Harlan Coben - Live Wire

Suzze stared at the Manhattan skyline through the summer mist. In her hand, she held a glass of what looked like wine. Myron was not sure what to say about that-pregnancy and wine-so he just kind of cleared his throat.

“What?” Suzze said.

Myron pointed at the wineglass. Mr. Subtle.

“The doctor says it’s fine to have one,” she said.

“Oh.”

“Don’t look at me like that.”

“I’m not.”

She looked out at the skyline from the arch, her hands on her belly. “We’re going to need better guard rails up here. What with a baby on the way. I don’t even let drunk friends up here.”

“Good idea,” Myron said. She was stalling. That was okay. “Look, I don’t really know what’s up with Lex. I admit he’s acting a little weird, but he also made a convincing case that it’s not my business. You wanted me to find out if he was okay. I have. I can’t force him to come home.”

“I know.”

“So what else is there? I could keep looking into who posted the ‘Not His’ comment-”

“I know who posted that,” Suzze said.

That surprised him. He studied her face and when she didn’t say anything else, he asked, “Who?”

“Kitty.”

She took a sip of wine.

“You’re sure?”

“Yes.”

“How?”

“Who else would want that kind of payback?” she asked.

The humidity weighed on Myron like a heavy blanket. He looked at Suzze’s belly and wondered what it must be like to lug that around in this weather.

“Why would she want revenge on you?”

Suzze ignored the question. “Kitty was a great player, wasn’t she?”

“So were you.”

“Not like her. She was the best player I’d ever seen. I became a pro, won a few tournaments, had four year-end top ten finishes. But Kitty? She could have been one of the greats.”

Myron shook his head. “It would have never happened.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Kitty was a screwup. The drugs, the partying, the lies, the manipulation, the narcissism, the self-destructive streak.”

“She was young. We were all young. We all made mistakes.”

Silence.

“Suzze?”

“Yes?”

“Why did you want to see me tonight?”

“To explain.”

“Explain what?”

She came over to him, spread her arms, and hugged him. Myron held her tight, feeling the warm belly against him. He didn’t know if that was weird. But as the hug lasted, it started to feel good, therapeutic. Suzze lowered her head into Myron’s chest and stayed there for a while. Myron just held her.

Finally Suzze said, “Lex is wrong.”

“About?”

“Sometimes people do need help. I remember nights you saved me. You held me like this. You listened. You never judged me. Maybe you don’t know it, but you saved my life a hundred times.”

“I’m still here for you,” Myron said softly. “Tell me what’s wrong.”

She held on, keeping her ear against his chest. “Kitty and I were both about to turn seventeen. I wanted to win the juniors so badly that year. Get into the Open. Kitty was my top competition. When she beat me in Boston, my mother went crazy.”

Myron said, “I remember.”

“My parents explained to me that everything is fair in competition. You do whatever you have to to win. To get an edge. Do you know about the Shot Heard ’Round the World? The home run by Bobby Thomson in the 1950s?”

The change of subjects threw him. “Yeah, sure. What about it?”

“He cheated, my dad said. Thomson. I mean, they all did. People think it just happens now with steroids. But those old New York Giants were stealing signs. Other pitchers scuffed up the baseball. That guy who ran the Celtics, the one who drafted you, he intentionally made it extra hot in the visiting team’s locker rooms. Maybe it’s not cheating. Maybe it’s just looking for the edge.”

“And you looked for the edge?”

“Yes.”

“How?”

“I spread rumors about my competitor. I made her out to be more of a slut than she was. I tried to ruin her focus by adding stress to her life. I told you that her baby was probably not Brad’s.”

“You weren’t the only one who told me that. And I knew Kitty on my own. I didn’t base my opinion on what you told me anyway. She was a mess, right?”

“So was I.”

“But you weren’t manipulating my brother. You weren’t leading him on and then sleeping around with a bunch of other guys.”

“But I was all too ready to tell you about that, wasn’t I?” Suzze nestled her head in closer to his chest. “You know what I didn’t tell you?”

“What?”

“Kitty also loved your brother. Truly and deeply. When they were broken up, her play suffered. Her heart wasn’t in it. I pushed her into partying more. I keep telling her that Brad wasn’t for her, that she should play the field.”

Myron thought back to the happy photographs of Kitty, Brad, and Mickey on her Facebook and wondered what could have been. He tried to let his mind settle on those blissful images, but the mind goes where it wants. Right now the mind was veering back to the video of Kitty and Ponytail in that private room at Three Downing. “Kitty made her own mistakes,” he said, hearing the bitterness in his tone. “What you said or didn’t say made no difference. She lied to Brad about everything. She lied about her drug use. She lied to him about my role in their little drama. She even lied about being on the pill.”

But as he said that last part, something in his own words didn’t mesh. Here Kitty was, on the verge of being the next Martina, Chrissie, Steffi, Serena, Venus-and she ends up getting pregnant. Maybe it was, as she claimed, an accident. Anyone who took middle school health class knows that the pill doesn’t work 100 percent of the time. But Myron had never given that excuse an iota of plausibility.

“Does Lex know all this?” he asked.

“All?” She smiled. “No.”

“He told me that was the big issue. People have secrets and those secrets fester and then destroy trust. You can’t have a good relationship without total transparency. You need to know all your spouse’s secrets.”

“Lex said that?”

“Yes.”

“That’s sweet,” she said. “But he’s wrong again.”

“How’s that?”

“No relationship survives total transparency.” Suzze lifted her face off his chest. Myron saw the tears on her cheeks, felt the wetness on his shirt. “We all keep secrets, Myron. You know that as well as anyone.”

By the time Myron made it back to the Dakota, it was three in the morning. He checked to see whether Kitty had replied to his “Please forgive me” message. She hadn’t. On the off chance that Lex had told him the truth-and that Kitty had told Lex the truth-he sent Esperanza an e-mail to see if they could check passenger manifests for Kitty’s name on flights out of Newark or JFK heading to South America. He signed on to the computer to see if Terese was around. She wasn’t.

He thought about Terese. He thought about Jessica Culver, the ex-love Lex had mentioned. After claiming for years that marriage was not for her-the years she was with Myron-Jessica had recently wed a man named Stone Norman. Stone, for crying out loud. What kind of name was that? His friends probably called him “The Stoner” or “Stone Man.” Thinking about old lovers, especially ones you wanted to marry, was never a productive endeavor, so Myron made himself stop.

Half an hour later, Win came home. He was accompanied by his latest girlfriend, a tall modelesque Asian named Mee. There was a third person too, another attractive Asian woman Myron had never seen before.

Myron looked over at Win. Win wiggled his eyebrows.

Mee said, “Hi, Myron.”