Harlan Coben - Fool Me Once

Shane grabbed Maya a Coke. Alcohol was not allowed there because even the least rational among them realized that guns and alcohol don’t mix. The five of them sat around and started shooting the breeze. The conversations always started with the local sports team but quickly moved into deeper terrain. This was the best part for Maya. She was one of them, except she was maybe a bit more. The guys often sought out the female perspective because, news flash, war messes up your relationships at home. It was a cheap cop-out for a soldier to say that nobody at home understood what he was going through, but it was also too damned apt. After you serve in some hellhole, you just see things differently. Sometimes it’s in obvious ways, but more often, it’s just about textures and hues and scents. Things that used to matter don’t and vice versa. Relationships and marriages are hard enough, but you add war into the mix and small fissures become gaping wounds. No one sees what you’re seeing — again that clear-eyed, unbiased thing — except your fellow soldiers. It’s like one of those movies where only the hero can see the ghosts and everyone else thinks the hero is crazy.

In this room, they all saw the ghosts.

Being single and somewhat emotionally challenged, Shane wasn’t good with the confessional stuff. He moved over to the seat in the corner, took out the new novel by Anna Quindlen, and started reading. Shane was a big reader — except, as Maya had seen the other night, out loud to children — and could read anywhere, even on that chopper where the rotors were so loud they seemed to be coming from inside her brain.

Eventually Maya migrated toward him. The TV above their head showed the third quarter of the New York Knicks — Brooklyn Nets game. Shane put down the book as she approached. He swung his long legs up on the leather ottoman and said, “Cool.”

“What?”

“I assume you’re ready to fill me in now.”

She wasn’t. She wanted to protect him. Always.

Still Shane wouldn’t take that as an answer, and it would be unfair and perhaps detrimental to give him nothing. She debated telling him about meeting Corey Rudzinski in the flesh, but she had no idea how he would react. With anger, probably. Corey had also been very specific in the end:

“No burner phones. We only communicate if there is an emergency. If you need me, call the club and ask for Lulu. If I need you, the club will call your phone and hang up. That’ll be your signal to come back here. But, Maya, if I feel slightly uneasy, I’m gone. Probably for good. So say nothing.”

Say nothing — that felt like the right play for now. If she blew that relationship, Corey would likely disappear. She couldn’t risk that.

But there was another avenue she could take.

Shane stared at her and waited. He could do that all night.

“What do you know about Kierce?” Maya asked him.

“The homicide cop working Joe’s case?”

Maya nodded.

“Not much. He’s got a solid reputation, but it’s not like we hang out with the NYPD. Why?”

“You remember Joe’s sister, Caroline?”

“Right.”

“She told me that the family has been giving Kierce money.”

Shane made a face. “What do you mean, giving him money?”

“Just under ten grand three times.”

“For what?”

Maya shrugged. “She doesn’t know.”

She filled him in on what Caroline had told her about the payoffs, about her password not working, about Maya’s decision to wait before she confronted Neil or Judith.

“It makes no sense,” Shane said. “Why the hell would Joe’s family want to bribe Kierce?”

“You tell me,” Maya said.

He considered that for a moment. “We both know the rich are weird.”

“We do.”

“But are they paying Kierce in hopes he’ll, what, do a better job? Make Joe’s case a priority? It already is. Do the Burketts think they should tip a cop or something?”

“I don’t know,” Maya said. “But there’s something more.”

“What?”

“Caroline claims that the family started paying Kierce before Joe died.”

“Bullshit.”

“That’s what she thinks.”

“She’s wrong. It doesn’t even make sense. Why would they give Kierce money before the murder?”

Again Maya said: “I don’t know.”

“It’s not like, what, they predicted Joe would get murdered and which detective would work the case?” Shane shook his head. “You know what the most likely answer is, don’t you?”

“No.”

“Caroline is playing you.”

Maya had considered that.

“Come on, that whole part with her going online in front of you and suddenly, gasp, the password has changed? That seems awfully convenient, doesn’t it?”

“It does,” Maya agreed.

“So she’s lying. Wait, strike that.”

“What?”

Shane turned toward her. “Caroline is a first-class flake, right?”

“Of the highest order.”

“So maybe she’s not lying,” Shane said, warming up to his new theory. “Maybe she just imagined the whole thing. Put the pieces together. You have this first-class flake. Her brother is murdered. You all meet to discuss the will. Then that gets canceled because of, what, some paperwork snafu?”

“Not just a snafu,” Maya said. “There’s something wrong with his death certificate.”

“Even better. So she’s under stress.”

Maya frowned. “So she imagined seeing payments to a homicide cop?”

“It’s as likely as any other scenario right now.” Shane sat back. “Maya?”

She knew what was coming.

“Can you stop it, please?” he said.

“Stop what?”

He frowned. “It makes my tummy hurt when you lie to me.”

“I’m not lying to you.”

“Semantics. What aren’t you telling me?”

Too much probably. Again she debated telling him more, but again she had the knee-jerk reaction of protecting him. She considered telling him about Claire’s secret phone, but that would just lead to Corey. She didn’t want to go there yet. She hadn’t told him about what she had seen on the nanny cam either, but that could wait too. Always better to be cautious. Things can always be said later, but things can never be unheard.

Shane leaned close, made sure nobody could hear, and then whispered, “Where did you get that bullet?”

“You need to leave that alone.”

“I did you a huge favor.”

“And your favors come with strings, Shane?”

That stung him into silence, as she had known it would. She moved the topic back to Caroline.

“You said something interesting about Caroline being under stress,” Maya said.

Shane waited.

“She didn’t just talk about Joe. She talked about her other brother.”

“Neil?”

Maya shook her head. “Andrew.”

Shane made a face. “Wait, the one who fell off the boat?”

“He didn’t fall.”

“What do you mean?”

Finally. Something she felt safe confiding in him. “Joe was there. On the boat with him.”

“Right, so?”

“So Joe told me it wasn’t an accident. He said Andrew committed suicide.”

Shane fell back in the chair. “Yowza.”

“Yeah.”

“Does the family know?”

Maya shrugged. “I don’t think so. They all claim it was an accident.”

“And Caroline raised this yesterday?”

“Yep.”

“Why?” Shane asked. “Andrew Burkett died, what, nearly twenty years ago, right?”

“In a way I think it was natural,” Maya said.

“How so?”

“Two brothers. Supposedly very close. Both dying young and tragically.”

Shane nodded, seeing it now. “More reason why her imagination might get the better of her.”

“And she never saw Joe’s body.”