The Woods by Harlan Coben Read Free Book Online

of the stick.
    I started preparing dinner. We eat out most nights or order in. I do have a nanny-housekeeper, but today was her day off. "Hot dogs sound good?"
    "Whatever."
    The phone rang. I picked it up.
    "Mr. Copeland? This is Detective Tucker York."
    "Yes, Detective, what can I do for you?"
    "We located Gil Perez's parents."
    I felt my grip tighten on the phone. "Did they identify the body?"
    "Not yet."
    "What did you tell them?"
    "Look, no offense, Mr. Copeland, but this isn't the kind of thing you just say over the phone, you know? 'Your dead child might have been alive this whole time-and oh yeah, he's just been murdered'?"
    "I understand."
    "So we were pretty vague. We're going to bring them in and see if we can get an ID. But here's the other thing: How sure are you that it's Gil Perez?"
    "Pretty sure."
    "You understand that's not really good enough."
    "I do."
    "And anyway, it's late. My partner and I are off duty. So we're going to have one of our men drive the Perezes down tomorrow morning."
    "So this is, what, a courtesy call?"
    "Something like that. I understand your interest. And maybe you should be here in the morning, you know, in case any weird questions come up."
    "Where?"
    "The morgue again. You need a ride?"
    "No, I know my way."

Chapter 5
    A FEW HOURS LATER I TUCKED MY DAUGHTER INTO BED. Cara never gives me trouble at bedtime. We have a wonderful routine. I read to her. I do not do it because all the parenting magazines tell me to. I do it because she adores it. It never puts her to sleep. I read to her every night and not once has she done as much as doze. I have. Some of the books are awful. I fall asleep right in her bed. She lets me.
    I couldn't keep up with her voracious desire for books to be read to her, so I started getting books on audio. I read to her and then she can listen to one side of a tape, usually forty-five minutes, before it is time to close her eyes and go to sleep. Cara understands and likes this rule.
    I am reading Ronald Dahl to her right now. Her eyes are wide. Last year, when I took her to see the stage production of The Lion King, I bought her a terribly overpriced Timon doll. She has it gripped in her right arm. Timon is a pretty avid listener too.
    I finished reading and gave Cara a kiss on the cheek. She smelled like baby shampoo. "Good night, Daddy," she said.
    "Good night, Pumpkin."
    Kids. One moment they're like Medea having a bad mood swing, the next they are God-kissed angels.
    I snapped on the tape player and snapped off her light. I headed down to my home office and turned on the computer. I have a hook-up to my work files. I opened up the rape case of Chamique Johnson and started poring over it.
    Cal and Jim.
    My victim wasn't what we call jury-pool sympathetic. Chamique was sixteen and had a child out of wedlock. She had been arrested twice for solicitation, once for possession of marijuana. She worked parties as an exotic dancer, and yes, that is an euphemism for stripper. People would wonder what she was doing at that party. That sort of thing did not discourage me. It makes me fight harder. Not because I care about political correctness, but because I am into, very into, justice. If Chamique had been a blond student council vice-president from lily-white Livingston and the boys were black, I mean, come on.
    Chamique was a person, a human being. She did not deserve what Barry Marantz and Edward Jenrette did to her.
    And I was going to nail their asses to the wall.
    I went back to the beginning of the case and sifted through it again. The frat house was a ritzy affair with marble columns and Greek letters and fresh paint and carpeting. I checked telephone records. There was a massive amount of them, each kid having his own private line, not to mention cell phones, text messaging, e-mails, Blackberry’s. One of Muses investigators had backtracked every outgoing phone number from that night. There were more than a hundred, but nothing that stuck out. The rest of the