Harlan Coben - Home

“I’m going too,” Brooke had said. “I know Vada. I can help.”

There was no room for debate in her voice.

“Please,” Rob Dixon said, “have a seat.”

The desks were those school kind with the chair attached. It took some effort for Myron to squeeze into one. The classroom itself was timeless. Sure, curriculums change and Myron assumed that somewhere there were hidden signs of modernity, but this could have been his own fifth grade classroom. Running across the top of the chalkboard was the alphabet written in capital and lowercase script. A potpourri of student artwork and projects took up the wall on the left. Newspaper clippings were tacked up beneath a handwritten sign reading CURRENT EVENTS.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Rob Dixon said.

“Pardon?”

“I watched The Collision- and here I stick you in a chair that has to bother your knee.”

“I’m fine.”

“No, please take my chair.”

Myron winced and slid out from the desk. “Maybe we can just stand if that’s okay.”

“Sure thing. I’m excited about your research. By the way-and I don’t know if this will interest you or not-I’ve been teaching fifth grade in this very same classroom for twenty-one years now.”

“Wow,” Myron said.

“I love this age. They’re no longer little kids who can’t understand deep concepts; they aren’t yet adolescents with all the hardship that entails. Fifth grade is nicely on the cusp. It’s an important transitional year.”

“Mr. Dixon.”

“Please call me Rob.”

“Rob, I bet you’re a great teacher. You look like that cool young teacher we all loved, except you’re older and probably wiser, but you didn’t get all jaded.”

He smiled. “I love the way you put that. Thank you.”

“And thank you. But I may be here under false pretenses.”

He put his hand to his chin. “Oh?”

“I’m here to talk to you about a specific, tragic event.”

Rob Dixon took a step backward. “I don’t understand.”

“I’m the one who saved Patrick Moore,” Myron said. “But I’m still trying to figure out what happened to Rhys Baldwin.”

Rob Dixon stared out the window. A boy Myron guessed was around six hopped over to a rope and started to swing on it. The glee on his face-Myron wondered when he had last seen someone so lost in joy.

“Why come to me?” he asked. “I had neither as a student. And I probably wouldn’t have had. See, we try to make sure teachers don’t get siblings. It isn’t a rule or anything. The principal just thinks it’s not a good idea. You come in with preconceived notions or, at the very least, a past with the parents. So even if they had stayed in school, I probably wouldn’t have taught either boy.”

“But you did teach Clark Baldwin and Francesca Moore.”

“How do you know that?”

“Clark told me.”

“So?” Dixon shook his head. “I really shouldn’t talk about it anyway. I thought you became a sports agent. That’s what the documentary said. After your injury, you went to Harvard Law School and then opened your own agency.”

“That’s true.”

“So why are you involved in this?”

“It’s what I do,” Myron said.

“But the documentary said-”

“The documentary didn’t tell the whole story.” Myron stepped toward him. “I need your help, Rob.”

“I don’t see how.”

“Do you remember that day?”

“I can’t talk to you about this.”

“Why not?”

“It’s confidential.”

“Rob, a boy is still missing.”

“I don’t know anything about that. You can’t possibly think-”

“No, nothing like that. But I’m asking you. Do you remember the day the boys went missing?”

“Of course,” Rob Dixon said. “You never forget something like that.”

Myron debated what to ask next and then decided to cut right to it: “Were Clark and Francesca here?”

Rob Dixon blinked several times. “What?”

“The day their brothers went missing,” Myron continued, “were Clark and Francesca in your classroom? Were they both in school? Did they leave early?”

“Why would you ask that?”

“I’m trying to piece together what happened.”

“After ten years?”

“Please,” Myron said. “You said you remember that day. You said you’d never forget something like that.”

“That’s right.”

“So just answer me this simple question. Were both Francesca and Clark in your classroom?”

He opened his mouth, closed it, tried again. “Of course they were. Why wouldn’t they be? It was a school day. A Wednesday, as a matter of fact.” Dixon marched toward the back and stopped by a desk in the second-to-last row. “Clark Baldwin sat right here. He wore a red basketball shirt from his town rec team. I think he wore that shirt twice a week that school year. Francesca Moore”-he moved up to the front row and to the desk on the end-“she sat here. She wore a yellow blouse. That was Francesca’s favorite color. Yellow. She drew yellow daisies on every assignment.”

Dixon stopped and looked at Myron. “Why on earth would you ask that?”

“They were both here all day?”

“All day,” he repeated. “I got a call from Mrs. Baldwin at two thirty.”

“Brooke Baldwin?”

“Yes.”

“She called you herself?”

“Yes. Via the main office. She called the principal’s office and asked to speak to me. She said it was an emergency.”

“What did she tell you?”

“She said that there had been a personal incident and that a police officer was going to pick up Francesca and Clark. She asked if I could keep the children late until they got there. I said of course.”

“Did you know about the kidnappings?”

“No, not then.” He shook his head. “I still don’t get why you’re here, Mr. Bolitar.”

Myron didn’t know either. He could give him the same song and dance about the clumsy search for the needle in a haystack, but he didn’t think there was any point.

“Did the cop pull up in a squad car?”

“No,” he said. “It was a female officer. She was in plainclothes in an unmarked car. I don’t see the point of this.”

“Tell me about Clark and Francesca.”

“What about them?”

“Do you know that they are college roommates?”

Dixon smiled. “That’s nice.”

“Were they close back in fifth grade?”

“Of course. I think their shared experience bonded them.”

“How about before the kidnappings?”

He thought about it. “They were just classmates. I don’t think they hung out together or anything. I’m really glad that they had each other, though, especially for Francesca.”

Especially for Francesca.

Needle? Meet my dear friend Haystack.

“Why do you say that about Francesca?” Myron asked.

“She was going through a bit of a rough patch.”

“What sort of rough patch?”

“This really isn’t proper, Mr. Bolitar.”

“Call me Myron.”

“It still isn’t proper.”

“Rob, your information is ten years old. The fifth grade girl with the rough patch is now a college student.”

“The kids trusted me.”

“And I can see why. You’re kind. You’re caring. You want what’s best for them. I had some great elementary teachers when I was a kid. I remember them all. Middle school teachers, high school teachers-not so much. But the good elementary school teachers? They stay in your heart forever.”

“What are you trying to get at?”

“I don’t want you to betray confidences. But something went really wrong that day. No, not the obvious. We know that two boys went missing. But something else. Something big. Something that we need to know if we ever want to find the truth. So please, I’m asking you to trust me. Why was Francesca going through a rough patch?”