Harlan Coben - The Innocent

"No problem. Olivia's still in Boston."

"Thank you," she said, and there was something in her voice.

He switched ears. "Uh, what time do you think you'll be getting-"

"Matt?"

"Yes."

"I lied to you before."

He said nothing.

"I didn't have a school meeting."

He waited.

"I'm out on a date."

Not sure what to say to that, Matt went with the reliable "Oh."

"I should have told you before." She lowered her voice. "It's not a first date either."

His eyes found his brother's in the photograph on the refrigerator. "Uh huh."

"I've been seeing someone. It's been almost two months now. The boys don't know anything about it, of course."

"You don't have to explain to me."

"Yeah, Matt. Yeah, I do."

He said nothing.

"Matt?"

"I'm here."

"Would you mind spending the night?"

He closed his eyes. "No," he said. "I don't mind at all."

"I'll be home before the boys wake up."

"Okay."

He heard a sniffle then. She was crying.

"It's okay, Marsha."

"Really?"

"Yeah," he said. "I'll see you in the morning."

"I love you, Matt."

"I love you too."

He hung up the phone. It was a good thing, Marsha going out. It was a very good thing. But his eyes drifted back toward his brother. Unfair and wrong as it was, Matt couldn't help but think that his brother had never seemed more gone.

EVERYONE SEEMS TO HAVE this terrifying dream where you are suddenly about to take the final exam in a class you haven't attended all semester. Matt did not. Instead, in a strangely similar vein, he dreamed that he was back in prison. He had no idea what he'd done to get back there. There was no memory of a crime or a trial, just the sense that he had somehow messed up and that this time he would never get out.

He'd wake up with a start. He'd be sweating. There'd be tears in his eyes. His body would quake.

Olivia had grown used to it. She would wrap her arms around him and whisper that it was okay, that nothing could hurt him anymore. She had bad dreams of her own, his lovely wife, but she never seemed to need or want that sort of comfort.

He slept on the couch in the den. The upstairs guest room had a pullout queen-size bed that somehow felt too big when he was sleeping alone. Now, as he stared up in the dark, feeling more alone than he had since Olivia walked into his office, Matt actually feared sleep. He kept his eyes open. At four in the morning Marsha's car pulled into the driveway.

When he heard the key in the door, Matt closed his eyes and pretended to be asleep on the couch. Marsha tiptoed over and kissed him on the forehead. The smell of shampoo and soap wafted from her. She had showered, wherever she had been. He wondered if she had showered alone. He wondered why he cared.

She moved into the kitchen. Still feigning sleep, Matt slowly opened one eye. Marsha was making lunch for the boys. She spread jelly with a too-practiced hand. There were tears on her cheek. Matt kept still. He let her finish in peace and listened to her gentle footsteps pad up the stairs.

At 7 A.M., Cingle called him.

"I tried your home number," she said. "You weren't there."

"I'm at my sister-in-law's."

"Oh."

"Just babysitting my nephews."

"Did I ask?"

He rubbed his face. "So what's up?"

"You coming into the office?"

"Yeah, a little later. Why?"

"I found your follower, Charles Talley."

He sat all the way up. "Where?"

"Let's talk about this in person, okay?"

"Why?"

"I need to do a little more research."

"On what?"

"On Charles Talley. I'll meet you at your office at noon, okay?"

He had his Thursday rendezvous at the museum anyway. "Yeah, okay."

"And Matt?"

"What?"

"You said this was personal? Whatever it is with Talley?"

"Yes."

"Then you're in deep doo-doo."

Matt was a member of the Newark Museum. He flashed his membership card but there was no need. The guards at the door knew him by now. He nodded and entered. Very few people roamed the hall this time of the morning. Matt headed to the art gallery in the west wing. He passed the museum's newest piece, a colorful canvas by Wosene Worke Kosrof, and took the steps to the second floor.

She was the only one there.

He could see her way down at the end of the corridor. She was standing where she always stood- in front of the painting by Edward Hopper. Her head was tilted ever so slightly to the left. She was a very attractive woman, nearing sixty, almost six feet tall, high cheekbones, the kind of blonde hair only the wealthy seem to possess. As always she looked smart and tailored and polished.

Her name was Sonya McGrath. She was the mother of Stephen McGrath, the boy Matt had killed.

Sonya always waited by the Hopper. The painting was called Sheridan Theater and managed to catch pure desolation and despair in a picture of a movie theater. It was amazing. There were famous images depicting the ravages of war, of death, of destruction, but there was something in this seemingly simple Hopper, something in this near-empty theater balcony that spoke to both of them in ways no other image ever had.

Sonya McGrath heard him approach but she didn't turn away from the picture. Matt passed Stan, the security guard who always worked this floor on Thursday mornings. They exchanged a quick smile and nod. Matt wondered what Stan must think of his quiet trysts with this attractive older woman.

He stood next to her and looked at the Hopper. It worked like a bizarre mirror. He saw them as the two isolated figures- he Hopper's usher, she the lone patron. For a long time they didn't speak. Matt glanced at Sonya McGrath's profile. He had seen a photograph of her in the paper once, the Sunday New York Times Style section. Sonya McGrath was something of a socialite. In the photograph, her smile dazzled. He had never seen that smile in person- wondered, in fact, if it could exist anywhere but on film.

"You don't look so good," Sonya said.

She was not looking at him- had not, as far as he could tell, yet glanced his way- but he nodded anyway. Sonya faced him full.

Their relationship- though the term "relationship" didn't seem to capture it- began a few years after Matt got out of prison. His phone would ring, he would pick it up, and there would be no one there. No hang-up. No words. Matt thought that maybe he could hear breathing, but mostly there was pure silence.

Somehow Matt knew who was on the other end.

The fifth time she called, Matt took several deep breaths before working up the courage to speak. "I'm sorry," he said.

There was a long silence. Then Sonya replied, "Tell me what really happened."

"I did. In court."

"Tell me again. Everything."

He tried. He took a long time. She stayed silent. When he finished she hung up.

The next day she called again. "I want to tell you about my son," she said without preamble.

And she did.

Matt now knew more than he really wanted to know about Stephen McGrath. He was no longer merely a kid who stepped into a fight, the log jammed onto the track that sent Matt Hunter's life off the rails. McGrath had two younger sisters who adored him. He loved playing guitar. He was a little hippy-ish- he got that, Sonya said with a trace of a laugh, from his mother. He was a great listener, that was what his friends always said. If they had a problem, they went to Stephen. He never needed to be the center of attention. He was content on the sidelines. He would laugh at your joke. He had gotten in trouble only once in his life- the police caught him and some buddies drinking behind the high school- but he had never gotten into a fight, not even as a kid, and seemed deathly afraid of physical violence.