Harlan Coben: Don’t Let Go

Beth continues. She talks about living in fear and hating herself, her bouts of depression, her eating disorders, the guilt and horror of the night, the nightmares, seeing Diana naked, dreaming about it, trying to warn Diana in those dreams, running toward her, trying to grab her before she sprints toward the light. Beth goes on and on and starts to cry and begs for forgiveness and says she deserves all the horrible things that happen to her.

But I’m only half listening now.

Because my mind is spinning and taking me down a path I never wanted to follow. Remember how I said before that we embrace what fits our narrative and ignore what doesn’t? I’m trying not to do that now. I’m trying to focus, even though I don’t want to. I want to ignore. Beth had warned me. She said I wouldn’t want to know the truth. She was right in ways she can’t even imagine. Part of me wishes I could go back in time, back to when Reynolds and Bates first knocked on my door, and I would just tell them right away that I didn’t know and just let it be. But it’s too late now. I can’t look away. So one way or the other, no matter what the cost, there will be justice.

Because I know now. I know the truth.

Do you have a laptop?” I ask Beth.

My words startle her. She has been going on with her soliloquy uninterrupted for the past five minutes. She rises now and brings a laptop to the table. She turns it on and twirls it around so the screen is facing me. I bring up her web browser and type in the address for the website. I put the email address into the field for user ID and then I guess at the password. I get it right the third go-through. I sift through the private communications, find the one with the matching name. I write down the full name and phone number.

There are dozens of missed calls on my phone — Muse, Augie, Ellie, maybe the FBI. There are plenty of messages too. I get it. The FBI is probably looking for me because of the tape. The cops may have seen the CCTV footage of me in the yellow Mustang at the Hunk-A-Hunk-A.

I ignore it all.

I start making calls of my own. I call the Westbridge Police Station and get lucky. I call down south. I call the name and number I got off the website and identify myself as a police officer. I call Lieutenant Stacy Reynolds out in Pennsylvania.

“I need a favor,” I tell her.

Reynolds listens, and when I’m done, she simply says, “Okay, I’ll email the video in ten minutes.”

“Thank you.”

Before Reynolds hangs up, she says, “Do you know now who ordered the hit on Rex?”

I do, but I don’t tell her yet. I still might be wrong.

I call Augie. When he answers, he says, “The feds could be monitoring my phone.”

“Doesn’t matter,” I say. “I’m heading back up in a few minutes. I’ll talk to them when I get there.”

“What’s going on?”

I’m not sure what to tell this long-grieving father, but I settle for the truth. There have been too many lies, too many secrets.

“I found Beth Lashley,” I say.

“Where?”

“She’s hiding at her parents’ farm in Far Hills.”

“What did she say?”

“Diana...” There is a tear in my eye. My God, Leo, what did you do? When I last saw you on that bunk bed, were you stewing over Diana? Were you planning your revenge? Why couldn’t you open up to me? You used to tell me everything, Leo. Why did you pull away from me like that? Or was it me? Was I so caught up in my own stuff — hockey, school, Maura — that I couldn’t see your pain or tell you were on a path of self-destruction?

There are so many people to blame. Am I one of them?

“Diana what?” Augie says.

“I’m leaving here in a few minutes,” I say. “I think it’s better if I tell you in person.”

“It’s that bad.”

Augie isn’t asking. He’s stating.

I don’t reply. I don’t trust my voice.

Then Augie says, “I’ll be at my place. Get here when you can.”

When I see Augie, my heart drops.

I’ve been waiting here for the past hour. I’m not inexperienced enough to sit by a window like Beth. I found a spot in the living room corner. From here I can see all entryways. No one can sneak up on me.

I know the truth, but I still hope I’m wrong. I hope that I’ll just waste my time, that I’ll sit in this corner of the farmhouse the rest of the day and through the night, and in the morning I’ll realize that I made a mistake, that I messed up someplace, that I was hopelessly albeit wonderfully wrong.

But I’m not wrong. I’m a good detective. I was schooled by the best.

Augie doesn’t see me yet.

I aim my gun and flick on the light. Augie turns toward me fast. I try to tell him to freeze, but I can’t say it. So I sit there, my gun pointed at him, and hope that he doesn’t reach for his. He sees my face. I know. He knows.

“I got onto your dating site,” I say.

“How?”

“Your email was the user ID.”

He nods, still the mentor. “And the password?”

“Eleven-fourteen-eighty-four,” I say. “Diana’s birthday.”

“Careless of me.”

“I went through your communications. There was only one woman named Yvonne. Yvonne Shifrin. Her phone number was there.”

“You called her?”

“I did. You only went on one date. For lunch. You were sweet, Yvonne Shifrin said, but there was too much sadness in your eyes.”

“Yvonne seemed like a good woman,” he says.

“Still, I called the Sea Pine Resort in Hilton Head. Just to make sure. You never booked a room there.”

“I could have gotten the hotel wrong.”

“You really want to go this way, Augie?”

He shook his head. “Beth told you what they did to Diana?”

“Yes.”

“So you understand.”

“Did you kill my brother, Augie?”

“I got justice for my daughter.”

“Did you kill Leo?”

But Augie isn’t going to make it that easy.

“That night I picked up chicken parm from Nellie’s. Audrey had a PTA meeting, so it was just Diana and me. I could see something was bothering her. Diana was just picking at her food, and she usually scarfed down Nellie’s chicken parm.” He tilts his head, remembering. “So I asked her if something was wrong. She said that she wanted to break up with Leo. Just like that. We had that kind of relationship, Nap.”

He looks at me. I say nothing.

“I asked Diana when she was going to do it. She said she wasn’t sure, but she’d probably wait until after the dance. I...” He closed his eyes. “I told her it was up to her, but I didn’t think that was fair to Leo. If she didn’t like him anymore, she shouldn’t string him along. So you see, Nap? Maybe if I had kept my mouth shut, maybe if I had minded my own business... I saw your brother when he arrived, all stoned, and me, like an idiot... oh God, why did I let her go? Every night I lie in my bed and I ask myself that. Every single night of my miserable, horrible, empty life. I lie there and I replay it and I make all kinds of deals with God about what I’d give, what I’d do, what torments I would suffer, if only we could go back to that night and I could do it over again. God is so cruel sometimes. He blessed me with the most wonderful daughter in the world. I knew that. I knew how fragile it all was. I tried so hard to balance being a strict father with giving my child enough freedom, walking that goddamn tightrope.”

He stands there shaking. I keep the gun on him.

“So what did you do, Augie?”

“It was like I told you before. I went to the base on a disturbance call. Andy Reeves brought me inside. I could tell something big had gone down. Everyone was pale. So first Reeves shows me the body in the back of a truck. It’s some guy they were holding there. A high-profile American, he explains. The guy had gotten past the fences. They couldn’t risk him escaping. He wasn’t supposed to be there, so they were going to get rid of his body, say he ran back to Iraq or something. Reeves told me all this in confidence. But I got it. State secrets. He wanted to make sure he could trust me. I said he could. And then... then he said he had something horrible to show me.”