Harlan Coben - Just One Look

She just looked at him.

“Why did you and your husband follow him, the guy who broke into the Sykes place, I mean?”

“I told the other officer-”

“You were trying to help out, so we wouldn’t lose him.”

“I was also afraid.”

“Of what?”

“That he’d know I called the police.”

“Why would you worry about that?”

“I was watching from the window. When the police arrived. He turned and looked out and saw me.”

“And you thought, what, he’d go after you?”

“I don’t know. I was scared, that’s all.”

Perlmutter did that over-nod bit again. “I guess that fits. I mean some of the pieces, well, you have to force them down, but that’s normal. Most cases don’t make perfect sense.”

She turned away from him again.

“You say he was driving a Ford Windstar.”

“That’s right.”

“He pulled out of the garage in that vehicle, right?”

“Yes.”

“Did you see the license plate?”

“No.”

“Hmm. Why do you think he did that?”

“Did what?”

“Parked in the garage.”

“I have no idea. Maybe so no one would see his car.”

“Yeah, okay, that adds up.”

Charlaine took her husband’s hand again. She remembered the last time they’d held hands. Two months ago, when they went to see a romantic comedy with Meg Ryan. Strangely enough Mike was a sucker for “chick flicks.” His eyes welled up during bad romance movies. In real life, she could only remember seeing him cry once, when his father died. But at movies Mike sat in the dark and you would see a little quake in the face and then, yes, the tears would start. That night he reached out and took her hand, and what Charlaine remembered most-what tormented her now-was being unmoved. Mike had tried to interlace their fingers, but she shifted hers just enough to block him. That was how little it meant to Charlaine, nothing really, this overweight man with the comb-over reaching out to her.

“Could you please leave now?” she asked Perlmutter.

“You know I can’t.”

She closed her eyes.

“I know about your tax problem.”

She stayed still.

“In fact, you called H amp;R Block this morning about it, isn’t that right? That’s where Mr. Sykes worked.”

She didn’t want to let go of the hand, but it felt as though Mike was pulling away.

“Mrs. Swain?”

“Not here,” Charlaine said to Perlmutter. She let the hand drop and stood. “Not in front of my husband.”

Nursing home residents are always in and happy to have a visitor. Grace called the number and a perky woman answered. “Starshine Assisted Living!”

“I’d like to know about visiting hours,” Grace said.

“We don’t have them!” She spoke in exclamations.

“Excuse me?”

“No visiting hours. You can visit anytime, twenty-four-seven.”

“Oh. I’d like to visit Mr. Robert Dodd.”

“Bobby? Well, let me connect you to his room. Oh wait, it’s eight. He’ll be at exercise class. Bobby likes to keep in shape.”

“Is there a way I can make an appointment?”

“To visit?”

“Yes.”

“No need, just stop by.”

The drive would take her a little under two hours. It would be better than trying to explain over the phone, especially in light of the fact that she didn’t have a clue what she wanted to ask him about. The elderly are better in person anyway.

“Do you think he’ll be in this morning?”

“Oh sure. Bobby stopped driving two years ago. He’ll be here.”

“Thank you.”

“My pleasure.”

At the breakfast table, Max dug his hand deep into the box of Cap’n Crunch. The sight-her child going for the toy-made her pause. It was all so normal. Children sense things. Grace knew that. But sometimes, well, sometimes children are wonderfully oblivious. Right now she was grateful for that.

“You already got the toy out,” she said.

Max stopped. “I did?”

“So many boxes, so crummy a toy.”

“What?”

The truth was, she had done the same thing when she was a kid-digging to get the worthless prize. Come to think of it, with the same cereal. “Never mind.”

She sliced up a banana and mixed it in with the cereal. Grace always tried to be sneaky here, gradually adding more banana and less of the Cap’n. For a while she added Cheerios-less sugar-but Max quickly caught on.

“Emma! Get up now!”

A groan. Her daughter was too young to start with the trouble-getting-out-of-bed bit. Grace hadn’t pulled that until she was in high school. Okay, maybe middle school. But certainly, definitely, not when she was eight. She thought about her own parents, dead for so long now. Sometimes one of the kids did something that reminded Grace of her mother or father. Emma pursed her lips so much like Grace’s mom that Grace sometimes froze in place. Max’s smile was like her dad’s. You could see the genetic echo, and Grace never knew if it was a comfort or a painful reminder.

“Emma, now!”

A sound. Might have been a child getting out of bed.

Grace started making one lunch. Max liked to buy it at school and Grace was all for the ease of that. Making lunches in the morning was a pain in the ass. For a while Emma would buy the school lunch too, but something recently grossed her out, some indiscernible smell in the cafeteria that caused an aversion so strong Emma would gag. She ate outside, even in the cold, but the smell, she soon realized, was also in the food. Now she stayed in the cafeteria and brought a Batman lunchbox with her.

“Emma!”

“I’m here.”

Emma wore her standard gym-rat garb: maroon athletic shorts, blue high-top Converse all-stars, and a New Jersey Nets jersey. Total clash, which may have been the point. Emma wouldn’t wear anything the least bit feminine. Putting on a dress usually required a negotiation of Middle East sensitivity, with often an equally violent result.

“What would you like for lunch?” Grace asked.

“Peanut butter and jelly.”

Grace just stared at her.

Emma played innocent. “What?”

“You’ve been attending this school for how long now?”

“Huh?”

“Four years, right? One year of kindergarten. And now you’re in third grade. That’s four years.”

“So?”

“In all that time how many times have you asked me for peanut butter in school?”

“I don’t know.”

“Maybe a hundred?”

Shrug.

“And how many times have I told you that your school doesn’t allow peanut butter because some children might have an allergic reaction?”

“Oh yeah.”

“Oh yeah.” Grace checked the clock. She had a few Oscar Mayer “Lunchables,” a rather disgustingly processed premade lunch, that she kept around for emergencies-i.e., no time or desire to fix a lunch. The kids, of course, loved them. She asked Emma softly if she’d like one-softly because if Max heard, that would be the end of buying lunch. Emma graciously accepted it and jammed it into the Batman lunchbox.

They sat down to breakfast.

“Mom?”

It was Emma. “Yep.”

“When you and Dad got married.” She stopped.

“What about it?”

Emma started again. “When you and Dad got married-at the end, when the guy said now you may kiss the bride…”

“Right.”

“Well”-Emma cocked her head and closed one eye-“did you have to?”

“Kiss him?”

“Yeah.”

“Have to? No, I guess not. I wanted to.”

“But do you have to?” Emma insisted. “I mean, can’t you just high-five instead?”

“High-five?”

“Instead of kiss. You know, turn to each other and high-five.” She demonstrated.