Missing You

Chapter 1

Kat Donovan spun off her father s old stool, readying to leave O Malley s Pub, when Stacy said, You re not going to like what I did.

The tone made Kat stop mid-stride. What?

O Malley s used to be an old-school cop bar. Kat s grandfather had hung out here. So had her father and their fellow NYPD col- leagues. Now it had been turned into a yuppie, preppy, master-of- the-universe, poser asshat bar, loaded up with guys who sported crisp white shirts under black suits, two-day stubble, manscaped to the max to look un- manscaped. They smirked a lot, these soft men, their hair moussed to the point of overcoif, and ordered Ketel One instead of Grey Goose because they watched some TV ad telling them that was what real men drink.

Stacy s eyes started darting around the bar. Avoidance. Kat didn t like that.

What did you do? Kat asked. Whoa, Stacy said.

What?

A Punch-Worthy at five o clock.

Kat swiveled to the right to take a peek. See him? Stacy asked.

Oh yeah.


Décor-wise, O Malley s hadn t really changed much over the years. Sure, the old console TVs had been replaced by a host of flat- screens showing too wide a variety of games who cared about how the Edmonton Oilers did? but outside of that, O Malley had kept the cop feel and that was what had appealed to these posers, the faux authenticity, moving in and pushing out what had made the place hum, turning it into some Disney Epcot version of what it had once been.

Kat was the only cop left in here. The others now went home after their shifts, or to AA meetings. Kat still came and tried to sit quietly on her father s old stool with the ghosts, especially tonight, with her father s murder haunting her anew. She just wanted to be here, to feel her father s presence, to corny as it sounded gather strength from it.

But the douche bags wouldn t let her be, would they?

This particular

Harlan Coben

Praise for Missing You

A dive-in, lose-sleep, and miss-your-bus-stop reading experience. Associated Press

Another winner in Coben s stack of winners. The Huffington Post
 
Masterfully explores the costs of our techno-crazed existence...making the brilliantly stages Missing You not to be missed. The Providence Journal
 
Delivers twists aplenty. The Boston Globe 

One of Coben's best ever. The Globe and Mail (Canada)

Once again, Coben has brilliantly used a current trend, in this case Internet dating, to create a can t-put-it-down thriller. Publishers Weekly (starred review)

Coben has expertly constructed and then dismantled a time bomb of a plot. Booklist