Read Online What Comes Next by John Katzenbach - Free Book Online Page A

breasts, narrow hips, and long legs—seemed like memories he could feel. She shook her dark mane of hair and frowned at him, her mouth turning down at the corners in a small way that he recognized; it meant that she was very serious, and that he needed to pay attention to each word. He had learned early in their life together the look that spoke to something more important.
    “You look beautiful,” he said. “Do you remember when we went to the Cape in August and went skinny-dipping in the ocean that one night, and then couldn’t find our clothes in the dunes after the current knocked us down the beach?”
    Cassandra shook her head. “Of course I remember. It was our first summer together. I remember everything. But that’s not why I’m here. You know what you saw.”
    Adrian wanted to run the tips of his fingers down her skin so that he could remind himself of every electric touch from their past. But he was afraid that if he reached out she would disappear. He did not fully understand his relationship with her hallucination, what the rules were. But he knew that he did not want her to leave.
    “That’s not altogether true,” he replied slowly. “I’m not at all sure.”
    “I know it isn’t exactly your field,” Cassie said. “Not precisely. You were never one of the forensic boys—you know, the guys who liked to deconstruct serial killers and terrorists and then entertain their classes with gory stories. You liked all those rats in cages and mazes and figuring out what they were going to do with the right stimuli. But you absolutely know enough about abnormal psychology to assess the case at hand.”
    “It could have been anything. And when I called, the police told me—”
    Cassie interrupted him. She pushed her head back, another familiar gesture where she looked for answers in the ceiling or the sky. This would happen when he was being obstinate. She had been an artist, and she had an artist’s appreciation of events: Draw a line, make a stroke of color on a canvas, and it will all become clear. She always followed this look to the heavens gesture with something pointed and demanding. It was a habit that he’d loved because she had always been so absolutely certain.
    “I don’t care what they told you. She was there, on the side of the road, and then she was gone. It was a crime. It had to be. You witnessed it. By accident. Only you. So now you have a few stray pieces of a really difficult puzzle. It’s up to you. Put them together.”
    Adrian hesitated.
    “Will you help me? I’m sick. I mean, Possum, I’m really sick. I don’t know how much longer anything is going to work for me. Things are already sliding. Things are already coming unraveled. If I take this on—whatever it is—I don’t know that I can survive it…”
    “You were going to shoot yourself a few minutes ago,” Cassie said briskly as if that explained everything. She raised her hand and gestured broadly toward the Ruger 9.
    “I wanted to be with you. And with Tommy. I didn’t think it made any sense to wait any longer.”
    “Except you saw the girl on the street and she disappeared and this is important.”
    “I don’t even know who she is.”
    “Whoever she is, she still deserves a chance to live. And you’re the only one who can give it to her.”
    “I don’t even know where to start.”
    “Pieces of a puzzle. Save her, Adrian.”
    “I’m not a police detective.”
    “But you can think like one, only better.”
    “I’m old and I’m sick and I can’t think straight anymore.”
    “You can still think straight enough. Just this last time. Then it will all be over.”
    “I can’t do it alone.”
    “You won’t be alone.”
    “I could never save anyone. I couldn’t save you or Tommy or my brother or any of the people I really loved. How can I save someone I don’t even know?”
    “Isn’t that the answer we all try to find?”
    Cassie was smiling now. He knew that she knew that she had won the