Harlan Coben - Don’t Let Go

“You told all this to my brother?”

“Him and his friends, yeah.”

“How many of them?”

“What?”

“How many kids came with Leo?”

“Five, maybe six, I don’t remember.”

“Boys, girls?”

He thought about it. “I think there were two girls, but I can’t swear to it. Might have been just one.”

“You know that Leo didn’t die alone.”

He nods. “Of course. Diana Styles was with him. The captain’s daughter.”

“Was Diana one of those girls who visited you with my brother?”

“No.”

I am not sure what to make of that, if anything. “Is there anything else you can think of that could help me?”

“Help you what, Nap?”

“Let’s say you’re right. Let’s say the base was doing something top secret. And let’s say somehow these kids found out about it. What would happen to them?”

Now it was his turn to not reply. His mouth just drops open.

“What else did you learn, Dr. Kaufman?”

“Just two more things.” He clears his throat and sits back down. “I found the name of one of the commanders. Andy Reeves. He was supposedly an agriculture expert out of Michigan State, but when I looked into his background, let’s just say it was muddled.”

“CIA?”

“He fits the pattern. And he still lives in the area.”

“Did you ever talk to him about it?”

“I tried.”

“And?”

“He just said the base did boring agriculture stuff. Counting cows and crops, that’s how he put it.”

“What’s the second thing?”

“The closing of the base.”

“Right, when was that?”

“Fifteen years ago,” Kaufman says. “Three months after your brother and Augie’s daughter were found dead.”

As I head back toward my car, I call Augie.

“I just talked to Jeff Kaufman.”

I think I hear a sigh. “Oh, great.”

“He had some interesting stuff to say about the old base.”

“I bet he did.”

“Do you know Andy Reeves?”

“I did.”

I’m cutting across town now. “How?”

“I’ve been head of this police department for almost thirty years, remember? He was running the base when it was doing agriculture studies.”

I pass a new place that only sells various chicken wings. The smell is enough to harden my arteries.

“Did you buy that?” I ask.

“Buy what?”

“That they were doing agricultural studies.”

“I buy that,” Augie says, “a lot more than I buy those mind-control rumors. As police chief, I knew all the commanders at the base. My predecessor knew all the ones from before that.”

“Kaufman says back in the day the base used to control nuclear missiles.”

“That’s what I heard too.”

“And then he said when it changed hands, the base became even more guarded and more secretive.”

“No offense to Kaufman, but he’s being overly dramatic.”

“How so?”

“The Nike bases were out in the open at first. Kaufman told you that, right?”

“Right.”

“So when they went nuclear, it would have been suspicious to all of a sudden be hunkering down and acting too secretive. There was a ton of added security when they went nuclear, but it was more subtle.”

“And when the Nike bases closed down?”

“There may have been tighter security, but that was just normal updating and technology. A new team comes in, they put up a better fence.”

I cross Oak Street, Westbridge’s own Restaurant Row. I walk past — in order — Japanese, Thai, French, Italian, dim sum, and something called “California fusion” restaurants. After that, you hit a slew of bank branches. I don’t see the point. I never see any customers in bank branches, other than to use the ATMs.

“I’d like to talk to this Andy Reeves,” I say to Augie. “Can you arrange it?”

I expect pushback. I don’t get it. “Okay, I’ll set it up for you.”

“You’re not going to try to stop me?”

“No,” Augie says. “You seem to need this.”

He hangs up then. As I reach my car, my phone rings. The caller ID tells me it’s Ellie.

“Hey,” I say.

“We need you at the shelter.”

I don’t like the tone. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. Just get here as soon as you can, okay?”

“Okay.”

She hangs up. I slip into the car and grab the portable police siren light. I almost never use it, but this seems like a good time. I slap it on the roof and drive fast.

I arrive at the shelter in twelve minutes. I hurry-walk inside, turn left, and half rush down the hall. Ellie is waiting outside her office door. The expression on her face tells me that this is something big.

“What?” I ask.

Ellie doesn’t speak, instead choosing to gesture toward the inside of her office. I turn the knob, push the door open, and look inside.

There are two women in the room.

The one on the left I don’t recognize. The other... It takes me a second to process. She has aged well, better than I would have expected. The fifteen years have been a friend to her. I wonder now if those years had been about sobriety and yoga or at least something along those lines. Anyway, it looks like it.

Our eyes meet. I say nothing for a moment. I just stand there.

“I knew it would come back to you,” she says.

I flash back to standing across the street from the row houses, the ill-fitted summer dress, the walk-weave as she headed down the street. It’s Lynn Wells.

Maura’s mother.

I don’t waste time. “Where’s Maura?”

“Close the door,” the other woman says. Her hair is the color of carrots, with lipstick to match. She’s wearing a tailored gray suit with a frilly shirt. I’m not a fashionista, but it looks expensive.

“And you are?”

I turn back and reach for the door. Ellie gives me a quick nod as I close it.

“My name is Bernadette Hamilton. I’m Lynn’s friend.”

I get a sense that they are more than friends, though I don’t care in the slightest. My heart is thumping so hard I’m sure they can see it through my shirt. I turn back to Mrs. Wells, all ready to repeat my question more forcefully, when something makes me pull up.

Slow down, I tell myself.

I have a million questions to ask her, of course, but I also understand that the best interrogations require almost supernatural patience. Mrs. Wells has come to me, not vice versa. She has sought me out. She has even used Ellie as a go-between, so that she didn’t have to show up at my home or office or leave a phone trail. That all took effort.

The obvious conclusion?

She wants something from me.

So I should let her talk. I should let her give up something without being asked. Stay quiet. That is my normal modus operandi. No reason to change that because it’s personal. So I stay calm. Don’t ask her questions. Don’t prompt her or make demands.

Not yet. Take your time. Plan.

But one thing, Leo: There is no way Mrs. Wells is leaving this room without telling me where Maura is.

I stay standing and wait for her to make the first move.

Finally, Mrs. Wells speaks. “The police came to see me.”

I say nothing.

“They said Maura might be involved in a murder of a police officer.” When I still don’t reply, she says, “Is that true?”

I nod. I see her friend Bernadette reach over and put her hand on Mrs. Wells’s.

“Do you really think Maura could be involved in a murder?” Lynn Wells asks.

“Probably, yeah,” I say.

Her eyes widen a bit. I see the hand tighten over hers.

“Maura wouldn’t kill anyone. You know that.”

I bite back a sarcastic rejoinder and stay silent.