Harlan Coben - Just One Look

Grace knew that there was no time to get the gun. Jack could no longer help. He had used up everything, sacrificed himself, for that one blow.

It would all be for nothing.

The man punched Grace in the ribs again. Hot knives blasted through her. Nausea swam through her stomach and head. She felt consciousness start ebbing away.

She couldn’t hang on…

Jack tried to thrash away, but he was little more than a nuisance. The man squeezed Jack’s neck. Jack made a sound and went still.

The man reached for her again. Grace grabbed the door handle.

His hand clasped her arm.

She could not move.

Jack’s lifeless head slid down the man’s shoulder. It stopped on the forearm. And there, with his eyes closed, Jack opened his mouth and bit down hard.

The man howled and released his grip. He started shaking his arm, trying to get Jack off. Jack clenched his jaw and hung on like a bulldog. The man slammed his free palm into Jack’s head. Jack slumped off.

Grace pulled the door handle, leaned her body against it.

She fell out of the car and landed on the pavement. She rolled away, anything to get farther away from her captor. She actually rolled into the other lane of the highway. A car swerved past her.

Get the gun!

She reached down again. The safety strap was off. She turned toward the car. The man was getting out. He pulled up his shirt. Grace saw his gun. She saw him reaching for it. Grace’s own gun came loose.

There was no question now. There was no ethical dilemma. There was no thought about maybe yelling out a warning, telling him to freeze, asking him to put his hands on his head. There was no moral outrage. There was no culture, no humanity, no years of civilization or breeding.

Grace pulled the trigger. The gun went off. She pulled it again. And again. The man staggered. She pulled it again. The sound of sirens grew. And Grace fired again.

Two ambulances arrived. One whisked Jack away before Grace could even see him. Two paramedics worked on her. They were in constant motion, asking questions as they worked, but their words did not register. She was strapped to a stretcher and wheeled toward the ambulance. Perlmutter was there now.

“Where are Emma and Max?” she asked.

“At the station. They’re safe.”

An hour later Jack was in surgery. That was all they would tell her. He was in surgery.

The young doctor ran a battery of tests on Grace. The ribs were indeed cracked, but there was nothing you could really do for cracked ribs. The doctor wrapped them with an Ace bandage and gave her a shot. The pain began to subside. An orthopedic surgeon checked out her knee and just shook his head.

Perlmutter came into her room and asked a lot of questions. For the most part Grace answered. On some subjects she was intentionally vague. It wasn’t that she wanted to keep anything from the police. Or maybe, well, maybe she did.

Perlmutter was pretty vague too. Her dead captor’s name was Eric Wu. He had been in prison. In Walden. That did not surprise Grace. Wade Larue had been in Walden too. It was all linked. That old photograph. Jack’s group, Allaw. The Jimmy X Band. Wade Larue. And yes, even Eric Wu.

Perlmutter deflected most of her questions. She did not push it. Scott Duncan was in the room too. He stayed in the corner and did not speak.

Grace asked, “How did you know I was with this Eric Wu?”

Perlmutter clearly did not mind answering this one. “Do you know Charlaine Swain?”

“No.”

“Her son Clay goes to Willard.”

“Okay, right. I’ve met her.”

Perlmutter filled her in on Charlaine Swain’s own ordeal at the hands of Eric Wu. He was expansive on the subject, purposefully, Grace thought, so that he could keep mum about the rest of it. Perlmutter’s cell phone rang. He excused himself and headed into the corridor. Grace was alone with Scott Duncan.

“What are they thinking?” she asked.

Scott came closer. “The popular theory is that Eric Wu was working for Wade Larue.”

“How do they figure?”

“They know you went to Larue’s press conference today, so that’s link one. Wu and Larue were not only in Walden at the same time, but they were cellmates for three months.”

“Link two,” she said. “So what do they think Larue was after?”

“Revenge.”

“On?”

“On you, for starters. You testified against him.”

“I testified at his trial, but not really against him. I don’t even remember the stampede.”

“Still. There is a solid link between Eric Wu and Wade Larue-we checked the prison phone records, they’ve been in touch-and there is a solid link between Larue and you.”

“But even if Wade Larue was out for vengeance, why not take me? Why take Jack?”

“They think maybe Larue was trying to hurt you by hurting your family. Make you suffer.”

She shook her head. “And that weird photograph arriving? How do they figure that into the mix? Or your sister’s murder? Or Shane Alworth or Sheila Lambert? Or Bob Dodd getting killed in New Hampshire?”

“It is a theory,” Duncan said, “with lots of holes. But remember-and this plugs most of them-they don’t see all these connections the way we do. My sister may have been murdered fifteen years ago, but that doesn’t have anything to do with now. Neither does Bob Dodd, a reporter who was shot gangland style. For now they’re keeping it simple: Wu gets out of jail. He grabs your husband. Maybe he would have grabbed others, who knows?”

“And the reason he didn’t just kill Jack?”

“Wu was holding him until Wade Larue is released.”

“Which was today.”

“Right, today. Then Wu grabs you both. He was taking you to Larue when you escaped.”

“So Larue could, what, kill us himself?”

Duncan shrugged.

“That doesn’t make sense, Scott. Eric Wu broke my ribs because he wanted to know how I got that photograph. He stopped because he got an unexpected call. Then he suddenly packed us in that car. None of that was planned.”

“Perlmutter just learned all that. They may now alter their theory.”

“And where is Wade Larue anyway?”

“No one seems to know. They’re searching for him.”

Grace dropped back on her pillow. Her bones felt so damned heavy. The tears started flooding her eyes. “How bad is Jack?”

“Bad.”

“Is he going to live?”

“They don’t know.”

“Don’t let them lie to me.”

“I won’t, Grace. But try to get some sleep, okay?”

In the corridor Perlmutter spoke to the captain of the Armonk Police Department, Anthony Dellapelle. They were still combing through the home of Beatrice Smith.

“We just checked the basement,” Dellapelle said. “Someone was kept locked up down there.”

“Jack Lawson. We know that.”

Dellapelle paused and said, “Maybe.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“There’s still a set of handcuffs against a pipe.”

“Wu unlocked him. He probably left them there.”

“That could be. There’s also blood down there-not much of it, but it’s fairly fresh.”

“Lawson had some cuts on him.”

There was a pause.

“What’s going on?” Perlmutter asked.

“Where are you right now, Stu?”

“ Valley Hospital.”

“How long would it take you to get here?”

“Fifteen minutes with the sirens,” Perlmutter said. “Why?”

“There’s something else down here,” Dellapelle said. “Something you might want to see for yourself.”

At midnight Grace pulled herself out of bed and started down the corridor. Her children had visited briefly. Grace insisted that they let her get out of bed for that. Scott Duncan bought her some regular clothes-an Adidas sweat suit-because she did not want to greet her children in a hospital gown. She took a major pain injection so as to quiet the screaming in her ribs. Grace wanted the children to see that she was all right, that she was safe, that they were safe. She put on a brave face that lasted right up until the moment she saw that Emma had brought her poetry journal. Then she started crying.