The Woods by Harlan Coben Read Free Book Online Page A

bills were ordinary-electric, water, their account at the local liquor store, janitorial services, cable TV, online services, Netflix, pizza delivered via the Internet…
    Hold up.
    I thought about that. I thought about my victim's statement, I didn't have to read it again. It was disgusting and rather specific. The two boys had made Chamique do things, had put her in different positions, had talked the whole time. But something about it all, the way they moved her around, positioned her…
    My phone rang. It was Loren Muse.
    "Good news?" I asked.
    "Only if the expression 'No news is good news' is really true."
    "It's not," I said.
    "Damn."
    "Anything on your end?" she asked.
    Cal and Jim. What the hell was I missing? It was there, just out of reach. You know that feeling, when something you know is right around the corner, like the name of the dog on Petticoat Junction or what was the name of the boxer Mr. T played in Rocky III. It was like that. Right out of reach.
    Cal and Jim.
    The answer was here somewhere, just hiding, just around that mental corner. Damned if I wasn't going to keep running until I caught that sumbitch and nailed him to the wall.
    "Not yet," I said. "But let's keep working on it."
    Early the next morning, Detective York sat across from Mr. and Mrs. Perez.
    "Thank you for coming in," he said.
    Twenty years ago, Mrs. Perez had worked in the camp's laundry, but I'd only seen her once since the tragedy. There had been a meeting of the victims' families, the wealthy Greens, the wealthier Billinghams, the poor Copelands, the poorer Perezes, in a big fancy law office not far from where we now were. The case had gone class action with the four families against the camp owner. The Perezes had barely spoken that day. They'd sat and listened and let the others rant and take the lead. I remember Mrs. Perez had kept her purse on her lap and clutched it. Now she had it on the table, but both hands were still bolted to its sides.
    They were in an interrogation room. At the suggestion of Detective York, I watched from behind one-way glass. He didn't want them to see me yet. That made sense.
    "Why are we here?" Mr. Perez asked.
    Perez was heavyset, his button-down shirt a size too small so that his gut strained the buttons.
    "This isn't easy to say." Detective York glanced at the mirror and while his gaze was off, I knew that he was seeking me out. "So I'm just going to come out with it."
    Mr. Perez's eyes narrowed. Mrs. Perez tightened her grip on the purse. I wondered idly if it was the same purse from fifteen years ago.
    Weird where the mind goes at times like this.
    "There was a murder yesterday in the Washington Heights section of Manhattan," York said. "We found the body in an alley near 157th Street."
    I kept my eyes on their faces. The Perezes gave away nothing.
    "The victim is male and appears to be between the ages of thirty-five and forty years old. He is five-ten and weighs one hundred seventy pounds." Detective York's voice had fallen into a professional rhythm. "The man was using an alias, so we are having trouble identifying him."
    York stopped. Classic technique. See if they end up saying some thing. Mr. Perez did. "I don't understand what that has to do with us." Mrs. Perez's eyes slid toward her husband, but the rest of her did not move.
    "I'm getting to that."
    I could almost see York's wheels spinning, wondering what approach to take, start talking about the clippings in the pocket, the ring, what. I could almost imagine him rehearsing the words in his head and realizing how idiotic they sounded. Clippings, rings, they don't really prove anything. Suddenly even I had my doubts. Here we were, at the moment when the Perezes' world was about to be gut-torn open like a slaughtered calf. I was glad that I was behind glass.
    "We brought in a witness to identify the body," York went on. "This witness seems to feel that the victim could be your son Gil."
    Mrs. Perez closed her eyes. Mr. Perez stiffened. For a