Harlan Coben - The Final Detail

“Okay,” Myron said, “while we're on the subject, what about those hunters who don't kill for food?”

“Most do eat what they kill.”

“But what about those who kill for sport? I mean, isn't that part of it?”

“Yes.”

“So what about that? What about killing merely for sport?”

“As opposed to what, Myron? Killing for a pair of shoes? Or a nice coat? Is spending a full day outdoors, coming to understand how nature works and appreciating her bountiful glory, is that worth any less than a leather pocketbook? If it's worth killing an animal because you prefer your belt made of animal skin instead of something man-made, is it not worth killing one because you simply enjoy the thrill of it?”

He said nothing.

“I'm sorry to ride you about this. But the hypocrisy of it all drives me somewhat batty. Everyone wants to save the whale, but what about the thousands of fish and shrimp a whale eats each day? Are their lives worthless because they aren't as cute? Ever notice how no one ever wants to save ugly animals? And the same people who think hunting is barbaric put up special fences so the deer can't eat their precious gardens. So the deers overpopulate and die of starvation. Is that better? And don't even get me started on those so-called ecofeminists. Men hunt, they say, but women are too genteel. Of all the sexist nonsense. They want to be environmentalists? They want to stay as close to a state of nature as possible? Then understand the one universal truth about nature: You either kill or you die.”

They both turned and stared at the deer for a moment. Proof positive.

“You didn't come here for a lecture,” she said.

Myron had welcomed this delay. But the time had come. “No, ma'am.”

“Ma'am?” Sophie Mayor chuckled without a hint of humor. “That sounds grim, Myron.”

Myron turned and looked at her. She met his gaze and held it.

“Call me Sophie,” she said.

He nodded. “Can I ask you a very personal, maybe hurtful question, Sophie?”

“You can try.”

“Have you heard anything from your daughter since she ran away?”

“No.”

The answer came fast. Her gaze remained steady, her voice strong. But her face was losing color.

“Then you have no idea where she is?”

“No idea.”

“Or even if she's…”

“Alive or dead,” she finished for him. “None.”

Her voice was so monotone it seemed on the verge of a scream. There was a quaking near her mouth now, a fault line starting to give way. Sophie Mayor stood and waited for his explanation, afraid perhaps to say any more.

“I got a diskette in the mail,” he began.

She frowned. “What?”

“A computer diskette. It came in the mail. I put it in my A drive, and it just started up. I didn't have to hit any keys.”

“Self-starting program,” she said, suddenly the computer expert. “That's not complicated technology.”

Myron cleared his throat. “A graphic came on. It started out as a photograph of your daughter.”

Sophie Mayor took a step back.

“It was the same photograph that's in your office. On the right side of the credenza.”

“That was Lucy's junior year of high school,” she said. “The school portrait.”

Myron nodded, though he didn't know why. “After a few seconds her image started melting on the screen.”

“Melting?”

“Yes. It sort of dissolved into a puddle of, uh, blood. Then a sound came on. A teenage girl laughing, I think.”

Sophie Mayor's eyes were glistening now. “I don't understand.”

“Neither do I.”

“This came in the mail?”

“Yes.”

“On a floppy disk?”

“Yes,” Myron said. Then he added for no reason: “A three-and-a-half-inch floppy.”

“When?”

“It arrived in my office about two weeks ago.”

“Why did you wait so long to tell me?” She put a hand up. “Oh, wait. You were out of the country.”

“Yes.”

“So when did you first see it?”

“Yesterday.”

“But you saw me this morning. Why didn't you tell me then?”

“I didn't know who the girl was. Not at first anyway. Then when I was in your office, I saw the photograph on the credenza. I got confused. I wasn't sure what to say.”

She nodded slowly. “So that explains your abrupt departure.”

“Yes. I'm sorry.”

“Do you have the diskette? My people will analyze it.”

He reached into his pocket and withdrew it. “I don't think it'll be any help.”

“Why not?”

“I took it to a police lab. They said it automatically reformatted itself.”

“So the diskette is blank?”

“Yes.”

It was as though her muscles had suddenly decided to flee the district. Sophie Mayor's legs gave way. She dropped to a chair. Her head lolled into her hands. Myron waited. There were no sounds. She just sat there, head in hands. When she looked up again, the gray eyes were tinged with red.

“You said something about a police lab.”

He nodded.

“You used to work in law enforcement.”

“Not really.”

“I remember Clip Arnstein saying something about it.”

Myron said nothing. Clip Arnstein was the man who had drafted Myron in the first round for the Boston Celtics. He also had a big mouth.

“You helped Clip when Greg Downing vanished,” she continued.

“Yes.”

“I've been hiring private investigators to search for Lucy for years. Supposedly the best in the world. Sometimes we seem to get close but…” Her voice drifted off, her eyes far away. She looked at the diskette in her hand as if it had suddenly materialized there. “Why would someone send this to you?”

“I don't know.”

“Did you know my daughter?”

“No.”

Sophie took a couple of careful breaths. “I want to show you something. Wait here a minute.” It took maybe half that time. Myron had just begun to stare into the eyes of some dead bird, noting with some dismay how closely they resembled the eyes of some human beings he knew, and Sophie was back. She handed him a sheet of paper.

Myron looked at it. It was an artist's rendering of a woman nearing thirty years of age.

“It's from MIT,” she explained. “My alma mater. A scientist there has developed a software package that helps with age progression. For missing people. So you can see what they might look like today. He made this up for me a few months ago.”

Myron looked at the image of what the teenage Lucy might look like as a woman heading toward thirty. The effect was nothing short of startling. Oh, it looked like her, he guessed, but talk about ghosts, talk about life being a series of what-ifs, talk about the years slipping away and then smacking you in the face. Myron stared at the image, at the more conservative haircut, the small frown lines. How painful must it be for Sophie Mayor to look at this?

“Does she look familiar at all?” Sophie asked.

Myron shook his head. “No, I'm sorry.”

“You're sure?”

“As sure as you can be in these situations.”

“Will you help me find her?”

He wasn't sure how to answer. “I can't see how I can help.”

“Clip said you're good at these things.”

“I'm not. But even if I were, I can't see what I can do. You've hired experts already. You have the cops-”

“The police have been useless. They view Lucy as a runaway, period.”

Myron said nothing.

“Do you think it's hopeless?” she asked.

“I don't know enough about it.”

“She was a good girl, you know.” Sophie Mayor smiled at him, her eyes misty with time travel. “Headstrong, sure. Too adventurous for her own good. But then again I raised Lucy to be independent. The police. They think she was simply a troubled kid. She wasn't. Just confused. Who isn't at that age? And it wasn't as if she ran off in the middle of the night without telling anyone.”