Harlan Coben - Hold Tight

These calculations all took mere seconds, no more than two or three, and in the end, politeness beat out survival.

It often did.

“Sure.”

She put her bundles in the back of the car and started over. Nash leaned into his own van. “I think it’s just this one strap over here…”

Reba moved closer. Nash stood up to give her room. He glanced around. The fat guy with the Jerry Garcia beard and tie-dyed tee was still waddling toward the entrance, but he wouldn’t notice anything that did not involve a doughnut. And sometimes, it is indeed best to hide in plain sight. Don’t panic, don’t rush, don’t make a fuss.

Reba Cordova leaned in and that spelled her doom.

Nash watched the exposed back of her neck. It took seconds. He reached in and pushed the spot behind her earlobe with one hand, while covering her mouth with the other. The move effectively shut off the blood to her brain.

Her legs kicked out feebly, but only for a few seconds. He dug in harder and Reba Cordova went still. He slid her in, hopped in behind her, closed the door. Pietra followed up. She shut Reba’s car door. Nash took her keys from Reba’s hand. He used the remote to lock her car. Pietra moved to the driver’s seat of their van.

She started it up.

“Wait,” Nash said.

Pietra turned. “Shouldn’t we hurry?”

“Stay calm.”

He thought a moment.

“What is it?”

“I will drive the van,” he said. “I want you to take her vehicle.”

“What? Why?”

“Because if we leave it here, they will realize that this is where she was grabbed. If we move her car, we may be able to confuse them.”

He tossed her the keys. Then he used the plastic cuffs to tie Reba down. He jammed a cloth in her mouth. She started to struggle.

He cupped her delicate, pretty face in both hands, almost as though he were about to kiss her.

“If you escape,” he said, staring into those doll-like eyes, “I will grab Jamie instead. And it will be bad. Do you understand?”

The sound of her child’s name froze Reba.

Nash moved to the front seat. To Pietra he said, “Just follow me. Drive normally.”

And they started on their way.

MIKE tried to relax with his iPod. Aside from hockey, he had no other outlet. Nothing truly relaxed him. He liked family, he liked work, he liked hockey. Hockey would only last so much longer. The years were catching up. Hard thing to admit. A lot of his job was standing in an operating room for hours at a stretch. In the past, hockey had helped keep him in shape. It probably was still good for the cardio, but his body was taking a beating. His joints ached. The muscle pulls and minor sprains came in greater frequency and extended their stays.

For the first time Mike felt on the downside of life’s roller coaster- the back nine of life, as his golfer friends put it. You know it, of course. When you hit thirty-five or forty, you know on one level that you are no longer the physical specimen you once were. But denial is a pretty powerful thing. Now, at the tender of age of forty-six, he knew that no matter what he did, the slide would not only continue but accelerate.

Cheerful thought.

The minutes passed slowly. He did not bother calling Adam’s phone anymore. He would get the messages or not. On his iPod, Mat Kearney was asking the appropriate musical question, “Where we gonna go from here?” He tried to close his eyes, vanish in the music, but it wouldn’t happen. He started pacing. That didn’t do it. He considered driving around the block on a search, but that seemed stupid. He eyed his hockey stick. Maybe shooting on the goal outside would help.

His cell phone rang. He grabbed it without checking the caller ID. “Hello?”

“Any word?”

It was Mo.

“No.”

“I’ll come over.”

“Go to the game.”

“Nah.”

“Mo-”

“I’ll give the tickets to another friend.”

“You don’t have another friend.”

“Well, that’s true,” Mo said.

“Look, let’s give him another half hour. Leave the tickets at Will Call.”

Mo didn’t reply.

“Mo?”

“How badly do you want to find him?”

“What do you mean?”

“Remember when I asked to look at your cell phone?”

“Yes.”

“Your model comes with a GPS.”

“I’m not sure I follow.”

“GPS. It stands for Global Positioning System.”

“I know what it stands for, Mo. What are you talking about with my cell phone?”

“A lot of the new phones come with GPS chips built in.”

“Like when they do that triangulation on TV with cell towers?”

“No. That’s TV. That’s also old technology. It started a few years ago with something called a SIDSA Personal Locator. It was mostly used for Alzheimer’s patients. You put it in the guy’s pocket and it was maybe the size of a pack of playing cards and if he wandered off, you could find him. Then uFindKid started doing the same thing with kids’ cell phones. Now it’s built into almost every phone by every phone company.”

“There’s a GPS in Adam’s phone?”

“Yours too, yes. I can give you the Web address. You go on, you pay the fee with a credit card. You click on and you’ll see a map like on any GPS locator-like on MapQuest-with street names and everything. It will tell you exactly where the phone is.”

Mike said nothing.

“Did you hear what I said?”

“Yes.”

“And?”

“And I’m on it.”

Mike hung up. He hopped online and pulled up the Web address for his cell carrier. He put in the phone number, provided a password. He found the GPS program, clicked the hyperlink and a bunch of options popped up. You could get a month of GPS service for $49.99, six months for $129.99, or a full year for $199.99. Mike was actually dumb enough to start considering the alternatives, automatically calculating what would be the best deal, and then he shook his head and clicked monthly. He didn’t want to think about still doing this a year from now, even if it was a much better value.

It took a few more minutes for the approval to go through and then there was another list of options. Mike clicked on the map. The entire USA appeared with a dot in his home state of New Jersey. Gee, that was helpful. He clicked the ZOOM icon, a magnifying glass, and slowly and almost dramatically, the map started to move in, first to the region, then the state, then the city and finally, right down to the street.

The GPS locator placed a big red dot right on a street not far from where Mike now sat. There was a box that read CLOSEST ADDRESS. Mike clicked it, but he really didn’t need to. He knew the address already.

Adam was at the Huffs’ house.

NINE P.M. Darkness had fallen over the Huff house.

Mike pulled up to the curb across the street. There were lights on inside. Two cars were in the driveway. He thought about how to play this. He stayed in the car and once again tried Adam’s phone. No answer. The Huffs’ phone number was unlisted, probably because Daniel Huff was a cop. Mike didn’t have the son, DJ’s, cell phone.

There was really no choice.

He tried to think about how he could explain his being here without tipping his hand. He couldn’t really think of one.

So now what?

He considered heading home. The boy was underage. Drinking was dangerous, yes, but hadn’t Mike done likewise when he was a kid? There had been beers in the woods. There had been shot parties at Pepe Feldman’s house. He and his friends weren’t heavily into the dope scene, but he had hung out at his buddy Weed’s house-clue for parents: If your kid is nicknamed “Weed,” it probably has little to do with legitimate gardening-when his folks were out of town.