Harlan Coben - Don’t Let Go

“Ellie?”

“I’ll break my promise to Maura,” she says. “But, Nap?”

“What?”

“You’re not going to like it.”

“Let me start with the after,” Ellie says.

The diner is emptying out, but we don’t care. Bunny and Stavros have been steering newcomers to the opposite end of the diner, giving us privacy.

“Maura came to my house,” she says.

I wait for Ellie to say more. She doesn’t.

“That night?”

“Yes.”

“What time?”

“About three in the morning. My parents had broken up, and Dad... he wanted me happy, so he converted the garage into a bedroom for me, which was pretty awesome for a teenager. My friends could come at all hours because you could reach my room without waking anybody.”

I’d heard rumors about Ellie’s back door always being open, but this was before Ellie and I became tight, before my brother and Ellie’s best friend, Diana, were found on those railroad tracks. I wonder about that now. The two sturdiest relationships in my adult life are with Ellie and Augie, both born from that tragic night.

“So anyway, when I first heard the knock, I didn’t think much of it. People knew that if they couldn’t go home yet — if they were too drunk or whatever — they could crash at my place.”

“Had Maura ever come by before?” I ask.

“No, never. I know I’ve told you this, but I was always a little in awe of Maura. She just seemed, I don’t know, cooler than the rest of us. More mature and worldly. You know what I mean?”

I nod. “So why did she come to you?”

“I asked her that, but at first, Maura was just a wreck, crying and hysterical. Which, like I said, was weird to me because she always seemed above it all. It took me like five minutes to calm her down. She was covered in dirt. I thought she’d been attacked or something. I actually started checking her clothes to see if anything had been ripped. I read about that in some rape-trauma class. Anyway, when she started to calm down, it almost happened too quickly. I don’t know how else to put it. Like someone had slapped her in the face and shouted, ‘Snap out of it!’”

“What did you do?”

“I broke out a bottle of Fireball whisky I had hidden under my bed.”

“You?”

She shakes her head. “You really think you know everything about me, don’t you?”

Evidently not, I think.

“Anyway, Maura shook me off, said she needed to keep a clear head. She asked if she could stay with me for a while. I said of course. Truthfully, I was kinda flattered that she chose me.”

“This is three in the morning?”

“Around three, yeah.”

“So you didn’t know about Leo and Diana yet,” I say.

“Right.”

“Did Maura tell you?”

“No. She just said she needed a place to hide.” Ellie leaned forward. “Then she looked me dead in the eyes and made me promise. You know how intense she could be, right? She made me promise not to tell anyone she was there, not ever, not even you.”

“She specifically said me?”

Ellie nods. “I actually thought at first maybe you two had a big fight, but she was too scared. She came to me, I think, because, well, I’m Reliable Ellie, right? There were people closer to her. That’s what I kept wondering about. Why me? Now I know.”

“Know what?”

“Why she came to me. You heard her mom. People were looking for her. I didn’t know that back then. But Maura must have figured anyone close to her would be watched or questioned.”

I nod. “So she couldn’t go home.”

“Right. And she probably thought that they’d spy on you or question your dad. If they wanted to find her, they’d search the people close to her.”

I see it now. “And you really weren’t a friend.”

“Exactly. She figured that they wouldn’t go to me.”

“So what were they after? Why were these people looking for her?”

“I don’t know.”

“You didn’t ask?”

“I asked. She didn’t tell me.”

“And you let that go?”

Ellie almost smiles. “You don’t remember how persuasive Maura could be?”

Oh, I do. I get it.

“I learned later that Maura told me nothing for the same reason she told her mother nothing.”

“To protect you.”

“Yes.”

“If you didn’t know anything,” I continue, “you couldn’t tell them anything.”

“She also made me promise, Nap. She made me swear that until she came back on her own, I couldn’t tell anyone. I tried to keep that promise, Nap. I know you’re angry about it. But something about the way Maura said it... I wanted to keep my word. And I was really afraid that breaking my word would lead to disaster. To tell you the truth, even now, even as we sit here, I think it’s the wrong thing. I didn’t want to tell you.”

“So what changed your mind?”

“Too many people are dying, Nap. And I wonder whether Maura is one of them.”

“You think she’s dead?”

“Her mom and I... we naturally bonded after this. That first call at the Bennigan’s? I helped set that up. Lynn left that part out when she talked to you, to protect me.”

I don’t know what to say to all this. “You lied to me all these years.”

“You were obsessed.”

Again that word. Ellie says I am obsessed. David Rainiv says Hank was obsessed.

“If I told you about this promise,” Ellie says, “well, I had no idea how you’d react.”

“Wasn’t your place to worry about my reaction.”

“Maybe not. But it wasn’t my place to break a promise either.”

“I still don’t get it. How long did Maura stay with you?”

“Two nights.”

“And then?”

Ellie shrugs. “I came home and she was gone.”

“No note, no nothing?”

“Nothing.”

“And since then?”

“More nothing. I haven’t seen her or heard from her since.”

Something isn’t adding up. “Wait, when did you learn about Leo’s and Diana’s deaths?”

“I heard about it the day after they were found. I called Diana’s house and asked for her and” — I see her eyes water up again — “her mom... God, her voice.”

“Audrey Styles told you over the phone?”

“No. She asked me to come over. But I could hear it. I ran the whole way. She sat me down. In the kitchen. When she finished, I went home to ask Maura. But she was gone.”

Still not adding up. “But... I mean, you had to figure it was connected, right?”

She didn’t reply.

“Maura comes to you the night Leo and Diana die,” I say. “You had to think there was some link.”

Ellie nods slowly. “I figured it couldn’t be a coincidence, that’s right.”

“And yet you didn’t tell anyone?”

“I made a promise, Nap.”

“Your best friend had just been killed,” I say. “How could you not tell anyone?”

Ellie lowers her head. I stop for a second.

“You were the most responsible girl in the school,” I say. “I could see you keeping a promise. That makes sense. But once you found out Diana was dead—”

“We all thought it was an accident, remember? Or maybe a weird double suicide, though I never believed that. But I didn’t think Maura had anything to do with it.”

“Come on, Ellie, you can’t be that naïve. How could you not tell someone?”

She lowers her head again. I know it now. She’s hiding something.

“Ellie?”

“I did tell someone.”

“Who?”

“But that was part of Maura’s genius, when I look back at it. What could I tell anyone? I had no idea where she was.”

“Who did you tell?”

“Diana’s parents.”

I freeze. “You told Augie and Audrey?”

“Yes.”

“Augie...” I think I can’t be stunned anew, yet here I am. “He knew that Maura had stayed at your house?”