plenty of time to prepare but it still meant that he would have to release her throat. He turned and faced me. I still couldn't see anything but a black outline. He grabbed hold of my shoulders, put his foot into my stomach, and using my own momentum, he simply rolled back.

  I flew across the room. My arms windmilled in the air. But I lucked out again. Or so I thought. I landed on the soft reading chair. It wobbled for a second. Then it toppled over from my weight. My head bounced hard against the side table before banging to the floor.

  I fought off the dizziness and tried to get to my knees. When I started rising for a second offensive, I saw something that terrified me like nothing before ever had.

  The black-clad assailant was up too. He had a knife now. And he was heading toward Katy with it.

  Everything slowed down. What happened next took no more than a second or two. But in my mind's eye, it happened in some alternate time warp.

  Time does that. It is indeed relative. Moments fly by. And moments freeze-frame.

  I was too far away to reach him. I knew that. Even through the dizziness, through the blow from hitting my head on the table .. .

  The table.

  Where I'd placed Squares's gun.

  Was there time to reach it and turn and fire? My eyes were still on Katy and her assailant. No. Not enough time. I knew that immediately.

  The man bent over and grabbed Katy by the hair.

  As I went for the gun, I pawed at the tape on my mouth. The tape shifted enough for me to shout, "Freeze or I'll shoot!"

  His head turned in the dark. I was already scrambling on the floor. I moved flat on my stomach, crawling commando style. He saw that I was unarmed and turned back to finish what he had started. My hand found the gun. No time to aim. I pulled the trigger.

  The man startled back from the sound.

  That bought me time. I swung around with the gun, already pulling the trigger again. The man rolled back like a gymnast. I could still barely make him out, just a shadow. I started moving the gun toward the black mass, still firing. How many bullets did this thing hold?

  How many had I fired?

  He jerked back, but kept on moving. Had I hit him?

  The man jumped toward the door. I yelled for him to stop. He didn't.

  I considered firing into his back, but something, perhaps a fly-through of humanity, made me stop. He was already out the door. And I had bigger worries.

  I looked down at Katy. She was not moving.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven.

  Another officer the fifth, by my count came to hear my story.

  "I want to know how she is first," I said.

  The doctor had stopped working on me. In the movies, the doctor always defends his patients. He tells the cop that they cannot question him right now, that he needs his rest. My doctor, an emergency room intern from, I think, Pakistan, had no such hang-up. He popped back my shoulder while they began their grilling. He poured iodine on my wrist wounds. He toyed with my nose. He took out a hacksaw what a hospital was doing with a hacksaw I don't want to know and cut off my handcuffs, all while I got grilled. I was still wearing my sleeping boxers and pajama top. The hospital had covered my bare feet with paper sandals.

  "Just answer my question," the cop said.

  This had been going on for two hours now. The adrenaline had died down, and the ache was starting to gnaw on my bones. I'd had enough.

  "Yeah, okay, you got me," I said. "First, I put cuffs on both my hands. Then I broke up some furniture, fired several bullets into the walls, choked her nearly to death in my own apartment, and then called the police on myself. You got me."

  "Could have worked that way," the officer said. He was a big man with a waxy mustache that made me think of a barbershop quartet. He had given me his name, but I stopped caring three cops ago.

  "Excuse me?"

  "A ruse maybe."

  "I dislocated my shoulder and cut up my hands and broke my bed to divert suspicion?"

  He gave a classic cop-shrug. "Hey, I had a guy one time, he cut off his dick so we wouldn't think he killed his girl. Said a bunch of black guys attacked them. Thing is, he only meant to cut it a little but he ended up slicing all the way through."

  "That's a great story," I said.

  "Could be the same thing here."

  "My penis is fine, thanks for caring."

  "You tell us about some guy breaking in. Neighbors heard the shots."

  "Yes."

  He gave me the skeptical eyes. "So how come none of your neighbors saw him running out?"

  "Because and this is just a wild stab in the dark it was two in the morning?"

  I was still sitting up on the examining table. My legs hung off. They were starting to go to sleep from the angle. I hopped down.

  "Where do you think you're going?" the cop asked.

  "I want to see Katy."

  "I don't think so." The cop twitched the mustache. "Her parents are with her right now."

  He studied my face for a reaction. I tried not to give him one.

  The mustache twitched. "Her father has some pretty strong opinions about you," he said.

  "I bet he does."

  "He thinks you did this."

  "For what purpose?"

  "You mean what motive?"

  "No, I mean purpose, intent. Do you think I was trying to kill her?"

  He crossed his arms and shrugged. "Sounds reasonable to me."

  "Then why did I call you while she was still alive?" I asked. "I went through this big ruse, right? So why didn't I finish her off?"

  "Strangling someone isn't that easy," he said. "Maybe you thought she was dead."

  "You realize, of course, how idiotic that sounds."

  The door behind him opened, and Pistillo entered. He gave me a look as heavy as the ages. I closed my eyes and massaged the bridge of my nose with my forefinger and thumb. Pistillo was with one of the cops who had questioned me earlier. The cop signaled to his mustached compadre.

  The mustached cop looked annoyed by the interruption, but he followed the other one out the door. I was alone now with Pistillo.

  He did not say anything at first. Pistillo circled the room, studying the glass jar of cotton balls, the tongue depressors, the hazardous-waste disposal can. Hospital rooms normally smell of antiseptic, but this one reeked of male-flight-attendant cologne. I did not know if it was from a doctor or cop, but I could see Pistillo's nose twitch in disgust. I was already used to it.

  "Tell me what happened," he said.

  "Didn't your friends with the NYPD fill you in?"

  "I told them I wanted to hear it from you," Pistillo said. "Before they throw your ass in jail."

  "I want to know how Katy is."

  He weighed my request for a second or two. "Her neck and vocal cords will be sore, but she'll be fine."

  I closed my eyes and let the relief flow over me.

  "Start talking," Pistillo said.

  I told him what happened. He stayed quiet until I got to the part about her shouting out the name "John."

  "Any idea who John
is?" he asked.

  "Maybe."

  "I'm listening."

  "A guy I knew when I was growing up. His name is John Asselta."

  Pistillo's face dropped.

  "You know him?" I asked.

  He ignored my question. "What makes you think she was talking about Asselta?"

  "He's the one who broke my nose."

  I filled him in on the Ghost's breakin and assault. Pistillo did not look happy.

  "Asselta was looking for your brother?"

  "That's what he said."

  His face reddened. "Why the hell didn't you tell me this before?"

  "Yeah, it's weird," I said. "You've always been the guy I could turn to, the friend I could trust with anything."

  He stayed angry. "Do you know anything about John Asselta?"

  "We grew up in the same town. We used to call him the Ghost."

  "He's one of the most dangerous wackos out there," Pistillo said. He stopped, shook his head. "It couldn't have been him."

  "What makes you say that?"

  "Because you're both alive."

  Silence.

  "He's a stone-cold killer."

  "So why isn't he in jail?" I asked.

  "Don't be naive. He's good at what he does."

  "Killing people?"

  "Yes. He lives overseas, no one knows where exactly. He's worked for government death squads in Central America. He helped despots in Africa." Pistillo shook his head. "No, if Asselta wanted her dead, we'd be tying a toe tag on her right about now."

  "Maybe she meant another John," I said. "Or maybe I just heard wrong."

  "Maybe." He thought about that. "One other thing I don't get. If the Ghost or anyone else wanted to kill Katy Miller, why not just do it?

  Why go to the trouble of cuffing you down?"

  That had troubled me too, but I had come up with one possibility.

  "Maybe it was a setup."

  He frowned. "How do you figure?"

  "The killer cuffs me to the bed. He chokes Katy to death. Then" I could feel a tingle on my scalp "maybe he'd set it up to make it look like I did it." I looked up at him.

  Pistillo frowned. "You're not going to say "Like my brother," are you?"

  "Yeah," I said. "Yeah, I think I am."

  "That's horse shit."

  "Think about it, Pistillo. One thing you guys could never explain: Why was my brother's blood at the scene?"

  "Julie Miller fought him off."

  "You know better. There was too much blood for that." I moved closer to him. "Ken was framed eleven years ago, and maybe tonight someone wanted history to repeat itself."

  He scoffed. "Don't be melodramatic. And let me tell you something.