Harlan Coben - Play Dead

… Death.

I often wonder about Death. What is it, really? No one has any idea, do they? People have speculated since the beginning of time, but each original concept of the hereafter has been as absurd as the one before. How did Hamlet put it before his own demise? Didn’t he describe death as ‘an undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveler returns?’ Is that what we fear, the unknown quantity of the Great Beyond? Was it a glorious Heaven, a destructive Hell, a great black nothingness, or all of the above?

Tears stood in the killer’s eyes, tears of regret and sadness.

I have sent people to the mysterious other world. I have handed two souls to the Grim Reaper, never to return…

Three, if I include David.

The killer’s body trembled, rage pulsing through its veins and arteries. One simple word was shouted. ‘No!’

No! I will not take the blame for that. I did not kill him. People react to their situation. David Baskin did what he thought best. And that was a shame. Despite his father, I couldn’t help but admire David Baskin. And I am not a murderer. Not in my heart. I never meant to hurt anybody, not really. Yes, I killed Sinclair Baskin. I put a gun against his forehead and I pulled the trigger, but it was an act spawned from a thoughtless fury against a man who deserved to die. Like David Baskin, I reacted to a set of circumstances. And as far as my second murder is concerned -

The steering-wheel spun in the killer’s hands, nearly driving the car off the road.

The second murder. What about the cruel butchery of my second, nameless victim? Can I dismiss that as easily as the death of Sinclair Baskin? No. Guilt will burn eternally inside me for slaying that unstained soul. Why did I have to do it? He was, after all, an innocent victim. My only solace comes from a Machiavellian concept: the ends justify the means. History would say that the decision was a clever one and in the end, I have to agree. Just look at Laura if you don’t believe me.

The killer glanced at the map, spotting the exit leading to Hamilton, New York. Hamilton was the home of Colgate College.

Thirty years ago. All of that had happened over three decades ago. Kennedy had still been alive. Incredible. So long ago and still not an hour goes by when I am not reminded of my days in Chicago. They haunt my every step, my every dream, though I do step and sleep with a clear conscience. But I had thought, hoped, prayed that all of the secrets of the past had been laid to rest years ago. I assumed that the past was just that – the past. I never expected it to hurt me again.

Or did I?

In the back of my mind, didn’t I know that the past would survive and resurface one day? I guess I did. But all of a sudden, horrible secrets are coming at me, tidal-waving at me, laughing and taunting and threatening to destroy everything I cherish. Stan Baskin, a man frighteningly like his father, wants to blackmail me. I will deal with him tomorrow night. Deal with him brutally.

And Judy. After all these years, Judy wants to talk about the past. Why? Why couldn’t she just let it be? Why does she insist on keeping the past alive, on helping it thrive with its full wrath intact?

The car exited the highway. The container of kerosene rolled back and forth in the trunk, making a clanking noise when it hit the metallic sides. A book of matches sat on the dashboard. Hamilton was not very far off now.

First Judy.

Then Stan.

Then…?

Judy made herself a cup of tea and sat in the kitchen. Her eyes glanced at the clock for the third time in the last four minutes:

6:20 p.m.

If everything went according to schedule, Mark Seidman and Laura would both be arriving in about forty minutes. She realized that she had created a volatile situation by telling them both to be here at the same time. The last few hours had been spent questioning that decision. Judy carefully weighed the risks against the rewards and realized that there was no contest. She had to do it. Enough time had been wasted, enough lives thrashed apart and left to decay in the hot sun.

She took out the Lipton tea bag, read the little health tip on the tag, and tossed it into the garbage can. A half-teaspoon of sugar and a drop of milk were added. She had hoped to brew up some nice herbal tea. One of the students in her seminar on nineteenth-century American poetry had spent a semester in the Orient and had brought her back a whole slew of wonderful teas from mainland China. But, alas, Judy had used them all up already. So it was back to Lipton for today. Tomorrow she would go out to that avant-garde gourmet shop in town and pick up some new herbs.

Tomorrow.

Like the corny lyrics to that song in Annie, she realized that tomorrow was only a day away. And yet, it was a lifetime. The Judy that drank tea tomorrow would live in a different world from the one who sat at her table right now. Nothing would be the same. Her life and the lives of those she held dear would be eternally altered – for better or for worse she could not say.

She sipped the tea, enjoying the feel of the hot liquid sliding down her throat. The hands on the kitchen clock kept trudging forward. Judy was not sure if they were moving too slowly or too quickly. She only knew that the future was coming. Her emotions darted from one extreme to the other. One minute, the wait made her nearly burst with anticipation; the next, she dreaded the thought of hearing the inevitable knock on her door.

She picked the key ring off the table and held it in front of her. Four keys hung off it: two for the car, one for the house and one for the safety deposit box that held her diary from 1960. Laura was about to learn all about the contents of that diary. She was about to discover the secrets that had been kept from her for so many years. And once she did, Judy prayed it would all be over.

But would it?

Judy took another sip of tea. It tasted bitter.

Laura’s leg shook, but as usual she did not realize it.

Damn. How much longer before this plane lands? Anxiousness overwhelmed her. She found herself biting her nails, craving a cigarette, reading the boring airline magazine, memorizing the emergency exit locations on the plastic card, learning how to throw up into a paper bag in three different languages.

All of this for a lousy one-hour flight to Hamilton.

The leg continued to rock. The blue-haired woman seated next to her shot Laura an annoyed glance.

Laura stopped her leg. ‘Sorry,’ she said.

The blue-haired woman said nothing.

Laura turned back toward the airline magazine. She flipped mindlessly through the pages. There had been no reply to the numerous calls she had placed to Judy last night, save Judy’s voice on an answering machine. What had she meant last night? David had been dead for over six months. Now, after all this time, Judy wanted to tell her something about his death. But what? What could her aunt possibly know about David’s death?

And the tone of her voice – so frightened, no more than that. Petrified. And what was all the cloak-and-dagger stuff? What was so important that Aunt Judy could not say it over the telephone? What kind of photographs did she want to show her? What was all this talk of the past? Why did Aunt Judy want Laura to wait until 7:00 p.m. today to see her? And how could all of this possibly be connected to David’s death in June?

Too many questions. Too few answers.

The blue-haired woman coughed in undisguised irritation.

Laura looked down at her leg. Old Faithful was boogeying again. Her hand reached out and took hold of her knee. The leg slowed before coming to a complete stop.

‘Sorry,’ Laura offered again.

Ms Bad Dye glared at her.

Laura returned the glare. Well, fuck you too, lady.

She turned back toward her magazine and continued not to read it. The same thoughts kept racing through her brain. Her suspicions about David’s death now traveled down a new and frightening avenue. Intuition now steered her. No longer did things merely appear wrong – they felt wrong. There was a danger here, a danger more horrifying than Laura had previously imagined. She had arrived at a locked closet that held something terrible, something evil, something that threatened to destroy them all. She wanted to run away, to forget that she had ever found this locked door, but her feet were frozen to the floor. Without conscious thought, her hand reached for the deadbolt. She would soon unlock the closet door, turn the knob, peer inside. There was no turning back now. It was too late to stop.