Read Online Three Harlan Coben Novels by Harlan Coben - Free Book Online Page A

eh?”
    “A little.”
    “We’re getting older, Myron.”
    “I know.”
    “There are more aches and pains now.”
    Myron nodded.
    “Seems to me you have a choice when things hurt,” Erik said. “You can sit out—or you can try to play through the pain.”
    Erik jogged away, leaving Myron to wonder if he’d still been talking about basketball.

CHAPTER 9
    B ack in the car, Myron’s cell phone rang again. He checked the caller ID. Again nothing.
    “Hello?”
    “You’re a bastard, Myron.”
    “Yeah, I got that the first time. Do you have any new material or are we going to follow up with that original line about me paying for what I’ve done?”
    Click.
    Myron shrugged it off. Back in the days when he used to play superhero, he had been a rather well-connected fellow. It was time to see if that still held. He checked his cell phone’s directory. The number for Gail Berruti, his old contact from the telephone company, was still there. People think it’s unrealistic how private eyes in TV can get phone records with a snap. The truth is, it was beyond easy. Every decent private eye has a source in the phone company. Think about how many people work for Ma Bell. Think how many of them wouldn’t mind making an extra buck or two. The going rate had been five hundred dollars per billing statement, but Myron imagined the price had gone up in the past six years.
    Berruti wasn’t in—she was probably off for the weekend—but he left a message.
    “This is a voice from your past,” Myron began.
    He asked Berruti to get back to him with the trace on the phone number. He tried Aimee’s cell phone again. It went to her voice mail. When he got home, he headed to the computer and Googled the number. Nothing came up. He took a quick shower and then checked his e-mail. Jeremy, his sorta-son, had written him an e-mail from overseas:

    Hey, Myron—
    We’re only allowed to say that we’re in the Persian Gulf area. I’m doing well. Mom sounds crazy. Give her a call if you can. She still doesn’t understand. Dad doesn’t either, but at least he pretends he does. Thanks for the package.
    We love getting stuff.
    I got to go. I’ll write more later, but I might be out of touch for a while. Call Mom, okay?
    Jeremy

    Myron read it again and then again, but the words didn’t change. The e-mail, like most of Jeremy’s, said nothing. He didn’t like that “out of touch” part. He thought about parenting, how he had missed so much of it, all of it really, and how this kid, his son, fit into his life now. It was working, he thought, at least for Jeremy. But it was hard. The kid was the biggest what-could-have-been, the biggest if-only-I’d-known, and most of the time, it just plain hurt.
    Still staring at the message, Myron heard his cell phone. He cursed under his breath, but this time the caller ID told him it was the divine Ms. Ali Wilder.
    Myron smiled as he answered it. “Stallion Services,” he said.
    “Sheesh, suppose it was one of my kids on the phone.”
    “I’d pretend to be a horse seller,” he said.
    “A horse seller?”
    “Whatever they call people who sell horses.”
    “What time is your flight?”
    “Four o’clock.”
    “You busy?”
    “Why?”
    “The kids will be out of the house for the next hour.”
    “Whoa,” he said.
    “My thoughts exactly.”
    “Are you suggesting a little righteous nookie?”
    “I am.” Then: “Righteous?”
    “It’ll take me some time to get there.”
    “Uh-huh.”
    “And it’ll have to be a quickie.”
    “Isn’t that your specialty?” she said.
    “Now that hurt.”
    “Only kidding. Stallion.”
    He brayed. “That’s horse-speak for ‘I’m on my way.’ ”
    “Righteous,” she said.
    But when he knocked on her door, Erin answered it. “Hey, Myron.”
    “Hey,” he said, trying not to sound disappointed.
    He glanced behind her. Ali shrugged a sorry at him.
    Myron stepped inside. Erin ran upstairs. Ali came closer. “She got in late and didn’t