Harlan Coben - Six Years

“Then you know already. Todd was a magnificent student, one of the finest ever to attend Lanford. He had a bright future. His father saw that too. But Todd wouldn’t come back. He saw it as abandoning his father in his hour of most need. Todd flat-out refused to return until the situation at home got better. But of course, as we know all too well, situations like this don’t get better. So Todd’s father did the only thing he thought he could to end his own pain and free his son to continue his studies.”

Our eyes met. His were wet now.

“Oh no,” I said.

“Oh yes.”

“How . . . ?”

“His father broke into the school where he used to work and shot himself in the head. See, he didn’t want his son to be the one who found his body.”

Chapter 12

Three weeks before Natalie dumped me, when we were madly in love, we sneaked down from our retreats in Kraftboro to visit Lanford. “I want to see this place that means so much to you,” she said.

I remember the way her eyes lit up when she walked with me on that campus. We held hands. Natalie wore a big straw hat, which was both endearing and odd, and sunglasses. She looked a bit like a movie star in disguise.

“When you were a student here,” she asked me, “where did you take the hot coeds?”

“Straight to bed.”

Natalie playfully slapped my arm. “I’m serious. And hungry.”

So we headed to Judie’s Restaurant on Main Avenue. Judie made a wonderful popover and apple butter. Natalie loved it. I watched her take it all in—the artwork, the décor, the young waitstaff, the menu, everything. “So this is where you took your ladies?”

“The classy ones,” I said.

“Wait, where did you take the, uh, classless ones?”

“Barsolotti’s. The dive bar next door.” I smiled.

“What?”

“We used to play condom roulette.”

“Excuse me?”

“Not with girls. I was kidding about that. I’d go there with friends. There was a condom dispenser in the men’s room.”

“A condom dispenser?”

“Yep.”

“Like a condom vending machine.”

“Exactly,” I said.

Natalie nodded. “Classy.”

“I know, right?”

“So what are the rules of condom roulette?”

“It’s silly.”

“Oh, you’re not getting off that easy. I want to hear.”

There was that smile that knocked me back a step.

“Okay,” I said. “You play with four guys . . . this is so stupid.”

“Please? I love it. Come on. You play with four guys . . .” She gestured for me to continue.

“The condoms come in four colors,” I explained. “Midnight Black, Cherry Red, Lemon Yellow, Orange Orange.”

“You’re making up those last two.”

“Something like that. The point is, they came in four colors, but you never knew which one you’d get. So see, we’d each put three bucks in the pot and choose a color. Then one of us would go to the dispenser and bring back the wrapped condom. Again, you didn’t know the color until you actually open the wrapper. Someone would do a drumroll. Another guy would do the play-by-play like it was an Olympic event. Finally, the package was opened, and whoever picked the right color got the money.”

“Oh, that’s too awesome.”

“Yeah, well,” I said. “Of course, the winner had to buy the next pitcher of beer, so there wasn’t much of a financial windfall. Eventually Barsy—that’s the guy who owned the place—made it a full-fledged game with rules and league play and a leader board.”

She took my hand. “Could we play?”

“What, now? No.”

“Please.”

“No way.”

“After the game,” Natalie whispered, giving me a look that singed my eyebrows, “we could use the condom.”

“I call Midnight Black,” I said.

She laughed. I could still hear that sound as I entered Judie’s, as if her laugh were still here, still echoing, still mocking me. I hadn’t been back to Judie’s in, well, six years. I looked over at the table where we’d sat. It was empty.

“Jake?”

I spun toward my right. Shanta Newlin sat at a quiet table over by the bay windows. She didn’t wave or nod. Her body language, usually fully loaded with confidence, seemed all wrong. I sat across from her. She barely looked up.

“Hi,” I said.

Still staring at the table, Shanta said, “Tell me the whole story, Jake.”

“Why? What’s going on?”

Her eyes came up, pinning me interrogator-style. I could see the FBI agent now. “Is she really an old girlfriend?”

“What? Yes, of course.”

“And why do you all of a sudden want to find her?”

I hesitated.

“Jake?”

The e-mail came back to me:

You made a promise.

“I asked you a favor,” I said.

“I know.”

“So you can either let me know what you found or we can just forget it. I’m not sure I get why you need to know more.”

The young waitress—Judie always hired college kids—gave us menus and asked if we would like drinks. We both ordered iced teas. When she left, Shanta turned the hard eyes back on me.

“I’m trying to help you, Jake.”

“Maybe we should just let it go.”

“You’re kidding, right?”

“No,” I said. “She asked me to leave her alone. I should probably have listened.”

“When?”

“When what?”

“When did she ask you to leave her alone?” Shanta asked.

“What difference does that make?”

“Just tell me, okay? It could be important.”

“How?” Then, figuring, what was the harm, I added: “Six years ago.”

“You said that you were in love with her.”

“Yes.”

“So was this when you broke up?”

I shook my head. “It was at her wedding to another man.”

That made her blink. My words diffused the hard glare, at least for the moment. “Just so I’m clear on this, you went to her wedding—were you still in love with her? Dumb question. Of course you were. You still are. So you went to her wedding, and while you were there, Natalie told you to leave her alone?”

“Something like that, yes.”

“That must have been some scene.”

“It wasn’t like it sounds. We had just broken up. She ended up choosing another guy over me. An old boyfriend. They got married a few days later.” I tried to shrug it off. “It happens.”

“You think?” Shanta said with the confused head tilt of a freshman. “Go on.”

“Go on with what? I went to the wedding. Natalie asked me to accept her choice and leave them be. I said I would.”

“I see. Have you had any contact with her during the past six years?”

“No.”

“None at all?”

I realized now how good Shanta was at this. I had taken the position that I wouldn’t talk, and now you pretty much couldn’t get me to shut up. “Right, none at all.”

“And you’re sure her name is Natalie Avery?”

“That’s not the kind of thing you make a mistake about. Enough questions. What did you find, Shanta?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing?”

The waitress came back with a big smile and our iced teas. “Here are some of Judie’s fresh popovers.” Her voice was the happy song of youth. The popover scent rose from the table and took me back to my last visit here, yep, six years ago.

“Any questions about the menu?” the perky waitress asked.

I couldn’t answer.

“Jake?” Shanta said.

I swallowed. “No questions.”

Shanta ordered a grilled portobello mushroom sandwich. I went with the turkey BLT on rye. When the waitress was gone, I leaned across the table. “What do you mean you found nothing?”

“What part of ‘nothing’ is confusing you, Jake? I found nothing on your ex—zippo, nada , zilch. No address, no tax returns, no bank account, no credit card statement. Not-a-thing, no thing, nothing. There is not one shred of evidence that your Natalie Avery even exists anymore.”