Харлан Кобен: Run Away

“It’s okay, Paige,” Aaron said with a smooth sneer, still meeting Simon’s gaze. “You just keep moving, doll.”

Simon shook his head. “No, don’t...”

But Paige, almost using Aaron’s back for leverage, pushed off and started to sprint down the path.

“Paige?” Simon shouted. “Wait! Please just—”

She was getting away. Simon veered right to go after her, but Aaron slid with him, blocking his path.

“Paige is an adult,” Aaron said. “You got no right—”

Simon cocked his fist and punched Aaron straight in the face.

He could feel the nose give way under his knuckles, heard the break like a boot stomping on a bird’s nest. Blood flowed.

Aaron went down.

That was when the two tourists from Finland screamed.

Simon didn’t care. He could still see Paige up ahead. She turned to the left, off the pavement and into the trees.

“Paige, wait!”

He jumped to the side of the fallen man and started toward her, but from the ground, Aaron grabbed his leg. Simon tried to pull free, but now he could see other people — well-meaning but confused people — approaching, a lot of them, some taking videos with their damn phones.

They were all shouting and telling him not to move.

Simon kicked free, stumbled, got his legs back. He started down the path, down toward where Paige had veered off.

But it was too late now. The crowd was on him.

Someone tried to tackle him up high. Simon threw an elbow. He heard the tackler make an oof noise and his grip slackened. Someone else wrapped their arms around Simon’s waist. Simon pulled him off like a belt, still running toward his daughter, still moving like a halfback with defenders all over him toward the goal line.

But eventually there were too many of them.

“My daughter!” he screamed. “Please... just stop her...”

No one could hear over the commotion, or perhaps they simply weren’t listening to the violent madman who had to be taken down.

Another tourist jumped on him. Then another.

As Simon finally began to fall, he looked up and saw his daughter back on the path. He landed with a crash. Then, because he tried to get back up, blows rained down on him. A lot of them. When it was all over, he would have three broken ribs and two broken fingers. He would have a concussion and need twenty-three stitches in total.

He didn’t feel a thing, except for the ripping in his heart.

Another body landed on him. He heard shouts and screams and then the police were on him too, flipping him onto his stomach, digging a knee into his spine, cuffing him. He looked up one more time and spotted Paige staring from behind a tree.

“Paige!”

But she didn’t come to him. Instead she slipped away as, once again, Simon realized that he had failed her.

For a while, the cops just left Simon facedown on the asphalt with his hands cuffed behind his back. One cop — she was female and black with a nametag that read HAYES — bent down and calmly told him that he was under arrest and then read him his rights. Simon thrashed and screamed about his daughter, begging someone, anyone, to stop her. Hayes just kept reciting the Miranda rights.

When Hayes finished, she straightened up and turned away. Simon started screaming about his daughter again. No one would listen, possibly because he sounded unhinged, so he tried to calm himself and conjure up a more polite tone.

“Officer? Ma’am? Sir?”

They all ignored him and took statements from witnesses. Several of the tourists were showing the cops videos of the incident, which, Simon imagined, did not look good for him.

“My daughter,” he said again. “I was trying to save my daughter. He kidnapped her.”

The last part was a quasi lie, but he hoped for a reaction. He didn’t get one.

Simon turned his head left and right, looking for Aaron. There was no sign of him.

“Where is he?” he shouted, again sounding unhinged.

Hayes finally looked down at him. “Who?”

“Aaron.”

Nothing.

“The guy I punched. Where is he?”

No answer.

The adrenaline rush began to taper off, allowing a nauseating level of pain to flow through his body. Eventually — Simon had no idea how much time had passed — Hayes and a tall white cop with the nametag WHITE hoisted him up and drag-walked him to a squad car. When he was in the backseat, White took the driver’s side, Hayes the passenger. Hayes, who had his wallet in her hand, turned around and said, “So what happened, Mr. Greene?”

“I was talking to my daughter. Her boyfriend got in the way. I tried to move around him...”

Simon stopped talking.

“And?” she prompted.

“Do you have her boyfriend in custody? Can you please help me find my daughter?”

“And?” Hayes repeated.

Simon was crazed, but he wasn’t insane. “There was an altercation.”

“An altercation.”

“Yes.”

“Walk us through it.”

“Walk you through what?”

“The altercation.”

“First tell me about my daughter,” Simon tried. “Her name is Paige Greene. Her boyfriend, who I believe is holding her against her will, is named Aaron Corval. I was trying to rescue her.”

“Mm-hmm,” Hayes said. Then: “So you punched a homeless guy?”

“I punched—” Simon stopped himself. He knew better.

“You punched?” Hayes prompted.

Simon didn’t reply.

“Right, that’s what I thought,” Hayes said. “You got blood all over you. Even on your nice tie. That a Hermès?”

It was, but Simon didn’t say anything more. His shirt was still buttoned all the way to the throat, the tie ideally Windsored.

“Where is my daughter?”

“No idea,” Hayes said.

“Then I don’t have anything else to say until I speak to my attorney.”

“Suit yourself.”

Hayes turned back around and didn’t say anything else. They drove Simon to the emergency room at Mount Sinai West on Fifty-Ninth Street near Tenth Avenue, where they took him immediately to X-ray. A doctor wearing a turban and looking too young to get into R-rated films put Simon’s fingers into splints and stitched up his scalp lacerations. There was nothing to be done for the broken ribs, the doctor explained, other than “restrict activity for six weeks or so.”

The rest was a surreal whirlwind: the drive to Central Booking at 10 °Centre Street, the mug shots, the fingerprints, the holding cell. They gave him a phone call, just like in the movies. Simon was going to call Ingrid, but he decided to go with his brother-in-law Robert, a top Manhattan litigator.

“I’ll get someone over there right away,” Robert said.

“You can’t handle it?”

“I’m not criminal.”

“You really think I need a criminal—?”

“Yeah, I do. Plus Yvonne and I are at the shore house. It’ll take me too long to get in. Just sit tight.”

Half an hour later, a tiny woman in her early to mid seventies with curly blonde-to-gray hair and fire in her eyes introduced herself with a firm handshake.

“Hester Crimstein,” she said to Simon. “Robert sent me.”

“I’m Simon Greene.”

“Yeah, I’m a top-notch litigator, so I pieced that together. Now repeat after me, Simon Greene: ‘Not guilty.’”

“What?”

“Just repeat what I said.”

“Not guilty.”

“Beautiful, well done, brings tears to my eyes.” Hester Crimstein leaned closer. “Those are the only words you’re allowed to say — and the only time you’ll say those words is when the judge asks for a plea. You got me?”

“Got you.”

“Do we need to do a dry rehearsal?”

“No, I think I got it.”

“Good boy.”