WIN, Coben, Harlan [ebook and pdf reader .txt] 📗

They finally agreed to come forward. Sharyn was ready to go public too. That would be traumatic, of course. Teddy had taken so much from them already.”

“Hmm.” I lean back and cross my legs. I hadn’t really considered the repercussions. I rarely do. But…no, no, at the end of the day, she’s wrong. I say, “Then it seems Teddy’s beating helped them.”

“No, Win, it didn’t. Once you change your mind…It’s cathartic in the end, fighting back, standing up to your abuser. But more than that, we had a big press conference lined up for when Sharyn got out of the hospital. Imagine it—four victims on the steps of the State Capitol, telling the world their stories. We had two state assemblymen ready to appear with us. It would have ruined Teddy’s reputation—but more important, those compelling stories would help us pass a bill—a bill this office”—Sadie taps her desk—“had drawn up. The two assemblymen were going to present it to the governor.”

I wait.

“And now,” Sadie says, “poof, that’s all gone.”

“Why?” I ask.

“Why what?”

“Why can’t you still tell the stories?”

“It won’t have the same impact.”

“Pish. Of course it will.”

“Someone attacked Teddy last night.”

“So?”

“So now he’s the victim of a vigilante.”

“You don’t know that,” I say. “It could be that he tried again, this time with the wrong woman.”

“And she beat him to a pulp?”

“Or her family did, I don’t know.” I snap my fingers. “Or it could have been an unrelated mugging.”

“Come on.”

“What?”

“It’s over, Win. The war is still to be fought, but this battle is lost. We needed public sympathy. But our monster is in a coma. Someone on Twitter will claim the victims beat him. Teddy’s mother will say that these scorned women lied about her baby boy—that they made him a target. It isn’t just about facts, Win. We need to win the narrative.”

I think about it. Then I say, “I’m sorry,” with perhaps too little enthusiasm.

Just to clarify: I’m not sorry about what I did to Teddy. I’m sorry I didn’t wait until after the press conference. Sadie has to be an optimist. I sadly am not. The law would never have caught up to Teddy. He would have been embarrassed, perhaps lost his job, but he also would have fought back in terrible ways. He would have trashed Sharyn and the other women. He would have claimed to be the victim of their harassment, not the other way around, and too many people would have believed him. That was what Sadie was fighting against here.

I believe in Sadie Fisher. She may eventually prevail. But not today.

It is eight thirty p.m. I have my own appointment in half an hour, but it is easy enough to cancel. “We could all go out for a drink,” I say to her.

“Are you serious?”

“We can commiserate.”

Sadie shakes her head. “I know you’re trying to be kind, Win.”

“But?”

“But you’re clueless.”

“Colleagues don’t get out for drinks?”

“Not tonight, Win. Tonight I have to go to the hospital and tell Sharyn what happened.”

“Perhaps she’ll be relieved,” I say. “Teddy can’t hurt her anymore. That should offer her some comfort, no?”

Sadie opens her mouth, thinks about it, closes it. I can see she’s disappointed in me. She pats my shoulder as she walks out the door.

I check my app. My rich-people dating program is so far down the Dark Web that there is no way anyone could set up a Teddy-like fake profile. Even if they could, they’d never get past the other security. The message reads:

Username Amanda is waiting for you.

So my partner for the evening has arrived at the suite already.

No need to keep her waiting.

CHAPTER 5

The app offers several secret entrances.

Tonight, we will use the one at Saks Fifth Avenue department store. The venerable Saks, located between Forty-Ninth and Fiftieth Street on Fifth Avenue, has a high-end jewelry department called the Vault. It’s located in the basement. Behind that, you’ll find a door that used to lead to a dressing room. It is locked, but we with the app can open it with a key fob. You enter through the door and take the steps down a level to an underground passage. The passage leads to an elevator under a high-rise on Forty-Ninth Street near Madison Avenue. The elevator only stops on the eighth floor. At this point it takes an eye scan. If your eye doesn’t pass the scan, the elevator doors do not open into the private suite.

It’s good to be rich.

To be approved for this app you must have a net worth of over $100 million. The monthly costs are exorbitant, especially for someone like me who uses this service frequently. The app’s service is simple: Match rich people with other rich people for sex. No strings attached. It is high end. It is boutique. But mostly, it is sex.

The app has no name. Most of the clients are married and crave the ultimate in confidentiality. Some are public figures. Some are gay or otherwise LGBTQ+ and fear exposure. Some, like me, are simply wealthy and seek sex with no attachments or repercussions. For years, I picked up women at bars or nightclubs or galas. I still do on occasion, but when you get past the age of thirty-five, this behavior feels somewhat desperate. In my somewhat dubious past, I hired prostitutes. There was a time when, every Tuesday, I would order both dim sum and a woman from a place on the Lower East Side called Noble House—my own version of Chinese Night. I believed at the time that prostitution was the oldest and a (per the House) Noble profession. It is not. When I worked a case overseas, I learned about human trafficking and the like. Once I did, I stopped.

Like with the martial arts, we learn, we evolve, we improve.

With that option gone, I tried working the once-fashionable “friends with benefits” angle, but the problem is, friends by definition come with strings. Friends come with attachments. I don’t want that.

Now for the most part I