Harlan Coben - Just One Look

“We’ve been married ten years.”

“I understand that.” He shifted in his seat. “You were there on vacation when you met?”

“I don’t know if I’d call it a vacation exactly.”

“You were studying. You were painting.”

“Yes.”

“And, well, mostly you were running away.”

She said nothing.

“And Jack?” Vespa continued. “Why was he there?”

“Same reason, I guess.”

“He was running away?”

“Yes.”

“From what?”

“I don’t know.”

“May I state the obvious then?”

She waited.

“Whatever he was running from”-Vespa gestured toward the photograph-“it caught up to him.”

The thought had occurred to Grace too. “That was a long time ago.”

“So was the Boston Massacre. Your running away. Did it make it go away?”

In the rearview mirror she saw Cram glance at her, waiting for an answer. She kept still.

“Nothing stays in the past, Grace. You know that.”

“I love my husband.”

He nodded.

“Will you help me?”

“You know I will.”

The car veered off the Garden State Parkway. Up ahead, Grace saw an enormous bland structure with a cross on it. It looked like an airplane hangar. A neon sign stated that tickets were still available for the “Concerts with the Lord.” A band called Rapture would be playing. Cram pulled the limo into a parking lot big enough to declare statehood.

“What are we doing here?”

“Finding God,” Carl Vespa said. “Or maybe His opposite. Let’s go inside, I want to show you something.”

This was nuts, Charlaine thought.

Her feet moved steadily toward Freddy Sykes’s yard without thought or emotion. It had crossed her mind that she could be raising the danger stakes out of desperation, hungry as she was for any kind of drama in her life. But okay, again, so what? Really, when she thought about it, what was the worst that could happen? Suppose Mike did find out. Would he leave her? Would that be so bad?

Did she want to get caught?

Oh, enough with the amateur self-analysis. It wouldn’t hurt to knock on Freddy’s door, pretend to be neighborly. Two years ago, Mike had put up a four-foot-high stockade fence in the backyard. He had wanted one higher, but the town ordinance wouldn’t allow it unless you owned a swimming pool.

Charlaine opened the gate separating her backyard from Freddy’s. Odd. This was a first. She had never opened the gate before.

As she got closer to Freddy’s back door, she realized how weathered his house was. The paint was peeling. The garden was overgrown. Weeds sprouted up through the cracks in the walk. There were patches of dead grass everywhere. She turned and glanced at her own house. She had never seen it from this angle. It too looked tired.

She was at Freddy’s back door.

Okay, now what?

Knock on it, stupid.

She did. She started with a soft rap. No answer. She pounded louder. Nothing. She pressed her ear against the door. Like that would do any good. Like she’d hear a muffled cry or something.

There was no sound.

The shades were still down, but there were wedges that the shades couldn’t quite cover. She put an eye up to an opening and peered in. The living room had a lime-green couch so worn it looked like it was melting. There was a vinyl recliner of maroon in the corner. The television looked new. The wall had old paintings of clowns. The piano was loaded with old black-and-white photographs. There was one of a wedding. Freddy’s parents, Charlaine figured. There was another of the groom looking painfully handsome in an army uniform. There was one more photograph of the same man holding a baby, a smile spread across his face. Then the man-the soldier, the groom-was gone. The rest of the photographs were of either Freddy alone or with his mother.

The room was immaculate-no, preserved. Stuck in a time warp, unused, untouched. There was a collection of small figurines on a side table. More photographs too. A life, Charlaine thought. Freddy Sykes had a life. It was a strange thought, but there you have it.

Charlaine circled toward the garage. There was one window in the back. A flimsy curtain of pretend lace hung across it. She stood on her tiptoes. Her fingers gripped the window ledge. The wood was so old it almost broke away. Peeling paint flaked off like dandruff.

She looked into the garage.

There was another car.

Not a car actually. A minivan. A Ford Windstar. When you live in a town like this, you know all the models.

Freddy Sykes did not own a Ford Windstar.

Maybe his young Asian guest did. That would make sense, right?

She was not convinced.

So what next?

Charlaine stared down at the ground and wondered. She had been wondering since she first decided to approach the house. She had known before leaving the safety of her own kitchen that there would be no answer to her knocks. She also knew that peeking in the windows-peeping on the peeper?-would do no good.

The rock.

It was there, in what had once been a vegetable garden. She had seen Freddy use it once. It wasn’t a real rock. It was one of those hide-a-keys. They were so common now that criminals probably looked for them before checking under the mat.

Charlaine bent down, picked up the rock, and turned it over. All she had to do was slide the little panel back and take the key out. She did so. The key rested in her palm, glistening in the sunlight.

Here was the line. The no-going-back line.

She moved toward the back door.

Still wearing the sea-predator smile, Cram opened the door and Grace stepped out of the limousine. Carl Vespa slid out on his own. The huge neon sign listed a church affiliation that Grace had never heard of. The motto, according to several signs around the edifice, seemed to indicate that this was “God’s House.” If that were true, God could use a more creative architect. The structure held all the splendor and warmth of a highway mega-store.

The interior was even worse-tacky enough to make Graceland look understated. The wall-to-wall carpeting was a shiny shade of red usually reserved for a mall girl’s lipstick. The wallpaper was darker, more blood-colored, a velvet affair adorned with hundreds of stars and crosses. The effect made Grace dizzy. The main chapel or house of worship-or, most suitably, arena-held pews rather than seats. They looked uncomfortable, but then again wasn’t standing encouraged? The cynical side of Grace suspected that the reason all religious services had you sporadically stand had nothing to do with devotion and everything to do with keeping congregants from falling asleep.

As soon as she entered the arena, Grace felt a flutter in her heart.

The altar, done up in the green and gold of a cheerleader’s uniform, was being wheeled offstage. Grace looked for preachers with bad toupees, but none were to be found. The band-Grace assumed this was Rapture-was setting up. Carl Vespa stopped in front of her, his eyes on the stage.

“Is this your church?” she asked him.

A small smile came to his lips. “No.”

“Is it safe to assume that you’re not a fan of, uh, Rapture?”

Vespa didn’t answer the question. “Let’s move down closer to the stage.”

Cram took the lead. There were security guards, but they swept aside as if Cram were toxic.

“What’s going on here?” Grace asked.

Vespa kept moving down the steps. When they reached what a theater would call the orchestra-what do you call the good seats in a church?-she looked up and got a whole new feel for the size of the place. It was a huge theater-in-the-round. The stage was in the center, surrounded on all sides. Grace felt the constriction in her throat.