Harlan Coben - One False Move

«Stop it!» Clay Jackson cried. He looked to Myron for help, his eyes wide and desperate. «He’s my uncle, man. He’s just looking out for me.»

«And doing a wonderful job,» Win added. He stepped up, gaining leverage. The uncle’s face sank deeper into the soft earth. His features were fully embedded in the mud now, his mouth and nose clogged.

The big man could no longer breathe.

One of the other men started to rise. Win leveled his gun at the man’s head. «Important note,» Win said. «I’m not big on warning shots.»

The man slinked back down.

With his foot still firmly planted on the man’s head, Win turned his attention to Clay Jackson. The boy was trying to look tough, but he was visibly quaking. So, quite frankly, was Myron.

«You fear a possibility,» Win said to the boy, «when you should fear a certainty.»

Win raised his foot, bending his knee. He angled himself for the proper heel strike.

Myron started to move toward him, but Win froze him with a glance. Then Win gave that smile again, the little one. It was casual, slightly amused. The smile said that he would do it. The smile hinted that he might even enjoy it. Myron had seen the smile many times, yet it never failed to chill his blood.

«I’ll count to five,» Win told the boy. «But I’ll probably crush his skull before I reach three.»

«Two white guys,» Clay Jackson said quickly. «With guns. A big guy tied us up. He was young and looked like he worked out. The little old guy – he was the leader. He was the one who cut us.»

Win turned to Myron. He spread his hands. «Can we go now?»

Back in the car, Myron said, «You went too far.»

«Uh-hmm.»

«I mean it, Win.»

«You wanted the information. I got it.»

«Not like that I didn’t.»

«Oh, please. The man came at me with a baseball bat.»

«He was scared. He thought we were trying to hurt his nephew.»

Win played the air violin.

Myron shook his head. «The kid would have told us eventually.»

«Doubtful. This Sam character had the boy scared.»

«So you had to scare him more?»

«That would be a yes,» Win said.

«You can’t do that again, Win. You can’t hurt innocent people.»

«Uh-hmm,» Win said again. He checked his watch. «Are you through now? Is your need to feel morally superior satiated?»

«What the hell does that mean?»

Win looked at him. «You know what I do,» he said slowly. «Yet you always call on me.»

Silence. The echo of Win’s words hung in the air, caught in the humidity like the car fumes. Myron gripped the steering wheel. His knuckles turned white.

They did not speak again until they reached Mabel Edwards’s house.

«I know you’re violent,» Myron said. He put the car in park and looked at his friend. «But for the most part you only hurt people who deserve it.»

Win said nothing.

«If the boy hadn’t talked, would you have gone through with your threat?»

«Not an issue,» Win said. «I knew the boy would talk.»

«But suppose he hadn’t.»

Win shook his head. «You are dealing with something out of the realm of possibility.»

«Humor me then.»

Win thought about it for a moment. «I never intentionally hurt innocent people,» he said. «But I never threaten idly either.»

«That’s not an answer, Win.»

Win looked at Mabel’s house. «Go inside, Myron. Time’s awasting.»

Mabel Edwards sat across from him in a small den. «So Brenda remembers the Holiday Inn,» she said.

A small yellowish trace of the bruise remained around her eye, but hey, it would go away before the soreness in Big Mario’s groin did. Mourners were still milling about, but the house was hushed now; reality set in with the darkness. Win was outside, keeping watch.

«Very vaguely,» Myron replied. «It was more like deja vu than anything concrete.»

Mabel nodded as though this made sense. «It was a long time ago.»

«Then Brenda was at the hotel?»

Mabel looked down, smoothed the bottom of her dress, reached for her cup of tea. «Brenda was there,» she said, «with her mother.»

«When?»

Mabel held the cup in front of her lips. «The night Anita disappeared.»

Myron tried not to look too confused. «She took Brenda with her?»

«At first, yes.»

«I don’t understand. Brenda never said anything-»

«Brenda was five years old. She doesn’t remember. Or at least that’s what Horace thought.»

«But you didn’t say anything before.»

«Horace didn’t want her knowing about it,» Mabel said. «He thought it would hurt her.»

«But I still don’t get it. Why did Anita take Brenda to a hotel?»

Mabel Edwards finally took a sip of the tea. Then she set it back down gently. She smoothed the dress again and fiddled with the chain around her neck. «It’s like I told you before. Anita wrote Horace a note saying she was running away. She cleared out all his money and took off.»

Myron saw it now. «But she planned on taking Brenda with her.»

«Yes.»

The money, Myron thought. Anita’s taking all of it had always bothered him. Running away from danger is one thing. But leaving your daughter penniless – that seemed unusually cruel. But now there was an explanation: Anita had intended to take Brenda.

«So what happened?» Myron asked.

«Anita changed her mind.»

«Why?»

A woman poked her head through the doorway. Mabel fired a glare, and the head disappeared like something in a shooting gallery. Myron could hear kitchen noises, family and friends cleaning up to prepare for another day of mourning. Mabel looked like she’d aged since this morning. Fatigue emanated from her like a fever.

«Anita packed them both up,» she managed. «She ran away and checked them into that hotel. I don’t know what happened then. Maybe Anita got scared. Maybe she realized how impossible it would be to run away with a five-year-old. No matter. Anita called Horace. She was crying and all hysterical. It was all too much for her, she said. She told Horace to come pick up Brenda.»

Silence.

«So Horace went to the Holiday Inn?» Myron asked.

«Yes.»

«Where was Anita?»

Mabel shrugged. «She’d run off already, I guess.»

«And this all happened the first night she ran away?»

«Yes.»

«So Anita could not have been gone for more than a few hours, right?»

«That’s right.»

«So what made Anita change her mind so fast?» Myron asked. «What could possibly have made her decide to give up her daughter that quickly?»

Mabel Edwards rose with a great sigh and made her way to the television set. Her normally supple, fluid movements had been stiffened by her grief. She reached out with a tentative hand and plucked a photograph off the top. Then she showed it to Myron.

«This is Terence’s father, Roland,» she said. «My husband.»

Myron looked at the black-and-white photograph.

«Roland was shot coming home from work. For twelve dollars. Right on our front stoop. Two shots in the head. For twelve dollars.» Her voice was a monotone now, dispassionate. «I didn’t handle it well. Roland was the only man I ever loved. I started drinking. Terence was only a little boy, but he looked so much like his father I could barely stand to look at his face. So

I drank some more. And then I took some drugs. I stopped taking care of my son. The state came and put him in a foster home.»

Mabel looked at Myron for a reaction. He tried to keep his face neutral.

«Anita was the one who saved me. She and Horace sent me away to get clean. It took me a while, but I straightened myself out. Anita took care of Terence in the meantime, so the state wouldn’t take him away from me.» Mabel lifted the reading glasses off her chest and put them on her nose. Then she stared at the image of her dead husband. The longing in her face was so raw, so naked, that Myron felt a tear push into his own eye.