Harlan Coben - Live Wire

“What, so you can make up more stuff about me?”

“Me make stuff up? You’re the one who said I-” Unproductive. He made himself stop. “Look, I’m sorry about everything. Whatever I said or did. I want to put it in the past. I want to make amends.”

Kitty shook her head. Behind her, the merry-go-round started up again. There were maybe twenty children on board. Some parents joined them. They stood by the horse, making sure that the offspring were secure. Most watched from the sidelines, their heads moving in small circles so they could watch their child and only theirs. Each time the child circled around, the parent’s face would light up anew.

“Please,” Myron said.

“Brad doesn’t want to see you.”

Her tone was that of a petulant teenager, but the words still stung. “He said that?”

She nodded. He tried to meet her eye, but her gaze was everywhere but on him. Myron had to take a step back and put his emotions on hold. Forget the past. Forget the history. Try to connect.

“I wish I could take it back,” Myron said. “You have no idea how much I regret what happened.”

“Doesn’t matter anymore. I have to go.”

Connect, he thought. You have to connect. “Do you ever think about regrets, Kitty? I mean, do you ever wish you could go back and do one little thing differently and then everything, your whole world, would be something else? Like if I made a right turn instead of a left at a stoplight. If you hadn’t picked up that tennis racket when you were, what, three years old? If I didn’t hurt my knee and then I wouldn’t have been an agent and then you would have never met Brad? You ever wonder about stuff like that?”

It may have been a ploy or line on his part, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t true. He felt drained now. For a moment they both just stood there, their world gone quiet while the mall rush raged about them.

When Kitty finally spoke, her voice was soft. “It doesn’t work that way.”

“What doesn’t?”

“Everyone has regrets,” she said, looking off. “But you don’t want to go back. If I made a right instead of a left or if I never picked up a racket, well, I wouldn’t have met Brad. And we would have never had Mickey.” At the mention of her son, her eyes welled up. “Whatever else happened, I could never go back and risk that. If I changed one thing-even if I got an A in sixth-grade math instead of a B-maybe that chain reaction would have changed one sperm or one egg and then there would be no Mickey. Do you see?”

Hearing about the nephew he never met worked like a lasso around Myron’s heart. He tried to keep his voice even. “What’s Mickey like?”

For a moment the drug addict was gone, the tennis player was gone-and color came to her face. “He’s the greatest kid in the world.” She smiled, but Myron could see the devastation behind it. “He’s so smart and strong and kind. He awes me every day. He loves playing basketball.” A small chuckle escaped her lips. “Brad says he may be better than you.”

“I’d love to see him play.”

Her back stiffened, and her face shut like a slammed gate. “That’s not going to happen.”

He was losing her-time to change tacks again, keep her off balance. “Why did you post ‘Not His’ on Suzze’s wall?”

“What are you talking about?” she countered, but there was no conviction in her voice. She opened her purse and started reaching inside. Myron peered over her and saw two crushed packets of cigarettes. She withdrew one and put it in her mouth, looking up at him as though daring him to say something. He didn’t.

She started toward the exit. Myron stayed with her.

“Come on, Kitty. I already know it was you.”

“I need a smoke.”

They walked between two restaurants, Ruby Tuesday and McDonald’s. The McDonald’s had the most garish Ronald McDonald statue sitting in a booth. Ronald had a big smile and was too brightly painted and looked as though it might wink as they passed. Myron wondered whether it gave kids nightmares because, when Myron was unsure of his next move, he wondered about things like that.

Kitty already had her lighter at the ready. She inhaled hard, closing her eyes, and let loose a long ream of smoke. Cars slowly cruised around in search of open spaces. Kitty took another hit. Myron waited.

“Kitty?”

“I shouldn’t have posted that,” she said.

So there it was. Confirmation. “Why did you?”

“Good old-fashioned revenge, I guess. When I was pregnant, she told my husband it wasn’t his.”

“So you decided to do likewise?”

Puff. “It seemed like a good idea at the time.”

At 3:17 in the morning. Little wonder. “How high were you?”

“What?”

Mistake. “Never mind.”

“No, I heard you.” Kitty shook her head, tossed the rest of the cigarette onto the walk, and stomped on it with her foot. “This isn’t your business. I don’t want you to be part of our lives. Neither does Brad.” Something again flicked in her eyes. “I gotta go.”

She turned to head back inside, but Myron put his hands on her shoulders.

“What else is going on here, Kitty?”

“Get your hands off me.”

He didn’t. He looked at her and saw that whatever connection he had made, it was gone now. She looked like a cornered animal now. A cornered, spiteful animal.

“Let. Go. Of. Me.”

“There’s no way Brad would put up with this.”

“With what? We don’t want you in our lives. You may want to forget what you did to us-”

“Just listen to me, okay?”

“Get your hands off me! Now!”

There was no talking to her. Her irrationality enraged him. Myron could feel his blood boil. He thought about all the terrible things she had done-how she had lied, how she had made his brother run away. He thought about her shooting up at the club and then he thought about her with Joel Fishman.

His voice had an edge now. “Have you really burned through that many brain cells, Kitty?”

“What are you talking about?”

He leaned in so that his face was inches from her. Through clenched teeth he said, “I found you via your drug dealer. You hit up Lex hoping to score drugs.”

“Is that what Lex told you?”

“For crying out loud, look at yourself,” Myron said, no longer disguising his disgust. “Are you really going to try to tell me you’re not using?”

Tears flooded her eyes. “What are you, my drug counselor?”

“Think about how I found you.”

Kitty’s eyes narrowed in confusion. Myron waited. And then she saw it. He nodded.

“I know what you did at the club,” Myron said, trying not to lose it. “I even have it on videotape.”

She shook her head. “You don’t know a thing.”

“I know what I saw.”

“You son of a bitch. Now I get it.” She wiped the tears from her eyes. “You want to show it to Brad, right?”

“What? No.”

“I can’t believe this. You videotaped me?”

“Not me. The club. It’s a surveillance video.”

“And you tracked it down? You goddamn bastard.”

“Hey,” Myron snapped, “I’m not the one going down on a guy in a nightclub so I can shoot up.”

She stepped back as though he’d slapped her. Dumb. He had forgotten his own warning. With strangers he knew how to talk, knew how to interrogate. With family, it always goes down the wrong road, doesn’t it?

“I didn’t mean… Look, Kitty, I really do want to help.”

“Liar. Tell the truth for once.”

“I am telling the truth. I do want to help.”

“Not about that.”

“What are you talking about?”

Kitty had the eerie, cagey smile of, well, a drug addict looking for a fix. “What would you say if you saw Brad again? Tell the truth.”