Harlan Coben - Long Lost

“Exactly. The theory is, Sam’s father-Rick’s grandfather-had it, but he died in Normandy, before the illness would have taken effect. So Sam had no idea.”

“Did Rick get tested?” Terese asked.

“I don’t know. He didn’t even tell Karen the whole story-just that his father found out he had a terminal illness. But anyway, he stayed over in the USA for a while. I think he was going through his father’s things, settling the estate. That was when he stumbled onto this Save the Angels charity.”

“How?”

“No idea.”

“You said they’re against stem cell research. Was that somehow related to Huntington’s?”

“Could be, but Rick mostly had me run through their finances. Follow the money. That’s the old motto. Rick wanted to know everything he could about it, and the people who ran it-until he told me to get off the story.”

“He gave up?”

“No. He just wanted me to stop. Not him. Just me.”

“Do you know why?”

“Not really. He came by and took all my files and then he said something really weird.” Mario looked first at Terese, then back at me. “He said, ‘You need to be careful, you have a family.’”

We waited.

“So I said the obvious: ‘So do you.’ But he just shook it off. I could see he was totally unnerved. Terese, you knew how he was. Nothing scared him.”

She nodded. “He was that way on the phone with me.”

“So I try to get him to talk to me, open up. He won’t. He hurries out and I don’t hear anything else from him. Ever. And then I get the call today.”

“Any clue where those files are now?”

“He usually kept copies at the office.”

“It might help if we could see them.”

Mario just stared at her.

“Please, Mario. You know I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important.”

He was still annoyed, but he did seem to get it. “Let me go look around for them first thing in the morning, okay?”

I looked over at Terese. I wasn’t sure how hard we pushed now. This man seemed to know Rick Collins as well as anyone. It was her call.

“Has Rick talked about Miriam much recently?” she asked.

Mario looked up. He took his time, and I expected an expansive answer. But all he said was, “No.”

We waited for him to elaborate. He didn’t.

“I think,” Terese said, “that there’s a chance that Miriam is still alive.”

If Mario Contuzzi knew something about it, then the guy had to be a psychopath. I’m not saying that people can’t lie and act and fool you. I have seen it done too many times by some all-time greats. The way the all-time greats do it is to either fool themselves into believing that the lie is the truth or they are true honest-to-goodness psychopaths. If Mario suspected that Miriam was alive, he fit into one of those two camps.

He made a face as though he had heard wrong. His voice had an angry edge. “What are you talking about?”

But saying it out loud had drained her. I took over. Trying to sound somewhat sane as I told him about the blood samples and the blond hair. I didn’t tell him about seeing her on the video or any of that. This was too hard to believe as it was. The best way to present it was with scientific evidence-DNA testing-not my intuition based on her walk on a grainy surveillance video.

For a long time he said nothing.

Then: “The blood test has to be wrong.”

We both said nothing.

“Or, wait, they think you killed Rick, right?”

“They originally thought Terese had a hand in it, yes.”

“What about you, Bolitar?”

“I was in New Jersey when he was murdered.”

“So they think Terese did it, is that it?”

“Yes.”

“And you know how cops are. They play mind games. What better mind game than this-telling you your dead daughter might still be alive?”

Now I made a face. “How would that help land her for his murder?”

“How am I supposed to know? But, I mean, come on, Terese. I know you want this. Hell, I want this. But how can it possibly be?”

“‘Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth,’ ” I said.

“Sir Arthur Conan Doyle,” Mario said.

“Yep.”

“You ready to go that far, Bolitar?”

“I’m ready to go out as far as I need to.”

When we were a block away, Terese said, “I need to visit Miriam’s grave.”

We found another hansom cab and rode in silence. When we got to the fenced cemetery, we stopped at the gate. Cemeteries always have a fence and gate. What exactly were they protecting?

“Do you want me to wait out here?” I asked.

“Yes.”

So I stayed outside the gates, as though afraid to trample sacred ground, which, I guessed, I was. I kept Terese in sight for reasons of safety but when she bent down on her knees, I turned away and started to walk. I thought about what must be going through her mind, what images were running through her head. This, I assure you, wasn’t a good idea, so I called Esperanza back in New York.

It took her six rings to answer.

“There’s a time change, dummy.”

I looked at my watch. It was five AM in New York. “Oops,” I said.

“What now?”

I decided to open big. I told Esperanza about the DNA and the blond girl.

“It’s her daughter?”

“Apparently.”

“That,” Esperanza said, “is seriously messed up.”

“It is.”

“So what do you need from me?”

“I took a bunch of pictures-credit card bills, phone, whatever-and e-mailed them over,” I said. “Oh, and there’s some weird thing about opals or something in the To Dos.”

“Opals like the stones?”

“No idea. Might be code.”

“I’m terrible at codes.”

“Me too, but maybe something will click. Anyway, let’s start figuring out what Rick Collins was up to. Also his father committed suicide.” I gave her his name and location. “Maybe we can look into that.”

“Into a suicide?”

“Yes.”

“Look into it for what?”

“See if there was anything suspicious, I don’t know.”

There was silence. I started walking.

“Esperanza?”

“I like her.”

“Who?”

“Margaret Thatcher. Who are we talking about? Terese, dopey. And you know me. I hate all your girlfriends.”

I thought about it. “You like Ali,” I said.

“I do. She’s a good person.”

“Do I hear a but?”

“But she’s not for you.”

“Why not?”

“There are no intangibles,” she said.

“What does that mean?”

“What made you a great athlete?” Esperanza asked. “Not a good athlete. I’m talking about pro level, first-team collegiate All-American, all that.”

“Skill, hard work, genetics.”

“Lots of guys have those. But what separates you-what divides the greats from the almosts-are the intangibles.”

“And Ali and I?”

“No intangibles.”

I heard a baby crying in the background. Esperanza’s son, Hector, was eighteen months old.

“He still doesn’t sleep through the night,” Esperanza said, “so you can imagine how thrilled I am about your call.”

“Sorry.”

“I’ll get on it. Take care of yourself. Tell Terese to hang tough. We’ll figure this out.”

She hung up. I stared at the phone. Usually Win and Esperanza hate when I get involved in stuff like this. All of a sudden the reluctance was gone. I wondered about that.

Across the street, a man with sunglasses, black Chuck Taylor high-tops, and a green T-shirt strolled without a care. My Spidey senses started tingling. His hair was close-cropped and dark. So was his skin-what we call Semitic, which I often confuse with Latino or Arabic or Greek or heck, Italian.