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

his voice is a living thing. The thousand-yard stare, not all that different from the one I’d seen in that barn so many years ago, is back. I see where he is looking—another blank spot on the wall. Once upon a time, a stunning black-and-white photograph of Lockwood Manor hung in that spot. The photograph had been taken by my uncle Aldrich sometime in the late 1970s. It, like my uncle, was long gone now. I had never really thought about that until now, that even Uncle Aldrich’s artistic contributions to this estate had been scrubbed away when he was hurled out of the family circle.

“You told me that it was some sort of money issue,” I say. “You implied Uncle Aldrich embezzled.”

He doesn’t respond.

“Was that true?”

He snaps out of it with a fury. “What difference does it make? That’s the trouble with your generation. You always want to unearth unpleasantness. You think dragging the ugly out in the sunlight will destroy it. It doesn’t. Just the opposite. You give the ugly thing life nourishment. I never spoke of it. Your uncle never spoke of it. That’s what being a Lockwood means. We both knew that many people thrive on our familial misery. They want to exploit any weakness. Do you understand that?”

I say nothing.

“Your responsibility, as a member of this family, is to protect our good name.”

“Dad?”

“Do you hear me, Win? The Lockwoods don’t air our dirty laundry.”

“What happened?”

“Why are you suddenly in touch with Patricia?”

“Nothing sudden about it, Dad. We’ve always stayed in touch.”

He rises. His face is red. His entire body is quaking. “I’m not discussing this any longer—”

He is too agitated. I need to calm him. “It’s okay, Dad.”

“—but I’m reminding you right now that you’re a Lockwood. That’s an obligation. You inherit the name, you inherit all that comes with it. Whatever happened with this art heist—whatever happened to my brother and Patricia—it has nothing to do with a very old rift between Aldrich and me. Do you understand?”

“I do,” I say in my most tranquil tone, rising from my seat. I hold up my hands in a composed, I’m-unarmed gesture. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”

The door opens, and Nigel is there. “All okay in here?” He sees my father’s face. “Windsor?”

“I’m fine, dammit.”

But Dad doesn’t look fine. His face is still flushed as though from overexertion. Nigel gives me a baleful look.

“It’s time for your medication,” Nigel says.

Dad grabs me by the elbow. “Remember to protect the family.” Then he shuffles out of the room.

Nigel stares at me. “Thanks for not upsetting him.”

“How long were you listening in?” I ask. Then I hold up my hand. It doesn’t matter. “Do you know what the rift was about?”

Nigel takes his time. “Why don’t you ask your cousin?”

“Patricia?”

He says nothing.

“Patricia knows?”

Dad stands at the foot of the stairs now. “Nigel?” he shouts.

“I need to look after your father,” Nigel Duncan tells me. “Have a pleasant day.”

CHAPTER 15

My Jaguar XKR-S GT is waiting for me.

I slide in as my phone buzzes with a text from Kabir. It informs me that a meeting with Professor Ian Cornwell, the watchman who’d been on duty when the paintings were stolen, has been arranged for an hour from now. Kabir hadn’t told Cornwell what it was about—just that a Lockwood wanted to meet. Perfect. Kabir drops a pin on the exact location of Cornwell’s office at Haverford College. Roberts Hall. I know it.

As I drive through the gates of Lockwood, I call Cousin Patricia. She answers on the first ring.

“What’s up?”

“No ‘articulate’?” I say.

“I’m nervous. Do you have an update?”

“Where are you?”

“At the house.”

“I’ll be by in ten minutes.”

Cousin Patricia lives in the same home from whence she was abducted and where her father was murdered. It’s a modest Cape Cod at the end of a cul-de-sac. She is divorced and shares custody of her ten-year-old son, Henry, though Henry’s primary residence is, interestingly enough, with her ex, a renowned neurosurgeon appropriately named Don Quest. The cliché is that Patricia’s life is her work, but clichés exist for a reason. She travels a great deal for her charity, the Abeona Shelters, making speeches and doing fundraisers the world over. Patricia was the one who suggested this somewhat unconventional custody arrangement, a fact that makes the local hoity-toity tsk-tsk over what they want to see as maternal neglect.

When I pull into her driveway, Patricia is standing outside on the gravel drive with her mother, my aunt Aline. The two women look very much alike, both stunning in similar ways, more like sisters than mother-daughter. Sometime in the seventies, Uncle Aldrich, the progressive in our rather staid family, quit college to spend three years doing charity work and photojournalism in South America. This was in the days before those soft, coddling, volunteer-abroad internship/college-essay/vacation experiences that are all the rage for today’s youth. Uncle Aldrich, who had grown up in ridiculous privilege at Lockwood, relished the opportunity to shed his past and live amongst the poorest of the poor in fairly harsh conditions. He learned and grew, so the family legend has it, and with the help of the Lockwood money, Aldrich founded a school in one of the most poverty-stricken areas of Fortaleza. The school still stands today, renamed the Aldrich Academy in his memory.

It was there, at this new school in Fortaleza, that Uncle Aldrich met a beautiful young kindergarten teacher named Aline and fell in love.

Uncle Aldrich was twenty-four years old at the time, Aline only twenty. They returned to Philadelphia a year later, having been married by a shaman of the Yanomami tribe in the Amazon. The Lockwood family was not amused by this development, but Uncle Aldrich made Aunt Aline his legal wife under American law anyway.

Not long after, Patricia was born.

Aunt Aline steps toward me as I get out of the car. Patricia shakes her head at me, a warning perhaps not to divulge anything, and I give her the slightest nod in return.

“Win,” Aline says,