Харлан Кобен - Run Away

“Nice moral out.”

“Isn’t it?”

Ash tried not to grin. “I think I like Dee Dee more.”

“Yes, I think you do. But Holly is more complete. Holly is happy and understands the Truth.”

“Dee Dee?” Then, pausing, he sighed and said: “Or should I say, ‘Holly’?”

“This exit.” He took it. “What, Ash?”

“Can I be blunt?”

“Yes.”

“How can you believe this crap?”

He glanced at her. She tucked her legs up so that she was sitting cross-legged in the seat. “I really do love you, Ash.”

“I love you too.”

“You did some Googling, Ash? On the Shining Truth?”

He had. Their leader, Casper Vartage, was born of a mysterious birth in 1945. His mother claimed to have woken up one day seven months pregnant — the very moment her husband died leading the charge on Normandy Beach. There is no proof of any of this, of course. But this is the story. As a youngster in Nebraska, Casper was considered a “grain healer” and farmers sought him out during droughts and the like. Again no one backs up this claim. Vartage rebelled against his powers — something about the Truth being so potent he tried to fight it off — and ended up in prison sometime around 1970 for fraud. That part — the fraud — there is evidence of and plenty of it.

After losing an eye in a prison fight and being thrown into a hellhole described as the “heat box,” ol’ Casper was visited by an angel. Hard to say if Vartage just made this part up out of whole cloth or if the sun caused delusions. Either way, the angel who visited him is known in the cult’s clever folklore as the Visitor. The Visitor told him about the Truth and the symbol he had to find behind a rock in the Arizona desert when he was free, which supposedly he did.

There was more crap like that, typical nonsense mythology, and now “The Shining Truth” had a compound where they brainwashed disciples, mostly women, or beat or drugged or raped them.

“I don’t expect you to see the Truth,” Dee Dee said.

“I just don’t get how you don’t see this is a crazy-ass cult.”

She angled her body toward him. “Do you remember Mrs. Kensington?”

Mrs. Kensington, a foster mother they’d had in common, took those in her care to church twice a week — Tuesday afternoons for Bible studies and Sunday mornings for mass. Always. She never missed them.

“Of course you do.”

“She was good to us,” he agreed.

“Yes, she was. Do you still go to church, Ash?”

“Rarely,” he said.

“You liked it though. When we were kids.”

“It was quiet. I liked the quiet.”

“Do you remember the stories that we heard back then?”

“Sure.”

“Mrs. Kensington believed every one of them.”

“I know.”

“So remind me: How old was Noah when he built the ark?”

“Dee Dee.”

“Somewhere around five hundred years old, if I recall. Do you really think Noah put two of every creature on that ark? There are a million types of insects alone. Think he managed to get them all on board? That all makes sense to you and all the Mrs. Kensingtons out there — but the Truth doesn’t?”

“It’s not the same thing.”

“Sure it is. We sat in that church and Mrs. Kensington had tears in her eyes and nodded when they told us about salvation. Do you remember the stories?”

Ash frowned.

“Let me see if I can recap: A celestial baby boy, who was his own father, was born to a married virgin. Then the baby’s father — who was also him — tortured and killed him. Oh, but then he came back from the dead like a zombie, but if you eat his flesh, which is a wafer, and drink his wine blood and promise to kiss his ass, he will suck all the evil out of you—”

“Dee Dee—”

“Wait, I’m getting to the best part. The reason why there is evil at all in the world — do you remember this part, Ash?”

He did, but he kept quiet.

“No? Oh, you’ll love this. Evil exists because an airheaded bimbo, who started life as a man’s rib, got tricked into eating a piece of bad fruit by a talking reptile.” Dee Dee clapped her hands together and fell back on the car seat, laughing. “Do I need to go into the other stuff? The parting of seas, the prophets ascending on animals up to the sky, Abraham pimping out his wife to the pharaoh? How about even now, all these ‘holy’ men who live in Roman compounds with homoerotic art and wear costumes that would make a drag queen blush?”

He just kept on driving.

“Ash?”

“What?”

“It may sound like I’m mocking these beliefs,” she said, “or that I’m mocking Mrs. Kensington.”

“That it does.”

“I’m not. My point is, maybe before you dismiss other beliefs as wacko, you should take a closer look at the stories that ‘normal’” — Dee Dee air-quoted — “people find credible. We think all religions are crazy — except our own.”

He didn’t want to admit it, but she had a point. And yet something in her tone...

“The Truth is more than a religion. It’s a living, breathing entity. The Truth has always existed. It will always exist. Most people’s God lives in the past — thousands of years ago, stuck in old books. Why? Do they think God gave up on them? Mine is here. Today. In the real world. When this Truth dies, his offspring will continue. Because the Truth lives. The Truth, if you could be objective, Ash, if you hadn’t been brainwashed by the big religions since childbirth, makes more sense than talking snakes or elephant gods, doesn’t it?”

Ash said nothing.

“Ash?”

“What?”

“Talk to me.”

“I don’t know what to say.”

“Maybe that’s because you’re hearing the Truth.”

“Uh no, that’s not it.”

“Take your next right,” she said. “We’re getting close.”

The road was one lane now, with forest on either side.

“You don’t have to go back,” Ash said.

Dee Dee turned and stared out her window.

“I have some money saved,” Ash continued. “We could go somewhere. Just you and me. Buy a place. You could be Holly with me.”

She didn’t reply.

“Dee?”

“Yes.”

“Did you hear me?”

“I did.”

“You don’t have to go back.”

“Shh. We’re getting close now.”

Simon called the phone number on Professor van de Beek’s bio page. After two rings, it went to voicemail. Simon left a message asking van de Beek to call him back about his daughter, Paige Greene. Simon doubled up then, sending an email to the professor with the same request.

He called both Sam and Anya, but the calls went right into voicemail, which was no surprise. Kids never talked on the phone, only texted. He should have known better. He sent them both the same text:

You okay? Wanna call me?

Sam answered right away.

All good. Nah no need.

Again, no surprise.

He started back toward New York City. He and Ingrid shared a stream or cloud or whatever, so that all his photos and documents and all her photos and documents were in the same place. Music too. They shared a service, so he told Siri to play Ingrid’s most recent playlist and sat back and listened.

The first song Ingrid had put on her playlist made him smile: “The Girl from Ipanema,” the 1964 version sung by Astrud Gilberto.

Sublime.

Simon shook his head, still in awe of the woman who had somehow, out of all the options, chosen him. Him. Whatever life had thrown at him, whatever turns he’d made or bizarre forks he’d seen in the road, that fact — that Ingrid had chosen him — always kept him balanced, made him thankful, guided him home.

The phone rang. The caller ID appeared on the car’s navigation screen.