The Disappearance of Stephanie Mailer: A gripping new thriller with a killer twist by Joël Dicker (ebook reader play store .txt) 📕

I hesitated for a moment, then took the call.

“Betsy,” my chief said, “we have a hostage crisis in a jewelry store on the corner of Madison and 57th. The area has been cordoned off. We need a negotiator.”

“O.K.,” I said, writing the address on a piece of paper. “What’s the name of the store?”

“Sabar’s.”

I hung up and collected my bag with my things, always kept ready beside the door. I tried to kiss Mark, but he had disappeared into the kitchen. I sighed and ran out. As I left our building, I saw our neighbors, through their dining room window, just finishing dinner. They looked happy. For the first time, it occurred to me that other couples’ marriages were probably more fulfilled than ours.

I got in my unmarked car, put on the emergency lights, and set off into the night.

DEREK SCOTT

Thursday, October 13, 1994. The day everything changed.

We drove at high speed. We didn’t want Tennenbaum to get away this time.

We were so engrossed in our pursuit that I had forgotten Natasha, who was still in the back seat, holding on tight. Jesse, following the directions given on the radio, guided me.

We took Route 101, then 107. Tennenbaum was being pursued by two patrol cars, which he was trying to lose however he could.

“Keep straight on, then take Route 94,” Jesse said. “We’ll head him off and set up a roadblock.”

I accelerated to gain ground and turned onto Route 94. But as we were approaching 107, Tennenbaum’s black van, with his logo painted on the rear window, cut us off. I just had time to glimpse him at the wheel.

I set off in pursuit of him. He had managed to get a head start on the patrol cars. I was determined not to lose him. We soon saw the bridge crossing the Snake River ahead of us. We were almost bumper-to-bumper. I managed to accelerate some more and get almost level with him. There was nobody coming toward us.

“I’m going to try to pin him against the railing of the bridge.”

“Good,” Jesse said. “Do it.”

As we drove onto the bridge, I gave a twist to the wheel and knocked into the back of Tennenbaum’s van. He lost control and hit the railing. But instead of stopping him dead in his tracks, the railing gave way and he went off the road. I didn’t have time to brake.

Tennenbaum’s van plunged into the river, and so did our car.

PART THREE

Rising

1

Natasha

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 13, 1994

JESSE ROSENBERG

Thursday, October 13, 1994

That day we’re chasing Tennenbaum and Derek loses control of the car and the railing of the bridge smashes to pieces, I see us plunging into the river in slow motion. As if suddenly time has stood still. I see the water moving closer to the windshield. The fall seems to go on for ten, twenty minutes. Obviously, it lasts only a few seconds.

As the car hits the water, I realize I haven’t got my seat belt on. My head hits the glove compartment. Blackness swallows me. My life passes in front of my eyes.

I see myself at the end of the ’70s, when I was nine and my mother and I had moved to Rego Park after my father’s death, to be closer to my grandparents. My mother had had to increase her working hours in order to make ends meet and, since she didn’t want me to be alone for too long after school, I would go to my grandparents, who lived one street away from my elementary school, and stay there until my mother came to pick me up.

Objectively, my grandparents were terrible people, but for sentimental reasons I felt deep affection for them. They were neither pleasant nor kind, and they were hardly capable of behaving properly in any situation. My grandfather’s favorite phrase was “Bunch of jerks!” My grandmother’s was “That’s shit!” They would repeat this drivel all day long, like two stunted parrots.

On the street, they would scold children and insult passers-by. First would come “Bunch of jerks!” Then Grandma’s “That’s shit!”

In stores, they would abuse the staff. “Bunch of jerks!” Grandpa would proclaim, and Grandma would add her refrain.

At the supermarket checkout, they would brazenly push past everybody else. If the other customers protested, Grandpa would say, “Bunch of jerks!” But if they said nothing, out of respect for their elders, Grandpa would still come out with “Bunch of jerks!” Then when the cashier, having scanned the barcodes, announced the total, Grandma would say, “That’s shit!”

At Halloween, children who were misguided enough to ring their doorbell to ask for candies would be greeted by Grandpa yelling, “Bunch of jerks!” He would leave the door open and Grandma would appear and throw a bucket of ice-cold water over them to chase them away, screaming, “That’s shit!” You would see their little disguised bodies running away, crying, soaked to the skin, through the freezing streets of a New York winter, condemned to a bout of flu.

My grandparents had the instincts of people who had known hunger. At the restaurant, Grandma would systematically empty the bread basket into her purse. Grandpa would immediately ask the waiter to refill it, and Grandma would continue her stocking up. Did you ever have grandparents to whom, in a restaurant, the waiter would say, “From now on we’re going to have to charge you for bread, if you keep asking for more”? Well, I did. And the scene which would ensue was even more embarrassing. “That’s shit!” Grandma would fling at him from her toothless mouth. To which Grandpa would add, “Bunch of jerks!” and throw pieces of bread at the waiter’s chest.

The conversations my mother had with her parents consisted mainly of the words “Stop that now!” Or “Behave yourselves!” Or “Please don’t show me up!” Or “At least make an effort in front of Jesse!”

Often, when we got back from their place, Mom would tell me she was