Харлан Кобен - The Boy from the Woods

“Ah,” Wilde said. “That’s where I come in.”

“To a degree.”

“But you really don’t think I had anything to do with it.”

“Like I said — I was checking the boxes.”

“So I’m here because I happened to question Crash yesterday.”

“Hell of a coincidence that, don’t you think?”

“And Naomi Pine is also missing,” Wilde said.

“Hell of a coincidence that, don’t you think?”

“So there is a connection?”

“Two kids from the same high school class disappear,” Gavin said. “If there’s not a connection...”

“...it’s a hell of a coincidence, don’t you think?” Wilde finished for him. “What else you got?”

“They’ve been communicating.”

“Naomi and Crash?”

“Yes.”

“Recently?”

“I don’t know. The kid stays ahead of our monitoring — WhatsApp, Signal, whatever apps they use. They’re encrypted. My job isn’t to spy on the family. It’s to protect them.”

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why are you protecting them, Gavin? And I mean you, specifically. You read up on me, I read up on you. You don’t do fieldwork anymore, and Dash Maynard is just a television producer. So you’re not here simply to protect him and his family. You’re here because of Rusty Eggers.”

Gavin smiled. “What a deduction. Should I applaud?”

“Only if you feel it’s appropriate.”

“I don’t. It doesn’t matter why I’m here. Two teens have disappeared. You want to find one, I want to find the other.”

“Pool our resources?”

“We have the same goal.”

“I assume you brought me out here for a reason.”

“The Maynards insisted, actually. I figured while you’re here, I’d get your take.”

Wilde looked toward the woods and spotted a path. “You think that’s where Crash was headed?”

“From the angle of the walk on the video, yes. But more than that, that’s also the spot where he recently encountered Naomi Pine trespassing.”

Crash hadn’t “encountered” Naomi — he’d pranked, intimidated, and bullied her. Or at least, that was how Matthew described it. But now was not the time to get into semantics. Wilde started toward the path in the woods to get a better look.

“I assume you don’t have any CCTV coverage of where we are now,” Wilde said.

“That’s correct. We only worry about people near the estate. We aren’t interested in people, especially family members, who voluntarily choose to leave.”

“So,” Wilde said, “your working theory is that Crash met Naomi out here and that they are hiding somewhere together?”

“Seems most likely.”

“Yet you still panicked.”

“We didn’t panic.”

“You had armed men swarm my house.”

“Stop with the dramatics. These are not ordinary times, Wilde. The family is under enormous stress and pressure. Threats have been made — violent and awful threats. You may have seen something about it on the news.”

He nodded. “The Maynards have tapes that could destroy Rusty Eggers.”

“It’s not true, but people believe any crackpot conspiracy they see online.”

They entered the woods via the path. Wilde checked the dirt for footprints. There were a fair number, mostly fresh. “You and your men went through here this morning?”

“Of course.”

Wilde frowned, but in a sense it didn’t matter. Crash Maynard had come out here on his own. There was no one else on the tape. Was Naomi or someone waiting for him? Hard to say via physical evidence. There was a small clearing to the left with the rock where Matthew and Naomi met up. Wilde headed over to it. He knelt down, felt under and around it, and found a few butts, both tobacco and cannabis.

“If this place isn’t covered by CCTV, how did you know about Crash’s ‘encounter’ with Naomi?”

“One of my men was walking the grounds. He heard a bunch of kids laughing.”

“And he didn’t step in?”

“He’s security, not a babysitter.”

A noise familiar to Wilde cut through the air. He looked skyward, through the branches reaching up to the sky of deep dark blue. The chopping sound from the whirring rotors grew louder. Wilde didn’t suffer from PTSD — at least, not the kind that could be clinically diagnosed, but there wasn’t a guy who served over there that didn’t cringe at this sound.

He stepped back into the clearing as the helicopter hovered above the side yard. As it descended toward the ground, Wilde sneaked a glance at Gavin Chambers, hoping to get a read on the situation, but if this arrival was known to him, his expression wasn’t giving that away. Even from this distance, Wilde could feel the wind from the rotors of the Bell 427 twin-engine copter, maybe the most commonly used for short flights from, say, New York City out to here, as it touched down. The engine turned off. Whoever was inside waited until the rotors stopped spinning completely. Then the pilot came out and opened the door.

Hester Crimstein stepped out of the copter. She spotted Wilde and Gavin, smiled, and spread her arms wide.

“Can I make an entrance, boys, or what?”

Five minutes later, they were all ensconced in the Maynards’ over-the-top library turret. Hester sat across from Dash and Delia. Gavin Chambers stood behind the Maynards. There was an empty burgundy leather wingback chair next to Hester, purportedly for Wilde, but he chose to stand too.

“Can we get you a beverage?” Dash Maynard asked.

Hester looked at Wilde, arching an eyebrow at the word “beverage,” as if understandably annoyed by the use of the word in casual conversation.

“We’re good,” Hester said.

“We appreciate you agreeing to join us on such short notice,” Dash continued.

“You sent a helicopter and offered to pay double my regular rate,” Hester said. “How’s a girl to refuse?”

Delia Maynard had yet to speak. There was a slight tremor in her pale face. Her eyes stared out, unfocused. For a few long moments, no one spoke.

“Hey, listen, I can wait all day — double my usual superexpensive-though-worth-it rate? Mama’s gonna buy herself a new pair of Louboutins, you know what I’m saying?”

Dash glanced at Delia. Wilde glanced out the window behind them. The view was magnificent. The manor was so high up that you could see the skyscrapers of Manhattan above the tree line.

“I’m joking,” Hester said.

“Pardon?”

“Yes, you offered to double my fee. But I don’t work that way. I’ll bill you the same hourly rate as every other client — no more, no less. And I don’t like wasting time, even if I’m on the clock. I don’t need money that badly. I’m rich already. Not as rich as you, Mr. Maynard—”

“Call me Dash.”

“Okay, Dash, cool. Since you seem a little hesitant, let me set a few ground rules to get us off the ground, okay?”

“Yes,” he said, clearing his throat, “that might be helpful.”

“First thing: You said on the phone that you wish to engage my services.”

“Yes.”

“So now I’m your attorney. Wonderful, mazel tov.” She glanced up over Dash’s shoulder to Gavin Chambers. “Please leave. This is a private meeting between my client and myself.”

“Oh no,” Dash said. “It’s okay if Gavin—”

“It’s not okay with me,” Hester interjected. “I’m now officially your attorney. What you divulge to me gets locked away under attorney-client privilege. In short, no one can compel me to reveal what you’re about to say. Mr. Chambers here doesn’t get that same legal recourse. He can, like it or not, be compelled to reveal the contents of this conversation. So I want him out.” Hester glanced to her right. “You too, Wilde. Skedaddle.”