Harlan Coben - Caught

"Right, so anyway, the girl's dad finds out. He goes nuts, says Pete seduced his little girl-even though she was probably banging my brother to get back at her old man. So Pete gets charged with statutory rape. Gets caught up in the system. The system I love. I get it. It's the law. He is now labeled a sex offender, a pedophile, the whole works. And that's a joke. My brother is a solid citizen, a good guy, and now no team will touch him with a ten-foot pole. Maybe this guy, this Dan Mercer, well, it was a form of entrapment, wasn't it? Maybe he deserves the benefit of the doubt. Maybe he's innocent until proven guilty."

Walker turned away because he didn't want to admit that maybe Stanton had a point. You make so many calls in life that you don't want to make-and you want those calls to be easy. You want to put people in neat categories, make them monsters or angels, but it almost never works that way. You work in the gray and frankly that kinda sucks. The extremes are so much easier.

As Tom Stanton bent down to look under the bed, Walker tried to refocus. Right now, maybe it was best to keep this black and white and stay away from the moral relativism. A man was missing, probably dead. Find him. That was all. Doesn't matter who he is or what he did. Just find him.

Walker moved into the bathroom, checked the vanity. Toothpaste, toothbrush, razor, shaving cream, deodorant. Fascinating stuff.

From the other room Stanton said, "Bingo."

"What?"

"Under the bed. I found his mobile phone."

Walker was about to yell, "Great," but he stopped short.

Knowing Mercer's cell phone number and using cell tower triangulation, Walker had already learned that the last phone call from Mercer's mobile had been somewhere on Route 15 not long before the murder, approximately three miles from the trailer park and at least an hour's drive from this room.

So why would his mobile phone be in the room?

He didn't have much time to think about it. From the other room, he heard Stanton's low voice, almost a pained whisper: "Oh no…"

The tone sent a chill straight up the spine. "What?"

"Oh my God…"

Walker hustled back into the bedroom. "What is it? What's wrong?"

Stanton held the phone in his hand. All color was gone from his face. He stared down at the image on the screen. Walker could see the phone with the bright pink case.

It was an iPhone. He had the same model.

"What is it?"

The screen on the iPhone went dark. Stanton didn't say anything. He raised the phone, pressed the button. The screen lit up. Walker took a step closer and took a look.

His heart sank.

The lit-up iPhone's welcome screen was a family photograph. A classic vacation group shot. Four people-three kids, one adult-smiling and laughing. In the center of the photograph was Mickey Mouse. And on Mickey's right, flashing maybe the biggest smile of them all, stood a missing girl named Haley McWaid.

WENDY CALLED THE RESIDENCE of Mercer's college roommate, Phil Turnball. After graduating from Princeton, Turnball had taken the express train straight to Wall Street and high finance. He lived in the tonier section of Englewood.

When the Dan episode of Caught in the Act first aired, she had tried to contact Turnball. He had refused to comment. She let it go. Maybe now that Mercer was dead, Phil Turnball might be more forthcoming.

Mrs. Turnball-Wendy didn't catch the first name-answered the phone. Wendy explained who she was. "I know your husband's been blowing me off, but trust me, he's going to want to hear this."

"He's not here now."

"Is there a way I can reach him?"

She hesitated.

"It's important, Mrs. Turnball."

"He's in a meeting."

"At his office in Manhattan? I have the address here from my old notes-"

"Starbucks," she said.

"Excuse me?"

"The meeting. It's not what you think. It's at Starbucks."

WENDY FOUND A PARKING SPACE in front of Baumgart's, a restaurant she frequented as often as she could, and walked four stores down to Starbucks. Mrs. Turnball had explained that Phil had been laid off during the economic slump. His meeting, such as it was, was more of a coffee klatch for former masters of the universe-a group founded by Phil called the Fathers Club. Mrs. Turnball had told her that the club was a way for these suddenly unemployed men to "cope and find camaraderie during these very trying times," but Wendy couldn't help but hear the sarcasm in the woman's voice. Or maybe Wendy was projecting. A group of blood-sucking, overpaid, over-important yuppies whining about the economy they helped destroy by feasting on it parasitelike-all while enjoying a five-dollar cup of coffee.

Well, boo-friggin'-hoo.

She entered the Starbucks and spotted Phil Turnball in the righthand corner. He wore a fresh-pressed business suit, and he sat huddled around a table with three other men. One wore tennis whites and spun a racket like he was waiting for Federer to serve. Another wore a baby sling complete with, uh, baby. He gently bounced up and down, no doubt to keep the little one content and silent. The final guy, the one the others were all intensely listening to, wore an oversize baseball cap with the flat bill precariously tilted upward and to the right.

"You don't like it?" Hat Tilt asked.

Now that she was closer, she could see that Hat Tilt looked like Jay-Z-if Jay-Z suddenly aged ten years and never worked out and was a pasty white guy trying to look like Jay-Z.

"No, no, Fly, don't get me wrong," the guy in the tennis whites said. "It's righteous and all. Totally righteous."

Wendy frowned. Righteous?

"But-and this is just a suggestion-I don't think the line works. What with the puppies swinging and all."

"Hmm. Too graphic?"

"Maybe."

"Because I gotta be me, you know what I'm saying? Tonight at Blend. Open mike. Gotta be. Can't sell out to the man."

"I hear you, Fly, I do. And you'll kick ass tonight, no worries. But necklace?" Tennis Whites spread his arms. "It just doesn't fit your theme. You need another puppy reference. Dogs don't wear a necklace, am I right?"

Murmurs of agreement around the table.

The Jay-Z NeverBe-Fly?-noticed Wendy hovering. He lowered his head. "Yo, check it. Shawty at five o'clock."

They all turned toward her. Except for Phil, this was hardly what Wendy had expected. You'd have thought Mrs. Turnball would have warned her about this particular collection of ex-masters of the universe.

"Wait." It was the guy in the tennis whites. "I know you. NTC News. Wendy Something, right?"

"Wendy Tynes, yes."

They all smiled except for Phil Turnball.

"You here to do a story on Fly's gig tonight?"

Wendy thought a story on these guys sounded like a hell of an idea. "Maybe later," she said. "But right now, I'm here to see Phil."

"I have nothing to say to you."

"You don't have to say a word. Come on. We need to talk in private."

AS THEY WALKED out of the Starbucks and back up the block, Wendy said, "So that's the Fathers Club?"

"Who told you about that?"

"Your wife."

He said nothing.

"So," Wendy continued, "what's with Vanilla Ice back there?"

"Norm… well, actually, he wants us to call him Fly."

"Fly?"

"Short for Ten-A-Fly. That's his rap handle."

Wendy tried not to sigh. Tenafly was a New Jersey town right down the street.

"Norm… Fly… was a brilliant marketing guy at Benevisti Vance in the city. He's been out of work for, what, two years now, but he thinks he found a new talent."

"What?"

"Rapping."

"Please tell me you're kidding.

"This is like grief," Phil said. "Everyone does it a little differently. Fly thinks he's got a new market cornered."

They arrived at Wendy's car. She unlocked the doors. "Rapping?"