Harlan Coben - Live Wire

Uh-oh. “What is it?”

“I’m of two minds on something,” she said. “I could wait until things are good before I tell you this. Or I can just throw it on the pile and with everything else going on, you’ll barely notice.”

“Throw it on the pile.”

“Thomas and I are getting a divorce.”

“Oh, damn.” He thought about the pictures in her office, the happy family shots of Esperanza, Thomas, and little Hector. His heart sank anew. “I’m so sorry.”

“I’m hoping it will be peaceful,” Esperanza said. “But I don’t think it’s going to be. Thomas is claiming I’m an unfit mother because of my sordid past and the hours I work. He’s going for sole custody of Hector.”

“He’ll never get it,” Myron said.

“Like you have control over that.” She made a noise, might have been a half laugh. “But I love when you make definitive pronouncements like that.”

Myron flashed back to a recent one with Suzze:

“I just got a bad feeling. I think I’m going to mess up.”

“You won’t.”

“It’s what I do, Myron.”

“Not this time. Your agent won’t let you.”

Won’t let her mess up. And now she was dead.

Myron Bolitar: Big man with the big, definitive pronouncements.

Before he could take it back, Esperanza said, “I’ll get on this,” and hung up.

He just stared at the phone for a moment. The lack of sleep was starting to get to him. His head pounded to the point where he wondered if Kitty had any Tylenol in the medicine cabinet. He was about to get up and check when something snagged his attention.

It was in the pile of papers and photographs on the end of the couch. On the bottom on the right. Just a corner stuck out. A royal blue corner. Myron’s eyes narrowed. He reached for it and pulled it into view.

It was a passport.

Yesterday he found Kitty’s and Mickey’s passports in Kitty’s purse. Brad had last been seen traveling to Peru, so that’s where his passport would be, according to Kitty. That begged the obvious question: Whose passport was this?

Myron flipped it open to the identification page. There, staring him in the face, was a photograph of his brother. He felt lost again, his pounding head spinning now.

Myron was just wondering about his next move when he heard the whispers.

There were times it paid to have frayed nerves. This was one of them. Instead of waiting or trying to figure out where the whispers were coming from or who was doing the whispering, Myron merely reacted. He leapt up, knocking the papers and photographs from the couch. Behind him he could hear the trailer door being smashed open. Myron dropped and rolled behind the couch.

Two men burst into the room holding guns.

They were both young, both pale, both skinny, both on something-what they used to call “heroin chic.” The one on the right had a huge, complicated tattoo coming up out of the collar of his T-shirt, rising up his neck like a flame. The other had the practiced tough-guy goatee.

The one with the goatee said, “What the… we saw him come in.”

“He’s gotta be in the other room. I’ll cover you.”

Still on the floor behind the couch, Myron silently thanked Win for making sure that he was armed. There wasn’t much time. The trailer was tiny. It would only take a few seconds to find Myron. He debated jumping out and yelling, “Freeze!” But both were armed and there was no way to know how they’d react. Neither looked particularly reliable, and thus there was an excellent chance they’d panic and start firing.

No, better to keep them confused. Better to make them scatter.

Myron made a decision. He hoped that it was the correct one, the rational one, and not just the emotional one, the one that yearned to lash out and inflict harm because his father was maybe dying and his brother was… He flashed back to Brad’s passport and realized that he had no idea where his brother was, what he was doing, how much danger he was in.

Clear the mind. Act rationally.

Goatee took two steps toward the bedroom door. Staying low, Myron shifted to the end of the couch. He waited another second, took aim low at Goatee’s knee, and without calling out a warning, Myron pulled the trigger.

The knee exploded.

Goatee let out a shout and collapsed to the ground. His gun skittered across the room. But Myron wasn’t paying attention to that. He ducked low, kept out of sight, and watched for Neck Tattoo’s reaction. If he started firing, Myron had a bead on him. But Neck Tattoo didn’t. He too screamed and, as Myron hoped, he scattered.

Neck Tattoo turned tail and dived back outside. Myron moved fast now. He jumped up and came out from behind the couch. On the floor in front of him, Goatee rolled in agony. Myron bent down, grabbed the man’s face, made him look at him. Then Myron jammed the gun into Goatee’s face.

“Stop screaming or I’ll kill you.”

Goatee quieted the scream to animal-like whimpers.

Myron quickly retrieved the man’s gun and then ran toward the window. He looked out. Neck Tattoo was hopping into a car. Myron checked the plates. New York. He quickly put the letter-number combination into his BlackBerry and sent it to Esperanza. Not much time now. He went back to Goatee.

“Who are you working for?”

Still whimpering he said in a childlike voice: “You shot me!”

“Yes, I know. Who are you working for?”

“Go to hell.”

Myron got down on his haunches. He pressed the barrel of the gun against the man’s other knee. “I really don’t have much time.”

“Please,” he said, his voice going up too many octaves. “I don’t know.”

“What’s your name?”

“What?”

“Your name. Never mind. I’ll call you Goatee. Here’s what’s going to happen, Goatee. I’m going to shoot your other knee now. Then I’ll move to the elbows.”

Goatee was crying. “Please.”

“Eventually you’ll tell me.”

“I don’t know! I swear.”

Someone in the park had probably heard the gunshot. Neck Tattoo might come back with reinforcements. Either way, Myron had very little time here. He had to show he meant business. With a small sigh, Myron began to pull the trigger-he was that far gone-when a moment of common sense pushed through. Even if he could do it-even if he could shoot an unarmed, helpless man-the result of the shot would probably backfire on him. The pain would more likely make Goatee pass out or go into shock than get him to open up.

Still Myron wasn’t sure what he would do when he said, “Last chance…”

Goatee came to the rescue. “His name is Bert! That’s all I know. Bert!”

“Last name?”

“I don’t know! Kevin set it up.”

“Who’s Kevin?”

“The guy who just left me here, man.”

“And what did Bert want you to do?”

“We followed you, man. From the hospital. He said you’d lead us to Kitty Bolitar.”

Man, now Myron really knew that he was slipping. These two numb nuts had been behind him this whole time and Myron never spotted the tail? Pathetic. “And when you found Kitty, what were you supposed to do?”

Goatee started crying again. “Please.”

Myron put the gun against the man’s head. “Look at my eyes.”

“Please.”

“Stop crying and look at my eyes.”

He finally did. He was sniffling, trying to hold it together. His knee was a mess. Myron knew that he would probably never walk again without a limp. One day, that might bother Myron, but he doubted it.

“Tell me the truth and this is all over. You probably won’t even have to go to jail. Lie to me and I shoot you in the head, so there’s no witness. Do you understand?”

He kept his eyes surprisingly steady. “You’re going to kill me anyway.”