The Stranger by Harlan Coben Read Free Book Online Page B

quadratic function f given by f(x) = 2x 2 – 6x = 4. A number two pencil lay snuggled in the book’s crevice. Sheets of white-with-light-blue-squares graph paper were strewn everywhere. Some of the sheets had fallen to the floor.
    Adam bent down, picked them up, and put them back on the table. He stared down at the homework for a moment.
    Tread gently, Adam reminded himself. This wasn’t just his and Corinne’s dream at stake here.

Chapter 6
    T homas’s game was just starting when Adam and Ryan arrived.
    With a quiet “Later, Dad,” Ryan immediately peeled off to hang with fellow younger siblings and not risk being seen with a real-live parent. Adam headed to the left side of the field, the “away team” section, where the other Cedarfield parents would be.
    There were no metallic stands, but some parents brought folding chairs so as to have a place to sit. Corinne kept four mesh ones in her minivan, all with cup holders on both arms (did anyone really need two for one chair?) and a shade for above the head. Most of the time—like right now—she preferred to stand. Kristin Hoy was next to her, wearing a sleeveless top with shorts so tiny that they had Daddy issues.
    Adam nodded to a few parents as he strolled toward his wife. Tripp Evans stood in the corner with several other fathers, all with arms crossed and sunglasses, looking more like the Secret Service than spectators. To the right, a smirking Gaston hung with his cousin Daz (yes, everyone called him that), who owned CBW Inc., a high-end corporate investigation firm that specialized in employee background checks. Cousin Daz also ran less extensive background checks on every coach in the league to make sure that none had a criminal record or anything like that. Gaston had insisted the lacrosse board hire the high-priced CBW Inc. for this seemingly simple task, one that could be done far more cheaply online, because, hey, what are families for?
    Corinne spotted Adam approaching and moved a few feet away from Kristin. When Adam got close, she whispered in near panic, “Thomas isn’t starting.”
    “The coach is always rotating the lines,” Adam said. “I wouldn’t worry about it.”
    But she would and she was. “Pete Baime started over him.” Son of Gaston. That explained the smirk. “He’s not even cleared from his concussion yet. How can he be back already?”
    “Do I look like his doctor, Corinne?”
    “Come on, Tony!” a woman shouted. “Make the clear!”
    Adam didn’t have to be told that the woman shouting was Tony’s mother. Had to be. When a parent calls out to her own child, you can always tell. There is that harsh ping of disappointment and exasperation in their voice. No parent believes they sound this way. Every parent does. We all hear it. We all think that only other parents do it but that magically we are immune.
    An old Croatian proverb Adam had learned in college applied here: “The hunchback sees the hump of others—never his own.”
    Three minutes passed. Thomas still hadn’t gotten in. Adam sneaked a glance at Corinne. Her jaw was set. She was staring at the far sideline, at the coach, as though willing him through the power of her glare to put Thomas into the game.
    “It’ll be okay,” Adam said.
    “He’s always in the game by now. What do you think happened?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “Pete shouldn’t be playing.”
    Adam didn’t bother responding. Pete caught the ball and threw it to a teammate in the most routine play imaginable. From across the field, Gaston shouted, “Wow, helluva play, Pete!” and high-fived cousin Daz.
    “What kind of grown man calls himself Daz?” Adam muttered.
    “What?”
    “Nothing.”
    Corinne gnawed on her lower lip. “We were a minute or two late, I guess. I mean, we were here fifty-five minutes before game time, but the coach said an hour.”
    “I doubt it’s that.”
    “I should have left the house sooner.”
    Adam felt like saying that they had bigger problems, but