Harlan Coben - Play Dead

Surges of emotion ricocheted through her, but she still could not get her mouth to open.

‘No response, Laura? Don’t you understand what I’m saying? I love you, Laura. I don’t want to be away from you.’

Her leg was going like a jack-hammer. It can’t be true. It has to be a trick. ‘I… I’m really busy right now, David. Can’t we discuss this later?’

David shook his head. ‘I still can’t get through to you, can I? I thought I had. I really thought I had. But you’re still that fat little girl who can’t handle being the awesome beauty. You’re still that fat kid who’s afraid to lose control of a situation, afraid to let someone else in because maybe you’ll get hurt again. But what about now, Laura? Are you still in control?’

She tried to answer. She really wanted to answer… His face reddened, his tone getting louder. ‘Nobody can truly love you, isn’t that right, Laura? You think your beauty blinds me to the real you, that someone can only love the outside image of you, but that’s bullshit. Are you really that insecure, Laura? Do you really think that I don’t know what that’s all about, that I haven’t met a hundred beautiful women who just wanted me because I could stuff a ball through a hoop?’

He stopped. His breathing came in quick spurts. He shook his head, anger seething through him, and headed for the door.

‘David?’

His hand moved away from the knob but he did not face her. ‘What?’

Again, there was no answer. David turned toward her and saw that she was crying. ‘Laura?’

The tears came faster now. ‘I’m so scared.’

‘Laura…’

‘I’m scared about how I feel,’ she said, her chest heaving from her sobs. ‘About how much I love you.’

He quickly moved back toward her and took her in his arms. ‘So am I, baby. So am I.’

‘Please don’t hurt me, David.’

‘Never, my love. I promise.’

Never, my love. I promise. The words echoed from the past into the present.

‘Please don’t hurt me, David.’

‘Never, my love. I promise.’

But David had lied. He had left her and that, after all, was what she had always feared most. Laura pushed his face from her mind and continued driving, concentrating as hard as she could on the road in front of her. Fifteen minutes later, she put on her blinker and turned.

The house.

Why had she come here? Why did she do this to herself? She felt tears start to come. Why? It was just a building. A building shouldn’t make her cry. It was just a secluded three-bedroom house with two and a half baths. Nothing to cry about unless you thought about all the shattered dreams that lay crumbled on its floors.

She got out of the car and headed to the front door. It was another beautiful summer day, the humidity not as bad as it could sometimes get. She strolled up the path, took out her key…

The front door was unlocked.

She knew that David had locked it before they eloped. She turned the knob, walked in, turned off the alarm. Well if the alarm was still set, then how…? She dismissed the worry with a weary shrug. If they had been robbed, she really did not care very much. She stepped into the living room. The house was still, the silence swallowing her. The room was bare, but of course that was how it had been before they left.

Two months ago, she and David had purchased the house. There had not been much time to do furniture shopping. Just a few things – enough so that they could move in immediately when they returned from Australia. After all, they were supposed to have a lifetime to do the rest.

She moved toward the stairs. The paint was still unfinished in many spots. She smiled sadly, remembering how David had insisted that they should paint the inside by themselves. The experience had turned into a major fiasco – paint splattered everywhere but where it was supposed to go. Laura’s hand gently petted the wall over the area where David had painted. Then she turned away. It would be bad to keep this house, to live here without David. There were not yet too many memories, but worse, there were unfulfilled dreams here, potential memories of the life she and her David would have shared. This was the place where their love would have continued growing, where the children she so wanted would never be born and raised.

‘How many children do you want, David?’

‘Now? Today? Don’t you think we should wait?’

‘I’m being serious. How many?’

‘I don’t want children.’

‘What?’

‘I want to have rabbits.’

‘Rabbits?’

‘That’s right, Laura. Rabbits. Three to be exact. One of each sex. And I think we should raise them Hindu.’

‘But I’m Catholic and you’re Jewish.’

‘Exactly. This way we won’t fight.’

‘Can’t you be serious for one minute? This is important to me.’

‘Of course, my love.’

‘How many children do you want?’

‘How many do you want?’

‘I want a lot,’ Laura replied. ‘Five, ten.’

‘You?’

‘I want to have children with you, David. I want to have children right away.’

‘Not today. I’m tired.’

‘Be serious. Think of how much fun it will be – cute little Davids running around the place.’

‘Does sound kind of cute,’ David admitted.

‘And little Lauras too.’

‘Yuck. Poor kids.’

‘Keep it up, Baskin, and you’re going to get slugged.’

He took her in his arms. ‘Laura, we are going to have the best family in the whole wide world. You, me, little ones, a couple of disposable goldfish, a family dog, a barbecue in the backyard – the whole Rockwell painting.’

‘Mean it?’

‘Yeah, I mean it.’ He squeezed her tighter. ‘I promise you’ll have plenty of little ones running around here.’

Laura continued to walk up the stairs. At the top, she veered into the master bedroom, ignoring the room down the hall which was supposed to one day be their first nursery. She saw the king-size bed they would never again share and an icicle punctured her heart. She glanced to the left. Her eyes opened in pain. Her knees buckled. Near the window, underneath its sill, David had left one of his overturned, ripped sneakers. She walked toward the sneaker that David had once worn, that he would never wear again. He would never see this house again, never smile again, never laugh again. Never. That was always the word that crushed Laura like a helpless insect.

Never.

Oh God, please let David come back to me. Please let him hold me again. I’ll do anything you ask. Please…

The morning seemed to laugh cruelly at her prayer. She turned away from the sneaker and that was when she noticed that someone had been in her desk.

The house had indeed been broken into. But that did not worry her. There wasn’t much to steal. She and David had bought the bed, the desk, the refrigerator, a kitchen table and some chairs. That was about it. Nothing easy to haul out of here either. And who cared about that stuff now anyway?

The thief had rummaged through their desk.

Everything was in disarray. They must have been searching for money or a checkbook or… She hobbled over to the desk and opened the top drawer. Three hundred dollars in cash and David’s NCAA Championship ring were right on top. Untouched. Puzzled, Laura spotted David’s photo album. Why would that be out? She opened it. Nothing unusual. Everything was in its -

Hold it.

She looked closer. There were several tiny, ripped-up pieces of a photograph caught between the pages. Someone had torn up one of David’s photographs. She closed the book and found two more pieces on the floor.

She scanned the rest of the desk. The intruder had also rifled through their schedule diary. But for what? Why would someone look through that? Laura looked at the page left open. David had written the words, ‘GETTING MARRIED!’ across last week. He had also written down their flight number on Qantas Airlines and the name of the hotel in Palm’s Cove.