Харлан Кобен - The Boy from the Woods

With his back to Gavin, still staring out the window, Rusty asked, “How are they faring?”

He was talking about the Maynards. “They’re fine. A little stressed perhaps.”

“I’m sure your presence helps with that.”

Rusty’s apartment’s décor was fittingly spare, nothing gold or marble, just whites and minimalism. The view was the thing, those floor-to-ceiling windows.

“I appreciate you doing this for me, Gavin.”

“I’m billing for it.”

“Yes, but I know you don’t go into the field anymore.”

“I do,” Gavin said. “But rarely. Senator?”

Rusty frowned. “We’ve known each other too long for you to start calling me that.”

“I’d prefer it.”

“As you please, Colonel,” Rusty replied with a small smile.

“You know besides running my securities firm, I’m an attorney.”

“I do.”

“I don’t do much practicing,” Gavin continued, “but I passed the bar so that anything you or any client tells me is covered under attorney-client privilege.”

“I trust you anyway. You know that.”

“Still, you have that protection too — that legal protection. I wanted you to know that. I’m your trusted friend, yes, but legally I can’t reveal anything you tell me.”

Rusty Eggers turned with a smile on his face. “You know I want you in my cabinet.”

“This isn’t about that.”

“National security advisor. Maybe secretary of defense.”

Didn’t matter how much he tried not to get excited by this notion — retired colonel Gavin Chambers, ex-Marine, was still human. The idea of serving in a cabinet made him heady. “I appreciate your confidence in me.”

“It’s deserved.”

“Senator? Let me help you.”

“You are.”

“The thing is, I’ve heard the rumors—”

“They are just that,” Rusty said. “Rumors.”

“Then why am I guarding the Maynards?”

Rusty turned to him. “Are you familiar with the horseshoe theory of politics?”

“What about it?”

“Most people think, politically speaking, that the right and the left are on a linear continuum — meaning that the right is on one side of the line, and the left is obviously on the other. That they are polar opposites. Far apart from one another. But the horseshoe theory says that the line is, well, shaped more like a horseshoe — that once you start going to the far right and the far left, that the line curves inward so that the two extremes are far closer to one another than they are to the center. Some go as far as to say it’s more like a circle — that the line bends so much that far left and far right are virtually indistinguishable — tyranny in one form or another.”

“Senator?”

“Yes?”

“I studied political science too.”

“Then you’ll understand what I’m trying to do.” Rusty came closer, wincing as he limped. The shattered leg from that terrible night too often tightened up. “Most Americans are in the middle relatively speaking. Most are somewhat left or right of that center. Those people don’t interest me. They are pragmatic. They change their minds. Voters always think the president has to appeal to those folks — the center. Half the country more or less is right, half is left, so you need to grab the middle. That’s not what I’m doing.”

“I don’t see what that has to do with the Maynards,” Gavin said.

“I am the next evolution of our outrage-fueled, social-media-obsessed political culture. The final evolution, if you will. The end of the status quo.”

Rusty had the fire in his eyes, the smile rocking. There was no one else in the room and yet Gavin could hear the cheers of millions.

“My point is, if my enemies think my close friends Dash and Delia have something, anything , on me, they’ll stop at nothing, including hurting them, to get it.”

“So you’re doing this just to protect close friends?”

“You find that hard to believe?”

Gavin made a face and put the tip of his index finger near the tip of his thumb to indicate a wee bit. Rusty laughed. It was an explosive laugh. Such charm in that laugh. So disarming. “I’ve known Delia since our days at Princeton. Did you know that?”

Gavin did, of course. He knew the entire legend. Rusty had dated Delia during their junior year. They broke up while working a summer internship on Capitol Hill for the Democrats, where Delia then fell for and married another summer intern from that Capitol Hill class, a budding documentary filmmaker named Dash Maynard. That, oddly enough, was how Rusty and Dash met — in DC, doing summer internships for the Dems.

That was where it all started.

“The Maynards know more about me than anyone,” Rusty said.

“Like what?”

“Oh, nothing dire. It’s not like they have any serious dirt on me. But Dash taped everything back in the day. Everything. Backstage. Private gatherings. There are no smoking guns, but, I mean, in all that material, there must be moments my enemies could use, don’t you think? A moment when I was rude to a guest or snappy with an employee or maybe I put my hand on a woman’s elbow, whatever.”

“And specifically?”

“Nothing comes to mind.”

Gavin didn’t believe him.

“Just keep an eye on them for a few more weeks. Then this will all be over.”

When Bernard Pine unlocked his front door, Wilde didn’t wait for permission. He headed straight for the staircase.

“Hold up, where do you think you’re going?”

Wilde didn’t reply. He started up the steps. Bernard Pine fell in behind him. That was fine. Wilde entered Naomi’s bedroom and flicked on the lights.

“What are you looking for?” Pine asked.

“You want my help, right?”

“Yes.”

Wilde stared at Naomi’s bed, at all the stuffed animals on it. “Does Naomi have a favorite?”

“A favorite what?”

“Stuffed animal.”

“How would I know?”

Wilde opened the closet and checked the shelf.

“Her backpack,” he said to Pine.

“What?”

“When I was here last time—”

“Wait, when the hell were you in my daughter’s bedroom?”

Did Wilde want to go into it? Judging by the look of bafflement and perhaps even hostility sneaking onto Pine’s face, he probably had to. “The day you and I met.”

“But I saw you in the basement.”

“And before that, I was in the bedroom.”

“With my daughter?”

“What? No. Alone. You know that. She was in the basement.”

Pine shook his head, as though trying to clear it. “I don’t understand. How did you get in her bedroom?”

“That’s not really important right now. What is important is that Naomi’s backpack is missing.”

Wilde pointed to the shelf. Pine followed the gesture, saw the empty shelf, and shrugged. “It’s probably at her school. In her locker. I saw her take it lots of times. Every day, in fact.”

“What color backpack?”

“Black, I think. Maybe dark blue.”

“I’m talking about the pink one she kept on this shelf.”

Again Pine looked baffled. “How would you know... you looked in her closet?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

Wilde tried to keep the impatience out of his tone. “Because I was looking for her. Like now.”

“I don’t know anything about a pink backpack.”

Wilde gave the closet a more thorough look. The pink Fjällräven Kånken backpack he’d seen on that shelf was definitely gone. He also checked the hangers. Last time he’d been in this room, all the hangers had been taken. He counted four empty ones now. Three more hangers lay scattered on the floor, as though she’d ripped the clothes off those hangers quickly.