Harlan Coben - Play Dead

T.C. looked out the window of the suite and felt in his pocket for a cigar. None were there.

‘Call around. Search the area.’

Laura’s voice was surprisingly steady and matter-of-fact. ‘By calling around, you mean the morgues.’

‘Morgues, hospitals – that kind of thing.’

‘And by searching the area, you mean the ocean and beaches to see if David’s body has washed up.’

He nodded.

Laura walked over to the telephone. ‘Do you want to change or rest up before we get started? You look like hell.’

He turned and smiled. ‘I just got off a long flight. What’s your excuse?’

‘I’m not exactly ready for a cover shot, huh?’

‘You’d still put the competition to shame.’

‘Thanks. Now do me a favor.’

‘Name it.’

‘Go down to the lobby and buy a couple of boxes of their finest cheap cigars.’

‘Huh?’

She lifted the receiver. ‘Stack up your supplies. We might be here a while.’

First, she called the morgues.

Laura had purposely wanted to call them first, to get them out of the way as fast as possible. Better to dash madly through the valley of the shadow of death than to take a casual stroll. Her head sat on a guillotine from the moment the coroner said, ‘Hold on a moment, luv,’ until a hellish decade later – or so it seemed – when he came back on to say, ‘No one fitting that description here.’ Then relief would flood her veins for a few seconds before T.C. gave her the next number to dial.

The room reeked of cigar stench like a poker table on the boy’s night to play, but Laura did not notice. She felt trapped, suffocated – not by the smoke but by each ring of the phone, her body constantly crossing between hope and dread as she now began to call the hospitals. She wanted so much to know – needed to know – while at the same time, she was afraid to find out. It was like living in a nightmare, one where you are terrified to wake up because then the nightmare might become reality.

An hour later, the calls were completed.

‘Now what?’

T.C. flicked an ash onto the table-top. He had smoked many cigars in his day but this Australian stogy was like smoking duck manure. One puff from this baby would have done to Fidel what Kennedy and the Bay of Pigs could not. He decided this would be his last one.

‘I’m going to run downstairs and get you a few more numbers to call from the phone book,’ he said. ‘Then I’m going to start questioning the staff. No reason for both of us to sit by a phone.’

He stood, walked to the door, sighed, turned slowly back around. He reached back and grabbed his Australian cigars. What the hell. His taste buds were dead already.

A little while later, as Laura sat alone in her room waiting for T.C. (or better yet, David) to return, she decided to call home. Glancing at the clock, she realized that it was around eleven p.m. in Boston.

Her father, Dr James Ayars, would be sitting in his immaculate study at his immaculate desk. Medical files for tomorrow morning’s rounds would be neatly stacked, the right side for those already reviewed, the left for the ones not yet read. He would be wearing his gray silk robe over neatly buttoned pajamas, his reading glasses gripping the end of his nose tightly so they would not slide off during one of his frequent sighs.

Her mother, the lovely socialite Mary Ayars, would probably be upstairs waiting for her husband’s nocturnal voyage to their bedroom. She would be propped up in bed, reading the latest provocative novel assigned for her reading group, a clan really, containing some of Boston’s most influential pseudo-intellectuals. They enjoyed spending each Thursday evening dissecting the ‘in’ books and attributing meanings that even the most creative of authors could not have imagined on the loftiest of drug trips. Laura had gone to one session (they were sessions, her mother had told her, not meetings), and decided that Webster’s Dictionary should have a picture of this group next to the word ‘bullshit’. But this was merely her mother’s latest in a long series of Thursday-night attempts at female bonding, running the gambit from bridge games to sexual-awareness encounter groups.

‘Hello?’

For the first time since David’s disappearance, tears suddenly came to her eyes. Her father’s voice was like a time machine. She fell back over the years, wanting to wrap herself in the past, wanting to wrap herself in her father’s strong and confident voice where she had always been safe and warm.

‘Hello, Dad.’

‘Laura? How’s everything going over there? How’s Australia?’

She did not know how to start. ‘It’s beautiful. The sun shines all the time.’

‘Well, that’s great, honey.’ His tone grew businesslike. ‘Now why don’t we cut through all the red tape, okay? What’s up?’

That was her father. Enough haggling and small talk. He wanted to get to the bottom line. ‘Something’s happened to David.’

His voice was as authoritative as always. ‘What, Laura? Is he okay?’

She was very close to crying now. ‘I don’t know.’

‘What do you mean you don’t know?’

‘He’s missing.’

There was a long silence that frightened Laura.

‘Missing?’

His voice was more full of dread than real surprise, like when you hear your friend who smokes three packs a day has developed lung cancer. Tragic and yet obvious. She waited for him to say more, to request all the details like he usually did, but he remained quiet. Finally she spoke.

‘He left me a note that he had gone swimming. That was two days ago.’

‘Oh God,’ he mumbled. His words formed into a sharp needle that punctured Laura’s skin. Gone was the confident voice that was her father’s trademark. She could feel him struggling to regain his normal tone, but the sound was hollow, distant. ‘Why didn’t you call sooner? Have you contacted the police?’

‘They’re looking for him now. I called T.C. He arrived a few hours ago.’

‘I’ll catch the next flight. I’ll be there – ’

‘No, that’s okay. There’s nothing you can do here.’

‘But – ’

‘Really, Dad, I’m okay. But please don’t tell Mom.’

‘What could I tell her? She doesn’t even know you’re in Australia. Everybody’s wondering where you and David are.’

‘Just keep the elopement a secret for a little while longer. Is Mom there?’

Dr Ayars froze. ‘No.’

‘Where is she?’

‘She’s in Los Angeles for the week,’ he lied. ‘Laura, are you sure you don’t want me to fly out there?’

‘No, really, I’ll be fine. I’m sure we’ll find him soon. He’s probably just pulling another stunt.’

Again, there was silence. Laura waited for him to agree with her, to say of course he’ll be back, to tell her to stop worrying like a typical wife. But he didn’t. Where was his comforting voice of reason? Where was the man who was supposed to be strong for everyone else? Her father, the man who was always calm, always in control, the man who had seen death and suffering on both a professional and personal level for his entire life and had never let it affect his cool exterior, was strangely without words.

‘I’ll call you as soon as I know something,’ she said while a small voice in her head told her that her father didn’t need to be informed, that he already knew what the outcome was going to be. But that was silly. She was just overtired and frightened. This whole episode was turning her brain into mush.

‘Okay,’ Dr James Ayars replied, defeated, crushed.

‘Is there something else, Dad?’

‘No,’ Dr Ayars said mechanically. ‘I’m sure everything will work out for the best.’

Laura listened to his words, puzzled. The best? She suddenly felt very cold.