Harlan Coben - Play Dead

‘The 011 is for a long-distance call,’ Richard Corsel explained. ‘Sixty-one is the country code for Australia. Seventy is the city code of Cairns.’

Cairns, Laura thought. That was where she had met with the Peterson Group, the meeting that had taken place while David drowned in nearby waters…

‘I don’t understand, Mr Corsel. How could David have placed a call to you five hours after he drowned?’

Corsel shrugged. ‘I’m not a detective, Mrs Baskin. I only know the facts you see in front of you. As much as it pains me to say, I think you were right. Somehow, someone was able to get David’s access code and imitate his voice well enough to fool me. I can’t imagine what else it could be… unless, of course, the coroner was wrong about the time of death.’

Laura slumped back. If the coroner had been wrong, where had David been for all those hours? And why would David move around his money hours before taking a midnight swim?

‘Can I keep this file, Mr Corsel?’

‘I’d prefer if you just wrote down what you want to know for now. Of course, I’ll keep trying to track down the missing money. Your husband… I mean, whoever made that call had this access code and insisted on absolute secrecy, so please, Mrs Baskin, I never showed this to you. This time I’m worried about something a lot more valuable than my job.’

Laura nodded. She understood what he meant.

When Laura and Serita arrived at Laura’s place, Laura picked up the phone and dialed 011-61-70-517-999. She pictured her call traveling through thousands of miles of wires and satellite transmissions that led from Boston to a small city on the other side of the world in Australia. After a few seconds, a loud static came over the line. Then she heard the ringing of a telephone.

Laura gripped the phone impossibly tight and listened. The receiver on the other end was picked up after the third ring. A piercing feedback traveled halfway across the globe, followed by a young woman’s voice:

‘Pacific International Hotel. Can I help you?’

Laura hung up the phone without speaking.

‘What is it, Laura?’ Serita asked. ‘Whose number is it?’

Laura remembered the hotel so well. The window from the Peterson office had given her a perfect view of the Martin Jetty’s only high-rise structure. ‘The Pacific International Hotel.’

Serita shrugged. ‘So what does that mean?’

‘The Pacific International Hotel is on the same street as the Peterson Group building,’ Laura explained, her voice flat. ‘The call to the bank was placed from a hotel less than a block from where I had my meeting.’

Serita leaned back in the chair. She kicked her shoes off her feet and across the room. ‘This whole thing is getting kind of eerie, huh?’

Laura did not respond.

‘I keep waiting for Twilight Zone music,’ Serita said. ‘So what’s our next step? You gonna call T.C.?’

‘Not yet,’ Laura said.

‘Why not?’

‘Because I think he already suspects something.’

‘What? How can that be?’

Laura shrugged. ‘He’s the professional, right? If I could figure it out, so could he.’

‘So why not work together?’ Serita suggested.

She shook her head. ‘I don’t think T.C. wants to find out what really happened… or else he already has and doesn’t want me to know.’

‘That doesn’t make any sense, girl.’

‘I know. It’s just a feeling I can’t shake.’

‘Well, I think you better shake it and talk to him.’

‘Maybe later,’ Laura said. ‘Right now, I think I’m going to take a shower and change.’

‘Go ahead. I’ll change when you’re finished. Can I borrow that new white outfit of yours?’

‘Sure. It’ll probably look better on you anyway.’

‘It’s my ebony complexion.’

Laura smiled dully and headed into the bathroom. Serita waited for her friend to turn on the shower before picking up the phone and dialing.

‘T.C.,’ Serita said quietly, ‘I need to talk to you.’

Stan Baskin looked out the window at the Charles River. In many ways, the new apartment was nothing special. It consisted of one bedroom, a living room, a bathroom, a kitchen, and a terrace. As far as Stan was concerned, you could get rid of the bedroom, the living room, the bathroom. Just leave him the terrace. The view soothed him like a gentle touch. Though he and Gloria had only moved in a couple of days ago, Stan had already spent what seemed like countless, blissful hours gazing at the Charles River. He watched the college couples stroll along her banks; he watched the crew boats from Harvard slice through her still waters. And at night, the Charles became a sparkling jewel of lights reflecting off of nearby buildings and onto her shiny, wet coat.

Usually, Gloria sat beside him and watched too. But she never disturbed him when he was lost in his own thoughts. Gloria had an uncanny knack for knowing when he wanted to talk and when he just wanted to be left alone. Right now, she was at Svengali’s headquarters putting together a new marketing scheme for the teenage set. She would not be home for several hours yet.

Stan moved away from the window. He knew that he needed to find a job (or a good con) soon. The ten grand he had made from his part in the Deerfield Inn scam was running low. Shit, B Man had made a nice little profit on that one. He got the fifty grand Stan owed him, plus ten grand interest and another twenty grand net profit minus whatever minuscule amount he paid that Neanderthal Bart.

Stan picked up the newspaper from the couch. He had a tip about a horse in the seventh race named Breeze’s Girl. The horse, his contact had assured him, could not lose. But somehow it did not feel right. Stan rarely, if ever, bet on a filly. Be they human or animal, females could not be depended upon to come through for you.

The clock read three o’clock. Gloria usually came home between six and seven. At least three more hours until she was back. Stan shook his head, wondering why he would be counting the hours until she returned. If he did not know himself better, he could swear that he sort of missed her. But of course that was impossible. Stan Baskin did not miss women. They missed him.

He moved back into the kitchen and poured himself a glass of orange juice. When he was a little kid, his mother squeezed him fresh orange juice every morning because she knew how much he loved it. His poor old lady. She had ended up dying of cancer. What an awful fuckin’ disease, he thought. You’re either lucky enough to be in remission or you get to stay in bed and wait for the cancer to claim your life, wait as the disease eats away at you from within. Or worse, the doctors make you go through that chemotherapy shit. No way would I go put up with that, Stan thought. If I’m ever in her shoes, I’d go out and buy myself the biggest gun I could find and press it against my temple and pull the trigger.

Bam.

Dead. Quick and painless. Just like what had happened to his dad – or so they all thought. Only Stan knew better.

Every morning Stan’s mother squeezed him fresh orange juice. ‘It’s good for you,’ she would say. But Stan needed no encouragement to drink the pulpy liquid with the little pits. He loved Grace Baskin’s fresh-squeezed orange juice. But then his father died (was murdered) and all that changed. Stan had been only ten years old at the time – David not yet two.

The funeral had been jammed with thousands of people from the university: professors, deans, secretaries, students. All the neighbors were there too. Stan stood quietly next to his mother. She wore black and cried into a white handkerchief.

‘We have to think of David now, Stan,’ she said to him as they lowered the casket into the ground. ‘We have to make up for the fact that he is going to grow up without a father. Do you understand?’