Харлан Кобен - The Boy from the Woods

Now Wilde could see what was in Rusty’s hand.

A knife still wet with blood.

Dash: “Rusty...”

“I need your help, my friend.”

“I... I think I should leave.”

“No, Dash, you can’t do that.”

“Please...”

“You’re my friend.” Rusty smiled again. “You’re the only one I can trust. But if you don’t want to help me” — Rusty turned his gaze to the knife in his hand, not overtly threatening, not even pointing it at Dash — “I don’t know what to do.”

Silence.

Rusty dropped the knife hand to his side. “Dash?”

“Yes.”

“You’ll help me?”

“Yeah,” Dash said. “I’ll help.”

That was where the tape cut out.

For a few moments, Delia and Wilde just stood there and stared at the blank screen. No one moved. In the distance, Wilde heard a clock chime. He looked around at the opulence of the great library, but opulence is a false facade. It doesn’t really protect or even enhance. It just fools you into feeling safe.

Dash had his head in his hands. He rubbed his face.

“So you tell me,” Dash said. “Suppose I said no to him?”

Delia put a shaking hand to her mouth, as though muffling her own scream.

“Delia?”

She shook her head.

“Listen to me, please. You know Rusty. You know what he would have done to me if I had tried to walk away.”

Delia closed her eyes, wishing it all away.

“So what did you do?” Wilde asked.

Dash turned his gaze toward Wilde. “I had a car. Rusty didn’t. That’s why he chose me, I guess. We moved Christopher’s body into my trunk and dumped him in that alley. Then Rusty wiped his fingerprints off the knife and threw it in the dumpster. We figured the police would think it was a drug deal or robbery gone wrong. I hoped maybe later, I don’t know, I would feel safe and then maybe I could send the tape in to the police. But of course, my voice is also on it. And when you watch it, Rusty didn’t really threaten me, did he?”

Delia finally found her voice. “Rusty chose you,” she said, “because you’re weak.”

Dash blinked, his eyes wet.

Delia looked down at him. “So you just kept the tape?”

“Yes.”

“And at some point, you told Rusty you had it?”

Dash nodded. “As an insurance policy. I was the only one who knew what he’d done. But I made it clear if something happened to me—”

“The tape would come out.”

“Yes. It bonded us in an odd way.”

“And you never told me,” Delia said. “All these years together. All that we shared, and you never told me.”

“It was part of the understanding.”

“We broke up right after that,” Delia said. “Rusty and me.”

Dash said nothing.

“Was that part of the deal, Dash?”

“He is a terrible man. I just wanted you to be safe.”

She glared at him.

“Delia?”

Her voice was pure ice. “Send them the tape, Dash. My son’s life is in jeopardy. Send the goddamn tape right now.”

Wilde waited until Dash clicked the button. After it was done, Dash sat back in his chair, spent. Delia stood next to him. She didn’t move. She didn’t put her hand on his shoulder. She didn’t look at him. Someone had just detonated a bomb in this room, leaving these two people in rubble and ruins that would be impossible to rebuild.

They were shattered and would never be made whole.

No reason to watch it.

Wilde turned and left. They didn’t ask where he was going, or maybe they couldn’t speak. It didn’t matter. He wouldn’t reply. Not yet anyway. He’d heard all he needed to hear from them.

He thought that maybe he had the answers now.

Rola drove him in the Honda Odyssey. There were three car seats in the back. Five pink sippy cups with screwed-on lids and side handles were on the floor by his feet. Cheerios and Goldfish crackers were scattered everywhere. The cloth seats felt as though they’d been coated in pancake syrup.

Rola smiled. “The mess is freaking you out, right?”

“I’m fine,” Wilde managed.

“Sure you are. Want to tell me where we’re headed?”

“Just keep heading north on 87.”

Wilde had debated driving himself, but he might need someone for a variety of reasons, not the least of which was that Wilde wasn’t a very good driver. He could do the local roads, but big interstates loaded with various trucks and cars and merging vehicles were not his forte. He also had the phone in his hand, tracking the two GPS locators, and he didn’t want to do that and handle a busy highway at the same time.

He needed time to sort through his next move.

“Take exit sixteen,” Wilde said.

“The one for Harriman?”

“Yes.”

Rola asked, “Are we going to Woodbury Commons?”

“What?”

“It’s a ginormous mall of outlet stores, right past the toll plaza. Nike, Ralph Lauren, Tory Burch, OshKosh B’gosh, a zillion others. Factory stores. The kids love the Children’s Place. Ever been? Supposed to be huge discounts, but my friend Jane, who knows more about retail shopping than anyone, says, when you add in the travel and the lower quality—”

“No, we’re not going shopping.”

“I know, Wilde. I’m just babbling here. You know when you play the silent mountain man I get chatty.”

“And even when I don’t,” he replied.

“Funny.”

“Make the right. Route 32 North.”

“How long has it been since you called Mom and Dad?”

She meant the Brewers. “I don’t call them that.”

“Do you call me your sister?”

He said nothing.

“The Brewers were good to us, Wilde.”

“Very,” he said.

“They miss you, you know. And I miss you. Of course, sitting here with you now I don’t remember why I miss you. It’s not like I miss this sparkling repartee.”

“You have your gun?”

“I told you before we left. Yes. Where are we going?”

“I think I have a lead on where the boy is being held.”

“You serious?”

“No, I’m kidding, Rola. I always was a terrific kidder.”

She grinned. “That’s more like it, my brother. And I call you that, by the way. My brother.”

“There’s a rest stop a couple of miles up the road. I want you to pull in and park where we can see everything, but no one can see us.”

“Got it.”

Wilde planned out their next moves. They’d park. They’d wait. It wouldn’t be long. Twenty minutes tops. And then...

“Look,” Rola said.

Damn , Wilde thought.

The blue sign read:

...in familiar white lettering. But there, slashing across those words, was a neon-orange sign with black letters:

Closed? Wilde hadn’t anticipated that.

“Now what?” Rola asked.

“Keep driving. Try to slow down a little, but nothing obvious.”

The rest stop had clearly been shut down for a while. It had temporary fencing with a padlocked gate on the entrance ramp. Weeds sprang through the cracked pavement. The glass windows of the small convenience store were covered in plywood. A flat canopy led from the gas station’s office to three nonworking pumps. There was a two-car mechanic’s garage. A hut-like building on the right had a faded Dunkin’ Donuts sign half falling off the facade.

Wilde looked for vehicles. None were visible.

That made no sense.

“Now what?”

Wilde brought up a standard navigation app and used his fingers to spread it out and see the map. “Take the next exit.”

“Got it.”

When they reached the end of the ramp, Wilde told her to veer right and then take the first right turn. He looked out the window and told her to slow down.