Scott Duncan left then. Grace stood and headed into her studio. She had not painted since Jack’s death. She put the cassette into her portable player and pressed the play button.
She picked up a brush and tried to paint. She wanted to paint him. She wanted to paint Jack-not John, not Shane. Jack. She thought it would come out muddled and confused, but that wasn’t what happened at all. The brush soared and danced across the canvas. She started thinking again about how we can never know everything about our loved ones. And maybe, if you think about it hard, we don’t even know everything about ourselves.
The cassette ended. She rewound it and started it again. She worked in a delirious and delightful frenzy. Tears ran down her cheeks. She did not brush them away. At some point she glanced at a clock. Soon it would be time to stop. School would be letting out. She had to get the kids. Emma had piano today. Max had traveling-team soccer practice.
Grace grabbed her purse and locked the door behind her.
Acknowledgments
The author wishes to thank the following for their technical expertise: Mitchell F. Reiter, MD, Chief, Division of Spine Surgery, UMDNJ (aka “Cuz”); David A. Gold, MD; Christopher J. Christie, United States attorney for the state of New Jersey; Captain Keith Killion of the Ridgewood Police Department; Steven Miller, MD, Director of Pediatric Emergency Medicine, Children’s Hospital of New York Presbyterian; John Elias; Anthony Dellapelle (the nonfictional one); Jennifer van Dam; Linda Fairstein; and Craig Coben (aka “Bro”). As always, if there are errors, technical or otherwise, the fault is with these people. I’m tired of being the fall guy.
A nod of gratitude to Carole Baron, Mitch Hoffman, Lisa Johnson, and all at Dutton and Penguin Group USA; Jon Woods, Malcolm Edwards, Susan Lamb, Juliet Ewers, Nicky Jeanes, Emma Noble and the gang at Orion; Aaron Priest, Lisa Erbach Vance, Bryant and Hil (for helping me over that first hump), Mike and Taylor (for helping me over the second one), and Maggie Griffin.
Characters in this book may share a name with people I know, but they are still completely fictional. In fact, this entire novel is a work of fiction. That means I make stuff up.
A special thanks to Charlotte Coben for Emma’s poems. All rights reserved, as they say.
About The Author
Harlan Coben is the author of ten previous novels, including the New York Times bestsellers No Second Chance (chosen as the first ever International Book-of-the-Month Club selection), Gone for Good, and Tell No One. He lives in New Jersey with his wife and family.
