Harlan Coben - Stay close

“The first exit or the second?” Ken asked.

“The second. Then take your third right.”

Ken frowned. “I don’t understand why we can’t use a GPS.”

“I read a study,” she said.

“Oh?”

“The study stated that global positioning systems-that’s what GPS stands for-”

“I know that,” Ken said.

“Well, GPSs harm our sense of direction and thus our brains,” Barbie said.

“How?”

“This particular study found that an overreliance on such technologies will result in our using our spatial capabilities in the hippocampus-that’s a part of our brain-”

“I know that too.”

“Well, we use the hippocampus less when we rely on GPSs, and that makes it shrink. The hippocampus is needed for things like memory and navigation. Atrophy could cause dementia or early Alzheimer’s.”

“And you believe all that?” Ken asked.

“I do,” Barbie said. “When it comes to the brain, I believe in the old adage: Use it or lose it.”

“Interesting,” Ken said, “though I don’t see how your reading directions works my hippocampus any harder than looking at a GPS.”

“It does. I’ll show you the article later.”

“Okay, good. I’d like that. What direction now?”

“No direction,” Barbie said. She pointed up ahead. “That’s their house.”

Megan ’s first thought when she awoke: Pain. A jackhammer ripped through her skull. Her mouth felt dry. She had slept the sleep of the dead and now arose with what felt a lot like a hangover. It wasn’t, of course. She hadn’t woken up with a big-time hangover since, well, it had been a long time. Pressure and stress, she figured.

Last night, she and Dave had fallen asleep-collapsed was more like it-in spoon position, his arm under her waist. They slept like that a lot. At some point in the night, of course, Dave’s arm always went numb, stuck in that waist nook, and he gently extracted it. She reached now for her husband, needing on some primitive level to feel him, but he wasn’t there. She looked past where he slept to the new digital clock with the double iPod dock.

The time was 8:17 A.M.

Megan’s eyes widened. She swung her legs around, her feet hitting the floor. She wondered when the last time she’d slept in past eight on a school day was, but this already seemed to be a day full of comparisons to her distant past. She threw water on her face and a bathrobe on her body. When she reached the bottom of the stairs, her daughter, Kaylie, gave her a knowing, teenage smirk.

“Late night with the girls, Mom?”

She glanced toward the kitchen. Dave was busying himself making pancakes. Made sense though. The kids would have wanted to know where their mother was. Dave probably told them that she was having a rare “girls’ night out.”

“Yeah, I guess so,” Megan said.

Kaylie made a tsk-tsk sound. “You girls have to know when to say when.”

Megan managed a smile. “Don’t be a smart aleck.”

Dave was in his new dark blue business suit with the bright orange tie. He dumped a pile of pancakes on Jordan’s plate. Jordan rubbed his hands together and then poured on enough syrup to coat a Toyota.

“Whoa, slow down,” she told him far too late.

Megan looked up and smiled at Dave. He gave a quick one back and turned away. Suddenly, the good feelings of last night seemed far away. It was odd how fast life could snap back from the most dramatic and jarring. In so many ways, nothing ever changes. She had been so close last night to telling Dave everything, about the lies, the deception, her past as Cassie-all of it. She had been willing to do that because last night, she believed with all her heart that it wouldn’t change anything. She still loved him. He still loved her.

How naive that seemed in the light of the day.

Now, standing in this remodeled kitchen with Dave, Kaylie, and Jordan, she couldn’t believe how close she had come to destroying everything. Dave would never be able to comprehend the truth. How could he? And why should she tell anyway? What was the point in that? It would only hurt him. The crisis had passed. Yes, he would eventually want an explanation for where she had been, and so she’d offer up something vague. But the sort of revelation and catharsis that had seemed so logical last night now seemed pretty close to suicidal insanity.

Dave cleared his throat and made a production of looking at his watch. “I better head out.”

“Will you be home for dinner?” Megan asked.

“I’m not sure.” Dave avoided her gaze. She didn’t like that. “We got a ton to do to prep for this case.”

“Okay.”

Dave grabbed his work backpack, the expensive one she’d bought him for his birthday last year, with the separate laptop compartment and zippered pocket for his cell phone. Megan walked him out, leaving the kids in the kitchen. When Dave opened the front door and stepped onto the stoop without kissing her, she put her hand on his forearm.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

He looked at her, waiting. The sun was shining brilliantly on their little suburban enclave. Down the street she could see the Reale kids hustling into their mom’s new SUV. Most driveways had newspapers at the end, either the blue plastic of the New York Times or the green plastic of the local paper. There was a white Mazda Miata parked down in front of the Crowleys’ house, probably a friend of their son Bradley’s on pickup duty, and farther down the street, Sondra Rinsky power-walked her two toy dogs. Sondra and Mike Rinsky had been the first to move into this development years ago. They had five kids, but the youngest had started college last year.

Dave still waited.

“It was no big deal,” Megan said, the lie at the ready. “I was just helping a friend with a personal problem. I had to be there for her, that’s all.”

“What friend?”

There was an edge in his tone now. “Is it okay if I don’t say? She asked me to keep it confidential.”

“Even from me?”

She tried a smile and a shrug.

“Does this friend live nearby?” Dave asked.

It was, she thought, a weird question. “Not far.”

“A woman from town?”

“Yes.”

“So why were you in Atlantic City?”

Ken and Barbie watched the Pierces ’ house.

“I’m still not sure about the set list,” Barbie said. “I mean, I love the rap version of ‘O Jerusalem,’ but as an encore?”

“It’s pretty dope,” Ken said.

She smiled. “I love when you talk all gangsta.”

“Word.”

“But still. As an encore? I think it should be mid-set, don’t you?”

“We have four months until camp starts, and you want to figure this out now?”

“I like being organized. A place for everything and everything in its place.”

Ken grinned. “Must be that overdeveloped hippocampus of yours.”

“Ha-ha. But seriously, if we open with-”

Barbie stopped when she saw the Pierces’ front door open. A man came out. He wore a dark business suit and carried a backpack in one hand. His hair was thinning. He looked tired, his shoulders slumped. There was someone-a woman-at the door behind him. It might be his wife-hard to tell from this angle.

“He’s mad at her,” Ken said.

“How can you tell?”

“The body language.”

“You’re exaggerating.”

But just then the woman reached out for the man’s arm. The man pulled away, spun, and started down the path.

The woman shouted, “Wait, hold up a second.”

He ignored her. The woman stepped outside, into full view, so that Ken and Barbie could see her clearly now. That was when Barbie squeezed Ken’s hand and heard herself gasp out loud.

“Isn’t she…?”

Ken nodded. “Yes.”