Read Online Just One Look by Harlan Coben - Free Book Online

didn’t remember.
    “License plate?”
    “It begins with an M.”
    Officer Daley looked up. Grace felt like a moron.
    “I have a copy of the registration upstairs,” she said. “I can check.”
    “Do you use E-ZPass at tollbooths?”
    “Yes.”
    Officer Daley nodded and wrote that down. Grace headed upstairs and found the file. She made a copy with her scanner and gave it to Officer Daley. He wrote something down. He asked a few questions. She stuck with the facts: Jack had come home from work, helped put the children to bed, gone out, probably for groceries… and that was it.
    After about five minutes, Daley seemed satisfied. He smiled and told her not to worry. She stared at him.
    “We’ll check back with you in a few hours. If we hear nothing by then, let’s talk some more.”
    He left. Grace tried Jack’s office again. Still no answer. She checked the clock. It was nearly 10 A.M. The Photomat would be opening now. Good.
    She had some questions for Josh the Fuzz Pellet.

chapter 6
    Charlaine Swain slipped on her new online lingerie purchase-a Regal Lace babydoll with matching G-string-and pulled up her bedroom shade.
    Something was wrong.
    The day was Tuesday. The time was 10:30 A.M. Charlaine’s children were at school. Her husband Mike would be at his desk in the city, the phone wedged between shoulder and ear, his fingers busy rolling and unrolling his shirtsleeves, his collar tighter by the day but his ego too proud to admit the need for a bigger size.
    Her neighbor, the scuzzy creepazoid named Freddy Sykes, should be home by now.
    Charlaine glanced toward the mirror. She didn’t do that often. There was no need to remind herself that she was over forty. The image that stared back was still shapely, she guessed, helped no doubt by the babydoll’s underwired support-but what had once been considered buxom and curvaceous had weakened and loosened. Oh, Charlaine worked out. There was yoga class-yoga being this year’s Tae Bo or Step-three mornings a week. She stayed fit, battling against the obvious and unbeatable, holding tight even as it slipped away.
    What had happened to her?
    Forget the physical for a second. The young Charlaine Swain had been a bundle of energy. She had zest for life. She was ambitious and a go-getter. Everyone said it. There was always a spark with Charlaine, a crackle in the air, and somewhere, somehow, life-just plain living-had extinguished it.
    Were the children to blame? Was it Mike? There was a time when he couldn’t get enough of her, when an outfit like this would make his eyes widen and his mouth water. Now when she strutted by, he would barely look up.
    When had that started?
    She couldn’t put her finger on it. She knew the process had been gradual, the change so slow as to be almost indiscernible, until, alas, it was a
fait accompli
. It hadn’t all been his fault. She knew that. Her drive had waned, especially during the years of pregnancies, post-natal nursing, the ensuing exhaustion of infants. That was natural, she supposed. Everyone went through that. Still she wished that she had made more of an effort before the temporary changes hardened into something apathetic and enduring.
    The memories, however, were still there. Mike used to romance her. He used to surprise her. He used to lust after her. He used to-and yes, this might sound crude-jump her bones. Now what he wanted was efficiency, something mechanical and precise-the dark, a grunt, a release, sleep.
    When they talked, it was about the kids-the class schedules, the pickups, the homework, the dentist appointments, the Little League games, the Biddy Basketball program, the play-dates. But that wasn’t just Mike’s fault either. When Charlaine had coffee with the women in the neighborhood-the Mommy and Me meetings at Starbucks-the conversations were so cloying, so boring, so stuffed with all things children, that she wanted to scream.
    Charlaine Swain was being smothered.
    Her mother-the idle queen of the