Harlan Coben - The Final Detail

“Yes.”

“I want you to look up a number for me.” He read it off to her. She repeated it. Then she put Hester Crimstein through.

“Where are you?” the attorney barked at him.

“Why do you care?”

Hester was not pleased. “God damn it, Myron, stop acting like a child. Where are you?”

“None of your business.”

“You're not helping.”

“What do you want, Hester?”

“You're on a cell phone, right?”

“Right.”

“Then we don't know if the line is safe,” she said. “We have to meet right away. I'll be in my office.”

“No can do.”

“Look, do you want to help Esperanza or not?”

“You know the answer to that.”

“Then get your ass in here, pronto,” Hester said. “We got a problem, and I think you can help.”

“What kind of problem?”

“Not on the phone. I'll be waiting for you.”

“It'll take me some time,” Myron said.

Silence.

“Why will it take some time, Myron?”

“It just will.”

“It's almost noon,” she said. “When can I expect you?”

“Not until at least six.”

“That's too late.”

“Sorry.”

She sighed. “Myrpn, get here now. Esperanza wants to see you.”

Myron's heart did a little flip. “I thought she was in jail.”

“I just got her released. It's hush-hush. Get your ass over here, Myron. Get over here now.”

Myron and Win stood in the Hamlet Motel parking lot.

“What do you make of it?” Win asked.

“I don't like it,” Myron said.

“How so?”

“Why is Hester Crimstein so desperate to see me all of a sudden? She's been trying to get rid of me from the moment I returned. Now I'm the answer to a problem?”

“It is bizarre,” Win agreed.

“And not only that, I don't like this whole hush-hush release for Esperanza.”

“It happens.”

“Sure, it happens. But if it did, why hasn't Esperanza called me? Why is Hester making the call for her?”

“Why indeed?”

Myron thought about it. “Do you think she's involved in all this?”

“I cannot imagine how,” Win said. Then: “Except that she may have spoken to Bonnie Haid.”

“So?”

“So then she may have deduced that we are in Wil-ston.”

“And now she urgently wants us to return,” Myron said.

“Yes.”

“So she's trying to get us out of Wilston.”

“It is a possibility,” Win said.

“So what is she afraid we'll find?”

Win shrugged. “She's Esperanza's advocate.”

“So something detrimental to Esperanza.”

“Logical,” Win said.

A couple in their eighties stumbled out of one of the motel rooms. The old man had his arm around the woman's shoulder. They both looked postsex. At noon. Nice to see. Myron and Win watched them in silence.

“I pushed too hard last time,” Myron said.

Win did not reply.

“You warned me. You told me I didn't keep my eye on the prize. But I didn't listen.”

Win still said nothing.

“Am I doing the same now?”

“You are not good at letting things go,” Win said.

“That's not an answer.”

Win frowned. “I'm not some holy wise man on the mount,” he said. “I don't have all the answers.”

“I want to know what you think.”

Win squinted, though the sun was pretty much gone by now. “Last time, you lost sight of your goal,” he said. “Do you know what your goal is this time?”

Myron thought about it. “Freeing Esperanza,” he said. “And finding the truth.”

Win smiled. “And if those two are mutually contradictory?”

“Then I bury the truth.”

Win nodded. “You seem to have a good handle on the goal.”

“Should I let it go anyway?” Myron asked.

Win looked at him. “There's one other complication.”

“What's that?”

“Lucy Mayor.”

“I'm not actively looking for her. I'd love to find her, but I don't expect to.”

“Still,” Win said, “she is your personal connection into all this.”

Myron shook his head.

“The diskette came to you, Myron. You can't run away from that. You're not built that way. Somehow you and this missing girl are linked.”

Silence.

Myron checked the address and name Big Cyndi had given him. The phone was listed to a Barbara Cromwell at 12 Claremont Road. The name meant nothing to him. “There's a rental car place down the street,” Myron said. “You go back. Talk to Hester Crimstein. See what you can learn.”

“And you?”

“I'm going to check out Barbara Cromwell of Twelve Claremont Road.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Win said.

“A good one?”

“I didn't say that.”

Massachusetts, like Myron's home state of New Jersey, can quickly turn from big city to full-fledged town to hicksville. That was the case here. Twelve Claremont Road-why the numbers reached twelve when the whole road had only three buildings on it Myron could not say- was an old farmhouse. At least it looked old. The color, probably once a deep red, had faded to a barely visible, watery pastel. The top of the structure curled forward as though suffering from osteoporosis. The front roof overhang had split down the middle, the right lip dipping forward like the mouth of a stroke victim. There were loose boards and major cracks and the grass was tall enough to go on the adult rides at a Six Hags.

He stopped in front of Barbara Cromwell's house and debated his approach. He hit the redial button and Big Cyndi answered.

“Got anything yet?”

“Not very much, Mr. Bolitar. Barbara Cromwell is thirty-one years old. She was divorced four years ago from a Lawrence Cromwell.”

“Children?”

“That's all I have right now, Mr. Bolitar. I'm terribly sorry.”

He thanked her and said to keep trying. He looked back at the house. There was a dull, steady thudding in his chest. Thirty-one years old. He reached into his pocket and took out the computer rendering of the aged Lucy Mayor. He stared at it. How old would Lucy be if she were still alive? Twenty-nine, maybe thirty. Close in age, but who cares? He shook the thought away, but it didn't go easy.

Now what?

He turned off the engine. A curtain jumped in an upstairs window. Spotted. No choice now. He opened the door and walked up the drive. It had been paved at one time, but the grass now laid claim to all but a few patches of tar. The side yard had one of those plastic Fisher-Price tree houses with a slide and rope ladder; the loud yellow, blue, and red of the play set shone through the brown grass like gems against black velvet. He reached the door. No bell, so he knocked and waited.

He could hear house sounds, someone running, someone whispering. A child called out, “Mom!” Someone hushed him.

Myron heard footsteps, and then a woman said, “Yes?”

“Ms. Cromwell?”

“What do you want?”

“Ms. Cromwell, my name is Myron Bolitar. I'd like to talk to you a moment.”

“I don't want to buy anything.”

“No, ma'am, I'm not selling-”

“And I don't accept door-to-door solicitations. You want a donation, you ask by mail.”

“I'm not here for any of that.”

Brief silence.

“Then what do you want?” she said.

“Ms. Cromwell”-he'd clipped on his most reassuring voice now-“would you mind opening your door?”

“I'm calling the police.”

“No, no, please, just wait a second.”

“What do you want?”

“I want to ask you about Clu Haid.”

There was a long pause. The little boy started talking again. The woman hushed him. “I don't know anybody by that name.”

“Please open the door, Ms. Cromwell. We need to talk.”