Harlan Coben - Just One Look

“Hey, you okay?”

Grace startled at the voice. It was Cora.

“What are you doing here?” Grace asked. The words came out with too sharp a snap.

“What do you think? I’m picking up Vickie.”

“I thought she was with her father.”

Cora looked puzzled. “Just for last night. He dropped her off at school this morning. Jesus, what the hell happened?”

“I can’t talk about it.”

Cora did not know how to react to that one. The bell sounded. Both women turned away. Grace did not know what to think. She knew that Scott Duncan was wrong about Cora – more than that, she now knew that Scott Duncan was a liar – and yet, once voiced, the suspicion about her friend would not leave. She couldn’t flick it away.

“Look, I’m just scared, okay?”

Cora nodded. Vickie appeared first. “If you need me…”

“Thank you.”

Cora moved away without another word. Grace waited alone, searching for the familiar faces in the stream of children pouring through the door. Emma stepped into the sunshine and shielded her eyes. When she spotted her mother, Emma’s face broke into a smile. She waved.

Grace suppressed a cry of relief. Her fingers snaked through the chain-link, gripping hard, holding herself back so she wouldn’t sprint over and scoop Emma into her arms.

When Grace, Emma, and Max reached home, Cram was already standing on their front stoop.

Emma looked a question at her mother, but before Grace could respond, Max sprinted up the walk. He stopped dead in front of Cram and craned his neck to look up at the sea-predator smile.

“Hey,” Max said to Cram.

“Hey.”

Max said, “You were the guy driving that big car, right?”

“Right.”

“That cool? Driving that big car?”

“Very.”

“I’m Max.”

“I’m Cram.”

“Cool name.”

“Yeah. Yeah, it is.”

Max made a fist and held it up. Cram made one too and then they touched knuckles-against-knuckles in some newfangled high-five. Grace and Emma came up the walk.

“Cram is a family friend,” Grace said. “He’s going to help me a little.”

Emma did not like it. “Help with what?” She aimed her “eeuw gross” face in Cram’s direction, which, under the circumstances, was both understandable and rude, but this was hardly the time for a correction. “Where’s Daddy?”

“He’s on a business trip,” Grace said.

Emma did not say another word. She stepped into the house and ran upstairs.

Max squinted up at Cram. “Can I ask you something?”

“Sure,” Cram said.

“Do all your friends call you Cram?”

“Yes.”

“Just Cram?”

“One word.” He wiggled his eyebrows. “Like Cher or Fabio.”

“Who?”

Cram chuckled.

“Why do they call you that?” Max asked.

“Why do they call me Cram?”

“Yeah.”

“My teeth.” He opened his mouth wide. When Grace worked up the courage to look, she was greeted with a sight that resembled the mad experiment of a very deranged orthodontist. The teeth were all crammed together on the left, almost stacked. It looked like there were too many of them. Empty pockets of coarse pink where teeth should have been lined the right side of his mouth. “Cram,” he said. “You see?”

“Whoa,” Max said. “That’s so cool.”

“You want to know how my teeth got this way?”

Grace took that one. “No, thank you.”

Cram glanced at her. “Good answer.”

Cram. She took another look at the too-small teeth. Tic Tac might have been a more apt name.

“Max, you have homework?”

“Aw, Mom.”

“Now,” she said.

Max looked at Cram. “Scram,” he said. “We’ll talk later.”

They shared another fist-knuckle salute before Max darted off with the abandon of a six-year-old. The phone rang. Grace checked the Caller ID. It was Scott Duncan. She decided to let the machine pick that one up – more important that she talk to Cram. They moved into the kitchen. There were two men sitting at the table. Grace pulled up short. Neither of the men looked up at her. They were whispering to each other. Grace was about to say something, but Cram signaled her to step outside.

“Who are they?”

“They work for me.”

“Doing?”

“Don’t worry about it.”

She did, but right now there were more pressing matters. “I got a call from the guy,” she said. “On my cell phone.” She told him what the voice on the phone had said. Cram’s expression did not change. When she finished, he pulled out a cigarette.

“You mind if I smoke?”

She told him to go ahead.

“I won’t do it in the house.”

Grace looked around. “Is that why we’re out here?”

Cram did not reply. He lit the cigarette, drew a deep breath, let the smoke pour out of both nostrils. Grace looked toward the neighbor’s yard. There was no one in sight. A dog barked. A lawn mower ripped through the air like a helicopter.

Grace looked at him. “You’ve threatened people, right?”

“Yup.”

“So if I do what he says – if I stop – do you think they’ll leave us alone?”

“Probably.” Cram took a puff so deep it looked like a doobie toke. “But the real question is, why do they want you to stop?”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning you must have been getting close. You must have struck a nerve.”

“I can’t imagine how.”

“Mr. Vespa called. He wants to see you tonight.”

“What about?”

Cram shrugged.

She looked off again.

“You ready for some more bad news?” Cram asked.

She turned to him.

“Your computer room. The one in the back.”

“What about it?”

“It’s bugged. One listening device, one camera.”

“A camera?” She couldn’t believe this. “In my house?”

“Yeah. Hidden camera. It’s in a book on the shelf. Fairly easy to spot if you’re looking for it. You can get one at any spy shop. You’ve probably seen them online. You hide it in a clock or a smoke detector, that kind of thing.”

Grace tried to take this in. “Someone is spying on us?”

“Yup.”

“Who?”

“No idea. I don’t think it’s the cops. It’s a little too amateur for that. My boys have given the rest of the house a quick sweep. Nothing else so far.”

“How long…” She tried to comprehend what he was telling her. “How long has the camera and – listening device, did you say? – how long have they been here?”

“No way to know. That’s why I dragged you out here. So we could talk freely. I know you’ve been hit with a lot, but you’re ready to deal with this now?”

She nodded, though her head was swimming.

“Okay, first off. The equipment. It’s not all that sophisticated. It only has a range of maybe a hundred feet. If it’s a live feed, it goes to a van or something. Have you noticed any vans parked on the street for long periods of time?”

“No.”

“I didn’t think so. It probably just goes to a video recorder.”

“Like a VCR?”

“Exactly like a VCR.”

“And it has to be within a hundred feet of the house?”

“Yep.”

She looked around as if it might be in the garden. “How often would they need to change tape?”

“Every twenty-four hours tops.”

“Any idea where it is?”

“Not yet. Sometimes they keep the recorder in the basement or garage. They probably have access to the house, so they can fetch the tape and put in a new one.”

“Wait a second. What do you mean, they have access to the house?”

He shrugged. “They got that camera and bug in somehow, right?”

The rage was back now, rising, smoldering behind her eyes. Grace started looking at her neighbors. Access to the house. Who had access to the house? she asked herself. And a small voice replied…