Myron"s final image of his brother was Brad on the floor, looking up at him in shock, Kitty trying to stem the blood pouring from his nose.
When Myron got home, he couldn"t tell his father what he"d done. Even repeating Kitty"s awful lie might give it credence. So instead Myron lied to his father. "I apologized, but Brad wouldn"t listen. You should talk to him, Dad. He"ll listen to you."
But his father shook his head. "If that was Brad"s att.i.tude, maybe this is what"s meant to be. Maybe we need to let him go and find his way."
So they did. And now they were all back together for the first time, at a graveyard three thousand miles from home.
After another silent minute had pa.s.sed, Al Bolitar shook his head and said, "This should never be." He stopped and looked up at the sky. "A father should never have to say the Kaddish for his son."
With that, he started back down the path.
After putting Mom and Dad on a flight from LAX to Miami, Myron and Mickey boarded a plane for Newark Airport. They flew in silence. After landing, they grabbed Myron"s car from long-term parking and started up the Garden State Parkway. Neither spoke for the first twenty minutes of the drive. When Mickey saw them pa.s.s the Livingston exit, he finally said something.
"Where are we going?"
"You"ll see."
Ten minutes later, they pulled into the strip mall lot. Myron put the car in park and smiled at Mickey. Mickey looked out the windshield, then back at Myron.
"You"re taking me for ice cream?"
"Come on," Myron said.
"You"re kidding me, right?"
When they entered the SnowCap ice cream parlor, Kimberly wheeled over to them with her big smile and said, "Hey, you"re back! What can I get you?"
"Set up my nephew here with your SnowCap Melter. I need to talk to your father for a minute."
"Sure thing. He"s in the back room."
Karl Snow was going over invoices when Myron entered the room. He looked up at him over his reading gla.s.ses. "You promised you wouldn"t be back."
"Sorry about that."
"So why are you here?"
"Because you lied to me. You kept trying to peddle how pragmatic you"d been. Your daughter was dead, you said, and nothing could bring her back. There was no way Gabriel Wire would go to jail for it. So you took the hush money to help Kimberly. You explained it beautifully and rationally-and I just couldn"t buy a word of it. Not after I saw how you were with Kimberly. And then I thought about the order."
"What order?"
"Lex Ryder calls Suzze and tells her that Gabriel Wire is dead. Suzze is in shock. She"s skeptical, so she visits Kitty to confirm that Lex is telling the truth. Okay, I get that." Myron tilted his head. "But why then would Suzze go immediately from Kitty-the only one who witnessed Gabriel"s murder-to you?"
Karl Snow said nothing. He didn"t have to. Myron knew now. Lex had thought that Ache and Crisp killed Wire, but that made no sense. They had a good thing going with HorsePower.
"Gabriel Wire was rich and connected and going to get away with killing Alista. You saw that. You saw that he would never face justice for what he did to your daughter. So you acted. It"s ironic in a way."
"What is?"
"The whole world thinks you sold out your daughter."
"So?" Karl Snow said. "You think that matters to me? What the world thinks?"
"I guess not."
"I told you before. Sometimes you have to love a child privately. Sometimes you have to grieve privately."
And sometimes you have to get justice privately.
"Are you going to say anything?" Snow asked.
"No."
He didn"t look relieved. He probably was thinking the same thing as Myron. The ripples. If Snow hadn"t gone vigilante-if he hadn"t killed Gabriel Wire-Kitty wouldn"t have witnessed it and run away. Myron"s brother might still be alive. Suzze T too. But you could only take that sort of logic so far. Myron"s own father had expressed the outrage of a parent outliving a child. Karl Snow"s daughter had been murdered. Right, wrong, who knew anymore?
Myron rose then and moved to the door. He turned to say good-bye, but Karl Snow kept his head down, studying those invoices with a little too much concentration. Back in the ice cream parlor, Mickey was working on the SnowCap Melter. Kimberly had wheeled her chair over to cheer him on. She lowered her voice and whispered something that made Mickey explode with laughter.
Myron again flashed to his fist heading toward his brother. Only one thing helped now. The pa.s.sport. Per Kitty"s instructions, he had looked at it closely. First he checked the stamps, the many countries they visited. But that wasn"t what Kitty wanted him to see. It was the first page, the identification page. He studied it again and looked closely at Mickey"s name. His real name. Myron had a.s.sumed that Mickey was a nickname for Michael. But it wasn"t.
Mickey"s real first name was Myron.
Kimberly said something else, something so funny that Mickey put down the spoon, sat back, and laughed-really just let go and laughed-for the first time since Myron had known him. The sound twisted in Myron"s chest. The laugh was so familiar, so much like Brad"s, as though the laugh had started in some distant memory, some wonderful moment two brothers shared long ago, and had just echoed through the years until it found its way into this ice cream parlor, into the heart of Brad"s son.
Myron stood and listened, and while he knew the echo would quiet again, he hoped that maybe it would never go silent.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS.
This is the part where I get to thank the band-and what an eclectic band it is. In alphabetical order: Christine Ball, Eliane Benesti, David Berkeley (the parachute line), Anne Armstrong-Coben, Yvonne Craig, Diane Discepolo, Missy Higgins, Ben Sevier, Brian Tart, Lisa Erbach Vance, and Jon Wood.
This is a work of a fiction. That means I make stuff up. So if you"re wondering whether I based the character on so-and-so, or if there really is someone like this in your town or kid"s school, the answer is no.
For those who enjoyed meeting Myron"s nephew, the story of Mickey Bolitar-and by extension, Myron-will continue in my new young adult novel Shelter Shelter, coming in fall 2011. For details, and to read a sample chapter, go to www.HarlanCoben.com. Warning: The sample may contain a Live Wire Live Wire spoiler. Do not read it until you have finished this book. spoiler. Do not read it until you have finished this book.
As always, I thank you.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR.
Harlan Coben is the author of nineteen previous novels, including the #1 is the author of nineteen previous novels, including the #1 New York Times New York Times bestsellers bestsellers Caught Caught, Long Lost Long Lost, and Hold Tight Hold Tight, as well as Play Dead Play Dead and the popular Myron Bolitar series. Winner of the Edgar, Shamus, and Anthony Awards, Coben lives in New Jersey. and the popular Myron Bolitar series. Winner of the Edgar, Shamus, and Anthony Awards, Coben lives in New Jersey.
ALSO BY HARLAN COBEN.
Play Dead
Miracle Cure
Deal Breaker
Drop Shot
Fade Away
Back Spin
One False Move
The Final Detail
Darkest Fear
Tell No One
Gone for Good
No Second Chance
Just One Look
The Innocent
Promise Me
The Woods
Hold Tight
Long Lost
Caught