Харлан Кобен - Run Away

“Damien Gorse. Stick with me first, Simon. Is there anything else you think I should know?”

“Just something really weird about Aaron’s upbringing. Or his parentage anyway.”

“Tell me.”

So Simon filled her in on the story Enid told him about Aaron and Wiley’s tale of a dead Italian mother. When he finished, there was silence on the other end of the phone. Then he heard her tapping on a keyboard.

“Elena?”

“I’m trying to Google photographs of Aaron and his father.”

“Why?”

There was a pause.

“I don’t see any. I see some of the father at the inn. Wiley.”

“Why, what’s up?”

“This is going to sound weird,” she began.

“But?”

“But you’ve seen both Aaron and Wiley in person.”

“Yes.”

“Do you think they are father and son? I mean, biologically.”

“No.” Simon said it that fast, without really processing his response. “I mean... look, I don’t know. Something is off. Why?”

“It might be nothing.”

“But?”

“But Henry Thorpe was adopted,” Elena said. “So was Damien Gorse.”

Simon felt a chill, but he still said, “You’re reaching.”

“I know.”

“Paige wasn’t adopted.”

“I know that too.”

“Elena?”

“Yes?”

“What did Damien Gorse tell you?”

“Nothing, Simon. Gorse is dead. Someone murdered him too.”

Ash always tried to be prepared.

There were fresh clothes in the car for both of them. They managed to change on the move and dumped the old clothes in a charity bin behind a Whole Foods near the New York state border. At a Rite Aid, Dee Dee, donning a baseball cap, bought ten items, but only two really mattered — hair dye and a scissors.

He didn’t go in with her.

There were cameras everywhere. Let them look for a lone woman or lone man. Confuse them. Don’t stay anyplace too long.

Dee Dee had thought she could just color her hair in the Rite Aid bathroom. Ash told her that would be a mistake.

Keep moving. Don’t give them anything to go on.

They drove another ten miles and found an old-school gas station — poorer CCTV, Ash figured. Dee Dee headed into the bathroom wearing the baseball cap. Using the newly bought scissors, she sawed off the long blonde braid and cropped her hair close, then she flushed the cut hair down the toilet. She dyed the shorter locks a subtle auburn, nothing too striking, and put the cap back on her head.

Ash had told her: Always walk with your head tilted down. CCTV cameras shot from above. Always. So wear a cap with a bill and keep your eyes on the ground. Sometimes, depending on the weather, sunglasses were a good idea. Other times, they drew the wrong kind of attention.

“This is overkill,” Dee Dee said.

“Probably.”

But she didn’t argue — and if Dee Dee really had an issue with his precautions, she’d argue.

Once they were back on the road, Dee Dee took off the cap and mussed her hair with her hand. “How do I look?”

He risked a look and felt the ka-boom in his heart.

Dee Dee pulled her knees up to her chest and fell asleep in the seat next to him. Ash kept sneaking glances at her. At a red light, he rolled up a shirt he’d kept in the backseat and placed it between her head and the car door, just to make sure she was comfortable and didn’t hurt herself.

Three hours later, when she woke up, Dee Dee said, “I need to pee.”

Ash pulled off at the next rest stop. They put on baseball caps. Ash bought some chicken fingers and fries to go. When they got back on the highway, Dee Dee asked, “Where are we headed?”

“We don’t know what the cops have on you.”

“That’s not an answer to my question, Ash.”

“You know where we’re going,” he said.

Dee Dee did not reply.

“I know it’s near the Vermont border,” Ash said. “But I don’t know the exact location. You’ll have to direct me.”

“They won’t let you in. No outsiders.”

“Got it.”

“Especially men.”

Ash rolled his eyes. “Gee, that seems normal.”

“That’s the rules. No outside men in Truth Haven.”

“I don’t have to go in, Dee. I just need to drop you off.”

“Why?”

“You know why.”

“You think it’s not safe for me anymore.”

“Bingo.”

“But it’s not up to you to decide what’s safe,” she said. “It’s not up to me either.”

“Don’t tell me,” Ash said. “It’s in God’s hands.”

She smiled at him. It was, as always, even with the strange hair color and new cut, beatific. The smile struck his heart with a gentle boom.

“It’s not just God. It’s the Truth.”

“And who tells you the truth?”

“For those who can never understand, it’s easiest to call him God.”

“He talks to you?”

“Via his personage on earth.”

Ash had studied up on the nonsense of her cult. “That would be Casper Vartage?”

“God made his choice.”

“Vartage is a con man.”

“The devil doesn’t want the Truth to flourish. The devil dies in Truth’s light.”

“So Vartage’s jail time?”

“That’s where he was told the Truth. In solitary. After they beat him and tortured him. Now when the media and outsiders speak ill of him, it is because they are trying to silence the Truth.”

Ash shook his head. Pointless.

“It’s the second exit after the Vermont border,” she said.

Ash flipped the station. The seventies classic “Hey, St. Peter” by Flash and the Pan came on the radio. Ash had to smile. In the song, a man arrives at the gates of heaven and pleads for St. Peter to let him in because living in New York City means he’s already done his time in hell.

“Do you have music at the compound?” Ash asked.

“We call it Truth Haven.”

“Dee Dee.”

“Yes, we have music. Many of our members are talented musicians. They write their own songs.”

“You don’t have outside music?”

“That wouldn’t spread the Truth, Ash.”

“One of Vartage’s rules?”

“Please don’t use his before name.”

“His before name?”

“Yes. It’s forbidden.”

“Before name,” he said again. “You mean like you’re now Holly?”

“Yes.”

“Did he give you that name?”

“The Truth Council did.”

“Who makes up the Truth Council?”

“The Truth, the Volunteer, the Visitor.”

“Three people?”

“Yes.”

“All men?”

“Yes.”

“Like the Trinity.”

She turned toward him. “Nothing like the Trinity.”

No reason to get into that, he thought. “I assume the Truth is Casper Vartage.”

“He is, yes.”

“And the other two?”

“They are the offspring of the Truth. They were born and raised in the Haven.”

“His sons, you mean?”

“It’s not like that, but for your purposes, yes.”

“My purposes?”

“You wouldn’t understand, Ash.”

“Another line from every cult.” He held up a hand before she could admonish him. “And what happens if you question the Truth?”

“Truth is truth. By definition. Anything else is a lie.”

“Wow. So everything your leader says is gospel.”

“Can the lion not be a lion? He’s the Truth. How can what he says not be true?”

Ash shook his head as they crossed into Vermont. He kept sneaking glances at her.

“Dee Dee?”

She closed her eyes.

“Do you really want me to call you Holly?”

“No,” she said. “It’s okay. When I’m not in Truth Haven, I’m not Holly, am I?”

“Uh-huh.”

She said, “Dee Dee can do things that Holly cannot.”