Harlan Coben - Fool Me Once

It was that bad.

It was the type of bad that made you want to do anything to please—

— oh God please—

— make it stop. It made you think about picking up a gun and silencing the sounds, if you knew where you were, if you knew that you were so close to your bedside table where you kept a gun in that small safe...

Maya didn’t know if it lasted minutes or hours. It seemed endless. Time had no meaning when the sounds suffocated you. You just rode it out and tried to stay afloat.

But at some point, a new sound, a more “regular” sound, penetrated her auditory hell. The sound seemed to come from a great distance. The sound seemed to take a long time to reach her and register. It had to fight through the other deafening sounds — one of which, Maya realized as she started to float up toward consciousness, was her own self screaming.

A doorbell. Then a voice:

“Maya? Maya?”

Shane. He started banging against the door.

“Maya?”

She opened her eyes. The sounds didn’t flee so much as mockingly fade away, reminding her that they might grow quiet but they were always there, always with her. Maya again thought about that theory that no sound dies, that if you scream in the woods and you hear an echo, that echo just grows fainter and fainter but never completely goes away. Her sounds did the same.

They never fully left her.

Maya looked to her right, to where Lily had been sleeping.

But she wasn’t there.

Maya’s heart leapt into her throat. “Lily?”

The knocking and doorbell had stopped. Maya bolted upright. She swung her legs out of bed. When she tried to stand, the head rush knocked her back into a seating position.

“Lily?” she called again.

From downstairs, Maya heard the door open.

“Maya?”

It was Shane, inside the house now. She’d given him a key for emergencies.

“Up here.” Maya tried again, making it to a standing position this time. “Lily? I can’t find Lily!”

The house shook as Shane ran up the stairs two at a time.

“Lily!”

“I got her,” Shane said.

He appeared at her door, carrying Lily with his right arm. Relief flooded Maya’s veins.

“She was at the top of the stairs,” Shane said.

There were tears on Lily’s face. Maya hurried over to her. Lily cringed for a moment, and Maya realized that her daughter had probably woken up to her mother’s screams.

Maya slowed down and made herself smile. “It’s okay, sweetie.”

The little girl buried her face into Shane’s shoulder.

“I’m sorry, Lily. Mommy had a nightmare.”

Lily wrapped her arms around Shane’s neck. Shane looked toward Maya, not even trying to hide the pity and concern on his face. Maya’s heart crumbled into a million pieces.

“I tried to call,” he said. “When you didn’t answer...”

Maya nodded.

“Hey,” Shane said too cheerfully. He wasn’t good with cheerful. Even Lily could sense that his tone was off. “Let’s all go downstairs and have breakfast, what do you say?”

Lily looked wary, but she was also recovering quickly. That was the thing about kids. They are ridiculously resilient. They have, Maya thought, the coping skills of the best soldiers.

“Oh, guess what?” Maya said.

Lily looked at her mother warily.

“Today we’re going to a carnival with Daniel and Alexa!”

That made the little girl’s eyes widen.

“There’ll be rides and balloons...”

Maya kept talking about the wonders of Soccer Day, and in a matter of minutes, the storm of last night dissipated in the glow of a new day. For Lily at least. But for Maya, the grip of fear, especially because it had obviously touched her daughter, held on to her for far too long.

What had she done?

Shane didn’t ask her if she was okay. He knew. Once they had Lily settled in front of her breakfast and moved out of her earshot, Shane said, “How bad?”

“I’m fine.”

Shane just turned away.

“What?”

“Lying to me gets easier and easier for you.”

He was right.

“Very bad,” she said. “Happy now?”

Shane turned back to her. He wanted to hug her — she could see that — but they didn’t do that. Too bad. She could have used it.

“You need to talk to someone,” Shane said. “What about Wu?”

Wu was the shrink from the VA. “I’ll call him.”

“When?”

“When this is over.”

“When what is over?”

She didn’t answer.

“It’s not just about you anymore, Maya.”

“Meaning?”

He looked over at Lily.

“Low blow, Shane.”

“Too bad. You have a daughter you’re raising on your own now.”

“I’ll take care of it.”

Maya checked the time. Nine fifteen. She tried to remember the last time that had happened, when she had slept past 4:58 A.M., but she couldn’t. She also wondered about Lily. So what had gone on? Had her daughter woken up and listened to her mother scream? Had Lily tried to wake her, or did she just cower in fear?

What kind of mother was she?

“Death follows you, Maya...”

“I’ll take care of it,” she said again. “I just need to see this through.”

“And by ‘see this through,’ you mean ‘find out who killed Joe’?”

She didn’t reply.

“You were right, by the way,” Shane said.

“About?”

“That’s why I’m here. You asked me to look into Tom Douglass’s time in the Coast Guard.”

“And?”

“He served fourteen years. That’s where he got his first taste of law enforcement. And yes, he was the officer in charge of the investigation into the death of Andrew Burkett.”

Boom. It made sense. It made no sense.

“Do you know what his findings were?”

“Accidental death. According to his report, Andrew Burkett fell overboard at night and drowned. Alcohol was probably involved.”

They just stood there for a few moments and let it sink in.

“What the hell is going on, Maya?”

“I don’t know, but I plan to find out.”

“How?”

Maya quickly took out her mobile phone and called the Douglass home. There was no answer. Maya left a message: “I know why the Burketts were paying you. Call me.”

She left her cell phone number and hung up.

“How did you find out about Douglass?” Shane asked.

“It isn’t important.”

“Really?”

Shane stood up and started pacing. You didn’t have to know him as well as Maya did to realize that this wasn’t good.

“What?” she said.

“I called Detective Kierce this morning.”

Maya closed her eyes. “Why would you do that?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe because you threw out a pretty big accusation last night.”

“It was Caroline’s accusation.”

“Whatever. I wanted to size him up a little.”

“And?”

“I like him. I think he’s a straight shooter. I think Caroline is full of crap.”

“Okay, just forget it.”

Shane made an annoying buzzing sound like a game show effect when you give the wrong answer.

“What?”

“Sorry, Maya, wrong answer.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Kierce wouldn’t share any information on the actual investigation with me,” Shane continued. “Which is what a good cop, a cop who plays by the rules and doesn’t take bribes, would do.”

Maya didn’t like where this was going.

“But,” Shane said, raising a finger in the air, “he felt that it would be okay to let me know about a certain incident that happened in your home recently.”

Maya glanced over at Lily. “He told you about the nanny cam.”

“Bingo.”

Shane waited for her to explain. She didn’t. They both stood there and stared at each other for too long. Shane broke the silence.