WIN by Coben, Harlan (best book reader txt) 📕

“I can take care of you.” She hands me a clipboard. “If you can just fill out—”

“No, no, I need to see Jane first,” I protest. “I was told by my good friend Billy Bob”—more blending in—“to ask specifically for Jane Dorchester before I fill out any paperwork.”

She slowly puts the clipboard back on the desk and rises. “Uh, okay. Let me see if she’s available. Your name?”

“They call me Win.”

She looks at me. I give her a reassuring smile. She leaves.

My phone rings. It’s Cousin Patricia. I don’t answer, instead text-replying:

I’ll fill you in later.

I don’t yet know how much of what PT told me I should share with Patricia, but it can wait. Do one thing at a time, as my father, who rarely did even that much, always told us. I prefer the way Myron’s mother said the same thing with a delivery that rivaled the greatest of the Borscht Belt: “You can’t ride two horses with one behind.” At the time, she was talking to me about my womanizing, so her point didn’t really take root with me, but I adore Ellen Bolitar and her wisdom just the same.

On my right, I see a multihued playroom of sorts—slides, tunnels, ramps, chew toys. There are rainbows painted on the walls. The floor is made of large rubber tiles that snap together in green, yellow, red, and orange. The place is bursting with more color than a preschool.

A big man comes out led by his big gut. He frowns at me. “Can I help you?”

I point to the playroom. “Aren’t dogs color-blind?”

He looks confused. Then he asks again, this time allowing a little more irritation into his cadence, “Can I help you?”

“Are you Jane Dorchester?” I ask.

Big Gut doesn’t like that. “Do I look like a Jane Dorchester?”

“Maybe in the boob area.”

He doesn’t like that either. “If you want to sign up your dog for a stay—”

“I don’t,” I say.

“Then I think you better leave.”

“No, thank you. I’m here to see Jane Dorchester.”

“She isn’t available.”

“Tell her I was sent here by a Miss Davies. Miss Lake Davies.”

His reaction would have been about the same if I’d landed a roundhouse kick on the gut. No doubt. He knows Jane Dorchester’s true identity. I’m thinking that this man must be her husband, Ross.

“Debbie,” he says to the toothy young woman at the desk, “go out back and help with the spa baths.”

“But Dad—”

“Just go, honey.”

Merely from her use of the word “Dad,” I infer that Debbie of the Desk must be one of Ross’s daughters. Don’t be too impressed. It’s bad form to toot your own horn, but I’m pretty adept at deductive reasoning. My phone buzzes. Three short beeps. Surprising. Three short beeps indicate an incoming request from my no-name rendezvous app. I’m tempted to glance at it now. Requests don’t come in that often without the male being the instigator. I am intrigued.

But the Ellen Bolitar wisdom comes to me again: One horse, one behind.

“You should leave,” Big Gut says when Debbie is out of earshot.

“No, Ross, that’s not going to happen.”

“Just get in your car—”

“It’s a truck, not a car. Very manly, don’t you think?”

“We don’t know anyone named Lake Davies.”

I offer him my patented skeptical eyebrow arch. When applied correctly, words like “Oh please” become superfluous.

“We don’t,” Ross insists.

“Fine, then you won’t mind if I go to the media and tell them that Lake Davies, famed flamethrower from the Jane Street Six, is now hiding in West Virginia under the pseudonym Jane Dorchester.”

He steps toward me, the big gut swinging. “Look,” he says in movie-tough-guy sotto voce, “she served her time.”

“So she did.”

“And this is still the United States of America.”

“So it is.”

“We don’t have to talk to you.”

“You don’t, Ross. Your wife does.”

“I know the law, pal, okay? My wife doesn’t have to say a word to you or anyone else. She has rights, including the right to remain silent. We are going to exercise that right.”

His belly is so close I’m tempted to pat it. “And you don’t exercise that often, do you, Ross?”

He doesn’t like that, but to be fair, it isn’t my best work. He inches closer. The belly is almost touching me now. He looks down on me. Big men so often make this mistake, don’t they?

“Do you have a warrant?” he asks me.

“I do not.”

“Then you’re on a private property. We have rights.”

“You keep saying that.”

“Saying what?”

“About having rights. Can we cut to the chase? I’m not with law enforcement. They need to follow rules. I don’t.”

“Don’t have to…” He shakes his head in amazement. “Are you for real?”

“Let me explain. If Jane refuses to talk to me, I will go to the press and reveal her true identity as the notorious Lake Davies. I have no problem with that. But it won’t end there. I will hire subordinates to hang around your home, your businesses, your upscale canine auberge, barraging her with questions wherever she goes—”

“That’s harassment!”

“Shh, don’t interrupt. I already spotted a one-star review for your hotel on Yelp from a woman who claims her poodle was bitten by a bichon frise whilst in your care. I’ll encourage her to sue, give her my personal attorney to handle the case pro bono, perhaps locate others to join a class action lawsuit against you. I will hire investigators to look into every aspect of your personal and business life. Everyone has something to hide, and if I can’t find something, I’ll make it up. I will be relentless in my attempt to destroy you both, and I will be effective. Eventually, after much unnecessary suffering, you will both realize the only way to stop the hemorrhaging is to talk to me.”

Ross Dorchester’s face reddens. “That’s…that’s blackmail.”

“Hold on, let me find my line in the script.” I mime flipping pages. “Here it is.” I clear my throat. “‘Blackmail is such an ugly word.’”

For a moment Ross looks as though he might take a swing at me. I feel that rush