Харлан Кобен - The Boy from the Woods

Dash said, “But we trust Gavin—”

“Dash? You told me to call you Dash, right? Dash, this is pretty simple. I’m setting up ground rules, like I told you. Rule One: If you want to hire me, you’re going to have to listen to me. If you don’t want to listen to me, well, my driver is on his way out here — I’ll skip that helicopter with that farkakte noise on the way back, thank you — and should be arriving soon. I’ll head back into the city and charge you for the visit, and we will go our separate ways. This isn’t a democracy. I’m your Dear Leader for Life. We understand Rule One?”

Dash looked as though he might argue, but Delia put a hand on his leg.

“We understand,” Delia said.

“Good.”

Gavin said, “I don’t like it.”

“In another lifetime,” Hester said, “I’ll care, really. I’ll shed tears. But for now, shush and depart.”

Dash nodded to Gavin. Gavin threw up his hands and started for the door. Wilde followed behind him.

“Wait,” Delia said.

Both men stopped.

Delia looked at Hester. “We’ve gotten a full briefing on Wilde’s background.”

“You don’t say.”

“He’s still a licensed investigator with CRAW Securities,” Delia said. “You used to employ him to do work for you, correct?”

“And if I did?”

“Employ him again,” Delia said. “For our situation. Then anything he would hear would fall into attorney-client work product, right?”

“Hey, nice thinking.” Hester spun and looked back at Wilde. “Want to work for me?”

“Sure,” Wilde said.

“Then sit down. Don’t stand over me and lurk, it gives me vertigo.”

A few moments later, Gavin Chambers was out of the room. The four of them sat in the leather chairs, Delia and Dash on one side of the teak coffee table, Hester and Wilde on the other.

“I don’t understand,” Dash said. “If you could hire Wilde as your investigator, why can’t you hire Gavin.”

“Because,” Hester said.

“Because why?”

“Because I said so. You flew me out here on a helicopter because I assume your situation is urgent. Let’s get to it, shall we?”

Wilde raised his hand. “Not yet.”

Hester turned to him. “What?”

“Colonel Chambers was trying to monitor your son’s communications.”

“Of course he was,” Dash said. “That was part of his job.”

But Hester had already put both hands on the arms of the chair, and with a grunt, she lifted herself to a standing position. “Let’s go outside.”

“What for?” Dash asked.

“For all we know, your new chief of security put listening devices in this room.”

That knocked both Dash and Delia back for a moment.

“You don’t understand,” Dash said. “We trust Gavin implicitly.”

“You don’t understand,” Hester countered. “I don’t. And I’m not so sure your wife does either.” She started for the door. “Come on, let’s get some fresh air. It’s nice outside, it’ll do us all some good.”

Dash once again looked at Delia. She nodded and took his hand. They headed down a spiral staircase, passing a confused Gavin Chambers, and headed outside. Their twins were practicing with a coach on the soccer pitch.

“The girls don’t know what’s going on,” Dash said. “We’d like to keep it that way.”

They walked toward the middle of the yard, nearly taking the same path their son had on that CCTV recording last night. The day was gorgeous, almost mockingly so. Wilde saw Hester spot the view of Manhattan, her home now, and she watched the skyscrapers as though they were old friends.

When they were far enough from the house, Hester said, “So why am I here?”

Dash launched straight into it. “This morning, when we woke up, our son Crash was gone. The early signs pointed to him visiting a friend late at night or, at worst, running off. Mr. Wilde here knows the situation.”

Hester said, “Okay.”

Delia cupped a hand over her eyes to block the sun. She looked up at Wilde. “Why did you corner our son at the school yesterday?”

“Whoa.” It was Hester. “Don’t answer that. Let’s get me up to speed before we start down any of those roads, okay?”

“The road is a simple one,” Delia said. “Because of our current situation—”

“What situation?”

“Last night, Saul Strauss was a guest on your show,” Delia said.

“Right, so?”

“He made accusations involving us.”

“I assume you’re talking about you guys possessing incriminating tapes?”

Delia nodded. “Purportedly on Rusty Eggers, yes.”

“I thought he was full of it,” Hester said. “They exist?”

“No,” Delia said, “they do not.”

No hesitation, Wilde noted. Didn’t mean she was telling the truth, of course. But there was zero pause, zero wrong body language — just a straight-up denial.

“Go on,” Hester said.

“When we discovered Crash was missing,” Dash said, “Colonel Chambers and his team immediately started a search. All early signs pointed to the fact that our son ran away on his own. There is CCTV of him leaving the manor alone, seemingly voluntarily.” Dash turned his glare onto Wilde. “Still — and I think this is a natural response — Colonel Chambers made sure that the man who yesterday held our son against his will at his school wasn’t involved. You know this, of course, Ms. Crimstein — you saw it on FaceTime. We want to know the reason why Mr. Wilde here felt the need to confront our son in his own school. I think our concern is understandable.”

Hester nodded. “So that’s why you had Chambers bring Wilde here.”

“Yes.”

“And you figured by hiring me, you’d get him to talk.”

Delia spoke up now. “No. We hired you because things have changed.”

“What do you mean?”

“We don’t think Crash ran away on his own anymore.”

“Why not?”

“Because,” Delia said, “we just received a ransom note.”

The ransom note had come in via anonymous email.

Dash handed his phone to Hester, who hunched over so her body would block the sun glare on the screen. Wilde read it over her shoulder:

We have your son. If you do not do exactly what we say, he will be executed. We don’t want that, but we believe in freedom and freedom always comes at a price. If you contact the FBI or law enforcement, we will know about it and we will immediately execute Crash. If you think you can contact the authorities without us knowing, you are wrong. We were able to kidnap your son despite all your expensive security. We will know, and your son will suffer greatly.

Our request is simple. We believe that the truth will set you free. For that reason, we want you to turn over the tapes you have on Rusty Eggers to us. All of them, especially the oldest. There will be no negotiating on this. The stakes are too high.

Please follow these Instructions exactly.

On the bottom of this email is a link to an anonymous drop box which works through what is commonly known as the Dark Web via several VPNs. The link is not active yet.

At exactly 4PM, click the link and upload all videos that you have on Rusty Eggers per the prompts.

You will see a special folder set aside for the truly damaging tape. We know the tape exists, so please do not pretend otherwise. The link will be useless again at exactly 5PM.

If we don’t get what we want, your son will face the consequences.

That was it. On the bottom was indeed a hyperlink with lots of jumbled numbers, letters, and symbols of all sorts.

Hester read the message several more times. Wilde watched her and waited. Eventually Hester handed the phone back to Dash. Both of their hands were shaking.