Harlan Coben: Tell No One

Now we had another explanation. He had accomplices. And he killed them.

Possibility three was the simplest: The blood on the bat was not mine. B positive is not common, but it's not that rare either. In all likelihood, these bodies had nothing to do with Elizabeth 's death.

I couldn't make myself buy it.

I checked the computer's clock. It was hooked into some satellite that gave the exact time.

6:04.42 P.M.

Ten minutes and eighteen seconds to go.

To go to what?

The phones kept ringing. I tuned them out and drummed my fingers. Under ten minutes now. Okay, if there was going to be a change in the hyperlink it would have probably happened by now. I put my hand on the mouse and took a deep breath.

My beeper went off.

I wasn't on call tonight. That meant it was either a mistake – something made far too often by the clinic night operators – or a personal call. It beeped again. Double beep. That meant an emergency. I looked at the display.

It was a call from Sheriff Lowell. It was marked Urgent.

Eight minutes.

I thought about it but not for very long. Anything was better than stewing with my own thoughts. I decided to call him back.

Lowell again knew who it was before he picked up. "Sorry to bother you, Doc." Doc, he called me now. As though we were chums. "But I just have a quick question."

I put my hand back on the mouse, moved the cursor over the hyperlink and clicked. The Web browser stirred to life.

"I'm listening," I said.

The Web browser was taking longer this time. No error message appeared.

"Does the name Sarah Goodhart mean anything to you?"

I almost dropped the phone.

"Doc?"

I pulled the receiver away and looked at it as though it had just materialized in my hand. I gathered myself together a piece at a time. When I trusted my voice, I put the phone back to my ear. "Why do you ask?"

Something started coming up on the computer screen. I squinted. One of those sky cams. Or street cam, I guess you'd call this one. They had them all over the Web now. I sometimes used the traffic ones, especially to check out the morning delay on the Washington Bridge.

"It's a long story," Lowell said.

I needed to buy time. "Then I'll call you back."

I hung up. Sarah Goodhart. The name meant something to me. It meant a lot.

What the hell was going on here?

The browser stopped loading. On the monitor, I saw a street scene in black and white. The rest of the page was blank. No banners or titles. I knew you could set it up so that you grabbed only a certain feed. That was what we had here.

I checked the computer clock.

6:12.18 P.M.

The camera was pointing down at a fairly busy street corner, from maybe fifteen feet off the ground. I didn't know what corner it was or what city I was looking at. It was definitely a major city, though. Pedestrians flowed mostly from right to left, heads down, shoulders slumped, briefcases in hand, downtrodden at the end of a workday, probably heading for a train or bus. On the far right, I could see the curb. The foot traffic came in waves, probably coordinated with the changing of a traffic light.

I frowned. Why had someone sent me this feed?

The clock read 6:14.21 P.M. Less than a minute to go.

I kept my eyes glued to the screen and waited for the countdown as though it were New Year's Eve. My pulse started speeding up. Ten, nine, eight…

Another tidal wave of humanity passed from right to left. I took my eyes off the clock. Four, three, two. I held my breath and waited. When I glanced at the clock again, it read:

6:15.02 P.M.

Nothing had happened – but then again, what had I expected?

The human tidal wave ebbed and once again, for a second or two, there was nobody in the picture. I settled back, sucking in air. A joke, I figured. A weird joke, sure. Sick even. But nonetheless-

And that was when someone stepped out from directly under the camera. It was as though the person had been hiding there the whole time.

I leaned forward.

It was a woman. That much I could see even though her back was to me. Short hair, but definitely a woman. From my angle, I hadn't been able to make out any faces so far. This was no different. Not at first.

The woman stopped. I stared at the top of her head, almost willing her to look up. She took another step. She was in the middle of the screen now. Someone else walked by. The woman stayed still. Then she turned around and slowly lifted her chin until she looked straight up into the camera.

My heart stopped.

I stuck a fist in my mouth and smothered a scream. I couldn't breathe. I couldn't think. Tears filled my eyes and started spilling down my cheeks. I didn't wipe them away.

I stared at her. She stared at me.

Another mass of pedestrians crossed the screen. Some of them bumped into her, but the woman didn't move. Her gaze stayed locked on the camera. She lifted her hand as though reaching toward me. My head spun. It was as though whatever tethered me to reality had been severed.

I was left floating helplessly.

She kept her hand raised. Slowly I managed to lift my hand. My fingers brushed the warm screen, trying to meet her halfway. More tears came. I gently caressed the woman's face and felt my heart crumble and soar all at once.

" Elizabeth," I whispered.

She stayed there for another second or two. Then she said something into the camera. I couldn't hear her, but I could read her lips.

"I'm sorry," my dead wife mouthed.

And then she walked away.

Vic Letty looked both ways before he limped inside the strip mall's Mail Boxes Etc. His gaze slid across the room. Nobody was watching. Perfect. Vic couldn't help but smile. His scam was foolproof. There was no way to trace it back to him, and now it was going to make him big-time rich.

The key, Vic realized, was preparation. That was what separated the good from the great. The greats covered their tracks. The greats prepared for every eventuality.

The first thing Vic did was get a fake ID from that loser cousin of his, Tony. Then, using the fake ID, Vic rented a mailbox under the pseudonym UYS Enterprises. See the brilliance? Use a fake ID and a pseudonym. So even if someone bribed the bozo behind the desk, even if someone could find out who rented the UYS Enterprises box, all you'd come up with was the name Roscoe Taylor, the one on Vic's fake ID.

No way to trace it back to Vic himself.

From across the room, Vic tried to see in the little window for Box 417. Hard to make out much, but there was something there for sure. Beautiful. Vic accepted only cash or money orders. No checks, of course. Nothing that could be traced back to him. And whenever he picked up the money, he wore a disguise. Like right now. He had on a baseball cap and a fake mustache. He also pretended to have a limp. He read somewhere that people notice limps, so if a witness was asked to identify the guy using Box 417, what would the witness say? Simple. The man had a mustache and a limp. And if you bribed the dumb-ass clerk, you'd conclude some guy named Roscoe Taylor had a mustache and a limp.

And the real Vic Letty had neither.

But Vic took other precautions too. He never opened the box when other people were around. Never. If someone else was getting his mail or in the general vicinity, he'd act as though he was opening another box or pretend he was filling out a mailing form, something like that. When the coast was clear – and only when the coast was clear – would Vic go over to Box 417.

Vic knew that you could never, ever be too careful.

Even when it came to getting here, Vic took precautions. He'd parked his work truck – Vic handled repairs and installations for Cable Eye the East Coast's biggest cable TV operator – four blocks away. He'd ducked through two alleys on his way here. He wore a black windbreaker over his uniform coverall so no one would be able to see the "Vic" sewn over the shirt's right pocket.