Just One Look by Harlan Coben Read Free Book Online Page B

liver. It felt like a barbecue skewer. The pain exploded through him.
    Rocky’s mouth opened, but the scream wouldn’t come out. He fell to the ground. Wu dropped down next to him. The last thing Rocky saw-the last thing he would ever see-was Eric Wu’s face, calm and serene, as he placed his hands under Rocky’s rib cage.
    Lorraine, Rocky thought. And then nothing more.

chapter 5
    Grace caught herself mid-scream. She jerked upright. The light was still on in the hallway. A silhouette stood in her doorway. But it wasn’t Jack.
    She awoke, still gasping. A dream. She knew that. On some elusive level, she had known that midway through. She’d had this dream before, plenty of times, though not in a long time. Must be the upcoming anniversary, she thought.
    She tried to settle back. It wouldn’t happen. The dream always started and ended the same. The variations occurred in the middle.
    In the dream Grace was back at the old Boston Garden. The stage was directly in front of her. There was a steel blockade, short, maybe waist-high, like something you might use to lock your bike. She leaned against it.
    The loudspeaker played “Pale Ink,” but that was impossible because the concert hadn’t even started yet. “Pale Ink” was the big hit from the Jimmy X Band, the best-selling single of the year. You still hear it on the radio all the time. It would be played live, not on some waiting-time recording. But if this dream was like some movie, “Pale Ink” was, if you will, the soundtrack.
    Was Todd Woodcroft, her boyfriend at the time, standing next to her? She sometimes imagined holding his hand-though they were never the hand-holding kind of couple-and then, when it went wrong, the stomach-dropping feel of his hand slipping away from hers. In reality, Todd was probably right next to her. In the dream, only sometimes. This time, no, he was not there. Todd had escaped that night unscathed. She never blamed him for what happened to her. There was nothing he could have done. Todd had never even visited her in the hospital. She didn’t blame him for that either. Theirs was a college romance already on the skids, not a soul-mate situation. Who needed a scene at this stage of the game? Who’d want to break up with a girl in the hospital? Better for both, she thought, to let it just sort of drift away.
    In the dream, Grace knows that tragedy is about to strike, but she does nothing about it. Her dream self does not call out a warning or try to make for the exit. She often wondered why, but wasn’t that how dreams worked? You are powerless even with foreknowledge, a slave to some advanced hardwiring in your subconscious. Or perhaps the answer is simpler: There was no time. In the dream, the tragedy begins in seconds. In reality, according to witnesses, Grace and the others had stood in front of that stage for more than four hours.
    The crowd’s mood had slid from excited to antsy to restless before stopping at hostile. Jimmy X, real name James Xavier Farmington, the gorgeous rocker with the glorious hair, was supposed to take the stage at 8:30 P.M., though no one really expected him before nine. Now it was closing in on midnight. At first the crowd had been chanting Jimmy’s name. Now a chorus of boos had started up. Sixteen thousand people, including those, like Grace, who had been lucky enough to get standing seats in the pit, rose as one, demanding their performance. Ten minutes passed before the loudspeaker finally offered up some feedback. The crowd, having reverted to their earlier state of fevered excitement, went wild.
    But the voice that came over the loudspeaker did not introduce the band. In a straight monotone, it announced that tonight’s performance had been delayed again for at least an hour. No explanation. For a moment nobody moved. Silence filled the arena.
    This was where the dream began, during that lull before the devastation. Grace was there again. How old was she? She had been twenty-one, but in the