Харлан Кобен - The Boy from the Woods

“I don’t see them right now, no. But I can’t... I mean, Carmichael might be right down the block, watching. There were news vans here too... We are probably being watched.”

We? Wilde thought.

Unless Pine considered himself royalty, “we” meant more than one person. Except that Wilde had cased the house. He had only spotted one person. Bernard Pine. If someone else was here, there was only one place that person could be.

The basement.

“Yeah, Larry, I know you told me not to do this, but I didn’t think I had a choice. I don’t want to get caught. That’s the big thing now.”

Pine hurried up toward the stairwell where Wilde stood on the landing. He was hustling now, jumping the steps two at a time. Relying on reflexes, Wilde dove back into Naomi’s bedroom and rolled toward a corner. Pine passed him on the landing without glancing into his daughter’s room.

The basement , Wilde thought.

He didn’t wait long. The moment Pine was past the door and in his own bedroom, Wilde came out. Moving on the balls of his feet — not the toes, the toes made noise — he padded down the steps. He spun to his right and came to the basement door. He tried the knob. It turned.

He opened the basement door silently, stepped inside, closed it behind him.

There was a faint light below him. Wilde had two choices here. Choice One: Tiptoe down the steps and sneak slowly toward whatever was to be found. Choice Two: Go for it.

Wilde went for Choice Two.

He took off his mask and strolled down the cellar stairs. He didn’t disguise it. He didn’t hurry nor did he dawdle. When Wilde arrived at the bottom, he turned toward the light.

Naomi opened her mouth.

“Don’t scream,” Wilde said to her. “I’m here to help you.”

Chapter Eleven

The basement had been finished on the cheap. The walls were faux wood made of some kind of vinyl, stuck up on the concrete with adhesive. The sofa was a hand-me-down convertible that was right now open into a queen-sized bed.

It was blanketed with stuffed animals.

Naomi Pine sat on the sofa’s armrest, her shoulders slumped, her eyes down, so that her hair hung in front of her face like a beaded curtain. She wasn’t skinny, which in today’s world was to say she was probably overweight, but Wilde didn’t really know. She was neither pretty nor ugly, and while her looks should be irrelevant, they weren’t, not in the real world and especially not in the teen world. So he looked at her, at her whole being, and it stirred his heart. In truth, if he could be totally objective and maybe it was the history of the situation talking, Naomi Pine looked, above all else, like an easy target. That was indeed the vibe. Some people look smart or dumb or strong or cruel or weak or brave or whatever. Naomi looked like she was always in mid-cringe, as though she were asking the world not to hit her, and that just made the world sneer in her face.

“I know you,” Naomi said. “You’re the boy from the woods.”

Not exactly accurate. Or maybe it was.

“Your name is Wilde, right?”

“Yes.”

“You’re our boogie man, you know.”

Wilde said nothing.

“Like, parents tell little kids not to go in the woods because the Wild Man will grab them and eat them or something. And like, when kids tell ghost stories or try to scare each other, you’re kinda the star of the show.”

“Terrific,” Wilde said. “Are you scared of me?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“I’m drawn to outcasts,” she said.

He tried to smile. “Me too.”

“You ever read To Kill a Mockingbird ?” she asked him.

“Yes.”

“You’re like our Boo Radley.”

“I guess that would make you Scout.”

“Yeah, right,” Naomi said with a roll of her eyes, and his heart felt it again.

“Who is Larry? I heard your dad on the phone.”

“He’s my uncle. He lives in Chicago.” Naomi lowered her head. “Are you going to tell?”

“No.”

“So you’ll just leave?”

“If you want.” Wilde moved closer to her and made his tone as gentle as he could. “The Challenge,” he said.

Naomi looked up at him. “How do you know about that?”

He’d seen it on her computer, but he’d also remembered reading about it a few years back. The article had called it the 48-Hour-Challenge, though it was later dismissed as an urban legend. It was an online game of sorts, albeit a fairly awful one. Teens would vanish on purpose so that their parents would panic and think that their child had been kidnapped or worse. The longer you “disappeared,” the more points you’d accumulate.

“It doesn’t matter,” Wilde said. “You were playing it, right?”

“I still don’t understand. Why are you here?”

“I was looking for you.”

“Why?”

“Someone was worried.”

“Who?”

He hesitated. Then he figured, why not. “Matthew Crimstein.”

She may have smiled. “Figures.”

“Figures why?”

“He probably blames himself. Tell him he shouldn’t.”

“Okay.”

“He just wants to fit in too.”

Wilde could hear movement from upstairs. Her dad no doubt. “What happened, Naomi?”

“You ever read self-help books?”

“No.”

“I do. All the time. My life...” She stopped, blinked back tears, shook her head. “Anyway, they always talk about making small changes. The self-help books. I tried that. It doesn’t work. Everyone still hates me. You know what that’s like? Every day to feel your whole insides twist up because you’re scared to go to school?”

“No,” Wilde said. “But it must suck.”

She liked that answer. “It does. Big time. But I don’t want you to feel sorry for me, okay?”

“Okay.”

“Promise?”

He crossed his heart with his right hand.

“Anyway,” Naomi said, “I decided to go for it.”

“Go for what?”

“Change.” Her face lit up. “Total change. One big move, one big thing, so I could erase my past as a loser and start again. Do you get that?”

He said nothing.

“So yeah, I took the challenge. I disappeared. At first, I hid in the woods.” She managed a smile. “I wasn’t scared of you at all.”

He smiled back.

“I lasted two days.”

“Was it rough?”

“No, I liked it actually. Out there. On my own. You get that, right?”

“I do.”

“Heck, you probably get it better than anyone,” she said. “It was like an escape, a reprieve. But my dad, look, he’s not the most on the ball. What I am, okay, I mean, me being a loser—”

“You’re not a loser.”

Naomi shot him a look that told him he was patronizing her and she was disappointed by it. He held up his hands as though to say, My bad .

“Anyway, it’s not his fault. All this. But he doesn’t make it better either, you know what I mean?”

“I think so.”

“So I was gone two days, and he started texting. He was going to go to the police, which is part of the game, right. Also... I was worried he’d start drinking too much. Whatever, anyway, I didn’t want that. So I came home, even though I knew forty-eight hours wouldn’t be enough. Then I told my dad what I was doing.”

Wilde heard the footsteps now. He didn’t turn, didn’t worry. “And your dad decided to help?”

“He got it right away. He thinks I’m a loser too.” Naomi held up her hand. “Don’t say it.”

“Okay.”

“I just wanted to, you know, fit in. Impress them.”

“By them, you mean Crash Maynard?”

“Crash, Kyle, Sutton, all of them.”

Wilde wanted to launch into a little speech about how you shouldn’t want to impress bullies or how trying to fit in was always the wrong move, that you should stay true to yourself and stick to your principles and stand up to the abuse — but he was sure that Naomi had heard it all before and he would again sound patronizing. Naomi knew all the angles here better than he ever could. She’d lived them every day. He hadn’t. She hoped that this move — the Challenge — would make her “cooler,” and who knows, maybe she was right. Maybe Crash and his cohorts would be impressed when she came back. Maybe it would change everything for her.