Харлан Кобен - The Boy from the Woods

“Crimstein,” Dash repeated. “As in Hester?”

“Yes.”

No one liked that.

“Crash swears he doesn’t know anything about Naomi,” Delia said. When Gavin didn’t respond, she asked, “Do you think he does?”

“Crash has been in touch with her. Naomi Pine, I mean. As you probably know, she disappeared a week or so ago playing a game called Challenge.”

“Some of the mothers were talking about that.”

“Crash... encouraged her to do it.”

“Are you saying he forced her?”

“No, but peer pressure was a major factor.”

“You don’t think Crash did something bad to this girl, do you?”

“Very doubtful,” Gavin said. “He’s too monitored.”

They both were visibly relieved.

“But that doesn’t mean he knows nothing about it.”

“So what do we do? I don’t like this.” Delia looked down at the courtyard again. Saul Strauss was staring straight up, almost as though he could see them through the one-way windows. “I don’t like any of this.”

“I would suggest the family take a bit of a break from this town. Maybe travel overseas.”

“Why?”

“People perceive Rusty Eggers as an existential threat.”

Gavin Chambers waited for one of them to argue this point. Neither did.

Delia said, “Gavin?”

“Yes.”

“We are safe, right? You won’t let anything happen to our son.”

“You’re safe,” Gavin said. “He’s safe.”

Matthew made himself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, sat alone at the kitchen table, ate it, still felt hungry, made a second, and was eating when there was a knock on his back door.

He looked out the window and was surprised — closer to shocked — to see Crash Maynard. Prepared for anything, Matthew carefully opened the door halfway.

“Hey,” Crash said.

“Hey.”

“Can I come in a second?”

Matthew didn’t move or open the door any wider. “What’s up?”

“I just...” Crash used his sleeve to wipe his eyes. He looked out at the yard. “Remember when we used to play kickball out here?”

“In fifth grade.”

“We sat next to each other in Mr. Richardson’s class,” Crash said. “He was out there, wasn’t he?”

“Yeah.”

“But he was also kinda awesome.”

“He was,” Matthew agreed.

“We were tight then, remember?”

“Yeah,” Matthew said. “I guess.”

“It was easier.”

“What was?”

“Everything. No one really cared about who had the big house or what other people thought. We just... we cared about kickball.”

Matthew knew this wasn’t exactly true. It may have been a more innocent time, but it wasn’t that innocent.

“What do you want, Crash?”

“To say I’m sorry.”

Tears streamed down his cheeks. His voice was more a sob now.

“I’m so damn sorry.”

Matthew stepped back. “Why don’t you come in?”

But Crash didn’t move. “There is so much shit going down around my house right now. I know that’s no excuse, but it’s like I’m living on top of a volcano and I’m waiting for it to erupt.”

Gone was the high-school-hallway confidence, the swagger, the sneer. Matthew wasn’t sure what to make of this, but something felt very wrong. “Come on in,” he tried again. “We used to drink Yoo-hoo, right? I think my mom still has some in the fridge.”

Crash shook his head. “I can’t. They’ll be looking for me.”

“Who?”

“I just wanted you to know, okay? I’m really sorry I hurt you. And Naomi. What I did...”

“Crash, just come in—”

But Crash was already running away.

Wilde didn’t feel like going back to his Ecocapsule yet.

His regular hangout — as much as one could say he had such a thing — was a bar located in the atrium lobby of the glass-towered Sheraton hotel on Route 17 in Mahwah, New Jersey. The hotel advertised itself as “unfussy yet upscale,” which seemed pretty close to the truth. This was a hotel for businesspeople, here for one night, maybe two, and that worked for both the guests and Wilde.

The Sheraton’s bar had a nice open feel, being in a glass atrium. The bartenders, like Nicole McCrystal who gave him a welcoming smile as he entered, stayed the same, while the clientele, mostly young executives blowing off a little steam, constantly changed. Wilde liked hotel bars for that latter reason — the transient nature, the openness, the rooms and beds being conveniently located only an elevator ride away should they be needed.

Was it too soon?

Probably, but how long should Wilde give it? A week? Two weeks? The wait seemed arbitrary and unnecessary. He wasn’t heartbroken. Neither was Laila.

It was what it was.

“Wilde!” Nicole called out, clearly happy to see him.

She brought him a beer. When it came to beer, he was, like the hotel, “unfussy,” but he enjoyed whatever local ale was on tap. Today, that was a “blonde lager” from the Asbury Park Brewery. Nicole leaned over the bar to buss his cheek. Tom down at the other end gave him a wave.

“Been a while,” she said to him.

Nicole smiled. She had a kind smile.

“Yeah.”

“Back on the prowl?”

He didn’t reply to that one because he didn’t yet know the answer.

She leaned toward him. “A few past conquests were asking about you.”

“Don’t call them that.”

“What name would you prefer?” A guy bellied up to the other end of the bar and raised his hand. Nicole said, “Think it over and I’ll be back later.”

Wilde took a deep sip from his mug and listened to the hum of the hotel. His phone buzzed. It was Hester.

“Wilde?”

He could barely hear her over the background noise on her end. “Where are you?” he asked.

“At a restaurant.”

“I see.”

“I’m on a date.”

“I see.”

“With Oren Carmichael.”

“I see.”

“You’re a great conversationalist, Wilde. Such enthusiasm.”

“Do you want me to yell, ‘Yippee’?”

“Naomi’s mother won’t talk to me.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“What do you think I mean? I mean she won’t talk to me. She refuses to return my calls. She says her daughter is none of my business.”

“So Naomi is with her?”

“I don’t know. I was going to send my investigator over to her house, but get this: She’s vacationing in the south of Spain.”

“So maybe Naomi is traveling with her. Maybe Naomi needed to escape all the bullying so her mother took her to Spain.”

“Where are you, Wilde?”

“I’m at the Sheraton bar.”

“Careful,” Hester said. “You hold your liquor like an eighteen-year-old co-ed at her first mixer.”

“What’s a mixer?”

“You’re too young to know.”

“For that matter, what’s a co-ed?”

“Funny. Let’s talk in the morning. I have to get back to Oren.”

“You’re on a date,” Wilde said. Then: “Yippee.”

“Wiseass.”

At some point, Wilde found himself talking to Sondra, a redhead in her early thirties with tight slacks and an easy laugh. They sat at the quiet end of the bar. She’d been born in Morocco, where her father had been working for the embassy. “He was CIA,” she told him. “Pretty much all embassy employees are spies. Not just the USA ones. All over. I mean, think about it. You get to bring in whoever you want to a protected location in the heart of a foreign country — of course you’re going to send your best counterintelligence people, right?” Sondra had moved around a lot as a kid, embassy to embassy, mostly in Africa and the Middle East. “My hair fascinated them. There are so many superstitions surrounding redheads.” She’d gone to UCLA and loved it and got a degree in hotel management. She was divorced and had one son, age six, at home. “I don’t travel much, but I do this trip every year.” Her son was staying with his dad. She and her ex got along. She liked staying at this Sheraton. They always upgraded her room to the presidential suite. “You have to see it,” she said in a tone that could knock a movie rating from PG to R. “Top floor. You can see the skyline of New York from it. It’s three rooms, so like, if we just wanted to have a drink in the living room space, I mean, I don’t want you to think...”