Harlan Coben - The Innocent

"I think it is."

"Think?"

"It's hard to make out the face."

Cingle gnawed on her lower lip. She reached behind, grabbed her purse, started rummaging through it.

"What?" he asked.

"You're not the only one who's technically savvy," Cingle said.

She pulled out a small handheld computer, not much bigger than Matt's phone.

"A Palm Pilot?"

"A high-end pocket PC," she corrected. Cingle pulled out a cord. She plugged one end into the phone, one end into the pocket PC. "You mind if I download the picture and video?"

"Why?"

"I'll take them back to the office. We have all kinds of software to blow the images up frame by frame, enhance them, make a solid analysis."

"This stays between us."

"Understood." Two minutes later, the pictures were downloaded. Cingle handed the phone back to Matt. "One more thing."

"I'm listening."

"Learning all we can about our friend Charles Talley may not get us what we need." She leaned forward. "We need to start drawing lines. We need to find a connection between Talley and…"

"Olivia," he finished for her.

"Yes."

"You want to investigate my wife."

She sat back, recrossed the legs. "If this was just a run-of-the-mill hot-sheet affair, it would probably be unnecessary. I mean, maybe they just met. Maybe they hooked up at a bar, I don't know. But Talley is tailing you. He's also sending you pictures, throwing it in your face."

"Meaning?"

"Meaning there's something more here," Cingle said. "Let me ask you something and don't take offense, okay?"

"Okay."

She shifted in her chair. Her every move, intentional or not, came across as a double entendre. "What do you really know about Olivia? Her background, I mean."

"I know everything- where she's from, where she went to school-"

"How about family?"

"Her mother ran off when she was a baby. Her father died when she was twenty-one."

"Siblings?"

"None."

"So her father raised her alone?"

"Basically. So?"

Cingle kept going. "Where did she grow up?"

"Northways, Virginia."

Cingle wrote it down. "She went to college there, right?"

Matt nodded. "She went to UVA."

"What else?"

"What do you mean, what else? What else is there? She's worked for DataBetter Associates for eight years. Her favorite color is blue. She has green eyes. She reads more than any human being I know. Her guilty pleasure is corny Hallmark movies. And- at the risk of making you vomit- when I wake up and Olivia is next to me, I know, know, that there is no luckier man on the planet. You writing this down?"

The door to his office burst open. They both turned toward it. Midlife stepped in. "Oh, sorry, didn't mean to interrupt."

"No, that's okay," Matt said.

Midlife looked at his watch, making a full production out of it. "I really need to go over the Sterman case with you."

Matt nodded. "I was just about to call you anyway."

They both looked at Cingle. She rose. Midlife unconsciously adjusted his tie and patted his hair.

"Ike Kier," he said, sticking out his hand.

"Yeah," Cingle said, managing not to roll her eyes. "Charmed." She looked at Matt. "We'll talk."

"Thank you."

She looked at him a second longer than necessary and spun toward the door. Midlife moved out of her wake. After she left, Midlife took her seat, whistled, and said, "Who in heaven is that?"

"Cingle Shaker. She works for MVD."

"You mean she's a private dick?"

Midlife laughed at his own joke. When Matt didn't join in, he segued it into a cough and crossed his legs. His gray hair was neatly parted. Gray hair works on lawyers- a full head of it anyway. It gave them a certain gravitas with jurors.

Matt opened his desk drawer and pulled out the Sterman file. The two talked for three hours about the case, about the prelim, about what the DA might offer. They had just about talked themselves out when Matt's camera phone rang. He checked the caller ID. The screen spelled out: "Unavailable." Matt put the phone to his ear.

"Hello?"

"Hey." It was a man whispering. "Guess what I'm doing to your wife right now?"

FOR LOREN MUSE, there was no escaping déjà vu today.

She pulled up to the home of Marsha Hunter at 38 Darby Terrace in Livingston, New Jersey. Livingston had been Loren's hometown. Growing up, she'd decided, was never easy. Adolescence is a war zone, no matter where you live. Comfortable towns like Livingston are supposed to cushion the blows. For those who belonged, maybe it did. For Loren, this was where she lived when her father decided that he really, truly did not belong anywhere, not even with his daughter.

Livingston had all the trappings: great schools, great sports programs, great Kiwanis Club, great PTA, great high school productions. When Loren grew up here, the Jewish kids dominated the honor roll. Now it was the Asians and Indians, the next generation of immigrants, the new hungry ones. It was that kind of place. You come out here, you buy the house, you pay the taxes, you get the American dream.

But you know what they say: Be careful what you wish for.

She knocked on the door to Marsha Hunter's home. Loren hadn't figured the connection between this single mom, a rarity in Livingston, and Sister Mary Rose- other than a six-minute phone call. She probably should have done some checking first, a little background work, but there was no time. So here she stood, on the front stoop in the bright sunshine, when the door opened.

"Marsha Hunter?"

The woman, attractive in a plain way, nodded. "Yes, that's right."

Loren held up her identification. "I'm Investigator Loren Muse from the Essex County prosecutor's office. I'd like a moment of your time."

Marsha Hunter blinked, confused. "What's this about?"

Loren tried a disarming smile. "Could I come in a moment?"

"Oh, yes. Of course."

She stepped back. Loren entered the home and whammo, another hit of déjà vu. Such a sameness to the interiors. In here it could be any year between 1964 and now. There was no change. The television might be fancier, the carpet a little less plush, the colors more muted, but that feeling of falling back into her old bizarro-kid-world dimension still hung in the air.

She checked the walls, looking for a cross or Madonna or some hint of Catholicism, something that might easily explain the phone call from the faux Sister Mary Rose. There was nothing hinting at any religion. Loren noticed a folded sheet and blanket on the edge of the couch, as if someone had recently slept there.

There was a young woman in the room, maybe twenty years old, and two boys no more than eight or nine. "Paul, Ethan," their mother said, "this is Investigator Muse." The well-trained boys dutifully shook Loren's hands, both going so far as to make eye contact.

The smaller one- Ethan, she thought- said, "Are you a policeman?"

"Woman," Loren replied automatically. "And the answer is, sorta. I'm an investigator in the county prosecutor's office. That's like being a police officer."

"You got a gun?"

"Ethan," Marsha said.

Loren would have responded, would have shown it to him, but she knew that some mothers freaked about things like that. Loren understood it- anything to prevent Precious from understanding violence- but the gun-denial step was a woefully inadequate long-term tactic.

"And this is Kyra Sloan," Marsha Hunter said. "She helps me look after the kids."

The young woman named Kyra waved from across the room, picking up some kind of toy. Loren waved back.

"Kyra, do you mind taking the boys outside for a little while?"

"Sure." Kyra turned to the boys. "How about a game of Wiffle ball, guys?"

"I'm up first!"

"No, you were up first last time! It's my turn!"