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

Ian Cornwell says to me, “You’re wrong about me. There is nothing.”

He shakes off the stunned look and gives the entering students a beatific smile. I can see that he is at home here. I can see that he is happy and that he is a beloved teacher. I can see that he is good at his job.

But mostly, I can see that he is lying to me.

CHAPTER 17

My father is asleep when I get back to Lockwood.

I debate waking him—I need to ask him about his visiting his brother the night before Aldrich’s murder—but Nigel Duncan warns me that he is medicated and will be unresponsive. So be it. Perhaps it is best if I learn more before I confront my father. I am also now on a tight schedule. The branch manager at the Bank of Manhattan has agreed to see me in ninety minutes.

Nigel walks me to the helicopter. “What are you trying to find?” he asks me.

“Should I dramatically pause, spin toward you, and then exclaim, ‘The truth, dammit’?”

Nigel shakes his head. “You’re a funny guy, Win.”

The helicopter gets me back to Chelsea in time. As Magda drives me toward the Upper West Side branch of the bank, I pick up the tail. It’s a black Lincoln Town Car. The same car had been following me this morning. Amateurs. I’m almost insulted that they aren’t trying harder.

“Small change of plans,” I tell Magda.

“Oh?”

“Kindly swing by the office on Park Avenue before we head up to the bank.”

“You’re the boss.”

I am indeed. My next step isn’t complicated. The crosstown traffic is mercifully light. When we arrive at the Lock-Horne Building, Magda moves the car to my usual drop-off point. She puts the car in park.

“Don’t get out,” I say.

I use the camera function on my iPhone to watch behind me. The black Lincoln Town Car is three cars back, double-parked. Such amateurs. I wait. This won’t take long. I see Kabir sneaking up behind the Lincoln. He stops behind it and bends down as though to tie his shoe. He’s not. He’s placing a magnetic GPS under the bumper.

Like I said, this isn’t complicated.

Kabir rises, nods to let me know the tracker is secure on the Lincoln’s bumper, and heads back the other way.

“Okay,” I tell Magda. “We can proceed.”

I call Kabir as we head uptown. He will keep an eye on the car. “I’ll also run the license plate,” he tells me. I thank him and hang up. As we approach the bank, I add up the pros and cons of losing the tail—it wouldn’t be difficult—and decide that I would rather not tip them off. Let them see me go into the branch of a bank on the Upper West Side.

So what?

Five minutes later, I am in a glass-enclosed office that looks out over the main floor. The bank itself is a lovely old building on Broadway and Seventy-Fourth Street. Way back when, this very structure was, well, a bank, from the days when banks were cathedral-like and awe-inspiring, as opposed to today’s storefronts that have all the warmth of a motel-chain lobby. This branch still has the marble columns, the chandeliers, the oak wood teller stations, the giant round safe door. It is one of the few of said buildings that haven’t been converted into a party space or upscale dining facility.

The bank manager’s name, which is on her desk plate, is Jill Garrity. Her hair is pulled back into a bun so tight I worry her scalp might bleed. She wears horned-rim glasses. The collar of her white blouse is stiff enough to take out an eye.

“It’s wonderful to meet you, Mr. Lockwood.”

We do a lot of business with the bank. She hopes that my visit means more. I don’t disabuse her of this notion, but time is a-wasting. I tell her I need a favor. She leans in, anxious to please. I ask her about the bank robbery.

“There isn’t much to tell,” she says.

“Was it a stickup? Was it armed?”

“Oh no no. It was after hours. They broke in at two in the morning.”

This surprises me. “How?”

She starts fiddling with the ring on her hand. “I don’t mean to be rude—”

“Then don’t be.”

She startles up at my interruption. I hold her gaze.

“Tell me about the robbery.”

It takes a second or two, but we both know where this will go. “One of our guards was in on it. His record was clean—we did a thorough background check—but his sister’s husband was somehow involved with the mob. I really don’t know the details.”

“How much money did they take?”

“Very little,” Jill Garrity says a little too defensively. “As you are probably aware, most branches don’t keep that much cash on hand. If your worry, Mr. Lockwood, involves stolen cash, none of our clients were affected in terms of their financial portfolios.”

I had figured this. What I couldn’t figure out was why Ry Strauss would have been upset by the robbery. It could have been his paranoia, his imagination, but it feels as though it had to be something more.

And why does Ms. Garrity still look as though she’s hiding something?

“Financial portfolios,” I repeat.

“Pardon?”

“You said your clients weren’t affected in terms of financial portfolios.”

She twists the ring some more.

“So how were they affected?”

She leans back. “I assume the robbers came for cash. I mean, that makes the most sense. But when they saw that wasn’t going to happen, they went for the next best thing.”

“That being?”

“This is an old building. So downstairs, in the basement? We still have safe deposit boxes.”

I can almost hear something in my brain go click. “They broke into them?”

“Yes.”

“All, many, or a select few?”

“Almost all.”

So not specifically targeted. “Have you notified your clients?”

“It’s…complicated. We are doing our best. Do you know much about safe deposit boxes?”

“I know that I would never use one,” I say.

She pulls back at first, but then she settles into a nod. “We don’t have them in newer branches. Truthfully, they are a headache. Expensive to