Stay Close by Harlan Coben Read Free Book Online

Ray had been on seventeen years ago. Why? What had Carlton Flynn been doing here? Sure, he could have just been another hiker or adventurer. But why had he been here, in this very spot, seventeen years after Ray had been here, and then disappeared? Where had he gone from here?
     
    No idea.
     
    Ray’s limp was hard to notice anymore. It was still there if you looked closely, but Ray had learned to cover it up. When he startedup the hill so that he was standing exactly where he’d been when he’d taken the photograph of Carlton Flynn, the always-present twinge from his old injury flared up. The rest of his body still ached from last night’s attack too, but for now Ray was able to move past it.
     
    Something caught his eye.
     
    He stopped and squinted back down the path. The sun was bright. Maybe that was it—that and the strange angle on this little hill. You wouldn’t see it if you were on the path, but something was reflecting back at him, something right at the edge of the woods, right up against the big boulder. Ray frowned and stumbled toward it.
     
    What the… ?
     
    When he got closer, he bent down to get a closer look. He reached his hand out but pulled back before he touched it. There was no question in his mind. He took out his camera and started snapping pictures.
     
    There, on the ground almost behind the boulder, was a streak of dried blood.
     

5
     
    M EGAN LAY IN BED READING a magazine. Dave lay next to her, watching television, the clicker in hand. For men the TV remote control was like a pacifier or security blanket. They simply could not watch television without holding one close, always at the ready.
    It was a little after ten P.M. Jordan was already asleep. Kaylie was another story.
     
    Dave said, “Do you want the honors or should I?”
     
    Megan sighed. “You did it the last two nights.”
     
    Dave smiled, eyes on the television. “The last three nights. But who’s counting?”
     
    She put down her magazine. Kaylie’s bedtime was a firm ten P.M. , but she never went on her own, waiting until one of her parents insisted. Megan rolled out of bed and padded down the corridor. She would yell out, “Go to sleep NOW!” but that was equally exhausting and could potentially wake up Jordan.
     
    Megan stuck her head in the room. “Bedtime.”
     
    Kaylie didn’t even glance away from the monitor. “Just fifteen more minutes, okay?”
     
    “No. Bedtime is ten P.M. It is almost quarter after.”
     
    “Jen needs help with her homework.”
     
    Megan frowned. “On Facebook?”
     
    “Fifteen minutes, Mom. That’s all.”
     
    But it was never fifteen minutes because in fifteen minutes the lights would still be on and Kaylie would still be on the computer and then Megan would have to get out of bed again and tell her to go to sleep.
     
    “No. Now.”
     
    “But—”
     
    “Do you want to be grounded?”
     
    “God, what’s your problem? Fifteen minutes!”
     
    “NOW!”
     
    “Why are you yelling? You always yell at me.”
     
    And so it went. Megan thought about Lorraine, about her visit, about her not being cut out for kids and those mommies in the corner at Starbucks and how your past never leaves you, neither the good nor the bad, how you pack it into boxes and put it in some closet and you figure that it will be like those boxes you pack in your house—something you keep but never open—and then one day, when the real world closes in on you—you go to that closet and open it again.
     
    When Megan returned to her bedroom, Dave was asleep, the television still on, the remote control in his hand. He was on his back. His shirt was off, his chest rising and falling with a light snore. For a moment Megan stopped and watched him. He was a big man, still in shape, but the years had added layers. His hair was thinning. His jowls were a little thicker. His posture wasn’t what it once was.
     
    He worked too hard. Every weekday he woke up at six thirty, donned a suit and