Харлан Кобен - Run Away

“The offer stands,” Simon said.

Rocco rubbed his chin. “You got the ten grand on you.”

Simon frowned. “Uh, no, of course not.”

“How much do you have on you?”

“Maybe eighty, a hundred dollars. Why, you want to rob us?” Simon raised his voice. “But what I said goes for anyone in this room: Ten grand if you tell me where Paige is.”

Ingrid looked up into Rocco’s face, forcing him to make eye contact. “Please,” she said. “I think Paige is in danger.”

“Because of what happened to Aaron?”

That name — just hearing Rocco say it — changed the very air in the room.

“Yes,” Ingrid said.

Rocco tilted his head. “What do you think happened, Dr. Greene?”

His tone remained calm, level, even, but Simon thought that perhaps he heard something else in it now. A crackle. An edge. What should have been obvious was starting to reach him. Rocco might have a friendly facade. He may come across as a great big Teddy bear come to life.

But Rocco was a drug dealer working his turf.

The brutality of Aaron’s murder suggested a drug hit, didn’t it? And if Aaron worked for Rocco...

“We don’t care about Aaron,” Ingrid said. “We don’t care about this place or your business or any of that. Whatever happened to Aaron, Paige had nothing to do with it.”

“How do you know?” Rocco asked.

“What?”

“Seriously. How do you know Paige had nothing to do with what happened to Aaron?”

Simon took that one. “Have you seen Paige?”

“I have.”

“Then you know.”

Rocco nodded slowly. “A strong wind could knock her over. I get that. But that doesn’t mean she couldn’t drug a man and slice him up when he’s out.”

“Ten thousand dollars,” Simon said again. “All we want to do is bring our daughter home.”

The dank basement went still. Rocco stood there, his face expressionless. He was mulling it over, Simon thought. He didn’t interrupt. Neither did Ingrid.

Then a voice said, “Hey, I know you.”

Simon turned toward the corner. It was Hipster Grammar guy. He pointed at Simon and then started snapping his fingers. “You’re that guy.”

“What are you talking about, Tom?”

“He’s that guy, Rocco.”

“What guy?”

Hipster Grammar Tom used his thumbs to hitch his jeans up by the belt loops. “He’s the guy in that video. The guy who punched Aaron. In the park.”

Rocco rested his hands in the hoodie’s kangaroo pouch. “Whoa. I think you’re right.”

“I’m telling you, Rocco. That’s the guy.”

“For real.” Rocco smiled at Simon. “Are you the guy in that video?”

“Yes.”

Rocco put up his hands in mock surrender and stepped back. “Oh, Lordy, please don’t hit me.”

Hipster Grammar Tom laughed. Some of other guys did too.

Later, Simon would claim he felt the danger before it all went wrong.

There may indeed be something primal in human beings, some survival mechanism from our caveman days of constant danger that lies dormant in modern man, some sixth sense or instinct that almost never needs to surface in our society, but it’s still there, still potent yet latent in a deep part of our genetic makeup.

As the young man stumbled into the basement, the hackles on the back of Simon’s neck rose.

Rocco said, “Luther?”

The rest took a second, maybe two at the most.

Luther was shirtless, his chest gleaming and completely hairless. He was early twenties, all coiled muscle, wiry, bouncing on his toes like a bantamweight boxer impatient for the bell. He stared wide-eyed at Simon and Ingrid and then without the least bit of hesitation, he whipped out a gun.

“Luther!”

Luther took aim. There was no warning, no delay, no words spoken. Luther simply took aim and pulled the trigger.

BLAM!

Simon swore that he could actually feel the bullet graze by his nose, could hear the whistling hiss as it sped past him. He remembered a time when he was golfing and his brother-in-law Robert shanked the ball and it sailed right past his nose and hit the caddy next to him, giving him a concussion. Sounded like a dumb comparison, but even though this whole experience couldn’t have taken more than a second, that was where his mind traveled to — a golf outing in Paramus, New Jersey — as the bullet shrieked past him and the blood splashed onto his cheek.

Blood...

Ingrid’s eyes rolled back as she dropped to the ground.

Simon watched her fall in slow motion. Gone was all that primitive survival stuff, the stuff that might tell him to flee or fight or whatever. He watched Ingrid, his entire world, crumble to the concrete, bleeding, and another instinct took over.

Protect her...

He collapsed to the ground and, without conscious thought, covered her body with his, trying to position himself in such a way as to shield as much of her as possible, while at the same time seeing if she was alive, where the wound was, whether he could stem the bleeding.

Somewhere else, in another part of his brain, he knew that Luther was still there, still armed with a gun, still in all probability preparing to fire again. But that was a secondary or even tertiary thought.

Protect her. Save her...

He risked a look. Luther stepped toward him and pointed his gun down at Simon’s head. A dozen thoughts raced through his head — kick out, roll away, try to strike him in some way, any way, before he could fire again.

But there was nothing to be done. He could see that too.

There was no time to do anything to save himself, so he pulled Ingrid even more under him and curled his body inward, making sure none of Ingrid was exposed. He lowered his head toward hers and braced himself.

Simon heard the gunshot.

And Luther went down.

Ash placed the cup of coffee on the table. Dee Dee bowed her head in prayer. Ash tried not to roll his eyes. Dee Dee finished the prayer in the same way she always did, “Forever be the Shining Truth.”

Ash sat across from her. The target’s name was Damien Gorse. He owned a tattoo parlor in a New Jersey strip mall across the highway from where they now sat. They both turned and stared at the name on the awning.

Dee Dee started giggling.

“What’s so funny?”

“The name of the parlor.”

“What about it?”

“Tattoos While U Wait,” Dee Dee said. “Think about it. I mean, how else would you do it? ‘Hey, man, here’s my arm, put a skull and crossbones on it, I’ll be back in two hours.’”

She covered her mouth as she giggled some more. It was all kinds of adorable.

“Good point,” Ash said.

“Right? Tattoos While U Wait. I mean, what name came in second place?”

He chuckled now too, either because the joke was a little funny or more likely because her giggle was contagious. Dee Dee drove him crazy. She could be annoying as all get-out, no question about it, but mostly, he was terrified that soon these jobs would end and she’d be gone from his life again.

Dee Dee noticed him looking at her funny. “What?”

“Nothing.”

“Ash...”

Then he just said it: “You don’t have to go back.”

Dee Dee looked up at him with those damned beautiful get-lost-forever-in green eyes. “Of course I do.”

“It isn’t the Shining Truth. It’s a cult.”

“You don’t understand.”

“That’s what all cultists say. You have a choice here.”

“The Shining Truth is the only choice.”

“Come on, Dee Dee.”

She sat back. “I’m not Dee Dee there. I didn’t tell you that.”

“What do you mean?”

“At Truth Haven. They call me Holly.”

“Seriously?”

“Yes.”