Харлан Кобен - Win

What’s my point in telling you this?

I don’t deserve this relationship with Ema. I wasn’t there when it mattered, and if I had been given the choice, I wouldn’t have been. That is why I call her, even in my head, my “biological” daughter. Ema is magnificent in every way, and I can take no credit for that. I do not have the right to bask in the parental glow of her greatness.

I didn’t ask for this relationship. I don’t really want it either — I explained to you the pros and cons — but for now, this is Ema’s choice, and I need to respect that.

So, like it or not, we do meals like this.

Addendum: Ema gets me.

“I have a boyfriend,” she says.

“I don’t want to know.”

“Don’t be like that.”

“It’s what I’m like.”

“No advice?”

I put down my fork. “Boys,” I say, “and by boys I mean ‘all boys’ — boys are creepy.”

“Duh, like who doesn’t know that. What’s your take on teenage sex?”

“Please stop.”

Ema stifles a laugh. She likes teasing me. I don’t know how to behave around her because I feel like the blood is leaving my head sometimes. At some point, Angelica decided to tell Ema about me. No great plan on Angelica’s part. Perhaps Ema had reached an age. Perhaps Ema had simply asked who her father was. I don’t know and it’s not my place to ask.

Angelica is some mother.

You hear the following a lot: When your child is born, your life changes forever. That’s why I avoided fatherhood. I don’t want something in my life I care about more than me. Is that wrong? When Ema finally told me she knew — when she asked me to dance at Myron’s wedding — I was knocked off-balance. It was hard to breathe. When Ema and I stopped dancing, the feeling didn’t totally go away.

It still hasn’t.

In the vernacular of a teenager: That suuucks.

I think about my own parents now, especially my mother, what she must have gone through when I cut her out of my life, but dwelling on past mistakes is not good for anyone, so I move on. Ema puts her fork down and looks at me, and while this is obviously some kind of projection, I swear that I see my mother’s eyes.

“Win?”

“Yes?”

“Why were you in the hospital?”

“No big deal.”

Ema makes a face. “Really?”

“Really.”

“You’re going to lie to me?” She stares at me hard. When I don’t say anything, she adds, “Mom says you never wanted to be a father, right?”

“That’s true.”

“So don’t start being one now.”

“I’m not following.”

“You’re lying to protect me, Win.”

I say nothing.

“That’s what a father does.”

I nod. “True.”

“You never know how to act with me, Win.”

“Also true.”

“So cut it out. I don’t need a father, you don’t need a daughter. Just tell me: Why were you in the hospital?”

“Three men tried to kill me.”

If I’d expected her to recoil in horror, I would have been disappointed.

Ema leans forward. Her eyes — my mother’s eyes — light up. “Tell me everything.”

And so I do.

I start with my attacking Teddy Lyons after the NCAA Final Four and my rationale for doing so. I move on to the Ry Strauss murder, the Jane Street Six, the recovery of the Vermeer, the monogrammed suitcase, Uncle Aldrich, Cousin Patricia, the Hut of Horrors, being attacked by Trey and Bobby Lyons. I talk for a full hour. Ema sits rapt through all of it. I confess that I am not this good a listener. I lose focus after a while and drift off. I get bored easily, and people see it on my face. Ema is the opposite. She is a great listener. I don’t know how much I planned to tell her — I do want to be honest because, well, why not? — but something in her mannerisms, in her eyes, in her body language, makes me more open than I intended.

Come to think of it, her mother is a bit like that.

When I finish, Ema asks, “Do you have paper and anything to write with?”

“In the rolling desk, why?”

She rises and heads toward it. “I want to go through all this again in more detail and write stuff down. It helps me to see it on paper.” She opens the rolling desk. When she spots the legal pads and the number-two pencils, her face lights up.

“Whoa, sweet,” Ema says, grabbing a pad and three exquisitely sharpened pencils. She heads back toward me and pulls up. “What?”

“Nothing.”

“Why are you smiling at me like a dork?”

“Am I?”

“Stop it, Win. It’s creepy.”

We go through it again. She takes notes, just like, well, you know. She tears off sheets. She slides them around the table. We lose track of time. Her mother calls. It’s getting late, Angelica says. She is ready to pick Ema up.

“Not now, Mom.”

I say, “Tell her I’ll get you home.”

Ema relays the message and hangs up. We continue. After a while, Ema says, “We need to have a more structured plan.”

“What do you have in mind?” I ask.

“Let’s talk about Ry Strauss first.”

I sit back and look at her.

“What?” she asks.

“You’ve done this before.”

Ema sits back too. And — I kid you not — she steeples her fingers.

“When Myron found his brother,” I say. “With your relationship with Mickey. I wasn’t really around for all that. I’m sorry about that.”

“Win?”

“Yes?”

“Let’s focus on you right now. We can deal with my past some other time.”

I hesitate, pulse a-flutter, but then I acquiesce. “Okay.”

“Back to Ry Strauss.”

“Okay.”

“We need to focus on who killed him.” Ema releases the finger-steeple and starts sorting through her notes. “The CCTV picked up Ry Strauss in the basement with a bald guy.”

“Yes.”

“And the FBI techs can’t get more details than that?”

“No. Bad pixels or something. Plus he kept his head down.”

Ema thinks about it. “Interesting he’d show us he’s bald.”

“Pardon?”

“Why not wear a baseball cap?” she asks. “Maybe he’s not really bald. Last year, at the talent show, a bunch of guys pretended they were the Blue Man Group.”

“Who?”

“Not important. But they bought these skin caps that make you look bald. So maybe it’s just a disguise. Maybe he wants us to look for someone bald.”

I think about that.

“Also” — Ema starts shuffling through the legal pad — “that barmaid from Malachy’s...”

“Kathleen,” I say.

Quick clarification: While I did tell Ema about my conversation with Kathleen in Central Park, I did not tell her about Kathleen returning with me to this very apartment. There is being honest — and there is being ew-gross.

“Right. Kathleen.” Ema has found the applicable section in her notes. “So Kathleen tells you that Ry was panicked about a robbery at his bank.”

“Correct.”

“Except we know that Ry didn’t have any money there. His money came from that LLC your grandmother—”

“Your great-grandmother,” I add.

“Hey.” Ema stops and smiles at me. “That’s right.”

I smile too.

“Anyway” — the smile drops and Ema is all business again — “let’s get back to your conversation with Kathleen. Ry, we know, never leaves his apartment except at night to meet Kathleen in the park, but suddenly he goes out in the middle of the day.”

“And,” I add, “on the day he gets murdered.”

“Exactly. So you” — Ema grabs a yellow sheet from the upper right-hand corner of the table — “use your contacts as Mr. Super-Rich Guy and visit the bank. The manager tells you that the robbers broke into safe deposit boxes.”

“Yes.”