Fool Me Once by Harlan Coben by Coben Harlan

Author:Coben, Harlan [Coben, Harlan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Mystery, thriller, Suspense, Crime, Adult, Contemporary
Amazon: B01HC1HN04
Goodreads: 139085885
Publisher: Century
Published: 2016-03-22T07:00:00+00:00

Chapter 17

Putting Lily to sleep was usually a routine task. Maya had heard all the horror stories about little kids who made bedtime a nightmare. Not Lily. It was as though she’d had enough of the day and was ready to just put it behind her. Her head hit the pillow without argument and, poof, sleep. But tonight, after Maya tucked her into bed, Lily said, “Story.”

Maya was exhausted, but wasn’t this one of the joys of motherhood? “Sure, sweetie, what would you like to read?”

Lily pointed to a Debi Gliori book. Maya read it to her, hoping it would work like hypnosis or a boring coworker and Lily’s eyes would get droopy before closing for the night. But the book was having the opposite of the intended effect—Maya was the one drifting off while Lily poked her to stay awake. Maya managed to finish the story. She closed the book, started to rise, and Lily said, “Again, again.”

“I think it’s time to go to sleep, sweetie.”

Lily started crying. “Scared.”

Maya knew that you weren’t supposed to let your child stay in your room during moments like this, but what those parental instructional manuals forget is that all human beings, even parents, will take the easier way out when exhausted. This little girl had lost her father. She was too young to get that, of course, but there still had to be something there, some subconscious pang, some primitive knowledge that all was not right.

Maya scooped Lily up. “Come on. You can sleep with me.”

She carried Lily and gently set her down on Joe’s side of the bed. She laid out pillows along the edge of the bed in a makeshift rail and then, to be on the safe side, threw a bunch more on the floor in case Lily somehow rolled through this tenuous barricade. Maya pulled the covers up and tucked them under Lily’s chin, and as she did, Maya had one of those sudden “pow” moments sneak up on her, the ones all parents experience, when you are simply overwhelmed by your love for your child, when you are awestruck and you can feel something rising inside of you and you just want to hold onto it and yet, at the same time, that caring, that fear of losing this person, scares you into near paralysis. How, you wonder, will you ever relax again, knowing how unsafe the world is?

Lily closed her eyes and fell asleep. Maya stayed there, unmoving, watching her daughter’s little face, making sure the breaths were deep and even. She stayed that way until mercifully her mobile phone rang and broke the spell.

She hoped that it might be Shane with an answer on Tom Douglass, though he’d told her that he wouldn’t be able to look into the man’s military records until the morning. She grabbed the phone and saw her niece Alexa’s name pop up. In a small panic—here too was another person she could never lose—Maya quickly hit the green button.

“Everything okay?”

“Umm, yeah,” Alexa said.

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