by Harlan Coben
The uniformed officer looked too young to be working the desk. Maybe this was another example of how TV shaped us, but Mike always expected a grizzled veteran to be working the desk, like that guy who told everyone "Let's be careful out there" on Hill Street Blues . This kid looked about twelve. He was also staring at Mike with undisguised surprise and pointing at his face.
"Are you here about those bruises?"
"No," Mike said. The other officers started moving faster. They handed off papers and called one another and cradled receivers under their necks.
"I'm here to see Officer Huff."
"Do you mean Captain Huff?"
"Yes."
"May I ask what this is regarding?"
"Tell him it's Mike Baye."
"As you can see, we are pretty busy right now."
"I do see," Mike said. "Something big going on?"
The young cop gave him a look, clearly suggesting that it was none of his concern. Mike caught snippets about a car parked in a Ramada hotel lot, but that was about it.
"Do you mind sitting over there while I try to reach Captain Huff?"
"Sure."
Mike moved toward a bench and sat down. There was a man next to him in a suit, filling out paperwork. One of the cops called out, "We've checked with the entire staff now. No one reports seeing her." Mike idly wondered what that was about, but only to try to keep his blood down.
Huff had lied.
Mike kept his eyes on the young officer. When the kid hung up, he looked up and Mike knew this was not going to be good news.
"Mr. Baye?"
"Dr. Baye," Mike corrected. This time maybe it would come across as arrogant, but sometimes people treated a doctor differently. Not often. But sometimes.
"Dr. Baye. I'm afraid that we are having a very busy morning. Captain Huff has asked me to assure you that he will call you when he can."
"That's not going to do it," Mike said.
"Excuse me?"
The station was pretty much open space. There was a divider that was maybe three feet high--why do all stations have that? Who is that going to stop?--with a little gate you could swing open. Toward the back, Mike could see a door that clearly said CAPTAIN on it. He moved fast, causing all kinds of new pains to sparkle across his ribs and face. He stepped past the front desk.
"Sir?"
"Don't worry, I know the way."
He opened the latch and started hurrying toward the captain's office.
"Stop right now!"
Mike didn't think the kid would shoot, so he kept moving. He was at the door before anyone could catch up to him. He grabbed the knob and turned. Unlocked. He flung it open.
Huff was at his desk on the phone.
"What the hell... ?"
The kid officer at the front desk followed quickly, ready to tackle, but Huff waved him off.
"It's okay."
"I'm sorry, Captain. He just ran back here."
"Don't worry about it. Close the door, okay?"
The kid didn't look happy about it, but he obeyed. One of the walls was windowed. He stood there and looked through it. Mike gave him a quick glare and then turned his attention to Huff.
"You lied," he said.
"I'm busy here, Mike."
"I saw your son before I got jumped."
"No, you didn't. He was home."
"That's crap."
Huff did not stand. He didn't invite Mike to sit. He put his hands behind his head and leaned back. "I really don't have time for this."
"My son was at your house. Then he drove to the Bronx."
"How do you know that, Mike?"
"I have a GPS on my son's phone."
Huff raised his eyebrows. "Wow."
He must have already known this. His New York colleagues would have told him. "Why are you lying about this, Huff?"
"How exact is that GPS?"
"What?"
"Maybe he wasn't with DJ at all. Maybe he was at a neighbor's house. The Lubetkin boy lives two houses down. Or maybe, heck, he was at my house before I got home. Or maybe he just hung out nearby and thought about going in but changed his mind."
"Are you serious?"
There was a knock on the door. Another cop leaned his head in. "Mr. Cordova is here."
"Put him in room A," Huff said. "I'll be there in a second."
The cop nodded and let the door close. Huff rose. He was a tall man, hair slicked back. He normally had the cop-calm thing going on, like when they'd met up in front of his house the night before. He still had it, but the effort seemed to drain him now. He met Mike's eyes. Mike did not look away.
"My son was home all night."
"That's a lie."
"I have to go now. I'm not talking about this with you anymore." He started walking to the door. Mike stepped into his path.
"I need to talk to your son."
"Get out of my way, Mike."
"No."
"Your face."
"What about it?"
"Looks like you've already taken enough of a beating," Huff said.
"You want to try me?"
Huff said nothing.
"Come on, Huff. I'm already injured. You want to try again?"
"Again?"
"Maybe you were there."
"What?"
"Your son was. I know that. So let's do this. But this time we go face-to-face. One-on-one. No group of guys jumping me when I'm not looking. So come on. Put away your gun and lock your office door. Tell your buddies out there to leave us alone. Let's see just how tough you are."
Huff gave a half smile. "You think that will help you find your son?"
And that was when Mike saw it--what Mo had been saying. He had been talking about face-to-face and one-on-one, but what he really should have been saying was what Mo said: father to father. Not that reminding him of that would appeal to Huff. Just the opposite. Mike was trying to save his kid--and Huff was doing the same. Mike didn't give a damn about DJ Huff--and Huff didn't give a damn about Adam Baye.
They were both out to protect their sons. Huff would fight to do so. Win or lose, Huff wouldn't give up his child. The same with the other parents--Clark's or Olivia's or whoever's--that was Mike's mistake. He and Tia were talking to the adults who'd jump on a grenade to protect their offspring. What they needed to do was circumvent the parental sentinels.
"Adam is missing," Mike said.
"I understand that."
"I spoke to the New York police about it. But who do I talk to here about helping me find my son?"
"TELL Cassandra I miss her," Nash whispered.
And then, finally, at long last, it was over for Reba Cordova.
Nash drove to the U-Store-It on Route 15 in Sussex County.
He backed the truck into the dock of his garagelike storage unit. Darkness had fallen. No one else was around or looking. He had placed the body in a trash can on the very outside chance someone could see. Storage units were great for this sort of thing. He remembered reading about an abduction where the kidnappers kept the victim in one of these units. The victim died of accidental suffocation. But Nash knew other stories too--ones that would make your lungs collapse. You see the posters of the missing, you wonder about the missing, those kids on milk cartons, the women who just innocently left home one day, and sometimes, more often than you want to know, they are kept tied and gagged and even alive in places like this.
Cops, Nash knew, believed that criminals followed a certain spe- cific pattern. That may be so--most criminals are morons--but Nash did the opposite. He had beaten Marianne beyond recognition, but this time he had not touched Reba's face. Part of that was just logistics. He knew that he could hide Marianne's true identity. Not so with Reba. By now her husband had probably reported her missing. If a fresh corpse was found, even one bloodied and battered, the police would realize that the odds it belonged to Reba Cordova were strong.
So change the MO: Don't let the body be found at all.
That was the key. Nash had left Marianne's
body where they could find it, but Reba would simply vanish. Nash had left her car in the hotel lot. The police would think that she had gone there for an illicit tryst. They would focus on that, work that avenue, investigate her background to see if she had a boyfriend. Maybe Nash would get extra lucky. Maybe Reba did have someone on the side. The police would zero in on him for certain. Either way, if no body was found, they would have nothing to go on and probably assume that she had been a runaway. There would be no tie between Reba and Marianne.
So he would keep her here. For a while at least.
Pietra had the dead back in her eyes. Years ago, she had been a gorgeous young actress in what used to be called Yugoslavia. There had been ethnic cleansing. Her husband and son were killed before her eyes in ways too gruesome to imagine. Pietra was not so lucky--she survived. Nash had worked as a military mercenary back then. He had rescued her. Or what was left of her. Since then Pietra only came to life when she had to act, like back in the bar when they grabbed Marianne. The rest of the time there was nothing there. It had all been scooped out by those Serbian soldiers.
"I promised Cassandra," he said to her. "You understand that, don't you?"
Pietra looked off. He studied her profile.
"You feel bad about this one, don't you?"
Pietra said nothing. They put Reba's body in a mixture of wood chips and manure. It would keep for a while. Nash did not want to risk stealing another license plate. He took out the black electrical tape and changed the F to an E--that might be enough. In the corner of the shed, he had a pile of other "disguises" for his van. A magnetic sign advertising Tremesis Paints. Another that read CAMBRIDGE INSTITUTE. He chose instead to put on a bumper sticker he'd bought at a religious conference entitled The Lord's Love last October. The sticker read: GOD DOESN'T BELIEVE IN ATHEISTS
Nash smiled. Such a kind, pious sentiment. But the key was, you noticed it. He put it on with two-sided tape so he could easily peel it off if he so desired. People would read the bumper sticker and be offended or impressed. Either way, they'd notice. And when you notice things like that, you don't notice the license plate number.
They got back in the car.
Until he met Pietra, Nash had never bought that the eyes were the window to the soul. But here, in her case, it was obvious. Her eyes were beautiful, blue with yellow sparkles, and yet you could see that there was nothing behind them, that something had blown out the candles and that they would never be relit.
"It had to be done, Pietra. You understand that."
She finally spoke. "You enjoyed it."
There was no judgment. She knew Nash long enough for him not to lie.
"So?"
She looked off.
"What is it, Pietra?"
"I knew what happened to my family," she said.
Nash said nothing.
"I watched my son and my husband suffer in horrible ways. And they watched me suffer too. That was the last sight they saw before dying--me suffering with them."
"I know this," Nash said. "And you say I enjoyed this. But normally, so do you, right?"
She answered without hesitation. "Yes."
Most people assumed that it would be the opposite--that the victim of such horrific violence would naturally be repulsed by any future bloodshed. But the truth was, the world does not work that way. Violence breeds violence--but not just in the obvious, retaliatory way. The molested child grows up to become the adult molester. The son traumatized by his father abusing his mother is far more likely to one day beat his own wife.
Why?
Why do we humans never really learn the lessons we are supposed to? What is in our makeup, in fact, that draws us to that which should sicken us?
After Nash saved her, Pietra had craved vengeance. It was all she thought about during her recuperation. Three weeks after she was discharged from the hospital, Nash and Pietra tracked down one of the soldiers who'd tortured her family. They managed to get him alone. Nash tied and gagged him. He gave Pietra the pruning shears and left her alone with him. It took three days for the soldier to die. By the end of the first, the soldier was begging Pietra to kill him. But she didn't.
She loved every moment.
In the end, most people find revenge to be a wasted emotion. They feel empty after doing something so horrible to another human being, even one who maybe deserved it. Not Pietra. The experience just made her thirst for more. And that was a big part of why she was with him today.
"So what's different this time?" he asked.
Nash waited. She took her time, but eventually she got to it.
"The not knowing," Pietra said in a hushed tone. " Neverknowing. Inflicting physical pain... we do that, no problem." She looked back at the storage unit. "But to make a man go through the rest of his life wondering what happened to the woman he loved." She shook her head. "I think that is worse."
Nash put a hand on her shoulder. "It can't be helped right now. You understand that, right?"
She nodded, looked straight ahead. "But someday?"
"Yes, Pietra. Someday. When we finish this up, we will let him know the truth."
Chapter 22.
WHEN Guy Novak pulled back into his driveway, his hands were at two and ten. His grip on the wheel turned his knuckles white. He just sat there, foot on the brake, wanting so much to feel anything but this tremendous impotence.
He glanced at his reflection in the rearview mirror. His hair was thinning. He was starting to let the part in his hair drift toward his ear. It wasn't a noticeable comb-over, not yet, but isn't that what everyone thinks? The part moves so slowly south you don't notice it on a day-to-day or even week-to-week basis and the next thing you know, people are snickering at you behind your back.
Guy stared at the man in the mirror and couldn't believe it was him. The part, however, would continue to drift. He knew that. Better the wisps of hair than that shiny chrome up top.
He took one hand off the wheel, shifted into park, turned the ignition key. He took another glance at the man in the rearview mirror.
Pathetic.
Not a man at all. Driving by a house and slowing down. Wow, what a tough guy. Show some balls, Guy--or are you too afraid to do anything to the scumbag who destroyed your child?
What kind of father is that? What kind of man?
A pathetic one.
Oh, sure, Guy had complained to the principal like some tattletale baby. The principal made all the right sympathetic sounds and did nothing. Lewiston still taught. Lewiston still went home at night and kissed his pretty wife and probably lifted his little girl in the air and listened to her giggle. Guy's wife, Yasmin's mother, had left when Yasmin was less than two. Most people blamed his ex for abandoning her family, but in truth, Guy hadn't been man enough. So his ex started sleeping around and after a while, she didn't really care if he found out or not.
That had been his wife. Not strong enough to hold on to her. Okay, that was one thing.
But now we were talking about his child.
Yasmin. His lovely daughter. The only manly thing he had accomplished in his entire life. Fathering a child. Raising her. Being her primary caretaker.
Wasn't his first job to protect her?
Good job, Guy.
And now he was not even man enough to fight for her. What would Guy's father have said about that? He'd sneer and give him that look that made Guy feel so worthless. He'd call him a sissy because if someone had done something like that to anyone in his old man's inner circle, George Novak would have punched out his lights.
That was what Guy so badly wanted to do.
He stepped out of the car and started up the walk. He had lived here twelve years now. He remembered holding his ex's hand as they approached it for the first time, the way she smiled at him. Had she already been screwing around behind his back then? Probably. For years after she left him, Guy would wonder if Yasmin was really his. He would try to block it, try to claim it wouldn't matter, try to ignore that doubt eating away at h
im. But after a while he couldn't take it anymore. Two years ago, Guy surreptitiously arranged a paternity test. It took three painful weeks to get the results, but in the end, it was worth it.
Yasmin was his.
This might again sound pathetic, but knowing the truth made him a better father. He made sure that she was happy. He put her needs ahead of his. He loved Yasmin and cared for her and never belittled her like his father had done to him.
But he hadn't protected her.
He stopped and looked at the house now. If he was going to put it on the market, it could probably use a fresh coat of paint. The shrubs would need to be trimmed too.
"Hey!"
The female voice was unfamiliar. Guy turned and squinted into the sunlight. He was stunned to see Lewiston's wife getting out of her car. Her face was twisted in rage. She started toward him.
Guy stood without moving.
"What do you think you're doing," she said, "driving past my house?"
Guy, never good with fast retorts, replied, "It's a free country."
Dolly Lewiston did not stop. She came at him so fast he feared that she might strike him. He actually put his hands up and took a step back. Pathetic weakling yet again. Afraid not only to stick up for his child but of her tormentor's wife too.
She stopped and put a finger in his face. "You stay away from my family, you hear me?"
It took him a moment to gather his thoughts. "Do you know what your husband did to my daughter?"
"He made a mistake."
"He made fun of an eleven-year-old girl."
"I know what he did. It was dumb. He is very sorry. You have no idea."
"He made my daughter's life a living hell."
"And so, what, you want to do the same to us?"
"Your husband should quit," Guy said.
"For one slip of the tongue?"
"He took away her childhood."
"You're being melodramatic."
"Do you really not remember what it was like back then--being the kid who got picked on every day? My daughter was a happy kid. Not perfect, no. But happy. And now..."
"Look, I'm sorry. I really am. But I want you to stay away from my family."
"If he hit her--I mean, like slapped her or something--he'd be gone, right? What he did to Yasmin was even worse."
