Харлан Кобен - Run Away

Fagbenle pointed his finger at Aaron’s smug face. “How do you know Aaron Corval?”

“Seriously?” It was Hester again.

“Is there a problem, Ms. Crimstein?”

“Yes, there’s a problem. You’re wasting our time.”

“I’m asking—”

“Stop.” She held up her palm. “You’re embarrassing yourself. We all know how my client knows Aaron Corval. Let’s pretend you’ve already lulled Mr. Greene and myself into a state of relaxation with your insightful albeit obvious interrogation techniques. We are putty in your hand, Detective, so let’s cut to it, okay?”

“Okay, fair enough.” Fagbenle leaned forward. “Aaron Corval was murdered.”

Simon had been expecting that and yet the weight of the words still sent him reeling. “And my daughter...?”

Hester squeezed his arm.

“We don’t know where she is, Mr. Greene. Do you?”

“No.”

“When was the last time you saw her?”

“Three months ago.”

“Where?”

“In Central Park.”

“Would that be the day you assaulted Aaron Corval?”

“Wow,” Hester said. “It’s like I’m not even sitting here.”

Fagbenle said, “Again I ask: Is there a problem?”

“And again I answer: Yeah, there’s a problem. I don’t like your characterization.”

“You mean my use of the word ‘assault’ to describe what happened?”

“I mean exactly that.”

He sat back and put his hands on the desk. “I understand the charges in that case were dropped.”

“I don’t care what you understand.”

“Getting off like that. With all that evidence. It’s interesting.”

“I also don’t care what interests you, Detective. I don’t like your characterization of the incident. Please reword.”

“Now who’s wasting time, Counselor?”

“I want the interview done right, hotshot.”

“Fine. The alleged assault. The incident. Whatever. Can your client answer the question now?”

Simon said, “I haven’t seen my daughter since the incident in Central Park, yes.”

“How about Aaron Corval? Have you seen him?”

“No.”

“So over the last three months, you’ve had zero contact with your daughter or Mr. Corval, is that correct?”

“Asked and answered,” Hester snapped.

“Let him answer, please.”

“That’s correct,” Simon said.

Fagbenle flashed a quick smile. “So I guess you and your daughter Paige aren’t very close, huh?”

Hester wasn’t having it. “What are you, a family counselor?”

“Just an observation. How about your daughter Anya?”

“What about his daughter Anya?” Hester countered.

“Earlier Mr. Greene mentioned that he and Anya were home alone all night,” Fagbenle said.

“He what?”

“That’s what your client told me.”

Hester gave Simon another withering glare.

“Mr. Greene, you took your dog for another walk about ten p.m., am I right?”

“You are.”

“Did you or Anya go out after that?”

“Whoa,” Hester said, making her hands into a T. “Time-out.”

Fagbenle looked annoyed. “I’d like to continue my questioning.”

“And I’d like to tongue-bathe Hugh Jackman,” Hester said, “so both of us are going to have to live with a little disappointment.” Hester rose. “Stay here, Detective. We will be right back.”

She dragged Simon out of the room and down the corridor, working her mobile phone the entire time. “I’ll skip the obvious admonishments.”

“And I’ll skip the part where I defend myself by reminding you that I didn’t know if the murder victim was my daughter.”

“That was a ploy.”

“As I was well aware.”

“What’s done is done,” she said. “What did you already tell him? Everything.”

Simon filled her in on their earlier conversation.

“You noticed that I just sent a text,” Hester said.

“Yes.”

“Before we go back in and say something stupid, I want my investigator to dig up all he can on Corval’s murder — time, circumstances, method, whatever. You’re not a fool, so you know what’s going on here with our hunky detective.”

“I’m a suspect.”

She nodded. “You had a serious ‘incident’” — Hester made quote marks with her fingers — “with the deceased. You hated him. You blamed him for your daughter’s drug problems. So yes, you’re a suspect. So is your wife. So is... well, Paige. My guess is, she’s the biggest suspect. Do you have an alibi for last night?”

“Like I said, I was home all night.”

“With?”

“Anya.”

“Yeah, that’s not going to hold.”

“Why not?”

“Where in your apartment specifically was Anya?”

“In her room, mostly.”

“Door open or shut?”

Simon saw where she was going with this. “Shut.”

“She’s a kid, right? Door shut, maybe blasting music on her headphones. So you could have sneaked out at any time. What time did Anya go to sleep? Let’s say eleven o’clock. You could have left then. Does your building have any security cameras?”

“Yes. But it’s an old building. There are ways of getting out without being seen.”

Hester’s phone dinged. She put it to her ear and said, “Articulate.”

Someone did. And as he did, Hester’s face lost color. She didn’t say a word. Not for a very long time. When she finally spoke again, her voice was uncharacteristically soft. “Email me the report.”

She hung up.

“What?” Simon asked.

“They don’t think you did it. Correction: They can’t think you did it.”

Ash watched the target pull up to the dilapidated three-family home.

“Is he driving a Cadillac?” Dee Dee asked him.

“Looks like it.”

“Is it an Eldorado?”

Dee Dee never stopped talking.

“No.”

“You sure?”

“It’s an ATS. Cadillac stopped making the Eldorado in 2002.”

“How do you know that?”

Ash shrugged. He just knew stuff.

“My daddy had an Eldorado,” Dee Dee said.

Ash frowned. “Your ‘daddy’?”

“What, you think I don’t remember him?”

Dee Dee had been in foster homes from the age of six. Ash had entered his first when he was four. Over the next fourteen years he had been in over twenty. Dee had probably been in about the same. On three occasions, for a total of eight months, they had ended up in the same foster home.

“He bought it used, of course. Like, really used. The bottom was rusted out. But Daddy loved that car. He let me sit in the front seat with him. No seat belt. The leather in the seats? It was all cracked. It’d scrape my legs. Anyway, he’d play the radio loud and sometimes he’d sing along. That’s what I remember best. He had a good voice, my old man. He’d smile and start singing and then he’d sort of let go of the wheel and steer with his wrists, you know what I mean?”

Ash knew. He also knew Daddy steered with one hand while jamming his other between his young daughter’s legs, but now didn’t seem to be the time to bring that up.

“Daddy loved that damned car,” Dee Dee said with a pout. “Until...

Ash couldn’t help himself. “Until what?”

“Maybe that’s where it all went wrong. When Daddy found out the truth about that car.”

Ash cringed every time she used the word “Daddy.”

The target got out of the car. He was a burly guy in jeans, scuffed Timberland-knockoff boots, and a flannel shirt. He sported a beard and a camouflage-colored Boston Red Sox baseball cap too small for his pumpkin head.

Ash gestured with his chin. “That our guy?”

“Looks like it. What’s the plan?”

The target opened the car’s back door, and two young girls wearing bright-green school backpacks got out. His daughters, Ash knew. The taller, Kelsey, was ten. The younger, Kiera, was eight.