Gone for Good

by Harlan Coben

  "We set that up," she said. "He let us escape. What neither of us realized was that you'd be so willing and ready. That driver was only supposed to make it look good. We had no idea you'd hurt him so badly."

  "But why?"

  "Because the Ghost knew the truth."

  "What truth?"

  She again gestured toward Ken. "That your brother would never show just to save your life. He would never put himself in that danger.

  That something like this" she lifted her free hand "was the only way he'd ever agree to meet you."

  I shook my head again.

  "We had a man wait at the yard that night. Just in case. No one ever came."

  I stumbled back. I looked at Melissa. I looked at my father. And I knew that it was all true. Every word that she said. It was true.

  Ken had killed Julie.

  "I never meant to hurt you," Katy said to me. "But my family needs closure. The FBI had set him free. I had no choice. I couldn't let him get away with what he did to my sister."

  My father spoke for the first time. "So what are you going to do now, Katy? Are you just going to shoot him?"

  Katy said, "Yes."

  And that was when all hell broke loose again.

  My father made the sacrifice. He let out a cry and dove toward Katy.

  She fired the gun. My father staggered and continued toward her. He knocked the weapon from her hands. He also went down, holding his leg.

  But the distraction had been enough.

  When I looked up, Ken had whipped out his own gun. His eyes the ones I had described as pure ice were focused on Katy. He was going to shoot her. There was no hesitation. He just had to aim and pull the trigger.

  I jumped toward him. My hand hit his arm just as he pulled the trigger. The gun went off, but the shot was wild. I tackled my brother. We rolled on the ground again, but it was nothing like before. Not this time. He elbowed me in the stomach. It knocked the wind out of me. He rose. He pointed the gun at Katy.

  "No," I said.

  "I have to," Ken said.

  I grabbed him. We wrestled. I told Katy to run. Ken quickly took the advantage. He flipped me over. Our eyes met.

  "She's the last thread," he said.

  "I won't let you kill her."

  Ken put the barrel of the gun against my forehead. Our faces were no more than an inch apart. I heard Melissa scream. I told her to stay back. In the corner of my eye, I saw her take out a cell phone and start dialing.

  "Go ahead," I said. "Pull the trigger."

  "You think I won't?" he said.

  "You're my brother."

  "So?" And again I thought about evil, about the shapes it takes, how you are never truly safe from it. "Didn't you hear anything Katy said?

  Don't you understand what I'm capable of how many people I've hurt and betrayed?"

  "Not me," I said softly.

  He laughed, his face still inches from mine, the gun still pressed against my forehead. "What did you say?"

  "Not me," I repeated.

  Ken threw his head back. His laugh grew, echoing in the stillness. The sound chilled me like no other. "Not you?" he said. He lowered his lips toward me.

  "You," he whispered in my ear, "I've hurt and betrayed more than anyone."

  His words hit me like cinder blocks. I looked up at him. His face tensed and I was sure he was going to pull the trigger. I closed my eyes and waited. There were shouts and commotion, but all of that seemed very far away. What I heard now the only sound that really reached me was Ken crying. I opened my eyes. The world faded away.

  There was just the two of us.

  I can't say what happened exactly. Maybe it was the position I was in, on my back, helpless, and he, my brother, not my savior this time, not my protector, but looming over me, the cause of it all. Maybe Ken looked down and saw me vulnerable and something instinctive, something that had always needed to keep me safe, took over. Maybe that was what shook him. I don't know. But as our eyes met, his face began to soften, started shifting in degrees.

  And then it all changed again.

  I felt Ken's grip on me loosen, but he kept the gun against my forehead. "I want you to make me a promise, Will," he said.

  "What?"

  "It's about Carly."

  "Your daughter."

  Ken closed his eyes now, and I saw genuine anguish. "She loves Nora," he said. "I want you two to take care of her. You raise her. Promise me."

  " But what about ?"

  "Please," Ken said, his voice a desperate plea. "Please promise me."

  "Okay, I promise."

  "And promise me you'll never take her to see me."

  "What?"

  He was crying hard now. Tears ran down his cheeks, wetting both our faces. "Promise me, dammit. You never mention me to her. You raise her as your own. You never let her visit me in prison. Promise me that, Will. Promise me or I'll start firing."

  "Give me the gun first," I said, "and I'll promise."

  Ken looked down at me. He pushed the gun into my hand. And then he kissed me hard. I wrapped my arms around him. I held him, the murderer. I hugged him to me. He cried into my chest like a small child. We were like that for a long time, until we heard the sirens.

  I tried to push him away. "Go," I whispered to him, pleading. "Please.

  Just run."

  But Ken did not move. Not this time. I will never know why exactly.

  Maybe he had run enough. Maybe he was trying to reach through the evil. Maybe he just wanted to be held. I don't know. But Ken stayed in my arms. He held on to me until the police came over and pulled him away.

  Chapter -Eight.

  Four days later Carly's plane was on time.

  Squares dropped us off at the airport. He, Nora, and I headed toward Newark Airport's Terminal C together. Nora walked up ahead. She knew the child and was anxious and excited to see her again. Me, I was anxious and scared.

  Squares said, "Wanda and I talked."

  I looked at him.

  "I told her everything."

  "And?"

  He stopped and shrugged. "Looks like we're both going to be fathers sooner than expected."

  I hugged him, happy as hell for them both. I was not so sure about my own situation. I was about to raise a twelve-year-old girl I did not know. I would do my best, but despite what Squares had said, I could never be Carly's father. I had come to terms with a lot about Ken, including the possibility that he would probably spend the remainder of his life in prison, but his insistence on never seeing his daughter again gnawed at me. He wanted, I assume, to protect his child. He felt, again I assumed, that the girl was best off without him.

  I say "assumed" because I could not ask him. Once in custody, Ken had refused to see me too. I did not know why, but his whispered words ..

  .

  You I've hurt and betrayed more than anyone. kept echoing inside me, shredding with razor talons, inescapable.

  Squares stayed outside. Nora and I rushed in. She was wearing the engagement ring. We were early, of course. We found the incoming gate and hurried down the corridor. Nora put her purse into the X-ray machine. I set the metal detector off, but it was just my watch. We rushed to the gate, though the plane was not due to touch down for another fifteen minutes.

  We sat and held hands and waited. Melissa had decided to stay in town for a little while. She was nursing my father back to health. Yvonne Sterno had, as promised, gotten the exclusive story. I don't know what it will do for her career. I had not yet contacted Edna Rogers. I would soon, I guessed.

  As for Katy, no charges had been filed following the shooting. I thought about how much she needed closure, and I wondered if that night had helped her or not. I think maybe it did.

  Assistant Director in Charge Joe Pistillo had recently announced that he would retire at the end of the year. I now understood only too well why he was so eager for me to keep Katy Miller out of this not just for her health but because of what she had seen. I don't know if Pistil
lo truly doubted the testimony of a six-year-old girl or if his sister's grieving face made him twist Katy's words to suit his purposes. I do know that the feds had kept Katy's old testimony under wraps, supposedly because they were trying to protect a little girl. But I have my doubts.

  I had, of course, been crushed to learn the truth about my brother, and yet this is going to sound odd it was somehow okay. The ugliest truth, in the end, was still better than the prettiest of lies. My world was darker, but it was back on its axis.

  Nora leaned over. "You okay?"

  "Scared," I said.

  "I love you," she said. "Carly will love you too."

  We stared up at the arrivals monitor. It began to blink. The Continental Airlines gatekeeper picked up the micro phone and announced that Flight had landed. Carly's flight. I turned to Nora. She smiled and gave my hand another squeeze.

  I let my eyes travel then. My gaze floated across the waiting passengers, the men in suits, the women with carry-ons, the families heading for vacation, the delayed, the frustrated, the worn. I casually swept over their faces and that was when I saw him looking at me. My heart stopped.

  The Ghost.

  A spasm ripped through me.

  Nora said, "What?"

  "Nothing."

  The Ghost beckoned me toward him. I stood as though in a trance.

  "Where are you going?"

  "I'll be right back," I said.

  "But she's going to be here."

  "I just need to run to the bathroom."

  I kissed the top of Nora's head gently. She looked concerned. She glanced across the gate, but the Ghost was no longer in sight. I knew better. If I walked, he would find me. Ignoring him would only make it worse. Running would be futile. He would ultimately find us.

  I had to face him.

  I started walking in the direction where he'd been. My legs felt rubbery, but I kept going. When I passed a long row of abandoned pay phones, I heard him.

  "Will?"

  I turned and he was there. He motioned for me to sit next to him. I did. We both faced the plate glass window rather than each other. The window magnified the rays. The heat was stifling. I squinted my eyes.

  So did he.

  "I didn't come back for your brother," the Ghost said. "I came back for Carly."

  His words turned me to stone. I said, "You can't have her."

  He smiled. "You don't understand."

  "Then tell me."

  The Ghost shifted his body toward me. "You want people lined up, Will.

  You want the good guys on one side, the bad on the other. It doesn't work that way, does it? It is never that simple. Love, for example, leads to hate. I think that was what started it all. Primitive love."

  "I don't know what you're talking about."

  "Your father," he said. "He loved Ken too much. I look for the seed, Will. And that's where I find it. In your father's love."

  "I still don't know what you're talking about."

  "What I'm about to say," the Ghost continued, "I've only told one other person. Do you understand?"

  I said that I did.

  "You have to go back to when Ken and I were in the fourth grade," he said. "You see, I didn't stab Daniel Skinner. Ken did. But your father loved him so much that he protected him. He bought off my old man. Paid him five grand. Believe it or not, your father almost saw himself as charitable. My old man beat me all the time. Most people said I should be in foster care anyway. The way your father saw it, I would either get off on self-defense or end up getting therapy and three square meals a day."

  I was stunned silent. I thought about our meeting up at the Little League field. My father's crippling fear, his icy silence when we got back, his telling Asselta, "You want someone, you take me." Once again it all made terrible sense.

  "I only told one person the truth," he said. "Any guesses?"

  Something else fell into place. "Julie," I said.

  He nodded. The bond. It explained a lot about their strange bond.

  "So why are you here?" I asked. "To take vengeance on Ken's daughter?"

  "No," the Ghost said with a small laugh. "There is no easy way to tell you this, Will, but maybe science can help."

  He handed me a folder. I looked down at it. "Open it," he said.

  I did as he asked.

  "It's the autopsy of the recently departed Sheila Rogers," he said.

  I frowned. I didn't wonder how he got it. I was sure he had his sources. "What does this have to do with anything?"

  "Look here." The Ghost pointed with a thin finger to an entry midway down. "You see down at the bottom? No scars on the pubic bone from the tears of the periosteum. No comments about pale striations over the breast and abdominal wall. Not unusual, of course. It wouldn't mean anything, unless you were looking for it."

  "Looking for what?"

  He closed the file. "Signs that the victim had given birth." He saw the look of confusion on my face and added, "Put simply, Sheila Rogers could not have been Carly's mother."

  I was about to say something but the Ghost handed me another file. I looked at the name on it.

  Julie Miller.

  The cold spread inside me. He flipped it open and pointed to an entry and started reading, "Pubic scars, pale striations, changes in the microscopic architecture of the breast and uterine tissues," he said.

  "And the trauma was recent. See here? The scar from the episiotomy was still pronounced."

  I stared at the words.

  "Julie did not come home just to meet up with Ken. She was getting her act together after a very bad spell. She was finding herself again, Will. She wanted to tell you the truth."

  "What truth?"

  But he shook his head and continued. "She would have told you earlier, but she wasn't sure how you'd react. The way you so easily let her break up with you ... that was what I meant when I said you were supposed to fight for her. You just let her go."

  Our eyes locked.

  "Julie had a baby six months before she died," the Ghost said. "She and the child, a girl, lived with Sheila Rogers in that apartment. I think Julie would have finally told you that night, but your brother took care of that. Sheila loved the child too. When Julie was murdered and your brother needed to escape, Sheila wanted to keep it as her own. And Ken, well, he saw how useful a baby could be to hide an international fugitive. He had no children. Neither did Sheila. It would be better than the best disguise."

  Ken's whispered words came back to me.. ..

  "Do you understand what I'm telling you, Will?"

  You I've hurt and betrayed more than anyone.

  The Ghost's voice cut through the haze. "You're not a substitute here.

  You're Carly's real father."

  I don't think I was breathing anymore. I stared out at nothing. Hurt and betrayed. My brother. My brother had taken my child.

  The Ghost stood. "I didn't come back for revenge or even justice," he continued. "But the truth is, Julie died protecting me. I failed her.

  I made a vow that I would save her child. It took me eleven years."

  I stumbled to my feet. We stood side by side. Passengers were pouring off the plane. The Ghost jammed something in my pocket. A piece of paper. I ignored it.

  "I sent that surveillance tape to Pistillo, so McGuane won't bother you. I found the evidence in the house that night and kept it all these years. You and Nora are safe now. I took care of everything."

  More passengers disembarked. I stood and waited and listened.

  "Remember that Katy is Carly's aunt, that the Millers are her grandparents. Let them be a part of her life. Do you hear me?"

  I nodded, and that was when Carly came through the gate. Everything inside of me shut down. The girl walked out with such poise. Like ..

  . like her mother. Carly looked around and when she spotted Nora, her face broke into the most amazing smile. My heart broke. Right then and there, it shattered. The smile. That smile, you see, belonged to my mother. It was Sunny's smile
, like an echo from the past, a sign that not all of my mother nor all of Julie had been extinguished.

  I choked back a sob and felt a hand on my back.

  "Go now," the Ghost whispered, gently pushing me toward my daughter.

  I glanced back, but John Asselta was already gone. So I did the only thing I could. I made my way toward the woman I loved and my child.

  Epilogue Later that night, after I kissed Carly and helped her to bed, I found the piece of paper he'd jammed into my pocket. It was just the first few lines of a newspaper clipping:

  KANSAS CITY HERALD

  Man Found Dead in Car Cramden, Mo. Cray Spring, an off-duty police officer with the Cramden force, was found strangled in his car, apparently the victim of a robbery. His wallet was reportedly missing. Local police said his car was found in the parking lot behind a local bar. Police chief Evan Kraft said that there were no suspects at this time, and that the investigation was ongoing.