Harlan Coben - Fool Me Once

She reached out, grabbed the door handle, and pulled.

The car door opened.

Maya slipped inside and lifted the gun toward the man in the Yankees cap.

The man turned and smiled at her. “Hey, Maya.”

She sat there, stunned.

He took the baseball cap off and said, “Nice to finally meet in person.”

She wanted to pull the trigger. She had almost dreamed about this moment — seeing him, pulling the trigger, blowing him away. Her first thought was that simple, instinctive, and primitive: Kill your enemy.

But if she did, forgetting the legal and moral implications for the moment, the answers would probably die with him. And now, more than ever, she had to know the truth. Because the man following her in the red Buick, the man who had secretly communicated with Claire in the weeks before her murder, was none other than Corey the Whistle.

Why are you following me?”

Corey was still smiling. “Put away the gun, Maya.”

In all the photographs, Corey Rudzinski was well-dressed, baby-faced, and clean-shaven. The scruffy beard, the baseball cap, the dad jeans all made for a pretty good disguise. Maya just stared, still pointing the gun at him. Horns started blaring.

“We’re blocking up traffic,” Corey said. “Move your car and then we can talk.”

“I want to know—”

“And you will. But first move your car to the side of the road.”

More horns.

Maya reached across and grabbed his car keys. No way she was about to let him slip away. “Don’t go anywhere.”

“No plans to, Maya.”

She pulled her car toward the curb, parked it, and slid back into the Buick’s passenger seat. She handed him the keys.

“I bet you’re confused,” Corey said.

Dr. Understatement. Maya was stunned. Like a boxer on his heels, she needed time to recover, to take the standing eight count, get her head back into the fight. Explanations for how this could be rose into view, but in every case, she was able to shoot them down with too much ease.

Nothing made sense.

She started with an obvious question. “How do you know my sister?”

His smile faded away when she asked that, replaced by what appeared to be genuine sadness, and she realized why. Maya had said, “do you know” — present tense. Corey Rudzinski had indeed known Claire. He had, Maya could see, cared for her.

He faced forward. “Let’s take a ride,” he said.

“I’d rather you just answer the question.”

“I can’t stay out here. Too exposed. They won’t stand for it either.”

“They?”

He didn’t reply. He drove her back to Leather and Lace and parked in the same spot. Two cars pulled in behind them. Had the cars been out on the road with them? Maya thought that maybe they had.

The employee entrance had a keypad. Corey punched in the numbers. Maya memorized the code, just in case. “Don’t bother,” he said. “Someone still has to buzz you in too.”

“You type in a code and a guard checks you out?”

“That’s right.”

“Sounds like overkill. Or maybe paranoia.”

“Yes, I bet it does.”

The corridor was dark and stank like dirty socks. They walked through the club. The Disney song “A Whole New World” was blaring. The pole dancer wore a Princess-Jasmine-from- Aladdin costume. Maya frowned. Seemed dress-up wasn’t just for preschool.

He led her past a beaded curtain and into a private back room. The room was gold and green and looked like a Midwest cheerleader uniform had inspired the décor.

“You knew I came here before,” Maya said. “That I talked to that Lulu.”

“Yes.”

She was putting it together. “So you probably watched me leave. You saw me head over toward your car. So you knew I was following you.”

He didn’t reply.

“And those two cars that pulled in behind us. They with you?”

“Overkill, Maya. Paranoia. Have a seat.”

“On this?” Maya frowned. “How often do they clean the upholstery?”

“Often enough. Sit.”

They both did.

“I need you to understand what I do,” he began.

“I understand what you do.”

“Oh?”

“You think secrets are bad, so you reveal them, damn the repercussions.”

“That’s not far off, actually.”

“So let’s skip the rationale. How do you know my sister?”

“She contacted me,” Corey said.

“When?”

Corey hesitated. “I’m not a radical. I’m not an anarchist. It’s nothing like that.”

Maya didn’t give a shit what it was like. She wanted to know about Claire and why he was following her. But she didn’t want to antagonize him unnecessarily or discourage openness. She stayed silent.

“You’re right about secrets. I started out as a hacker. I’d break into places for fun. Then big companies and governments. Like a game. But then I started to see all the secrets. I’d see how the powerful abuse the normal man.” He caught himself. “You don’t want to hear that speech, do you?”

“Not really.”

“Anyway, the point is, we don’t hack much anymore. We give whistle-blowers the freedom to tell the truth. That’s all. Because people cannot police themselves when it comes to power and money. It’s simple human nature. We twist the truth to suit our self-interest. So the people who work for cigarette companies — they aren’t all horrible, evil people. They just can’t make themselves do the right thing because it’s not in their self-interest. We humans are wonderful at self-justification.”

So much for not getting the speech.

A waitress came into the room wearing a top that had the relative width of a headband. “Drink?” she said.

“Maya?” Corey asked.

“I’m fine.”

“Get me a club soda with lime, please.”

The waitress left. Corey turned toward Maya.

“People think I want to weaken governments or businesses. Actually I want the opposite. I want to strengthen them by forcing them to do the right thing, the just thing. If your government or business is built on lies, then build them on truth instead. So no secrets. No secrets anywhere. If a billionaire is paying off a government official to get that oil field, let the people know. In your case, if your government is killing civilians in a war—”

“That’s not what we were doing.”

“I know, I know, collateral damage. Great nebulous term, don’t you think? Whatever you believe, accident or intentional, we the people should know. We may still want to fight the war. But we should know. Businessmen lie and cheat. Sports figures lie and cheat. Governments lie and cheat. We shrug. But imagine a world where that didn’t happen. Imagine a world where we have full accountability instead of unjust authority. Imagine a world where there are no abuses or secrets.”

“Are there unicorns and pixie dust in this world?” Maya asked.

He smiled. “You think me naïve?”

“Corey — can I call you Corey?”

“Please.”

“How do you know my sister?”

“I told you. She contacted me.”

“When?”

“A few months before her death. She sent an email to my website. It eventually found its way to me.”

“What did it say?”

“Her email? She wanted to talk to me.”

“What about?”

“What do you think, Maya? You.”

The waitress came back. “Two club sodas with lime.” She gave Maya a friendly wink. “I know you didn’t order one, hon, but you might get thirsty.”

She handed the drinks off, gave Maya a big smile, and then strode away.

“You’re not trying to tell me Claire was the one who leaked that combat tape—”

“No.”

“—because there is no way she’d even have access—”