Harlan Coben - The Woods

"It's empty now."

Raya opened a drawer. "His clothes are gone."

We did a pretty thorough search. Everything was gone-there were no papers, no files, no magazine articles, no toothbrush, no personal items, nothing. Raya sat on the couch. "Someone came back and cleared this place out."

"When were you here last?"

"Three days ago."

I started for the door. "Come on."

"Where are you going?"

"I'm going to talk to someone at the front desk."

But there was a kid working there. He gave us pretty much nothing. The occupant had signed in as Manolo Santiago. He had paid in cash, leaving a cash deposit. The room was paid for until the end of the month. And no, the kid didn't remember what Mr. Santiago looked like or anything about him. That was one of the problems with these kinds of units. You don't have to go in through the lobby. It was easy to be anonymous.

Raya and I headed back to Santiago's room.

"You said there were papers?"

"Yes."

"What did they say?"

"I didn't pry."

"Raya," I said.

"What?"

"I have to be honest here. I'm not fully buying the ignorant act."

She just looked at me with those damn eyes.

"What?"

"You want me to trust you."

"Yes."

"Why should I?"

I thought about that.

"You lied to me when we met," she said.

"About what?"

"You said you were just investigating his murder. Like a regular detective or something. But that wasn't true, was it?"

I said nothing.

"Manolo," she went on. "He didn't trust you. I read those articles. I know something happened to all of you in those woods twenty years ago. He thought you lied about it."

I still said nothing. "And now you expect me to tell you everything. Would you? If you were in my position, would you tell everything you knew?" I took a second, gathered my thoughts. She had a point. "So you saw those articles?"

"Yes."

"Then you know that I was at that camp that summer."

"I do."

"And you know that my sister disappeared that night too."

She nodded.

I turned to her. "That's why I'm here."

"You're here to avenge your sister?"

"No," I said. "I'm here to find her."

"But I thought she was dead. Wayne Steubens murdered her."

"That was what I used to think."

Raya turned away for a moment. Then she looked right through me. "So what did you lie about?" "Nothing." The eyes again. "You can trust me," she said.

I do.

She waited. I waited too.

"Who is Lucy?"

"She's a girl who was at the camp."

"What else? What's her connection to this?"

"Her father owned the camp," I said. Then I added, "She was also my girlfriend at the time."

"And how did you both lie?"

"We didn't lie."

"So what was Manolo talking about?" "Damned if I know. That's what I'm trying to find out." "I don't understand. What makes you so sure your sister is alive?" "I'm not sure," I said. "But I think there's a decent enough chance." "Why?" "Because of Manolo." "What about him?" I studied her face and wondered if I was getting played here. "You clammed up before when I mentioned the name Gil Perez," I said. "His name was in those articles. He was killed that night too." "No," I said. "I don't understand." "Do you know why Manolo was looking into what happened that night?" "He never said." "Weren't you curious?" She shrugged. "He said it was business." "Raya," I said. "Manolo Santiago wasn't his real name." I hesitated, seeing if she would jump in, volunteer something. She didn't. "His real name," I went on, "was Gil Perez." She took a second to process this. "The boy from the woods?" "Yes." "Are you sure?" Good question. But I said, "Yes," without any hesitation. She thought about it. "And what you're telling me now-if it's true-was that he was alive this whole time." I nodded. "And if he was alive…" Raya Singh stopped. So I finished it for her. "Maybe my sister is too." "Or maybe," she said, "Manolo-Gil, what ever you call him – killed them all."

Strange. I hadn't thought of that. It actually made some sense. Gil kills them all, leaves evidence he was a victim too. But was Gil clever enough to pull something like that off? And how do you explain Wayne Steubens?

Unless Wayne was telling the truth…

"If that’s the case," I said, "then I'll find that out."

Raya frowned. "Manolo said you and Lucy were lying. If he killed them, why would he say something like that? Why would he have all this paperwork and be looking into what happened? If he did it, he would know the answers, wouldn't he?"

She crossed the room and stood directly in front of me. So damn young and beautiful. I actually wanted to kiss her.

"What aren't you telling me?" she asked.

My cell phone rang. I glanced at the caller ID. It was Loren Muse. I hit the On button and said, "What's up?" "We got a problem," Muse said. I closed my eyes and waited. "It's Chamique. She wants to recant."

My office is in the center of Newark. I keep hearing that there is a revitalization going on in this city. I don't see it. The city has been decaying for as long as I can remember. But I have gotten to know this city well. The history is still there, beneath the surface. The people are wonderful. We as a society are big on stereotyping cities the way we do ethnic groups or minorities. It is easy to hate them from a distance. I remember Jane's conservative parents and their disdain for all things gay. Her college roommate, Helen, unbeknownst to them, was gay. When they met her, both her mother and father simply loved Helen. When they learned Helen was a lesbian, they still loved her. Then they loved her partner.

That was how it often was. It was easy to hate gays or blacks or Jews or Arabs. It was more difficult to hate individuals. Newark was like that. You could hate it as a mass, but so many neighborhoods and shopkeepers and citizens had a charm and strength that you couldn't help but be drawn in and care about and want to make it better.

Chamique sat in my office. She was so damned young, but you could see the hard written on her face. Life had not been easy for this girl. It would probably not get any easier. Her attorney, Horace Foley, wore too much cologne and had eyes spaced too widely apart. I am an attorney, so I don't like the prejudices that are made against my profession, but I was fairly confident that if an ambulance drove by, this guy would jump through my third-floor window to slow it down.

"We would like to see you drop the charges on Mr. Jenrette and Mr. Marantz," Foley said.

"Can't do that," I said. I looked at Chamique. She did not have her head down, but she wasn't exactly clamoring for eye contact. "Did you lie on the stand yesterday?" I asked her.

"My client would never lie," Foley said.

I ignored him, met Chamique's eyes. She said, "You're never going to convict them anyway." "You don't know that." "You serious?"

I am. Chamique smiled at me, as if I were the most naive creature that God had ever created. "You don't understand, do you?"

"Oh, I understand. They're offering money if you recant. The sum has now reached a level where your attorney here, Mr. Who-Needs-A-Shower-When-There's-Cologne, thinks it makes sense to do it."

"What did you call me?"

I looked at Muse. "Open a window, will you?"

"Got it, Cope."

"Hey! What did you call me?"

"The window is open. Feel free to jump out." I looked back at Chamique. "If you recant now, that means your testimony today and yesterday was a lie. It means you committed perjury. It means you had this office spend millions of tax dollars on your lie-your perjury. That's a crime. You'll go to jail."

Foley said, "Talk to me, Mr. Copeland, not my client."

"Talk to you? I can't even breathe around you."

"I won't stand for this-"

"Shh," I said. Then I cupped my ear with my hand. "Listen to the crinkling sound."