Six Years by Harlan Coben Read Free Book Online Page A

a finger signaling one minute. I nodded and waited. Five minutes later the door opened and the students streamed out. Shanta stood in the doorway. When the students were gone, she said, “Walk with me. I have to be somewhere.”
    I did. Shanta Newlin had one of the most impressive résumés I’d ever seen. She graduated Stanford as a Rhodes Scholar and attended Columbia Law School. She then worked for both the CIA and FBI before serving in the last administration as an undersecretary of state.
    “So what’s up?”
    Her manner was, as always, brusque. When she first came to campus we had dinner. It wasn’t a date. It was a “let’s see if we want to” date. There is a subtle difference. After that date, she chose not to pursue it, and I was okay with that.
    “I need a favor,” I said.
    Shanta nodded, inviting me to make my request.
    “I’m looking for someone. An old friend. I’ve tried all the usual methods—Google, calling the family, whatever. I can’t get an address.”
    “And you figured that with my old contacts, I’d be able to help.”
    “Something like that,” I said. “Well, yes, exactly like that.”
    “Her name?”
    “I didn’t say it was a she.”
    Shanta frowned. “Name?”
    “Natalie Avery.”
    “When was the last time you saw her or had an address?”
    “Six years ago.”
    Shanta kept walking, military style, ramrod back, very fast. “Was she the one, Jake?”
    “Pardon?”
    A small smile came to her lips. “Do you know why I never followed up on our first date?”
    “It wasn’t really a date,” I said. “It was more a ‘let’s see if we want to’ date.”
    “What?”
    “Never mind. I figured that you didn’t follow up because you had no interest.”
    “Uh, that would be a no. Here is what I saw that night: You’re a great guy, you’re funny, you’re smart, you have a full-time job, and you have blue eyes to die for. Do you know how many single straight guys I’d met with that criteria?”
    I wasn’t sure what to say, so I stayed quiet.
    “But I could sense it. That’s part of being a trained detective, maybe. I study body language. I look for the little things.”
    “Sense what?”
    “You’re damaged goods.”
    “Gee, thanks.”
    She shrugged. “Some men carry torches for old loves, and then some guys—not many, but some—get completely consumed by the torch’s flames. It makes them nothing but long-term trouble for the follow-ups.”
    I said nothing.
    “So this Natalie Avery that you’re suddenly desperate to find,” Shanta said. “Is she that flame?”
    What would be the point in lying? “Yes.”
    She stopped and looked way up at me. “And it hurt bad?”
    “You have no idea.”
    Shanta Newlin nodded and started walking away, leaving me behind. “I’ll have her address for you by the end of the day.”

Chapter7
    O n television, the detective always goes back to the scene of the crime. Or, come to think of it, maybe it’s the criminal who does that. Whatever. I was at a dead end, so I figured that I’d go back to where it all happened.
    The retreats in Vermont.
    Lanford was only about forty-five minutes from the Vermont border, but then you had another two hours plus to get up to where Natalie and I first met. Northern Vermont is rural. I grew up in Philadelphia and Natalie was from northern New Jersey. We didn’t know rural like this. Yes, an objective observer might again point out that in such a secluded venue, love would flourish in an unrealistic way. I might agree or I might point out that in the absence of other distractions—like, say, anything—love might suffocate under the weight of too much togetherness, thus making this proof of something far deeper than a summer fling.
    The sun was starting to weaken by the time I passed my old retreat on Route 14. The six-acre “subsistence farm” was run by writer-in-residence Darly Wanatick, who offered critiques of the retreatees’ work. For those who don’t know, subsistence farming