Harlan Coben - Just One Look

“He was convicted of assault and battery, but it’s believed that he’s committed a number of crimes.”

She was not surprised. “Violent crimes?”

Perlmutter nodded. “Can I ask you something?”

She shrugged.

“Does the name Jack Lawson mean anything to you?”

Charlaine frowned. “Does he have two kids at Willard?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t know him personally, but Clay, my youngest, is still at Willard. I see his wife sometimes when we do pickups.”

“That would be Grace Lawson?”

“I think that’s her name. Pretty woman. She has a daughter named Emma, I think. She’s a year or two behind my Clay.”

“Do you know her at all?”

“Not really, no. I see her at the school holiday concert, stuff like that. Why?”

“It’s probably nothing.”

Charlaine frowned. “You just picked that name out of a hat?”

“Early conjecture,” he said, trying to dismiss it. “I also wanted to thank you.”

“For?”

“For talking to Mr. Sykes.”

“He didn’t tell me much.”

“He told you that Wu used the name Al Singer.”

“So?”

“Our computer expert found that name on Sykes’s computer. Al Singer. We think Wu used that alias for an online dating service. That’s how he met Freddy Sykes.”

“He used the name Al Singer?”

“Yes.”

“It was a gay dating service then?”

“Bisexual.”

Charlaine shook her head and came close to chuckling. Ain’t that something? She looked at Perlmutter, daring him to laugh. He was stone-faced. They both looked down at Mike again. Mike startled. He opened his eyes and smiled at her. Charlaine smiled back and smoothed his hair. He closed his eyes and drifted back to sleep.

“Captain Perlmutter?”

“Yes.”

“Please leave,” she said.

While waiting for Carl Vespa to arrive, Grace started picking up the bedroom. Jack, she knew, was a great husband and father. He was smart, funny, loving, caring, and devoted. To counter that, God had blessed him with the organization skills of a citrus beverage. He was, in sum, a slob. Nagging him about it – and Grace had tried – did no good. So she stopped. If living happily was about compromise, this seemed to her like a pretty good one to make.

Grace had long ago given up on Jack clearing out the pile of magazines next to his bed. His post-shower wet towel never ended up back on the rack. Not every article of clothing made it to its ultimate destination. Right now, there was a T-shirt draped half-in, half-out of the hamper as if it’d been shot trying to escape.

For a moment Grace just stared down at the T-shirt. It was green with the word FUBU plastered across the front, and it might have one day been in vogue. Jack bought it for $6.99 at T.J. Maxx, a discount clothing store where hip goes to die. He’d put it on with a pair of too-baggy shorts. He stood in front of the mirror and started wrapping his arms around his body in a bizarre variety of ways.

“What are you doing?” Grace had asked him.

“Gangsta poses. Yo, whatchya think?”

“That I should get you seizure medication.”

“Phat,” he said. “Bling-bling.”

“Right. Emma needs a ride to Christina’s.”

“Word. Dawg. Hit dat.”

“Please go. Immediately.”

Grace picked up the shirt now. She had always been cynical about the male species. She was guarded with her feelings. She did not open up easily. She had never believed in love at first sight – she still didn’t – but when she met Jack, the attraction had been immediate, flutters in her stomach, and deny it now as much as she wanted, a small voice had told her right then and there, first meeting, that this was the man she was going to marry.

Cram was in the kitchen with Emma and Max. Emma had recovered from her earlier histrionics. She had recovered the way only kids can – fast and with very little residue. They were all eating fish sticks, Cram included, and ignoring the side dish of peas. Emma was reading a poem to Cram. Cram was a great audience. His laugh was the kind that not only filled a room but pushed against the panes of glass. You heard it, you had to either smile or cringe.

There was still time before Carl Vespa arrived. She didn’t want to think about Geri Duncan, her death, her pregnancy, the way she looked at Jack in that damned photograph. Scott Duncan had asked her what she ultimately wanted. She’d said her husband back. That was still very much the case. But maybe, with all that was happening, she needed the truth too.

With that in mind Grace headed downstairs and flipped on the computer. She brought up Google and typed in “Jack Lawson.” Twelve hundred hits. Too many to do any good. She tried “Shane Alworth.” Hmm, no hits. Interesting. Grace tried “Sheila Lambert.” Hits about a woman basketball player with the same name. Nothing relevant. Then she began trying combinations.

Jack Lawson, Shane Alworth, Sheila Lambert, and Geri Duncan: These four people were together in this picture. They had to be linked in some other way. She tried various combinations. She tried one first name, one last name. Nothing of interest popped. She was still typing, going through the useless 227 hits on the words “Lawson” and “Alworth” when the phone rang.

Grace looked at the Caller ID and saw it was Cora. She picked up. “Hey.”

“Hey.”

“I’m sorry,” Grace said.

“Don’t worry about it. Bitch.”

Grace smiled and kept hitting the down arrow. The hits were useless.

“So do you still want my help?” Cora asked.

“Yeah, I guess.”

“Enthusiasm. I love that. Okay, fill me in.”

Grace kept it vague. She trusted Cora, but she didn’t want to have to trust her. Yeah, that made little sense. It was like this: If Grace’s life were in jeopardy, she’d call Cora immediately. But if the kids were in danger… well, she’d hesitate. The scary thing was, she probably trusted Cora more than anybody, which was to say that she had never felt more isolated in her life.

“So you’re putting the names through search engines?” Cora asked.

“Yes.”

“Any relevant hits so far?”

“Not a one.” Then: “Wait, hold on.”

“What?”

But now again, trust or no trust, Grace wondered what would be the point in telling Cora more than she needed to know. “I gotta run. I’ll call you back.”

“Okay. Bitch.”

Grace hung up and stared at the screen. Her pulse started giddying up, just a little faster now. She had pretty much used up all the name combinations when she’d remembered an artist friend name Marlon Coburn. He was constantly complaining because his name was misspelled. Marlon would be spelled Marlin or Marlan or Marlen and Coburn would be Cohen or Corburn. Anyway Grace figured she’d give it a go.

The fourth “typo” combo she tried was “Lawson” and “Allworth”-two Ls instead of one.

There were three hundred hits – neither name was that uncommon – but it was the fourth one that jumped out at her. She looked at the top line first:

Crazy Davey’s Blog

Grace knew vaguely that a blog was a sort of public diary. People wrote down their random thoughts. Other people, for some odd reason, enjoyed reading them. A diary used to be about being private. Now it was about trying to be shrill enough to reach the masses.

The little sample bit under the link line read:

“… John Lawson on keyboards and Sean Allworth who was wicked on guitar…”

John was Jack’s real name. Sean was pretty close to Shane. Grace clicked the link. The page was forever long. She went back, clicked “cache.” When she returned to the page, the words Lawson and Allworth would be highlighted. She scrolled down and found an entry from two years ago: