Long Lost (Myron Bolitar, Band 9) - Softcover

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Harlan Coben is the #1 New York Times and international bestselling author of more than thirty novels, including I Will Find You, The Match, Win, Fool Me Once, Stay Close, and The Stranger, as well as the award-winning Myron Bolitar series. Coben has more than eighty million books in print in more than forty languages worldwide, and several of his novels have been made into Netflix series. The winner of Edgar, Shamus, and Anthony Awards, he lives in New Jersey.

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Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright Page

Dedication

PART ONE

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

PART TWO

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Acknowledgements

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

ALSO BY HARLAN COBEN

Deal Breaker
Drop Shot
Fade Away
Back Spin
One False Move
The Final Detail
Darkest Fear
Tell No One
Gone for Good
No Second Chance
Just One Look
The Innocent
Promise Me
The Woods
Hold Tight

DUTTON
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Published by Dutton, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
First printing, April 2009

Copyright © 2009 by Harlan Coben

All rights reservedREGISTERED TRADEMARK—MARCA REGISTRADA
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Coben, Harlan, 1962-
Long lost / Harlan Coben.
p. cm.

eISBN : 978-1-101-02874-2

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For Sandra Whitaker
The coolest “cuz” in the entire world

PART ONE

Hold on.
This will hurt more than anything has before.

1

“ YOU don’t know her secret,” Win said to me.

“Should I?”

Win shrugged.

“It’s bad?” I asked.

“Very,” Win said.

“Then maybe I don’t want to know.”

Two days before I learned the secret she’d kept buried for a decade—the seemingly personal secret that would not only devastate the two of us but change the world forever—Terese Collins called me at five AM, pushing me from one quasi-erotic dream into another. She simply said, “Come to Paris.”

I had not heard her voice in, what, seven years maybe, and the line had static and she didn’t bother with hello or any preamble. I stirred and said, “Terese? Where are you?”

“In a cozy hotel on the Left Bank called d’Aubusson. You’ll love it here. There’s an Air France flight leaving tonight at seven.”

I sat up. Terese Collins. Imagery flooded in—her Class-B-felony bikini, that private island, the sun-kissed beach, her gaze that could melt teeth, her Class-B-felony bikini.

It’s worth mentioning the bikini twice.

“I can’t,” I said.

“Paris,” she said.

“I know.”

Nearly a decade ago we ran away to an island as two lost souls. I thought that we would never see each other again, but we did. A few years later, she helped save my son’s life. And then, poof, she was gone without a trace—until now.

“Think about it,” she went on. “The City of Lights. We could make love all night long.”

I managed a swallow. “Sure, yeah, but what would we do during the day?”

“If I remember correctly, you’d probably need to rest.”

“And vitamin E,” I said, smiling in spite of myself. “I can’t, Terese. I’m involved.”

“With the 9/11 widow?”

I wondered how she knew. “Yeah.”

“This wouldn’t be about her.”

“Sorry, but I think it would.”

“Are you in love?” she asked.

“Would it matter if I said yes?”

“Not really.”

I switched hands. “What’s wrong, Terese?”

“Nothing’s wrong. I want to spend a romantic, sensual, fantasy-filled weekend with you in Paris.”

Another swallow. “I haven’t heard from you in, what, seven years?”

“Almost eight.”

“I called,” I said. “Repeatedly.”

“I know.”

“I left messages. I wrote letters. I tried to find you.”

“I know,” she said again.

There was silence. I don’t like silence.

“Terese?”

“When you needed me,” she said, “really needed me, I was there, wasn’t I?”

“Yes.”

“Come to Paris, Myron.”

“Just like that?”

“Yes.”

“Where have you been all this time?”

“I will tell you everything when you get here.”

“I can’t. I’m involved with someone.”

That damn silence again.

“Terese?”

“Do you remember when we met?”

It had been on the heels of the greatest disaster of my life. I guess the same was true for her. We had both been pushed into attending a charity event by well-meaning friends, and as soon as we saw each other, it was as if our mutual misery were magnetic. I’m not a big believer in the eyes being the windows of the soul. I’ve known too many psychos who could fool you to rely on such pseudoscience. But the sadness was so obvious in Terese’s eyes. It emanated from her entire being really, and that night, with my own life in ruins, I craved that.

Terese had a friend who owned a small Caribbean island not far from Aruba. We ran off that very night and told no one where we were going. We ended up spending three weeks there, making...