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Harlan Coben
Hold Tight
In loving memory of my children’s four grandparents:
Carl and Corky Coben
Jack and Nancy Armstrong
We miss all of you very much
Acknowledgments
The idea for this one came to me when I was having di
I would also like to thank the following for contributing in one way or another: Ben Sevier, Brian Tart, Lisa Johnson, Lisa Erbach Vance, Aaron Priest, Jon Wood, Eliane Benisti, Françoise Triffaux, Christo- pher J. Christie, David Gold, A
1
MARIANNE nursed her third shot of Cuervo, marveling at her endless capacity to destroy any good in her pathetic life, when the man next to her shouted, “Listen up, sweetcakes: Creationism and evolution are totally compatible.”
His spittle landed on Maria
She tried to ignore them. She peered into her glass as if it were a diamond she was sizing up for an engagement ring. Maria
“You’re crazy,” Straw Hair said.
“Hear me out.”
“Okay, I’ll listen. But I think you’re crazy.”
Maria
Mustache put a hand on her arm. “Just hold on, little lady, I want you to hear this too.”
Maria
“Okay,” Mustache said, “you know about Adam and Eve, right?”
“Sure,” Straw Hair said.
“You buy that story?”
“The one where he was the first man and she was the first woman?”
“Right.”
“Hell, no. You do?”
“Yes, of course.” He petted his mustache as if it were a small rodent that needed calming. “The Bible tells us that’s what happened. First came Adam, then Eve was formed out of his rib.”
Maria
She had messed up.
As usual.
Her entire life had been a sprint away from anything righteous and decent, looking for the next unobtainable fix, a perpetual state of boredom punctuated by pathetic highs. She’d destroyed something good and now that she’d tried to get it back, well, Maria
In the past, she had hurt those closest to her. That was her exclusive club of whom to emotionally maim-those she loved most. But now, thanks to her recent blend of idiocy and selfishness, she could add total strangers to the list of victims of the Maria
For some reason, hurting strangers seemed worse. We all hurt those we love, don’t we? But it was bad karma to hurt the i
Maria
For what?
To protect her child. That was what she’d thought.
Dumb ass.
“Okay,” Mustache said, “Adam begot Eve or whatever the hell the term was.”
“Sexist crap,” Straw Hair said.
“But the word of God.”
“Which has been proven wrong by science.”
“Now just wait, pretty lady. Hear me out.” He held up his right hand. “We have Adam”-then he held up his left-“and we have Eve. We have the Garden of Eden, right?”
“Right.”
“So Adam and Eve have two sons, Cain and Abel. And then Abel kills Cain.”
“Cain kills Abel,” Straw Hair corrected.
“You sure?” He frowned, thinking about it. Then he shook it off. “Look, whatever. One of them dies.”
“Abel dies. Cain kills him.”
“You’re sure?”
Straw Hair nodded.
“Okay, that leaves us with Cain. So the question is, who did Cain reproduce with? I mean, the only other available woman is Eve and she’s getting on in years. So how did mankind continue to survive?”
Mustache stopped, as if waiting for applause. Maria
“Do you see the dilemma?”
“Maybe Eve had another kid. A girl.”
“So he had sex with his sister?” Mustache asked.
“Sure. In those days, everyone did everyone, didn’t they? I mean, Adam and Eve were the first. There had to be some early incest.”
“No,” Mustache said.
“No?”
“The Bible forbids incest. The answer lies in science. That’s what I mean. Science and religion can indeed coexist. It’s all about Darwin ’s theory of evolution.”
Straw Hair looked genuinely interested. “How?”
“Think about it. According to all those Darwinists, what did we descend from?”
“Primates.”
“Right, monkeys or apes or whatever. So anyway Cain is cast out and he’s wandering around this glorious planet on his own. You with me?”
Mustache tapped Maria
Maria
“Great.” He smiled and arched an eyebrow. “And Cain is a man, right?”
Straw Hair wanted back in: “Right.”
“With normal male urges, right?”
“Right.”
“So he’s walking around. And he’s feeling his oats. His natural urges. And one day, while walking through a forest”-another smile, another pet of the mustache-“Cain stumbles across an attractive monkey. Or gorilla. Or orangutan.”
Maria
“No. Think about it. Cain spots something from the monkey family. They’re the closest to human, right? He jumps one of the females, they, well, you know.” He brought his hands together in a silent clap in case she didn’t know. “And then the primate gets pregnant.”
Straw Hair said, “That’s gross.”
Maria
“Don’t you see how that makes sense? The primate has a baby. Half ape, half man. It’s apelike, but slowly, over time, the dominance of mankind comes to the forefront. See? Voilà! Evolution and creationism made one.”
He smiled as though waiting for a gold star.
“Let me get this straight,” Maria
The mustached man gave her a patronizing, there-there pat on the shoulder.
“What I’m doing here is trying to explain that all the smarty-pants with their science degrees who believe that religion is not compatible with science are lacking in imagination. That’s the problem. Scientists just look through their microscopes. Religionists just look at the words on the page. Neither is seeing the forest in spite of the trees.”
“That forest,” Maria
The air shifted then. Or maybe it was Maria