Harlan Coben - Hold Tight

“What is it?”

“Nothing, I swear.”

She was now standing directly in front of him.

“Was it Guy Novak?” she asked. “Did he do something else? Because if he did…”

Joe put his hands on his wife’s shoulders. Her eyes moved over her face. She could always read him. That was the problem. She knew him so well. They had so very few secrets. But this was one of them.

Marianne Gillespie.

She had called for a parent-teacher conference, playing the role of a concerned parent. Marianne had heard about the terrible thing Joe had said to her daughter, Yasmin, but she sounded understanding. People blurt things out, she told him on the phone. People make mistakes. Her ex-husband was crazed with anger, yes, but Marianne said that she was not. She wanted to sit and talk and hear Joe’s side of the story.

Maybe, Marianne had suggested, there was a way to make this better.

Joe had been so relieved.

They sat and they talked. Marianne sympathized. She touched his arm. She loved his teaching philosophy. She looked at him with longing and she wore something low-cut and clingy. When they embraced at the end of the conference, it lasted a few seconds too long. She kept her lips near his neck. Her breathing grew funny. So did his.

How could he have been so stupid?

“Joe?” Dolly took a step back. “What is it?”

Marianne had planned the seduction revenge from the beginning. How could he have not seen that? And once Marianne got her way, within hours of leaving her hotel room, the calls started:

“I have it on tape, you bastard…”

Marianne had hidden a camera in the hotel room and threatened to send the tape first to Dolly, then the school board, then every e-mail she could dig out of the school directory. For three days she made the threats. Joe couldn’t sleep, couldn’t eat. He lost weight. He begged her not to do it. At some point Marianne seemed to lose her drive, as though the whole enterprise of vengeance suddenly wore her out. She called and told him that she wasn’t sure if she would send it or not.

She had wanted him to suffer-and he had-and maybe that would be enough for her.

The next day, Marianne sent an e-mail to his wife’s work address.

The lying bitch.

Fortunately Dolly was not big on e-mail. Joe had her access code. When he saw the e-mail with the video attached, he totally freaked. He deleted it and changed Dolly’s password, so that she couldn’t see her own e-mail.

But how long would he be able to pull that off?

He didn’t know what to do. There was no one he could talk to about it, no one who would understand and be unconditionally on his side.

And then he thought of Nash.

“Oh God, Dolly…”

“What?”

He had to put an end to this. Nash had killed someone. He had actually murdered Marianne Gillespie. And the Cordova woman was missing. Joe tried to put it together. Maybe Marianne had given a copy to Reba Cordova. That would make sense.

“Joe, talk to me.”

What Joe had done was bad, but bringing in Nash had compounded his crime a thousandfold. He wanted to tell Dolly everything. He knew that it was the only way.

Dolly looked him in the eyes and nodded. “It’s okay,” she said. “Just tell me.”

But then a funny thing happened to Joe Lewiston. The survival instinct kicked in. Yes, what Nash had done was horrible, but why amplify it by committing marital suicide? Why make it worse by destroying Dolly and maybe his family? This was, after all, on Nash. Joe hadn’t asked him to go this far-certainly not to kill anyone! He had assumed that maybe Nash would offer to buy the tape from Marianne or make a deal with her or, at worst, scare her. Nash always hit Joe as playing near the edge, but he never in a million years dreamed that he’d do something like this.

What good would it do now to report it?

Nash, who’d been trying to help, would end up in prison. Moreover, who had been the one to recruit Nash in the first place?

Joe.

Would the police believe that Joe didn’t know what Nash was up to? When you thought about it, Nash could be viewed as the hitman, but didn’t the police always want the guy who’d hired out the hit more?

Again that would be Joe.

There was still a chance, albeit slight, that this could all end somewhat okay. Nash doesn’t get caught. The tape never gets shown. Marianne ends up dead, yes, but there was nothing to be done about that-and hadn’t she pretty much asked for that? Hadn’t she taken it too far with her blackmail scheme? Joe had made an inadvertent blunder-but hadn’t Marianne gone out of her way to seek out and destroy his family?

Except for one thing.

An e-mail had come today. Marianne was dead. Which meant that whatever damage Nash had done, he hadn’t plugged all the leaks.

Guy Novak.

He was the last hole to plug. That was where Nash would go. Nash hadn’t answered his phone or responded to Joe’s messages because he was on a mission to finish the job.

So now Joe knew.

He could sit here and hope it turned out for the best for him. But that would mean that Guy Novak could end up dead.

Which might mean the end of his problems.

“Joe?” Dolly said. “Joe, tell me.”

He didn’t know what to do. But he wouldn’t tell Dolly. They had a young daughter, a budding family. You don’t mess around with that.

But you don’t just let a man die either.

“I have to go,” he said, and he ran for the door.

NASH whispered into Guy Novak’s ear: “Yell up to the girls that you’re going into the basement and you don’t want to be disturbed. Do you understand?”

Guy nodded. He walked to the foot of the stairs. Nash pressed the knife against the back, right near the kidney. The best technique, Nash had learned, was to go a little too far with the pressure. Let them feel enough pain to know that you mean what you’re saying.

“Girls! I’m going to the basement for a few minutes. You stay up there, okay? I don’t want to be bothered.”

A faint voice shouted down, “Okay.”

Guy turned toward Nash. Nash let the knife slide across his back and come to rest at his belly. Guy did not flinch or step back. “Did you kill my wife?”

Nash smiled. “I thought she was your ex.”

“What do you want?”

“Where are your computers?”

“My laptop is in my bag next to the chair. My desktop is in the kitchen.”

“Any others?”

“No. Just take them and get out.”

“We need to talk first, Guy.”

“I’ll tell you whatever you want to know. I have money too. It’s yours. Just don’t hurt the girls.”

Nash looked at this man. He had to know that there was a good chance he would die today. Nothing in his life had ever suggested heroism, yet now it was as though he had enough and was making some sort of final stand.

“I won’t touch them if you cooperate,” Nash said.

Guy checked Nash’s eyes as though searching for the lie. Nash opened the basement door. They both headed down. Nash closed it behind him and flipped on the light. The basement was unfinished. The floor was cold concrete. Water gurgled through pipes. A water-color canvas leaned against a storage chest. There were old hats and posters and cardboard boxes scattered everywhere.

Nash had everything he needed in a gym bag he’d kept over his shoulder. He reached for the duct tape, and Guy Novak made a big mistake.

He threw a punch and shouted, “Run, girls!”

Nash threw a hard elbow to Guy’s throat, choking off his words. He followed up with a palm strike to the forehead. Guy crashed to the floor, grabbing his throat.

“If you so much as breathe,” Nash said, “I will bring your daughter down here and make you watch. Do you understand?”