Текст книги "The Stranger"

Автор книги: Harlan Coben

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Текущая страница: 5 (всего у книги 20 страниц)

Chapter 8

The stranger sat at a corner table at the Red Lobster in Beachwood, Ohio, just outside of Cleveland.

He nursed his Red Lobster “specialty cocktail,” a mango mai tai. His garlic shrimp scampi had started to congeal into something resembling tile caulk. The waiter had tried to take it from him twice, but the stranger had shooed him away. Ingrid sat across the table. She sighed and checked her watch.

“This has to be the longest lunch ever.”

The stranger nodded. “Almost two hours.”

They were watching a table with four women who were on their third “specialty cocktail” round and it wasn’t yet two thirty. Two of them had done Crabfest, the variety dish served on a plate the approximate circumference of a manhole cover. The third woman had ordered the shrimp linguini Alfredo. The cream sauce kept getting caught up in the corners of her pink-lipsticked mouth.

The fourth woman, whose name they knew was Heidi Dann, was the reason they were there. Heidi had ordered the wood-grilled salmon. She was forty-nine, big and bouncy with strawlike hair. She wore a tiger-print top with a somewhat plunging neckline. Heidi had a boisterous yet melodic laugh. The stranger had been listening to it for the past two hours. There was something mesmerizing in the sound.

“I’ve grown to like her,” the stranger said.

“Me too.” Ingrid pulled her blond hair back with both hands, forming an imaginary ponytail and then letting it free. She did that a lot. She had the kind of long, too-straight hair that constantly fell in front of her face. “There’s a certain zest for life there, you know?”

He knew exactly what Ingrid meant.

“In the end,” Ingrid said, “we are doing her a favor.”

That was the justification. The stranger agreed with it. If the foundation is rotten, you need to demolish the entire house. You can’t just fix it with a coat of paint or a few planks of wood. He knew that. He understood it. He lived it.

He believed it.

But that didn’t mean that he relished being the one to work the explosives. That was also how he looked at it. He was the one who blew up the house with the rotting foundation—but he never stuck around to see how or if it was rebuilt.

He didn’t even stick around to make sure that no one had been left inside the house when it went up.

The waitress came over and gave the ladies the check. Everyone dug into their purses with care and produced cash. The woman who had the linguini did the math, dividing the bill up with precision. The two Crabfest eaters pulled out bills one at a time. Then they each opened their change purse as though it were a rusted chastity belt.

Heidi just threw in some twenties.

Something about the way she did it—with care and ease—touched him. He guessed that the Danns were okay with money, but who knew in today’s world? Heidi and her husband, Marty, had been married twenty years. They had three kids. Their oldest daughter, Kimberly, was a freshman at NYU in Manhattan. The two boys, Charlie and John, were still in high school. Heidi worked various makeup counters at the Macy’s in University Heights. Marty Dann was a vice president in sales and marketing for TTI Floor Care in Glenwillow. TTI was all about vacuum cleaners. They owned Hoover, Oreck, Royal, and the division where Marty had worked for the past eleven years, Dirt Devil. He traveled a lot for his job, mostly to Bentonville, Arkansas, because that was where Walmart’s corporate offices were.

Ingrid was studying the stranger’s face. “I can handle this on my own, if you’d like.”

He shook his head. This was his job. Ingrid was here because he would need to approach a woman and that sometimes looked odd. A man-and-woman couple approaching someone? No worries. A man approaching another man in, say, a bar or American Legion Hall? Again no worries. But if a twenty-seven-year-old man approached a forty-nine-year-old woman near, say, a Red Lobster?

That could get tricky.

Ingrid had already paid the bill, so they moved quickly. Heidi had arrived on her own in a gray Nissan Sentra. He and Ingrid had parked their rent-a-car two spots away. They waited by the car, key in hand, ready to pretend that they were about to get in it and drive off.

They didn’t want to draw attention to themselves.

Five minutes later, the four women exited the restaurant. They hoped Heidi would end up alone now, but they had no way of knowing for certain. One of her friends could walk her to the car, in which case they would have to follow Heidi back to her house and either try to confront her there (never a good idea to confront a victim on their own property—it made them more defensive) or wait until she headed out again.

The women all bid one another adieu with hugs. Heidi, he could see, was a good hugger. She hugged as though she meant it. When she hugged, her eyes closed and the person she hugged closed hers too. It was that kind of hug.

The three other women headed off in the opposite direction. Perfect.

Heidi started toward her car. She wore Capri pants. Her high heels made her stagger a little after the drinks, but she handled it with practiced aplomb. She was smiling. Ingrid nodded a get-ready at the stranger. They both did all they could to look harmless.

“Heidi Dann?”

He tried to keep his expression friendly or, at worst, neutral. Heidi turned and met his eye. The smile dropped off her face as though someone had attached an anchor to it.

She knew.

He wasn’t surprised. Many somehow did, though denial also worked big-time when the stranger called. But he sensed strength and intelligence in her. Heidi already knew that what he was about to say would change everything.

“Yes?”

“There’s a website called FindYourSugarBaby.com,” he said.

The stranger had learned that you had to leap directly into it. You didn’t ask the victim if they had time to talk or if they wanted to sit down or go someplace quiet. You just launched.

“What?”

“It purports to be a modern online dating service. But it’s not. Men—supposedly wealthy men with disposable income—sign up to meet, well, sugar babies. Have you heard of it?”

Heidi looked at him another second. Then she turned her gaze toward Ingrid. Ingrid tried to smile reassuringly.

“Who are you two?”

“That’s not important,” he said.

Some people fight it. Other people see that it’s an irrelevant waste of time in the big picture. Heidi was in the latter group. “No, I’ve never heard of it. It sounds like one of those sites married people use to cheat.”

The stranger made a yes-no gesture with his head and said, “Not really. This site caters to more of a business transaction, if you know what I mean.”

“I don’t know what you mean at all,” Heidi said.

“You should read the material when you have a chance. The site talks about how every relationship is really a transaction and how important it is to define your roles, to know what is expected of you and what is expected of your lover.”

Heidi’s face was losing color. “Lover?”

“So here is how it works,” the stranger continued. “A man signs on, for example. He looks through a list of women, usually much younger. He finds one he likes. If she accepts, they start negotiating.”

“Negotiating?”

“He’s looking for what we call a sugar baby. The website defines that as a woman he’d maybe take out to dinner or escort to a business conference, that kind of thing.”

“But that’s not what really happens,” Heidi said.

“No,” the stranger said. “That’s not what happens.”

Heidi let loose a long breath. She put her hands on her hips. “Go on.”

“So they negotiate.”

“The rich guy and his sugar baby.”

“Right. The site tells the girl all sorts of nonsense. How everything is defined. How dating like this means no game playing. How the men are rich and sophisticated and will treat her well and buy her gifts and take her to exotic overseas locales.”

Heidi shook her head. “Do the girls really fall for that?”

“Some, maybe. But I doubt too many. Most understand the score.”

It was as though Heidi had expected him to visit, expected this news. She was calm now, though he could still sense the devastation. “So they negotiate?” she prompted.

“Right. Eventually, they reach an understanding. It’s all spelled out in an online contract. In one case, for example, the young woman agrees to be with the man five times per month. They spell out possible days of the week. He offers eight hundred dollars.”

“Each time?”

“Per month.”

“Cheap.”

“Well, that’s how it starts. But she counters with two thousand dollars. They go back and forth.”

“Do they reach an agreement?” Heidi asked.

Her eyes were wet now.

The stranger nodded. “In this case, they settle for twelve hundred dollars per month.”

“That’s fourteen thousand four hundred dollars per year,” Heidi said with a sad smile. “I’m good at math.”

“That’s correct.”

“And the girl,” Heidi said. “What does she tell the guy she is? Wait, don’t tell me. She says she’s a college student and needs help with her tuition.”

“In this case, yes.”

“Ugh,” Heidi said.

“And in this case,” the stranger continued, “the girl is telling the truth.”

“She’s a student?” Heidi shook her head. “Terrific.”

“But the girl, in this case, doesn’t stop there,” the stranger said. “The girl sets up different days of the week with different sugar daddies.”

“Oh, that’s gross.”

“So with one guy, she’s always Tuesdays. Another guy is Thursdays. Someone else gets weekends.”

“Must add up. The money, I mean.”

“It does.”

“Not to mention the venereal diseases,” Heidi said.

“That I can’t comment on.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning we don’t know if she uses condoms or what. We don’t have her medical records. We don’t even know exactly what she does with all these men.”

“I doubt she’s playing cribbage.”

“I doubt it too.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

The stranger looked at Ingrid. For the first time, Ingrid spoke. “Because you deserve to know.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s all we can tell you, yes,” the stranger said.

“Twenty years.” Heidi shook her head and bit back her tears. “That bastard.”

“Pardon?”

“Marty. That bastard.”

“Oh, we’re not talking about Marty,” the stranger said.

Now, for the first time, Heidi looked completely baffled. “What? Then who?”

“We’re talking about your daughter, Kimberly.”

Chapter 9

Corinne took the blow, stumbled back, stayed standing.

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“Can we skip this part?” Adam asked.

“What?”

“The part where you pretend you have no idea what I’m talking about. Let’s skip the denials, okay? I know you faked the pregnancy.”

She tried to gather herself, pick up the pieces one at a time. “If you know, why are you asking?”

“How about the boys?”

That puzzled her. “What about them?”

“Are they mine?”

Corinne’s eyes went wide. “Are you out of your mind?”

“You faked a pregnancy. Who knows what else you’re capable of?”

Corinne just stood there.

“Well?”

“Jesus, Adam, look at them.”

He said nothing.

“Of course they’re yours.”

“There are tests, you know. DNA. You can buy them at Walgreens, for crying out loud.”

“Then buy them,” she snapped. “Those boys are yours. You know that.”

They stood on either side of the kitchen island. Even now, even in the midst of his anger and confusion, he could not help but see how beautiful she was. He couldn’t believe that with all the guys who wanted her, she had somehow chosen him. Corinne was the girl men wanted to marry. That was how guys foolishly looked at women when they were younger. They broke them down into two camps. One camp made guys think of lust-filled nights and legs in the air. Camp Two made them think of moonlight walks and canopies and wedding vows. Corinne was squarely in Camp Two.

Adam’s own mother had been eccentric to the point of bipolarity. That had been what foolishly attracted his father. “Her crackle,” Dad had explained. But the crackle turned more into mania as time passed. The crackle was fun and spontaneous, but the unpredictability wore his father down, aged him. There were great ups, but they were eventually decimated by the growing number of great downs. Adam did not make that mistake. Life is a series of reactions. His reaction to the mistake of his father was to marry a woman he considered steady, consistent, controlled, as though people were just that simple.

“Talk to me,” Adam said.

“What makes you think I faked the pregnancy?”

“The Visa charge to Novelty Funsy,” he said. “You told me it was for school decorations. It wasn’t. It’s a billing name for Fake-A-Pregnancy.com.”

She looked confused now. “I don’t understand. What made you go through a charge from two years ago?”

“It’s not important.”

“It is to me. You didn’t casually decide to start checking old bills.”

“Did you do it, Corinne?”

Her gaze was down on the granite top of the island. Corinne had taken forever to find the exact shade of granite, finally finding something called Ontario Brown. She spotted some dried debris and started working it free with her fingernail.

“Corinne?”

“Do you remember when I had two school periods off during lunch?”

The change of subject threw him for a moment. “What about it?”

The debris came loose. Corinne stopped. “It was the only time in my teaching career I had that big of a time window. I got permission to go off school grounds for lunch.”

“I remember.”

“I used to go to that café in Bookends. They made a great panini sandwich. I’d get one and a glass of homemade iced tea or a coffee. I’d sit at this corner table and read a book.” A small smile came to her face. “It was bliss.”

Adam nodded. “Great story, Corinne.”

“Don’t be sarcastic.”

“No, no, seriously, it’s gripping and so relevant. I mean, I’m asking you to tell me about faking a pregnancy, but really this story is much better. What kind of panini was your favorite, anyway? I like the turkey and swiss myself.”

She closed her eyes. “You’ve always used sarcasm as a defense mechanism.”

“Oh, right, and you’ve always been great with timing. Like now, Corinne. Now is the time to psychoanalyze me.”

There was a pleading in her voice now. “I’m trying to tell you something, okay?”

He shrugged. “So tell me.”

She took a few seconds to gather herself before she began speaking again. When she did, her voice had a far-off quality to it. “I’d go to Bookends pretty much every day, and after a while, you become, I don’t know, a regular. The same people would be there all the time. It was like a community. Or like Cheers. There was Jerry, who was unemployed. And Eddie was an outpatient at Bergen Pines. Debbie would bring her laptop and write—”

“Corinne . . .”

She held up her hand. “And then there was Suzanne, who was, like, eight months pregnant.”

Silence.

Corinne turned behind her. “Where’s that bottle of wine?”

“I don’t see where you’re going with this.”

“I just need some more wine.”

“I put it in the cabinet above the sink.”

She headed over to it, opened the door, and snatched out the bottle. Corinne grabbed her glass and started to pour. “Suzanne Hope was maybe twenty-five years old. It was her first baby. You know how young mothers-to-be are—all glowing and over-the-top happy, like they’re the first people to ever get pregnant. Suzanne was really nice. We all talked to her about the pregnancy and the baby. You know. She’d tell us about her prenatal vitamins. She ran names by us. She didn’t want to know if it was a boy or girl. She wanted to be surprised. Everyone liked her.”

He bit back the sarcastic rejoinder. Instead, he replaced it with an obvious observation. “I thought you were there for quiet and reading.”

“I was. I mean, that’s how it started. But somewhere along the way, I started to cherish this social circle. I know it sounds pathetic, but I looked forward to seeing these people. And it was like they only existed in that time and space, you know? It’s like when you used to play pickup basketball. You loved those guys on the court, but you didn’t know a thing about them off it. One guy owned that restaurant we went to and you didn’t even know, remember?”

“I remember, Corinne. But I don’t see the point.”

“I’m just trying to explain. I made friends. People came in and out without warning. Like Jerry. One day, Jerry disappeared. We assumed he got a job, but it’s not like he came in and told us. He just stopped coming. Suzanne too. We figured that she had the baby. She was way overdue. And then sadly, when the new semester started, double lunch ended for me, and so I guess I faded away too. That’s how it worked. It was cyclical. The cast rotated.”

He had no idea where she was going with this, but there was no reason to rush her either. In a way, he wanted things to slow down now. He wanted to consider all options. He glanced back over at the kitchen table where Thomas and Ryan had just eaten and laughed and thought that they were secure.

Corinne took a deep sip of her wine. To move it along, Adam asked, “Did you ever see any of them again?”

Corinne almost smiled. “That’s the point of the story.”

“What is?”

“I saw Suzanne again. Maybe three months later.”

“At Bookends?”

She shook her head. “No. It was a Starbucks in Ramsey.”

“Did she have a boy or girl?”

A sad smile toyed with Corinne’s lips. “Neither.”

He didn’t know what to make of that or how to follow it up, so he simply said, “Oh.”

Corinne met his eye. “She was pregnant.”

“Suzanne was?”

“Yes.”

“When you saw her at Starbucks?”

“Yes. Except it was only three months after I last saw her. And she still looked eight months pregnant.”

Adam nodded, finally seeing where she was going. “Which is, of course, impossible.”

“Of course.”

“She was faking.”

“Yes. See, I had to go to Ramsey to check out this new textbook. It was lunchtime again. Suzanne must have figured that there’d be no chance one of us from Bookends would be there. That Starbucks is, what, a fifteen-minute drive from Bookends?”

“At least.”

“So I was up at the counter ordering a latte and I heard that voice and there she was, sitting in the corner, telling a rapt group of patrons about her prenatal vitamin regimen.”

“I don’t get it.”

Corinne tilted her head. “Really?”

“You do?”

“Sure. I got it right away. Suzanne was holding court in the corner, and then I started walking toward her. When she spotted me, that glow just vanished. I mean, you can imagine. How do you explain being eight months pregnant for, like, what, half a year? I just stood there and waited. I think she hoped that I’d leave. But I didn’t. I was supposed to go to school, but later, I told them I got a flat tire. Kristin covered my classes for me.”

“You and Suzanne eventually talked?”

“Yes.”

“And?”

“She said that she really lives in Nyack, New York.”

That was about thirty minutes from both Bookends and that Starbucks, Adam figured.

“She told me a story about having a stillborn. I don’t think it’s true, but it could be. But in many ways, Suzanne’s story is simpler. Some women love being pregnant. Not because of the hormonal rush or because they have a baby growing inside of them. Their reasons are much more base. It is the one time in their life they feel special. People hold doors for them. People ask them about their day. They ask them when they’re due and how they’re feeling. In short, they get attention. It’s a little like being famous. Suzanne was nothing special to look at. She didn’t strike me as being particularly smart or interesting. Being pregnant made her feel like a celebrity. It was like a drug.”

Adam shook his head. He remembered the wording on the Fake-A-Pregnancy website: “Nothing throws you in the spotlight like being pregnant!”

“So she faked being pregnant in order to maintain the high?”

“Yes. She’d slap on the fake belly. She’d go to the coffee shop. Instant attention.”

“But there was only so long that she could get away with that,” he said. “You can’t be eight months pregnant for more than, well, a month or two.”

“Right. So she moved lunch spots. Who knows how long she’d been at it—or if she’s still doing it. She said her husband didn’t care about her. He came home and went right to the TV or stayed at the bar with the guys. Again, I don’t know if that’s a lie. It doesn’t matter. Oh, and Suzanne did it other places too. Like instead of going to the supermarket in her hometown, she’d go to ones farther away and smile at people and they’d always smile back. If she went to the movies and wanted a good seat, she’d use it. Same with airplane rides.”

“Wow,” Adam said. “That’s pretty sick.”

“But you don’t get it?”

“I get it. She should see a shrink.”

“I don’t know. It seems pretty harmless.”

“Strapping on a fake belly to gain attention?”

Corinne shrugged. “I admit it’s extreme, but some people get attention because they’re beautiful. Some because they inherited money or have a fancy job.”

“And some get it by lying about being pregnant,” Adam said.

Silence.

“So I assume your friend Suzanne told you about the Fake-A-Pregnancy website?”

She turned away.

“Corinne?”

“That’s all I’m willing to say right now.”

“You’re kidding, right?”

“No.”

“Wait, are you telling me you crave attention like this Suzanne? I mean, this isn’t normal behavior. You know that, right? This has to be a mental disorder of some kind.”

“I need to think about it.”

“Think about what?”

“It’s late. I’m tired.”

“Are you out of your mind?”

“Stop.”

“What?”

Corinne turned back to him. “You feel it too, don’t you, Adam?”

“What are you talking about?”

“We’re in a minefield,” she said. “Like someone just dropped us right in the middle of it, and if we move too fast in any direction, we’re going to step on an explosive and blow this whole thing up.”

She looked at him. He looked at her.

“I didn’t drop us in the minefield,” he said through gritted teeth. “You did.”

“I’m going up to bed. We can talk about this in the morning.”

Adam blocked her path. “You’re not going anywhere.”

“What are you going to do, Adam? Beat it out of me?”

“You owe me an explanation.”

She shook her head. “You don’t understand.”

“Don’t understand what?”

She looked up into his eyes. “How did you find out, Adam?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“You have no idea how much it matters,” she said in a soft voice. “Who told you to look at the charge on the Visa bill?”

“A stranger,” he said.

She took a step back. “Who?”

“I don’t know. Some guy. I’d never seen him before. He came up to me at the American Legion and told me what you’d done.”

She shook her head as though trying to clear it. “I don’t understand. What guy?”

“I just told you. A stranger.”

“We need to think about this,” she said.

“No, you need to tell me what’s going on.”

“Not tonight.” She put her hands on his shoulders. He backed away as though her touch scalded him. “It isn’t what you think, Adam. There’s more to this.”

“Mom?”

Adam spun toward the voice. Ryan stood at the top of the steps.

“Can one of you help me with my math?” he asked.

Corinne didn’t hesitate. The smile was back in place. “I’ll be right up, honey.” She turned to Adam. “Tomorrow,” she whispered to him. There was a pleading in her voice. “The stakes are so high. Please. Just give me until tomorrow.”