Harlan Coben - Don’t Let Go

“Uh, no.” Jill looks wide-eyed at Augie. “I put the file on your desk, Captain. Should I have done more?”

“No, you did fine, Jill. I can take it from here. Leave the laptop. Thanks.”

Jill looks at me as if I’m supposed to say something to absolve her. I don’t blame her for the way she handled it, but I’m not in the mood to let her off the hook, either. I stay quiet as she leaves. When we are alone, Augie frowns at me.

“She’s a rookie, for crying out loud.”

“Someone on that video is accusing Hank of a pretty serious offense.”

“Put it on me, then,” Augie says.

I make a face and wave him off.

“I’m the captain. My subordinate left the file on my desk. I should have gone through it better. You want to blame somebody? Blame me.”

Right or wrong, this isn’t where I want to go with this. “I’m not blaming anybody.”

I hit the play button and watch the video again. Then I watch it a third time.

“His pants are loose,” I say to him.

“You think maybe they slipped?”

I don’t. Neither does he.

“Check out the comments underneath,” Augie says.

I move the cursor down. “There are over fifty thousand of them.”

“Just click ‘Top Comments’ and read a few.”

I do as he asks. And as always when reading a comments section, my faith in humanity plummets:

SOMEONE SHOULD CASTRATE THIS GUY WITH A RUSTY NAIL...

I WANT TO CHAIN THAT PERV TO THE BACK OF MY TRUCK AND DRAG HIS ASS...

THIS IS WHAT’S WRONG WITH AMERICA. WHY IS THIS PEDO-O-FILE ROAMING FREE...

HIS NAME IS HANK STROUD! I SAW HIM PEEING IN THE PARKING LOT AT THE WESTBRIDGE STARBUCKS...

WHY WASTE MY TAX DOLLARS BY PUTTING THAT DEVIANT IN A PRISON? TAKE THIS HANK OUT BACK LIKE YOU WOULD A RABID DOG...

HOPE THAT FREAK WALKS THROUGH MY YARD. GOT A NEW RIFLE I’M DYING TO TRY OUT...

SOMEONE SHOULD PULL DOWN HIS PANTS, BEND HIM OVER AND...

You get the idea. Too many posts begin with “Someone should...” and then offer up a skew of torture possibilities so creatively sick that Torquemada would have been envious.

“Nice, huh?” Augie says.

“We need to find him.”

“I put out a bulletin statewide.”

“Maybe we should try his dad.”

“Tom?” Augie looks surprised. “Tom Stroud moved away a long time ago.”

“Rumor has it he came back,” I say.

“For real?”

“Someone told me he’s living in his ex’s place in Cross Creek Point.”

“Huh,” Augie says.

“Huh what?”

“We were pretty tight in the day. Tom and I. After the divorce he moved out to Wyoming. Cheyenne. A couple of us went out there, oh, has to be twenty years ago, and took a fly-fishing trip with him.”

“When was the last time you saw him?”

“That trip. You know how it is. A guy moves across the country, you lose touch.”

“Still,” I say. “You just said you two were pretty tight.”

I look at him. Augie gets where I’m going with this. He looks down at the main floor of the station. It isn’t busy. It rarely is.

“Fine,” he says with a sigh, heading for the door. “You drive.”

We drive in silence for a few minutes.

I want to say something to Augie. I want to apologize for unearthing what he’d worked so hard to bury. I want to tell him that I’m going to turn around, that I’m going to drop him back off at the station, that I can handle this entirely on my own. I want to tell him to call Yvonne and maybe give it one more try and forget I said anything about his dead daughter.

But I don’t.

Instead I say, “My theory isn’t adding up anymore.”

“How’s that?”

“My theory — if you want to call it that — was that this all has to do with what happened to Leo and Diana.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I can see Augie deflate. I push on.

“I figured that it has something to do with that Conspiracy Club. Six possible members that we know of — Leo and Diana—”

“We don’t know Diana was a member.” There is a snap in his voice, which I completely get. “She wasn’t wearing one of those silly pins in the yearbook.”

“Right,” I say slowly, carefully. “That’s why I said possible members.”

“Fine, whatever.”

“If you don’t want me to talk about this—”

“Do me a favor, Nap. Just tell me what’s now wrong with your theory, okay?”

I nod. As the two of us get older, we get more equal. But Augie is still the mentor, I the mentee. “Six possible members,” I say again. “Diana and Leo—”

“—are dead,” he says. “So is Rex. That leaves Maura, who was at the scene of Rex’s murder, that cardiologist out west—”

“Beth Fletcher née Lashley.”

“And Hank,” Augie says.

“And he’s the problem,” I say.

“How so?”

“Three weeks ago, before Rex was murdered, someone posted that viral video of Hank. Then Hank goes missing. Then Rex gets killed. I don’t see how there can be a connection. Whoever posted the video — that was a random thing by a school parent. That can’t be connected to the old base or the Conspiracy Club, right?”

“Seems unlikely.” He rubs his chin with his right hand. “May I make an observation?”

“Shoot.”

“You want this too much, Nap.”

“And you don’t want it enough,” I fire back, which is a dumb thing for me to say.

I expect and deserve fireworks. Instead Augie chuckles. “Anyone else, I’d punch them in the mouth for that.”

“That was out of line,” I say. “I’m sorry.”

“I get it, Nap, even if you don’t.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You aren’t just in this because of Leo and Diana,” he says. “You’re in it for Maura.”

I just sit and let the words sting.

“If Maura hadn’t run off, you’d have been able to put Leo’s death behind you. You’d have questions, of course, like I do. But that’s the difference here. Whatever answer we come up with, even if it changes what we know about Leo and Diana, it doesn’t really change anything for me. My daughter’s dead body will still be rotting in that cemetery. But for you” — there is a deep sadness in Augie’s voice, and I think it may be pity for me — “for you, there’s Maura.”

We pull up to the gate in front of the condo development. I shake it off. Focus. Concentrate.

It is easy to poke fun at these sorts of real estate developments — the placid sameness, the lack of any sense of individuality, the snap-together structuring, the overly orchestrated landscapes — but I’ve thought of moving into one ever since I reached adulthood. The idea of paying one monthly maintenance fee and doing no exterior work appeals to me. I hate to mow the lawn. I don’t like to garden or barbecue or do any of the classic homeownership rites of passage. I wouldn’t care in the slightest if the exterior of my home looked exactly the same as my neighbors’. I don’t even feel any special connection to the physical structure where we were raised.

You, Leo, would stay with me wherever I would go.

So why don’t I move?

I’m sure a psychiatrist would have a field day with that one, but I don’t think the answer is that deep. Maybe it’s easier to stay. Moving is an effort. Classic science: A body at rest stays at rest. I don’t buy that explanation, but it’s the best I’ve got.

The condo guard is armed with nary a nightstick. I flash my badge at him and say, “We’re here to see Tom Stroud.”

He studies the badge, hands it back to me. “Is Mr. Stroud expecting you?”

“No.”

“Do you mind if I call and let him know you’re here? I mean, it’s kinda policy.”