Harlan Coben (3 page)

Regan did not reply. But I knew the answer. The heat, especially after
the shooting, would be too much for crack-heads. Crack-heads don't handle conflict well. It is one of the reasons they snort or shoot themselves up in the first place—to escape, to fade away, to avoid, to dive down into the white. The media would be all over this case. The police would be making inquiries. Crack-heads would freak under that kind of pressure. They would flee, abandon everything.

And they would get rid of all the evidence.

 

But the ransom demand came two days later.

Now that I had regained consciousness, my recovery from the gunshot wounds was proceeding with surprising smoothness. It could be that I was focused on getting better or that lying in a quasi-catatonic state for twelve days had given my injuries time to heal. Or it could be that I was suffering from a pain way beyond what the physical could inflict. I would think of Tara and the fear of the unknown would stop my breath. I would think of Monica, of her lying dead, and steel claws would shred me from within.

I wanted out.

My body still ached, but I pressed Ruth Heller to release me. Noting that I was proving the adage about doctors making the worst patients, she reluctantly gave me the okay to go home. We agreed that a physical therapist would come by every day. A nurse would pop by periodically, just to be on the safe side.

On the morning of my departure from St. Elizabeth, my mother was at the house—the former crime scene—getting it “ready” for me, whatever that meant. Oddly enough, I wasn't afraid to go back there. A house is mortar and brick. I didn't think the sight of it alone would move me, but maybe I was just blocking.

Lenny helped me pack and get dressed. He is tall and wiry with a face darkened by a Homer Simpson five-o'clock shadow that pops up six minutes after he shaves. As a child Lenny wore Coke-bottle glasses and too-thick corduroy, even in the summer. His curly hair had a habit of getting outgrown to the point where he'd start resembling a stray poodle. Now he keeps the curls religiously close cropped. He had laser eye surgery two years ago, so the glasses are gone. His suits lean toward the upscale side.

“You sure you won't stay with us?” Lenny said.

“You have four kids,” I reminded him.

“Oh yeah, right.” He paused. “Can I stay with you?”

I tried to smile.

“Seriously,” Lenny said, “you shouldn't be alone in that house.”

“I'll be fine.”

“Cheryl cooked you some dinners. She put them in the freezer.”

“That was nice of her.”

“She's still the world's most godawful cook,” Lenny said.

“I didn't say I was going to eat them.”

Lenny looked away, busying himself with the already packed bag. I watched him. We have known each other a long time, since Mrs. Roberts's first-grade class, so it probably did not surprise him when I said, “You want to tell me what's up?”

He'd been waiting for the opening and thus quickly exploited it. “Look, I'm your lawyer, right?”

“Right.”

“So I want to give you some legal advice.”

“I'm listening.”

“I should have said something earlier. But I knew you wouldn't listen. Now, well, now it's a different story, I think.”

“Lenny?”

“Yeah?'

“What are you talking about?”

Despite his physical enhancements, I still saw Lenny as a kid. It made it hard to take his advice too seriously. Don't get me wrong. I knew that he was smart. I had celebrated with him when he got his acceptance to Princeton and then Columbia Law. We took the SATs together and were in the same AP chemistry class our junior year. But the Lenny I saw was the one I desperately cruised with on muggy Friday and Saturday nights. We used his dad's wood-paneled station wagon—not exactly a “babe trawler”—and tried to hit the parties. We were always let in but never really welcome, members of that high school majority I call the Great Unseen. We would stand in corners, holding a beer, bopping our heads to the music, trying hard to be noticed. We never were. Most nights we ended up eating a grilled cheese at the Heritage Diner or, better, at the soccer field behind Benjamin Franklin Middle School, lying on our backs, checking out the stars. It was easier to talk, even with your best friend, when you were looking at the stars.

“Okay,” Lenny said, overgesturing as was his custom, “it's like this: I don't want you talking to the cops anymore without my being present.”

I frowned. “For real?”

“Maybe it's nothing, but I've seen cases like this. Not
like
this, but you know what I mean. The first suspect is always family.”

“Meaning my sister.”

“No, meaning close family. Or clos
er
family, if possible.”

“Are you saying the police suspect me?”

“I don't know, I really don't.” He paused but not for very long. “Okay, yeah, probably.”

“But I was shot, remember? My kid was the one taken.”

“Right, and that cuts both ways.”

“How do you figure that?”

“As the days pass, they're going to start suspecting you more and more.”

“Why?” I asked.

“I don't know. That's just how it works. Look, the FBI handles kidnappings. You know that, right? Once a child is gone twenty-four hours, they assume it's interstate and the case is theirs.”

“So?”

“So for the first, what, ten days or so, they had a ton of agents here. They monitored your phones and waited for the ransom call, that kinda thing. But the other day, they pretty much pulled up stakes. That's normal, of course. They can't wait indefinitely, so they scale back to an agent or two. And their thinking shifted too. Tara became less a possible kidnapping-for-ransom and more a straight-on abduction. But my guess is, they still have the taps on the phones. I haven't asked yet, but I will. They'll claim they're leaving them there in case a ransom demand is eventually made. But they'll also be hoping to hear you say something incriminating.”

“So?”

“So be careful,” Lenny said. “Remember that your phones—home, biz, cell—are probably tapped.”

“And again I ask: So? I didn't do anything.”

“Didn't do . . . ?” Lenny waved his hands as if preparing to take flight. “Look, just be careful is all. This might be hard for you to believe, but—and try not to gasp when I say this—the police have been known to twist and distort evidence.”

“You're confusing me. Are you saying I'm a suspect simply because I'm the father and husband?”

“Yes,” Lenny said. “And no.”

“Well, okay, thanks, that clears it up.”

A phone next to my bed rang. I was on the wrong side of the room. “You mind?” I said.

Lenny picked it up. “Dr. Seidman's room.” His face clouded over as he listened. He spat out the words “Hold on,” and handed the phone to me, as if it might have germs. I gave him a puzzled look and said, “Hello?”

“Hello, Marc. This is Edgar Portman.”

Monica's father. That explained Lenny's reaction. Edgar's voice was, as always, way too formal. Some people weigh their words. A select few, like my father-in-law, take each one and put it on a scale before letting it leave their mouths.

I was momentarily taken aback. “Hello, Edgar,” I said stupidly. “How are you?”

“I'm fine, thank you. I feel remiss, of course, for not having called you earlier. I understood from Carson that you were busy recuperating from your wounds. I felt it best if I let you be.”

“Thoughtful,” I said with nary a whiff of sarcasm.

“Yes, well, I understand you're being released today.”

“That's right.”

Edgar cleared his throat, which seemed out of character for him. “I was wondering if perhaps you could stop by the house.”

The
house. Meaning his. “Today?”

“As soon as possible, yes. And alone please.”

There was silence. Lenny gave me a puzzled look.

“Is something wrong, Edgar?” I asked.

“I have a car waiting downstairs, Marc. We'll talk more when you arrive.”

And then, before I could say another word, he was gone.

 

The car, a black Lincoln Town Car, was indeed waiting.

Lenny wheeled me outside. I was familiar with this area, of course. I had grown up scant miles from St. Elizabeth. When I was five years old, my father had rushed me to the emergency room here (twelve stitches)
and when I was seven, well, you already know too much about my salmonella visit. I'd gone to medical school and did my residency at what was then called Columbia Presbyterian in New York, but I returned to St. Elizabeth for a fellowship in ophthalmology for reconstruction.

Yes, I am a plastic surgeon, but not in the way you think. I do the occasional nose job, but you won't find me working with sacks of silicone or any of that. Not that I'm judging. It just isn't what I do.

I work in pediatric reconstructive surgery with my former medical school classmate, a fireball from the Bronx named Zia Leroux. We work for a group called One World WrapAid. Actually, Zia and I founded it. We take care of children, mostly overseas, who suffer deformities either through birth, poverty, or conflict. We travel a lot. I have worked on facial smashes in Sierra Leone, on cleft palates in Upper Mongolia, on Crouzon's in Cambodia, on burn victims in the Bronx. Like most people in my field, I've done extensive training. I've studied ENT—ears, nose, and throat—with a year of reconstructive, plastics, oral, and, as I mentioned above, ophthalmology. Zia's training history is similar, though she's stronger with the maxillofacial.

You may think of us as do-gooders. You'd be wrong. I had a choice. I could do boob jobs or tuck back the skin of those who were already too beautiful—or I could help wounded, poverty-stricken children. I chose the latter, not so much to help the disadvantaged, but alas, because that is where the cool cases lie. Most reconstructive surgeons are, at heart, puzzle lovers. We're weird. We get jazzed on circus-sideshow congenital anomalies and huge tumors. You know those medical textbooks that have hideous facial deformities that you have to dare yourself to look at? Zia and I love that stuff. We get off on repairing it—taking what's shattered and making it whole—even more.

The fresh air tickled my lungs. The sun shone as if it were the first day, mocking my gloom. I tilted my face toward the warmth and let it soothe me. Monica used to like to do that. She claimed that it “destressed” her. The lines in her face would disappear as if the rays were gentle masseurs. I kept my eyes closed. Lenny waited in silence, giving me the time.

I have always thought of myself as an overly sensitive man. I cry too easily at dumb movies. My emotions are easily manipulated. But with my father, I never cried. And now, with this terrible blow, I felt—I don't
know—beyond tears. A classic defense mechanism, I assumed. I had to push forward. It's not so different from my business: When cracks appear, I patch them up before they become full-fledged fissures.

Lenny was still fuming from the phone call. “Any idea what that old bastard wants?”

“Not a one.”

He was quiet a moment. I know what he was thinking. Lenny blamed Edgar for his father's death. His old man had been a middle manager at ProNess Foods, one of Edgar's holdings. He had slaved for the company twenty-six years and had just turned fifty-two years old when Edgar orchestrated a major merger. Lenny's father lost his job. I remember seeing Mr. Marcus sitting slump shouldered at the kitchen table, meticulously stuffing his résumé into envelopes. He never found work and died two years later of a heart attack. Nothing could convince Lenny that the two events were unrelated.

He said, “You sure you don't want me to come?”

“Nah, I'll be all right.”

“Got your cell?”

I showed it to him.

“Call me if you need anything.”

I thanked him and let him walk away. The driver opened the door. I winced my way in. The drive was not far. Kasselton, New Jersey. My hometown. We passed the split-levels of the sixties, the expanded ranches of the seventies, the aluminum sidings of the eighties, the McMansions of the nineties. Eventually the trees grew denser. The houses sat farther back from the road, protected by the lush, away from the great unwashed who might happen by. We were nearing old wealth now, that exclusive land that always smelled of autumn and woodsmoke.

The Portman family had first settled in this thicket immediately following the Civil War. Like most of suburban Jersey, this had been farmland. Great-great-grandfather Portman slowly sold off acreage and made a fortune. They still had sixteen acres, making their lot one of the largest in the area. As we climbed the drive, my eyes drifted left—toward the family burial plot.

I could see a small mound of fresh dirt.

“Stop the car,” I said.

“Sorry, Dr. Seidman,” the driver replied, “but I was told to bring you right up to the main house.”

I was about to protest but thought better of it. I waited until the car stopped by the front door. I got out and headed back down the drive. I heard the driver say, “Dr. Seidman?” I kept going. He called after me again. I ignored him. Despite the lack of rain, the grass was a green usually reserved for rain forests. The rose garden was in full bloom, an explosion of color.

I tried to hurry on, but my skin still felt as if it might rip. I slowed. This was only my third visit inside the Portman family estate—I had seen it from the outside dozens of times in my youth—and I had never visited the family plot. In fact, like most rational people, I did my best to avoid it. The idea of burying your kin in your backyard like a family pet . . . it was one of those things that rich people do that we regular folk could never quite grasp. Or would want to.

The fence around the plot was maybe two feet high and blindingly white. I wondered if it'd been freshly painted for the occasion. I stepped over the superfluous gate and walked past the modest gravestones, keeping my eye on the dirt mound. When I reached the spot, a shudder tore through me. I looked down.