Hold Tight (2008)

by Harlan Coben

  "Quite a loss."

  "Yes."

  Muse looked at him.

  "What?"

  "Your stunt yesterday with that reporter."

  "What about it?"

  "It was a tad patronizing," Muse said. "I don't need you rescuing me."

  "I wasn't rescuing you. If anything, I was setting you up."

  "How's that?"

  "You either had the goods to blow Tremont out of the water or you didn't. One of you was going to look like an ass."

  "Him or me, was that it?"

  "Exactly. Truth is, Tremont is a snitch and a terrible distraction in this office. I wanted him gone for selfish reasons."

  "Suppose I didn't have the goods."

  Cope shrugged. "Then you might be the one handing in your resignation."

  "You were willing to take that risk?"

  "What risk? Tremont is a lazy moron. If he could outthink you, you don't deserve to be the chief."

  "Touche."

  "Enough. You didn't call me to talk about Frank Tremont. So what's up?"

  She told him all about the disappearance of Reba Cordova--the witness at Target, the van, the parking lot at the Ramada in East Hanover. Cope sat in the chair and looked at her with gray eyes. He had great eyes, the kind that change color in different light. Loren Muse had something of a crush on Paul Copeland, but then again, she'd also had something of a crush on his predecessor, who was considerably older and couldn't have looked more different. Maybe she had a thing for authority figures.

  The crush was harmless, more an appreciation than any kind of real-life longing. He didn't keep her up at night or make her hurt or intrude on any of her fantasies, sexual or otherwise. She loved Paul Copeland's attractiveness without coveting it. She wanted those qualities in whatever man she dated, though Lord knows she had never found it.

  Muse knew about her boss's past, about the horror he'd gone through, the hell of recent revelations. She had even helped see him through it. Like so many other men she knew, Paul Copeland was damaged, but damaged worked for him. Lots of guys in politics--and that's what this job was, a political appointment--are ambitious but haven't known suffering. Cope had. As a prosecutor it made him both more sympathetic and less likely to accept defense excuses.

  Muse gave him all the facts on the Reba Cordova disappearance without her theories. He watched her face and nodded slowly.

  "Let me guess," Cope said. "You think that this Reba Cordova is somehow connected to your Jane Doe."

  "Yes."

  "Are you thinking, what, a serial killer?"

  "It could be, though serial killers normally work alone. There was a woman involved in this one."

  "Okay, let's hear why you think they're linked."

  "First the MO."

  "Two white women about the same age," Cope said. "One is found dressed like a hooker in Newark. The other, well, we don't know where she is."

  "That's part of it, but here is the big thing that drew my eye. The use of deception and diversion."

  "I'm not following."

  "We have two well-to-do white women in their forties vanishing within, what, twenty-four hours of each other. That's a strange similarity right there. But more than that, in the first case, with our Jane Doe, we know the killer went through elaborate staging to fool us, right?"

  "Right."

  "Well, he did the same with Reba Cordova."

  "By parking the car at a motel?"

  She nodded. "In both cases, he worked hard to throw us off the track with false clues. In the case of Jane Doe, he set it up so we would think she was a hooker. In the case of Reba Cordova, he made it look like she was a woman cheating on her husband who ran off with her lover."

  "Eh." Cope made a face. "That's pretty weak."

  "Yes. But it is something. Not to be racist, but how often does a nice-looking family woman from a suburb like Livingston just run off with a lover?"

  "It happens."

  "Maybe, but she would plan better, wouldn't she? She wouldn't drive up to a shopping mall near where her daughter takes ice-skating lessons and buy some kid underwear and then, what, throw them away and run to her lover? And then we have the witness, a guy named Stephen Errico, who saw her go into a van at the Target. And he saw another woman drive away."

  "If that's what really happened."

  "It did."

  "Okay, but even so. How else are you tying Reba Cordova with our Jane Doe?"

  Muse arched an eyebrow. "I'm saving the best for last."

  "Thank God."

  "Let's go back to Stephen Errico."

  "The witness at the mall?"

  "Right. Errico makes his report. On its own, sure, I don't blame the security guys at the Palisades. It sounds like nothing. But I looked him up on the Web. He's got his own blog page with his photo- graph--a big, heavy guy with a bushy beard and Grateful Dead shirt-- and when I talked to him, he is clearly something of a conspiracy nut. Errico also likes to insinuate himself into the story. You know, the kind of guy who goes to the mall and hopes to see a shoplifter?"

  "Right."

  "But that also makes him damn specific. Errico said he saw a woman matching Reba Cordova's description get into a white Chevy van. But more than that, he actually took down the van's license plate."

  "And?"

  "I ran the plate. It belongs to a woman named Helen Kasner of Scarsdale, New York."

  "Does she own a white van?"

  "She does, and she was at the Palisades Mall yesterday."

  Cope nodded, seeing where she was going. "So you figure someone switched plates on Ms. Kasner?"

  "Exactly. Oldest trick in the book but still effective--you steal a car to commit a crime, then you switch plates in case someone sees it. More deception. But a lot of criminals don't realize that the most effective method is to switch plates with a vehicle that's the same make as yours. It confuses even more."

  "So you're figuring the van in the Target lot was stolen."

  "You don't agree?"

  "I guess I do," Cope said. "It certainly adds weight to Mr. Errico's story. I get why we should worry about Reba Cordova. But I still don't see how she ties in with our Jane Doe."

  "Take a look at this."

  She swiveled her computer monitor in his direction. Cope turned his attention to the screen.

  "What is this?"

  "A security tape from a building near the Jane Doe murder scene. I was watching it this morning, thinking it was total waste of time. But now..." Muse had the tape all lined up. She pressed the PLAY button. A white van appeared. She hit PAUSE and the image froze.

  Cope moved closer. "A white van."

  "A white Chevy van, yup."

  "Must be a zillion white Chevy vans registered in New York and New Jersey," Cope said. "Could you get the license plate?"

  "Yes."

  "And can I assume it's a match with the one that belongs to the Kasner woman?"

  "No."

  Cope's eyes narrowed. "No?"

  "No. Totally different number."

  "Then what's the big deal?"

  She pointed at the screen. "This license plate--JYL-419--belongs to a Mr. David Pulkingham of Armonk, New York."

  "Does Mr. Pulkingham own a white van too?"

  "Yes."

  "Could he be our guy?"

  "He's seventy-three and has no record."

  "So you figure another plate switch?"

  "Yep."

  Clarence Morrow leaned his head in the office. "Chief?"

  "Yes."

  He saw Paul Copeland and straightened as though ready to salute. "Good morning, Mr. Prosecutor."

  "Hey, Clarence."

  Clarence waited.

  "It's okay," Muse said. "What have you got?"

  "I just got off the phone with Helen Kasner."

  "And?"

  "I had her check her van's plate. You were right. The license plate was switched and she never noticed."

  "Anything else?"

  "Yep, the k
icker. The license plate on the car now?" Clarence pointed to the white van on the computer screen. "It belongs to Mr. David Pulkingham."

  Muse looked at Cope, smiled, raised her palms to the sky. "That enough of a link?"

  "Yeah," Cope said. "That'll do."

  Chapter 19.

  YASMIN whispered, "Let's go."

  Jill looked at her friend. The little mustache on her face, the one that had caused all the trouble, was gone, but for some reason Jill could still see it. Yasmin's mother had visited from wherever she lived now--somewhere down south, Florida maybe--and had taken her to some fancy doctor's office and gotten her electrolysis. It helped her appearance but it hadn't helped make school one bit less horrible.

  They were sitting at the kitchen table. Beth, the "girlfriend du week" as Yasmin called her, had tried to impress them with a fancy omelette breakfast complete with sausage links and Beth's "legend- ary hotcakes," but the girls had passed, to Beth's crestfallen disappointment, in favor of frozen Eggos with chocolate chips.

  "Okay, girls, you enjoy," Beth said through clenched teeth. "I'm going to sit in the yard and get some sun."

  As soon as Beth was out the door, Yasmin got up from the table and sneaked over to the bay window. Beth was not in view. Yasmin looked left, then right, then she smiled.

  "What is it?" Jill asked.

  "Check this out," Yasmin said.

  Jill rose and joined her friend.

  "Look. In the corner behind the big tree."

  "I don't see anything."

  "Look closer," Yasmin said.

  It took a moment or two and then Jill saw something gray and wispy and she realized what Yasmin meant. "Beth's smoking?"

  "Yup. She's hiding behind a tree and lighting up."

  "Why hide?"

  "Maybe she's worried about smoking in front of impressionable youth," Yasmin said with a wry grin. "Or maybe Beth doesn't want my dad to know. He hates smokers."

  "Are you going to rat her out?"

  Yasmin smiled, shrugged. "Who knows? We rat out everybody else, don't we?" She started rifling through a purse. Jill gave a little gasp.

  "Is that Beth's?"

  "Yes."

  "We shouldn't do that."

  Yasmin just made a face and continued her rummaging.

  Jill moved closer and peered in. "Anything interesting?"

  "No." Yasmin put it down. "Come on, I want to show you something."

  She dropped the purse on the counter and headed up the stairs. Jill followed. There was a window in the bathroom at the landing. Yasmin took a quick peak. So did Jill. Beth was indeed behind the tree--they could see her clearly now--and she was puffing on that cigarette as if she were underwater and had finally found a lifeline. She took deep hard puffs and closed her eyes and the lines on her face smoothed out.

  Yasmin moved away without a word. She beckoned Jill to follow. They entered her father's room. Yasmin headed straight to his night table and opened the drawer.

  Jill was hardly shocked. This, in truth, was one of the things they had in common. They both liked to explore. All kids do to some extent, Jill guessed, but in her house, her dad called her "Harriet the Spy." She was always sneaking into places she didn't belong. When Jill was eight, she found old pictures in her mom's drawer. They were hidden in the back, under a bunch of old postcards and pillboxes she'd bought on a trip to Florence during a summer break in college.

  In one picture was a boy who looked to be about her age at the time--eight or maybe nine. He stood next to a girl maybe a year or two younger. The girl, Jill immediately knew, was her mother. She turned the picture over. Someone had written in delicate script, "Tia and Davey" and the year.

  She had never heard of a Davey. But she learned. Her snooping had taught her a valuable lesson. Parents like to keep things secrets too.

  "Look here," Yasmin said.

  Jill looked into the drawer. Mr. Novak had a roll of condoms on the top. "Eeuw, gross."

  "Do you think he used them with Beth?"

  "I don't want to think about it."

  "How do you think I feel? He's my father." Jill closed the drawer and opened the one below it. Her voice suddenly became a whisper.

  "Jill?"

  "What?"

  "Take a look at this."

  Yasmin dug her hand past old sweaters, a metal box of some kind, rolls of socks, and then it stopped. She pulled something into a view and smiled.

  Jill jumped back. "What the... ?"

  "It's a gun."

  "I know it's a gun!"

  "And it's loaded."

  "Put it away. I can't believe your dad has a loaded gun."

  "So do lots of dads. Want me to show you how to take off the safety?"

  "No."

  But Yasmin did it anyway. They both stared at the weapon in awe. Yasmin handed it to Jill. At first Jill put up her hand refusing, but then something about its shape and color drew her. She let it rest in her palm. She marveled at the weight, at the coolness, at the simplicity.

  "Can I tell you something?" Yasmin asked.

  "Sure."

  "You promise you won't tell."

  "Of course I won't tell."

  "When I first found it, I fantasized about using it on Mr. Lewiston."

  Jill carefully set the weapon down.

  "I could almost see it, you know? I would go into class. I would keep it in my backpack. Sometimes I think about waiting until after class, shooting him when no one is around, wiping my fingerprints off the gun, making a clean getaway. Or I would go to his house--I know where he lives, it's in West Orange--and I would kill him there and no one would suspect me. And then other times I think about doing it right in the classroom, with everyone still there, and all the other kids would see, and maybe I would even turn the gun that way, but then I quickly thought, no, that would be too Columbine and I'm not like some goth outcast."

  "Yasmin?"

  "Yeah?"

  "You're kind of scaring me."

  Yasmin smiled. "It was just, like, a random thought, you know. Harmless. I'm not going to do it or anything."

  Silence.

  "He will pay," Jill said. "You know that, right? Mr. Lewiston?"

  "I do know," Yasmin said.

  They heard a car pull into the driveway. Mr. Novak was home. Yasmin calmly picked up the gun, put it in the bottom of the drawer, arranged everything just so. She took her time, no rush, even when the door opened and they heard her father call out, "Yasmin? Girls?"

  Yasmin closed the drawer, smiled, moved toward the door.

  "We're coming, Dad!"

  TIA didn't bother to pack.

  As soon as she hung up with Mike, she ran down to the lobby. Brett was still rubbing sleep from his eyes, and his hair had the di- sheveled look of the great untouched. He'd volunteered to drive her to the Bronx. Brett's van was loaded with computer equipment and smelled like a bong, but he kept his foot pressed on the pedal. Tia sat next to him and made some phone calls. She woke up Guy Novak and briefly explained that Mike had been in an accident and could he watch Jill for a few extra hours? He had been properly sympathetic and quickly agreed.

  "What should I tell Jill?" Guy Novak asked her.

  "Just tell her something's come up. I don't want her worrying."

  "Sure thing."

  "Thanks, Guy."

  Tia sat up and stared at the road as though that might make the trip shorter. She tried to piece together what happened. Mike said he had used a cell phone GPS. He tracked down Adam in some strange location in the Bronx. He drove there, maybe saw the Huff kid, and then he got assaulted.

  Adam was still missing--or maybe, like last time, he had merely decided to drop out of sight for a day or two.

  She called Clark's house. She spoke to Olivia too. Neither had seen Adam. She called the Huff household, but there was no answer. For most of the night and even this morning, preparing for the deposition had kept the terror partially occupied--at least until Mike had called from the hospital. No more. Raw fe
ar rose up and took hold. She started shifting in her seat.

  "Ya okay?" Brett asked.

  "Fine."

  But she wasn't fine. She kept flashing to the night Spencer Hill had vanished and committed suicide. She remembered getting the call from Betsy...

  "Has Adam seen Spencer... ?"

  The panic in Betsy's voice. The pure fear. No anxiety in the end. She had been worried and, in the end, she had earned every second of it.

  Tia closed her eyes. It was suddenly hard to breathe. She felt her chest hitch. She gulped down breaths.

  "You want me to open a window?" Brett asked.

  "I'm fine."

  She collected herself and called the hospital. She managed to reach the doctor, but she learned nothing she didn't already know. Mike had been beaten and robbed. From what she could make of it, a group of men had jumped her husband in an alley. He had suffered a severe concussion and had been unconscious for several hours, but he was resting comfortably and would be fine.

  She reached Hester Crimstein at home. Her boss expressed moderate concern for Tia's husband and son--and maximum concern for her case.

  "Your son has run away before, right?" Hester asked.

  "Once."

  "So that's probably what's going on with him, don't you think?"

  "It might be something more."

  "Like what?" Hester asked. "Look, what time is the deposition again?"

  "Three P.M."

  "I'll ask for a continuance. If it's not granted, you have to go back up."

  "You're joking, right?"

  "From the sound of it, there is nothing you can do from there. You can have phone access throughout. I'll get you the private jet so you can leave from Teterboro."

  "This is my family we're talking about."

  "Right, and I'm talking about missing a few hours from them. You're not going to do anything to make them feel better, just yourself. In the meantime, I'm dealing with an innocent man who may end up serving a twenty-five-year prison term if we screw this up."

  Tia wanted to quit right on the spot, but something took hold and calmed her enough to say, "Let's see about the continuance."

  "I'll call you back."

  Tia hung up the phone, looked at it in her hand as if it were some strange new growth. Did that really happen?

  When she reached Mike's room, Mo was already there. He stormed across the room, two fists at his side. "He's fine," Mo said, as soon as she entered. "He just fell back asleep."