Harlan Coben: Home

Book 11 in the Myron Bolitar series, 2016

The boy who has been missing for ten years steps into the light.

I am not one for hysterics or even feeling much of what might be labeled astonishment. I have seen much in my forty-plus years. I have nearly been killed-and I have killed. I have seen depravity that most would find difficult, if not downright inconceivable, to comprehend-and some would argue that I have administered the same. I have learned over the years to control my emotions and, more important, my reactions during stressful, volatile situations. I may strike quickly and violently, but I do nothing without a certain level of deliberation and purpose.

These qualities, if you will, have saved me and those who matter to me time and time again.

Yet I confess that when I first see the boy-well, he is a teenager now, isn’t he?-I can feel my pulse race. A thrumming sound echoes in my ears. Without conscious thought, my hands form two fists.

Ten years-and now fifty yards, no more, separate me from the missing boy.

Patrick Moore-that is the boy’s name-leans against the graffiti-littered concrete support of the underpass. His shoulders are hunched. His eyes dart about before settling on the cracked pavement in front of him. His hair is closely cropped, what we used to call a crew cut. Two other teenage boys also mill about the underpass. One smokes a cigarette with so much gusto I fear the cigarette has offended him. The other wears a studded dog collar and mesh shirt, proclaiming his current profession in the most obvious of uniforms.

Above, the cars roar past, oblivious to what is below them. We are in King’s Cross, most of which has been “rejuvenated” over the past two decades with museums and libraries and the Eurostar and even a plaque for Platform 9¾, where Harry Potter boarded the train for Hogwarts. Much of the so-called undesirable element have fled these dangerous in-person transactions for the relative safety of online commerce-much less need for the risky drive-by sex trade, yet another positive by-product of the Internet-but if you go to the other side of the literal and figurative tracks, away from those shiny new towers, there are still places where the sleaze element survives in a concentrated form.

That is where I found the missing boy.

Part of me-the rash part I keep at bay-wants to sprint across the street and grab the boy. He would now be, if this is indeed Patrick and not a look-alike or mistake on my part, sixteen years old. From this distance, that looks about right to me. Ten years ago-you can do the math and calculate how young he’d been-in the über-affluent community of Alpine, Patrick had been on what they insist on calling a “playdate” with my cousin’s son Rhys.

That, of course, is my dilemma.

If I grab Patrick now, just run across the street and snatch him, what will become of Rhys? I have one of the missing boys in sight, but I have come to rescue both. So that means taking care. No sudden moves. I must be patient. Whatever happened ten years ago, whatever cruel twist of mankind (I don’t believe so much in fate being cruel when the culprit is usually our fellow human beings) took this boy from the opulence of his stone mansion to this filthy toilet of an underpass, I worry now that if I make the wrong move, one or both boys might disappear again, this time forever.

I will have to wait for Rhys. I will wait for Rhys and then I will grab both boys and bring them home.

Two questions have probably crossed your mind.

The first: How can I be so confident that once the boys are in sight, I will be able to grab them both? Suppose, you may wonder, the boys have been brainwashed and resist. Suppose their kidnappers or whoever holds the keys to their freedom are many and violent and determined.

To that I reply: Don’t worry about it.

The second question, which is far more pressing in my mind: What if Rhys does not show up?

I am not much of a “crossing that bridge when we get there” sort of fellow, so I hatch a backup plan, which involves staking out this area and then following Patrick at a discreet distance. I am planning exactly how that might work when something goes wrong.

The trade is picking up. Life is about categorization. This street urinal is no different. One underpass caters to heterosexual men seeking female companionship. This underpass is the busiest. Old-fashioned values, I suppose. You can talk all you want about genders and preferences and kinks, but the majority of the sexually frustrated are still heterosexual men not getting enough. Old-school. Girls with dead eyes take their spots against the concrete barriers, cars drive by, girls drive off, other girls take their places. It is almost like watching a soda-dispenser machine at a petrol station.

In the second underpass, there is a small contingency of transgender or cross-dressing women of various alterations and stages, and then, at the tail end, where Patrick is now standing, is the young gay trade.

I watch as a man in a melon-hued shirt struts toward Patrick.

What, I had wondered when Patrick first appeared, would I do if a client chose to engage Patrick’s services? At first blush, it would seem that it would be best that I intercede immediately. That would appear to be the most humane act on my part, but again, I can not lose sight of my goal: bringing both boys home. The truth is, Patrick and Rhys have been gone for a decade. They have been through God knows what, and while I don’t relish the idea of allowing either to suffer through even one more abuse, I had already added up the pros and cons and made my decision. There is no use in lingering on that point anymore.

But Melon Shirt is not a client.

I know that immediately. Clients do not strut with such confidence. They don’t keep their heads up high. They do not smirk. They do not wear bright melon shirts. Clients who are desperate enough to come here to satisfy their urges feel shame or fear discovery or, most likely, both.

Melon Shirt, on the other hand, has the walk and bearing and crackle of someone who is comfortable and dangerous. You can, if you are attuned to it, sense such things. You can feel it in your lizard brain, a primitive, inner warning trill that you cannot quite explain. Modern man, more afraid of embarrassment sometimes than safety, often ignores it at his own peril.

Melon Shirt glances behind him. Two other men are on the scene now, working Melon’s flanks. They are both very large, decked out in camouflage fatigues, and wear what we used to call wifebeaters over shiny pectorals. The other boys working the underpass-the smoker and the one with the stud collar-run off at the sight of Melon Shirt, leaving Patrick alone with the three newcomers.

Oh, this is not good.

Patrick still has his eyes down, his quasi-shaved head gleaming. He is not aware of the approaching men until Melon Shirt is nearly on top of him. I move closer. In all likelihood, Patrick has been on the streets for some time. I think about that for a moment, about what his life must have been like, snatched from the comforting bubble of American suburbia and dumped into… well, who knows what?

But in all that time, Patrick might have developed certain skills. He might be able to talk his way out of this situation. The situation might not be as dire as it appears. I need to wait and see.

Melon Shirt gets right up in Patrick’s face. He says something to him. I can’t hear what. Then, without additional preamble, he rears back his fist and slams it like a sledgehammer into Patrick’s solar plexus.