by Harlan Coben
"Pity. So what's it show?"
"I think," he began, ducking back inside through the window, "that we should talk to Terese Collins."
8
WE found her in the same holding cell where I'd been half an hour earlier.
Her eyes were red and swollen. When Berleand unlocked the door, all pretense of strength fled. She grabbed on to me, and I held her. She sobbed against my chest. I let her. Berleand stood there. I met his eye. He did the big shrug again.
"We are going to release you both," he said, "if you will agree to surrender your passports."
Terese pulled away, looked at me. We both nodded.
"I have a few more questions before you leave," Berleand said. "Is that okay?"
"I realize that I'm a suspect," Terese said. "Ex-wife in the same city after all these years, the phone calls between us, whatever. Doesn't matter--I just want you to nail whoever killed Rick. So ask whatever you want, Inspector."
"I appreciate your candor and cooperation." He seemed so tentative now, almost too deliberate. Something he had heard during that phone call on the roof had thrown him. I wondered what was up.
"Are you aware that your ex-husband had remarried?" Berleand asked.
Terese shook her head. "I didn't know, no. When?"
"When what?"
"Was he remarried?"
"I don't know."
"May I ask his wife's name?"
"Karen Tower."
Terese almost smiled.
"You know her?"
"I do."
Berleand nodded and did the hand rub again. I expected him to ask how she knew Karen Tower, but he let that go.
"We have some preliminary blood tests back from the lab."
"Already?" Terese looked surprised. "I just gave the sample, what, an hour ago?"
"Not on yours, no. Those will take some more time. This is the blood we found at the murder scene."
"Oh."
"Something curious."
We both waited. Terese swallowed as if she were preparing for a blow.
"Most of the blood--nearly all of it, really--belonged to the victim, Rick Collins," Berleand said. His voice was measured now, as if he were trying to wade his way through whatever he was about to tell us. "That's hardly a surprise."
We still said nothing.
"But there was another patch of blood found on the carpet, not far from the body. We're not exactly sure how it got there. Our original theory was also the most obvious: There was a struggle. Rick Collins put up a fight and injured his killer."
"And now?" I said.
"First off, we found blond hairs with the blood. Long blond hair. Like you'd find on a female."
"Females kill."
"Yes, of course."
He stopped.
"But?" I said.
"But it still seems impossible for the blood to be the killer's."
"Why's that?"
"Because, according to the DNA testing, the blood and blond hair belong to Rick Collins's daughter."
Terese didn't scream. She just let out a moan. Her knees buckled. I moved fast, grabbing her before she hit the floor. I looked a question at Berleand. He was unsurprised. He was studying her, gauging this reaction.
"You don't have children, do you, Ms. Collins?"
All color had drained from her face.
"Can you give us a second?" I said.
"No, I'm fine," Terese said. She regained her footing and looked hard at Berleand. "I have no children. But you knew that already, didn't you?"
Berleand did not reply.
"Bastard," she said to him.
I wanted to ask what was going on, but maybe this was a time for shutting up and listening.
"We haven't been able to reach Karen Tower yet," Berleand said. "But I suppose that this daughter was hers too?"
"I suppose," Terese said.
"And you, of course, knew nothing about her?"
"That's right."
"How long have you and Mr. Collins been divorced?"
"Nine years."
I'd had enough. "What the hell is going on here?"
Berleand ignored me. "So even if your ex-husband married almost immediately, this daughter really couldn't be more than, what, eight years old?"
That quieted the room.
"So," Berleand continued, "now we know that Rick's young daughter was at the murder scene and was injured. Where do you suppose she is now?"
WE chose to walk back to the hotel.
We crossed the Pont Neuf. The water was muddy green. Bells from a church pealed. People stopped on the bridge midspan and took pictures. One man asked me to snap one of him and what I guessed was his girlfriend. They snuggled in close and I counted to three and took the picture and then they asked if I minded taking one more and I counted to three again and did and then they thanked me and moved on.
Terese had not said a word.
"Are you hungry?" I asked.
"We need to talk."
"Okay."
She never broke stride across the Pont Neuf, onto the Rue Dauphine, through the hotel lobby. The concierge behind the desk offered up a very friendly "Welcome back!" but she blew past him with a quick smile.
Once the elevator doors closed, she turned to me and said, "You wanted to know my secret--what brought me to that island, why I've been on the run all these years."
"If you want to tell me," I said in a way that sounded patronizing even in my own ears. "If I can help."
"You can't. But you need to know anyway."
We got off on the fourth floor. She opened the door to the room, let me pass, closed the door behind her. The room was average size, small by American standards, with a spiral stairway leading to what I assumed was the loft. It looked very much like what it was supposed to--a sixteenth-century Parisian home, albeit with a wide-screen TV and built-in DVD player.
Terese moved toward the window so that she was as far away from me as possible.
"I'm going to tell you something now, okay? But I want you to promise me something first."
"What?"
"Promise me you won't try to comfort me," she said.
"I'm not following."
"I know you. You'll hear this story and you'll want to reach out. You'll want to hug me or hold me or say the right thing because that's the way you are. Don't. Whatever you do, it will be the wrong move."
"Okay," I said.
"Promise me."
"I promise."
She cringed even deeper into the corner. The heck with after--I wanted to hold her now.
"You don't have to do this," I said.
"Yeah, I do. I'm just not sure how."
I said nothing.
"I met Rick during my freshman year at Wesleyan. I came in from Shady Hills, Indiana, and I was the perfect cliche--the prom queen dating the quarterback, most likely to succeed, sweet as sugar. I was that annoying, pretty girl who studied too hard and got all anxious she was going to fail and then she finishes the test early and starts putting those reinforcements in her notebook. You remember those little white things--looked like flat peppermint Life Savers?"
I couldn't help but smile. "Yes."
"I was also that pretty girl who wanted everyone to dig beneath the surface to see I was more than just pretty--but the only reason you'd want to dig was because I was pretty. You know the deal."
I did. To some this might sound immodest. It wasn't. It was honest. Like Paris, Terese was not blind to her looks, nor would she pretend otherwise.
"So I dyed my blond hair dark so I would look smarter and went to this small liberal arts college in the Northeast. I arrived, like so many girls, with my chastity belt firmly attached and only my high school quarterback had the key. He and I were going to be the exception--we were going to make a long-distance relationship last."
I remembered those girls from my Duke days too.
"How long do you think that lasted?" she asked me.
"Two months?"
"More li
ke one. I met Rick. He was just this whirlwind. So smart and funny and sexy in a way I had never seen before. He was the campus radical, complete with the curly hair, the piercing blue eyes, and the beard that scratched when I kissed him. . . ."
Her voice drifted off.
"I can't believe he's dead. This is going to sound corny, but Rick was such a special soul. He was genuinely kind. He believed in justice and humanity. And someone killed him. Someone intentionally ended his life."
I said nothing.
"I'm stalling," she said.
"No rush."
"Yeah, there is. I need to get this over with. If I slow down, I'll stop and I'll fall apart and you'll never get it out of me. Berleand, he probably knows this already. It's why he let me go. So let me give you the abridged version. Rick and I graduated, we got married, we worked as reporters. Eventually we ended up at CNN, me in front of the camera, Rick behind it. I told you that part already. At some stage we wanted to start a family. Or at least I did. Rick, I think, was more uncertain--or maybe he sensed what was coming."
Terese moved toward the window, gently pushed the curtain to the side, and looked out. I moved a foot closer to her. I don't know why. I just somehow needed to make that gesture.
"We had fertility problems. It's not uncommon, I'm told. Many couples have them. But when you're in the throes of it, it seems as though every woman you meet is pregnant. Fertility is also one of those problems that grows exponentially with time. Every woman I met was a mother, and every mother was happy and fulfilled and it all seemed to come so naturally. I started avoiding friends. My marriage suffered. Sex became only about procreation. You become so single-minded. I remember I did a story on unwed mothers in Harlem, these sixteen-year-old girls getting pregnant so easily, and I started to hate them because, really, was that cosmically fair?"
Her back was to me. I sat on the corner of the bed. I wanted to see her face, just part of it anyway. From my new vantage point, I was getting a sliver, maybe quarter-moon view.
"I'm still stalling," she said.
"I'm here."
"Maybe I'm not stalling. Maybe I need to tell it this way."
"Okay."
"We saw doctors. We tried everything. It was all pretty horrible. I was shot up with Pergonal and hormones and Lord knows what. It took us three years, but finally we conceived--what everyone called a medical miracle. At first, I was scared to even move. Every ache, every pang, I thought I was miscarrying. But after a while, I loved being pregnant. Doesn't that sound antifeminist? I always found those women who go on and on about their wonderful pregnancy to be so irritating, but I was as bad as any of them. I loved the rushes. I glowed. There was no nausea. Pregnancy would never happen for me again--this was my one miracle--and I relished it. The time flew by and before I knew it, I had a six-pound, fourteen-ounce daughter. We named her Miriam after my late mother."
A cold gust blew across my heart. I knew now where this had to end.
"She would be seventeen," Terese said, her voice sounding very far away.
There are moments in your life when you feel everything inside of you go quiet and still and fragile. We just stayed there like that, Terese and I and no one else.
"I don't think a day has gone by in the last ten years when I don't try to imagine what she'd be like right now. Seventeen. Finishing up her senior year of high school. Finally past the rebellious teen years. The awkward adolescent stage would be over, and she'd be beautiful. She'd be my friend again. She'd be getting ready to start college."
Tears filled my eyes. I moved a little more to my left. Terese's eyes were dry. I started to stand. Her head snapped in my direction. No, no tears. Something worse. Total devastation, the kind that makes tears seem quaint, impotent. She held up her palm in my direction as if it were a cross and I a vampire she needed to ward off.
"It was my fault," she said.
I started shaking my head, but her eyes squeezed shut as if my gesture were too strong a burst of light. I remembered my promise and backed away and tried to make my face neutral.
"I wasn't supposed to be working that night but at the last minute they needed someone to anchor at eight o'clock. So I was home. We lived in London then. Rick was in Istanbul. But the eight PM hour--man, I wanted that coveted time period. I couldn't pass that up, now could I? Even if Miriam was asleep. Career, right? So I called a good friend--Miriam's godmother actually--and asked if I could drop her off for a few hours. She said no problem. I woke Miriam up, and I stuck her in the back of the car. The clock was ticking and I needed to be in makeup. So I drove too fast. The roads were wet. Still, we were almost there--quarter of a mile away at the most. They say you don't remember a big accident, especially when you lose consciousness. But I remember it all. I remember seeing the headlights. I spun the wheel to the left. Maybe it would have been better if I had just gone headfirst. Killed me and spared her. But, no, it was side impact. Her side. I even remember her scream. It was short, more like an intake. The last sound she ever made. I was in a coma for two weeks, but because God has a sick sense of humor, he let me live. Miriam died on impact."
Nothing.
I was afraid to move now. The room was still, as though even the walls and furniture were holding their breath. I didn't mean to, but I took a step toward her. I wonder if that's part of comforting--that it's often selfish, that the comforter often needs as much, if not more, than the comfortee.
"Don't," she said.
I stopped.
"Please leave me alone," she said. "Just for a little while, okay?"
I nodded but she wasn't looking at me. "Sure," I said, "whatever you need."
She didn't respond, but then again she had made her wishes pretty clear. So I moved to the door and let myself out.
9
I walked back out onto the Rue Dauphine, numb.
I turned left and found a spot where five streets met and sat at yet another outdoor cafe called Le Buci. Normally I liked to people-watch, but it was hard to concentrate. I thought about Terese's life. I got it now. Rebuild your life so it looks like . . . what exactly?
I took out my cell, and because I knew it would distract me, I called my office. Big Cyndi picked it up on the second ring.
"MB Reps."
The M stands for Myron. The B stands for Bolitar. The Reps is because we represent people. I came up with this name on my own and yet I managed to remain modest about my marketing skills. When we repped athletes only, I called the agency MB SportsReps. Now it is MB Reps. I will pause until the applause dies down.
"Hmm," I said. "Modern Madonna, complete with that British accent?"
"Bingo."
Big Cyndi could vocally impersonate nearly anyone or any accent. I say "vocally" because when a woman is north of six five and three hundred pounds, it is hard to get away with your killer Goldie Hawn impression in person.
"Esperanza in?"
"Please hold."
Esperanza Diaz, still best known by her professional wrestling moniker Little Pocahontas, was my business partner. Esperanza picked up the phone and said, "You getting any?"
"No."
"Then you better have a damn good reason for being there. You had meetings lined up for today."
"Yeah, sorry about that. Look, I need you to dig up all you can on Rick Collins."
"Who is he?"
"Terese's ex."
"Man, you have the weirdest romantic rendezvous."
I told her what had happened. Esperanza went quiet and I knew why. She worries about me. Win is the rock. Esperanza is the heart. When I finished explaining, she said, "So right now Terese isn't a suspect?"
"I don't know for sure."
"But it looks like a murder and a kidnapping or something?"
"I guess."
"So I'm not sure why you need to be involved. It isn't connected to her."
"Of course it's connected."
"How?"
"Rick Collins called her. He said it was urgent and it would change everythi
ng and now he's dead?"
"So what exactly do you plan on doing here? Hunt down his killer? Let that French cop do it. Either get some--or get home."
"Just do a little digging. That's all. Find out about the new wife and kid, okay?"
"Yeah, whatever. You care if I tell Win?"
"Nope."
"'Either get some--or get home,'" she said. "That's pretty good."
"It should be a bumper sticker," I said.
We hung up. So now what? Esperanza was right. This wasn't my business. If I could somehow help Terese, okay, maybe then this would make sense. But other than to keep her out of trouble on this--other than making sure she didn't take the fall for a murder she didn't commit--I couldn't see how I could help. Berleand was not the type to railroad her.
In my peripheral vision I saw someone sit next to me at the table.
I turned and saw a man with a stubble-covered shaved head. There were scars on the top of his skull. His skin was olive dark, and when he smiled I saw a gold tooth that matched the gold chain dangling from his neck, urban bling-bling style. Handsome probably, in a dangerous, bad-boy way. He wore a wifebeater white T under an unbuttoned gray short-sleeve shirt. His sweatpants were black.
"Look under the table," he said to me.
"Are you going to show me your wee-wee?"
"Look--or die."
His accent was not French--something smoother and more refined. Nearly British or maybe Spanish, almost aristocratic. I tilted my chair back and looked. He was holding a gun on me.
I left my hands on the lip of the table and tried to keep my breath steady. My eyes lifted and met his. I checked the surroundings. There was a man with sunglasses standing on the corner for absolutely no reason, trying very hard to pretend that he wasn't watching us.
"Listen to me or I will shoot you dead."
"As opposed to alive?"
"What?"
"Shoot someone dead versus shoot someone alive," I said. Then: "Never mind."
"Do you see the green vehicle on the corner?"
I did--not far from the sunglassed man who was trying not to look at us. It looked like a minivan or something. Two men sat in the front. I memorized the license plate and began to plan my next move.
"I see it."
"If you don't want to be shot, follow my instructions exactly. We are going to get up slowly, and you are going to get in the back of the vehicle. You will not make a fuss--"
And that was when I smashed the table into his face.
