Tell No One - By Harlan Coben Page 0,36

beat her."

"What evidence? You have some photographs. She told my wife she'd been in a car accident."

"Come on, Hoyt." Carlson swept his hand at the photographs. "Look at the expression on your daughter's face. That look like the face of a woman in a car accident?"

No, Hoyt thought, it didn't. "Where did you find these pictures?"

"I'll get to that in a second, but let's go back to my scenario, okay? Let's assume for the moment that Dr. Beck beat your daughter and that he had a hell of an inheritance coming his way."

"Lot of assuming."

"True, but stay with me. Think of the accepted scenario and all those holes. Now compare it with this one: Dr. Beck brings your daughter up to a secluded spot where he knows there will be no witnesses. He hires two thugs to grab her. He knows about KillRoy It's in all the papers. Plus your brother worked on the case. Did he ever discuss it with you or Beck?"

Hoyt sat still for a moment. "Go on."

"The two hired thugs abduct and kill your daughter. Naturally, the first suspect will be the husband - always is in a case like this, right? But the two thugs brand her cheek with the letter K. Next thing we know, it's all blamed on KillRoy

"But Beck was assaulted. His head injury was real."

"Sure, but we both know that's not inconsistent with him being behind it. How would Beck explain coming out of the abduction healthy? "Hi, guess what, someone kidnapped my wife, but I'm fine'? It'd never play. Getting whacked on the head gave his story credibility."

"He took a hell of a shot."

"He was dealing with thugs, Hoyt. They probably miscalculated. And what about his injury anyway? He tells some bizarre story about miraculously crawling out of the water and dialing 911. I gave several doctors Beck's old medical chart. They claim his account of what he did defies medical logic. It would have been pretty much impossible, given his injuries."

Hoyt considered that. He had often wondered about that himself. How had Beck survived and called for help? "What else?" Hoyt said.

"There's strong evidence that suggests the two thugs, not KillRoy, assaulted Beck."

"What evidence?"

"Buried with the bodies, we found a baseball bat with blood on it. The full DNA match will take a while, but the preliminary results strongly suggest that the blood is Beck's."

Agent Stone plodded back in the room and sat down hard. Hoyt once again said, "Go on."

"The rest is pretty obvious. The two thugs do the job. They kill your daughter and pin it on KillRoy Then they come back to get the rest of their payment - or maybe they decide to extort more money from Dr. Beck. I don't know. Whatever, Beck has to get rid of them. He sets up a meet in the secluded woods near Lake Charmaine. The two thugs probably thought they were dealing with a wimpy doctor or maybe he caught them unprepared. Either way Beck shoots them and buries the bodies along with the baseball bat and whatever evidence might haunt him later on. The perfect crime now. Nothing to tie him with the murder. Let's face it. If we didn't get enormously lucky, the bodies would have never been found."

Hoyt shook his head. "Hell of a theory."

"There's more."

"Like?"

Carlson looked at Stone. Stone pointed to his cell phone. "I just got a strange phone call from someone at Briggs Penitentiary," Stone said. "It seems your son-in-law called there today and demanded a meeting with KillRoy."

Hoyt now looked openly stunned. "Why the hell would he do that?"

"You tell us," Stone responded. "But keep in mind that Beck knows we're onto him. All of a sudden, he has this overwhelming desire to visit the man he set up as your daughter's killer."

"Hell of a coincidence," Carlson added.

"You think he's trying to cover his tracks?"

"You have a better explanation?"

Hoyt sat back and tried to let all of this settle. "You left something out."

"What?"

He pointed to the photographs on the table. "Who gave you those?"

"In a way," Carlson said, "I think your daughter did."

Hoyt's face looked drained.

"More specifically, her alias did. One Sarah Goodhart. Your daughter's middle name and the name of this street."

"I don't understand."

"At the crime scene," Carlson said. "One of the two thugs - Melvin Bartola - had a small key in his shoe." Carlson held up the key. Hoyt took it from his hand, peering at it as though