Long Lost - By Harlan Coben Page 0,31

at the Claridge's hotel in the center of London. Win had rented the Davies penthouse. There was a spacious sitting room and three huge bedrooms, all with four-poster king-size beds and those wonderfully deep marble tubs and showerheads the size of manhole covers. We threw open the French windows. The terrace offered up a wonderful view of the London rooftops, but frankly I'd had my fill of views. Terese stood out there in dead-woman-walking mode. She went from numb to emotional. She was devastated, sure, but there was hope. I think hope scared her the most.

"Do you want to come back inside?" I asked.

"Give me a minute."

I'm not necessarily an expert on body language but every muscle in her being seemed coiled and locked in a protective stance. I waited near the French windows. Her bedroom was sunflower yellow 'n' blue. I looked at the four-poster bed, and maybe it was wrong, but I wanted to pick her up and carry her to that beautiful bed and make love to her for hours.

Okay, no "maybe." It was wrong. But.

When I say stuff like this out loud, Win calls me a little girl.

I stared now at her bare shoulder and I remembered a day after we had come from that island, after she came to New Jersey and helped me and she smiled, really smiled, for the first time since I had known her, and I thought that I might be falling for her. Usually I go into relationships like, well, a girl, thinking long-term. This time it sneaked up on me and she smiled and we made love differently that night, a little more tenderly, and when we were done I kissed that bare shoulder and then she cried, also for the first time. Smiled and cried for the first time with me.

A few days later, she was gone.

Terese turned and looked at me, and it was as though she could tell what I was thinking. We finally moved into the sitting room with barrel-vaulted ceilings and crisp wooden floors. The fireplace crackled. Win, Terese, and I took our places in the plush surroundings and coldly discussed our next steps.

Terese dived right in. "We need to figure out how to exhume the body in my daughter's grave-if there is a body."

She said it just like that. No tears, no hesitation.

"We should a hire a lawyer," I said.

"A solicitor," Win said, correcting me. "We're in London. We don't use the term 'lawyer,' Myron. We say solicitor."

I just looked at him, refraining from asking, How about the term "anal douche bag"? Do we use that in London?

"I will have my people look into it first thing in the morning."

Lock-Horne Investments had a London branch on Curzon Street.

"We should also start looking into the accident," I said. "See if we can get ahold of the police file, talk to the investigating officers, that kind of thing."

Everyone agreed. The conversation continued like this, as if we were in a boardroom launching a new product instead of wondering if Terese's daughter who had "died" in a car crash might still be alive. Crazy to even think it. Win started making calls. We found out that Karen Tower, Rick Collins's wife, still lived in the same house in London. Terese and I would go by in the morning and talk to her.

After a while, Terese took two Valiums, headed into her room, and closed the door. Win opened a cabinet. I was exhausted, what with the jet lag and the day I'd had. It was hard to think that I had landed in Paris that very morning. But I didn't want to leave the room. I love sitting with Win like this. He had a snifter of cognac in his hand. I usually favored a chocolate drink called Yoo-hoo, but tonight I stuck with Evian. We ordered up some room service munchies.

I loved the normalcy.

Mee popped her head into the room and looked at Win. He mouthed a no in her direction. Her pretty face vanished.

Win said, "It's not yet Mee time."

I shook my head.

"What specifically is your problem with Mee?"

"Mee as in the stewardess, right?"

"Flight attendant," he said-again with the terminology. "Like with solicitor."

"She looks young."

"She's almost twenty." Win gave a small laugh. "I so love when you don't approve."

"I'm not in the judging business," I said.

"Good, because I'm trying to make a point here."

"About?"

"About you and Ms. Collins on the plane. You, my dear friend, see sex as an act that requires an emotional