Харлан Кобен - The Boy from the Woods

But when the gate agent called the final group, Wilde spotted a young girl getting into line wearing, yep, a baseball cap and sunglasses.

Naomi Pine.

Standing in front of her, holding both their tickets, was Ava O’Brien.

For a few seconds, Wilde didn’t move. He didn’t have to do anything. He didn’t have to approach them. He could, like with Gavin Chambers and Saul Strauss, simply melt away.

But he didn’t.

Enough stalling. Wilde walked over and tapped Naomi on the shoulder.

Naomi jumped, startled. When she turned and saw his face, her hand flew to her mouth. “Oh my God. Wilde?”

Ava spun now too.

For a few seconds, they all just stood there.

Ava said, “How did you...?”

“Do you remember when you were leaving 7-Eleven and I told you to roll down your window?”

“What?” Ava looked baffled. “What about it?”

“I leaned in and put a GPS tracker in your car.”

It was the same deal as with Gavin and Strauss — Ava, too, had overdone it with the tactical diversions. When he’d told her about Crash disappearing, all of a sudden Ava had remembered that Naomi had mentioned a possible romance with Crash, strongly hinting that the two teens had run off together.

Ava had been trying to throw him off the scent too.

The question was, why?

She clearly had nothing to do with Crash Maynard.

“You’re from Maine,” Wilde said.

“Yes, I told you that.”

“Why would you move to New Jersey to take a job you were overqualified for?”

Ava shrugged. “I wanted a change.”

“No,” Wilde said. “You’ve also been back to Maine four times in the past three weeks.”

“I have family up there.”

“Again: No. You stayed at the Howard Johnson’s in South Portland, where you had Naomi hiding. But more than that, you visited the Hope Faith Adoption Agency in Windham twice.”

Ava closed her eyes.

“You didn’t take the assistant teaching job because you wanted to live in New Jersey,” Wilde said. “You did it to be closer to the daughter you had to give up for adoption.”

For a moment, it looked as though Ava might deny it. But only for a moment.

“You have to understand,” Ava said. “I never wanted to give Naomi up.”

So there it was.

“I was only seventeen. I didn’t know any better. But I just had... I don’t know, it was a feeling or a want or a premonition or... So I went back to the agency. I begged them to tell me what happened to my daughter. They wouldn’t. Not at first. So I paid someone off. They gave me Naomi’s new name and address, but they explained that I had no rights. That was okay. I just wanted to see her, you know. So I just figured...”

“You’d take the teaching job to be close to her.”

“Right. What harm would it do?”

“Wilde?”

It was Naomi.

“Don’t make me go back.”

“I just wanted to see how she was,” Ava said. “That’s all. I didn’t want to mess up her life. But then I saw the hell she was living through. Day after day, I had to sit back and watch my child being bullied with no support from home.”

“So you became her friend,” Wilde said. “Her confidante.”

“Is that so wrong?”

Wilde turned to Naomi. “When did Ava tell you the truth?”

“That she was my real mother?”

“Yes.”

“After I came back from the Challenge,” Naomi said. “At first, I thought she was making it up or like it was a dream come true, you know? Do you remember our talk in my basement? How I wanted to change everything?”

Wilde nodded.

“It wasn’t just at school. It was everything. My father...”

Her voice just faded out. Bernard Pine would not come out of this unscathed either. Rola was working up a way to make him pay for what he’d done.

“So you two decided to run away,” Wilde said.

“I didn’t want that,” Ava said. “I wanted to do it legally.”

“Which is why you went to Laila.”

“Yes. I told her how awful Naomi’s adoptive parents were, but I still had no rights. Laila said it would take months or years to prove neglect or abuse, and even then, winning was unlikely.”

“So that’s when you hatched this plan,” Wilde said. “You’d run away and hide. You” — he looked at Ava — “you’d get Naomi a fake ID while finishing out the school year. If you left your teaching post right away, that would draw suspicion. So you two waited. And now it’s time to flee the country together.”

Ava just looked at him with her big brown eyes.

The boarding line was clear. The gate agent made another announcement.

Naomi stepped forward and put her hand on his arm. “Please, Wilde, if we’re caught, I’ll have to go back to him. Ava might go to jail.”

“She’s my daughter,” Ava said, her tone never steadier. “I love her with all my heart.”

They both stood together and faced him.

“I know,” Wilde said.

“So...?”

“I just came to make sure you were all right,” Wilde said. “And to say goodbye.”

Naomi threw her arms around him so hard she almost knocked him over. Wilde usually recoiled from this sort of embrace. But he didn’t. Not this time. He let the girl hold him, and it felt right.

“Thank you,” Naomi whispered.

Wilde nodded. “If you ever need anything...”

The boarding agent was back on the loudspeaker. “Final call for Flight 374 with service to Liberia, Costa Rica.”

“You guys better get on board,” Wilde said.

Naomi looked at Ava. Ava looked back. Then Ava turned and took Wilde’s hand and said something that caught him totally off guard: “Come with us, Wilde.”

“What?”

Naomi put her hands together. “Please?”

Wilde shook his head. “I can’t.”

Ava held on to his hand and said it again: “Come with us, Wilde.”

“No,” he said.

“Why not?” Ava asked.

“It’s crazy,” Wilde said.

“So?” Ava gave him a smile that dazzled and stunned. “Everything about this is crazy.”

Wilde shook his head again, even as he felt something in his chest crack open. “You guys need to get on board.”

“Come with us, Wilde,” Ava said again. “Naomi needs you. Maybe I need you too, I don’t know. If it doesn’t work out, you just come back.”

“I can’t,” Wilde said.

The gate agent came over, cleared her throat, and said, “I’m closing the door in thirty seconds.”

“They’re boarding now,” Wilde said in a tone that left no room for debate.

Naomi’s eyes were wet with tears when she threw her arms around him one more time. Then Ava handed the gate agent their tickets to scan. Wilde watched them start down the jet bridge. Naomi turned and waved. Wilde waved back.

Ava’s eyes lingered on his a little longer. When she broke eye contact and turned away, Wilde felt his chest crack open a little more.

He watched them disappear from view.

The gate agent reached for the door. As she was about to close it, Wilde asked, “Is there any room on this flight?”

“What, you want to buy a ticket?”

“Yes.”

The gate agent squinted at her computer screen.

“Well, what do you know?” she said. “There’s one more ticket available.”