Харлан Кобен - Run Away

Sam kept his eyes on his mother. “What happened?”

“What did your aunt and uncle tell you?”

“Just that Mom had been shot. They said I’d have to wait for you.”

Yvonne and Robert had done the right thing yet again. “You know who Aaron is, right?”

“That guy Paige...”

“Yes. He was murdered.”

Sam blinked.

“And Paige has disappeared.”

“I don’t understand.”

“They lived together in the Bronx. Your mom and I went down to see if we could find her. That’s when she got shot.”

He filled his son in on the details, not stopping, not taking a breath, not letting up even when Sam started to go pale and his blinking got worse.

At some point, Sam said, “Do you think Paige did it? Do you think she killed Aaron?”

That stopped Simon cold. “Why would you ask that?”

Sam just shrugged.

“I need to ask you something, Sam.”

Sam’s eyes wandered back to his mother’s face.

“Have you seen Paige recently?”

He didn’t reply.

“Sam, it’s important.”

“Yes,” he said in a soft voice. “I saw her.”

“When?”

He wouldn’t take his eyes off his mother. “Sam?”

“Two weeks ago maybe.”

That made no sense. Sam was at school two weeks ago. There had been one break in the school year, but he was having so much fun on campus he didn’t want to leave. Unless that was a lie. Unless he really didn’t love school or damned Sriracha hot sauce or Carlos or the intramural sports or any of that.

“Where?” Simon asked.

“She came to Amherst.”

That stunned him again. “Paige came to your campus?”

He nodded. “Peter Pan Bus Lines. It’s twenty-four dollars from Port Authority.”

“Did she come up alone?”

He nodded.

“Did you know she was coming up?”

“No. She didn’t tell me. She just... showed up.”

Simon tried to envision this — that catalogue-picture-ready college quad with healthy-looking students playing Frisbee or lounging with their books in the sun being infiltrated by one who would have belonged there as much as any of them a year ago but who was now a horrible warning, like that wrecked car a police station keeps around to teach kids not to drink and drive.

Unless, again unless...

“How did she look?” Simon asked.

“The same as in that video.”

The words stomped out his small flame of hope.

“Did she tell you why she came up?”

“She said she needed to get away from Aaron.”

“Did she tell you why?”

Sam shook his head.

“So what happened?”

“She asked if she could crash with me for a few days.”

“You didn’t tell us?”

His eyes stayed on Ingrid. “She asked me not to.”

Simon wanted to say something more about that, about not trusting his parents, but now was not the time. “Your roommate didn’t mind her staying?”

“Carlos? He thought it would be cool. Like she was some school project to help the underserved or something.”

“How long did she stay?”

His voice was soft. “Not very.”

“How long, Sam?”

The tears started pushing through his eyes again.

“Sam?”

“Long enough to clean us out,” he said. The tears came, flowing down, but his voice remained clear. “Paige slept on Carlos’s blow-up mattress on the floor. We all fell asleep. When we woke up, she was gone. So was our stuff.”

“What did she take?”

“Our wallets. Our laptops. Carlos had a diamond stud.”

“How could you not have told me?”

He hated the irritation in his voice.

“Sam?”

He didn’t reply.

“Did Carlos tell his parents?”

“No. I had some money. I’m trying to make him whole.”

“Tell me how much and we’ll make him whole now. And what about you?”

“I called your office,” Sam said. “I told Emily I lost the credit card. She sent me another.”

Simon recalled that now. He hadn’t thought twice about it. Visa cards were lost or stolen all the time.

“I’m using the computers in the library for now. It’s not a big deal.”

“How could you not tell me?”

Which again was dumb to harp on, but he couldn’t stop himself.

His son’s face collapsed. “It’s my fault,” Sam said.

“What? No.”

“If I had told you—”

“Nothing, Sam. It wouldn’t have changed a thing.”

“Is Mom going to die?”

“No.”

“You don’t know that.”

Which was true enough.

He didn’t protest or say any more lies. No point. The lies would aggravate rather than comfort. He glanced toward the door. Yvonne watched them from the little window in the door. Simon went over and again, when you’re this close to someone, when you spend as much time together as he and Yvonne, you just read their mind.

So Simon left the room, and Yvonne took over.

He found Elena Ramirez playing with her phone at the end of the corridor.

“Tell me,” she said.

He did.

“So that explains Paige using the laptop,” Elena said.

“So what now?” Simon asked.

Elena actually managed a smile. “You think we’re a team?”

“I think we can help each other.”

“I agree. I think we need to find the connections.” Elena played with her phone some more. “I’m sending you the details on Aaron’s family. They are having some kind of memorial service for him in the morning. Maybe you should be there. Maybe Paige will show. Look for someone hiding nearby. If not, talk to the family. See if you can figure out how Aaron might know Henry Thorpe.”

“Okay,” Simon said. “What will you be doing?”

“Visiting someone else Henry Thorpe contacted.”

“Who?”

“Don’t have a name,” Elena said. “Only a location.”

“Where?”

“A tattoo parlor in New Jersey.”

The Corval Inn and Family Tree Farm was located in far east Connecticut, near the Rhode Island border. Simon arrived at eight thirty a.m. The memorial service for Aaron, according to Elena Ramirez, was to start at nine.

The inn was a white Federal-style farmhouse with tasteful additions on both sides. Green wicker rocking chairs lined the wraparound porch. A sign read FAMILY OWNED SINCE 1893. Pure New England postcard. On the right, a bus let out tourists for hayrides. The barn in the back was a “Rootin’ Tootin’ Petting Zoo” promising “petting interactions” with goats, sheep, alpacas, and chickens, though Simon wondered how specifically you went about petting a chicken.

At Christmastime, visitors chopped down their own Christmas trees. In October, they set up the place as the “Haunted Farm,” complete with the “Haunted Maze,” the “Haunted Silo,” the “Haunted Hayride” (key word: Haunted) driven by the “Haunted Headless Horseman.” There was also seasonal pumpkin and apple picking. You could make your own cider in the small cabin on the right.

Simon parked the car and headed toward the inn’s front door. An ornate sign by the door said, INN GUESTS ONLY. Simon ignored it and entered the foyer. The decor was of the period and more formal than Simon would have expected. Cherrywood chairs with fanned Windsor backs sat on either side of mahogany settees with winged paw feet. The grandfather clock stood next to the oversized fireplace like a sentinel. One mahogany breakfront displayed fine china, the other leather-bound books. There were old oil portraits of stern-looking, hearty men — past patriarchs of the Corval family.

“May I help you?”

The woman behind the desk smiled at him. She wore a blouse checkered in the same design as those Italian restaurants that were trying too hard to be authentic. He wondered whether this woman was Aaron’s mother, but then he followed the old oil portraits until he reached a framed photograph of a smiling couple circling sixty behind her head. A plaque under the photograph read: