Харлан Кобен - Run Away

But there had been nothing new about Paige.

During Simon’s fifth night in the hospital, when the pain was pretty bad and he’d hit the morphine pump for all he was worth, he woke up in a semi-daze to see Mother Adiona sitting by his bedside.

“They were slaughtering all the sons,” Mother Adiona said to him.

Simon knew this, though the motive remained murky. Maybe the cult was trying to cover up their past crime of selling babies. Or maybe the murders of these men were part of some weird ritual or prophesy. No one seemed to know.

“I believe in the Truth, Mr. Greene. It sustains me. I have been its servant for almost my entire life. I birthed a son, and the Truth told me that he would be one of our next leaders. I raised him as such. I birthed another son and when the Truth told me that this son would not be able to stay with us, I let him go, even though that meant I would never see my own boy again.”

Simon watched her through the hazy gauze of his painkillers.

“But last year, I used a DNA site because I wanted to know what became of my son. Harmless enough. Just a little knowledge. A little” — she almost smiled — “truth. Do you know what I found?”

Simon shook his head.

“My son’s name is Nathan Brannon. He was raised by Hugh and Maria Brannon, two schoolteachers, in Tallahassee, Florida. He graduated with honors from Florida State. He married his high school sweetheart and has three boys — the oldest is ten, and then six-year-old twins. He’s now a schoolteacher too — fifth grade — and by all accounts is a good man.”

Simon tried to sit up, but the drugs had left him too exhausted.

“He wanted to meet me. My son, I mean. But I turned him down. Can you imagine how hard that was, Mr. Greene?”

Simon shook his head and managed to say, “No, I can’t.”

“But you see, it was enough for me to know that my son was happy. It had to be. It was what the Truth wanted.”

Simon moved his hand closer to hers. The older woman took it. They sat there for a moment, in the dark, the rustle of the hospital distant background music.

“But then I found out that they wanted to murder my boy.” She finally looked down and met his eye. “I spent my whole life bending for my beliefs. But this... you bend too far, you break. Do you understand?”

“Of course.”

“So I had to stop them. I didn’t want to hurt anyone. But I had no choice.”

“Thank you,” Simon said.

“I have to go back now.”

“Back where?”

“Truth Haven. It’s still my home.”

Mother Adiona rose and moved toward the door.

“Please.” Simon swallowed. “My daughter. She was dating one of these sons.”

“So I heard.”

“She’s missing.”

“I heard that too.”

“Please help me,” Simon said. “You’re a parent. You understand.”

“I do.” Mother Adiona opened the door. “But I don’t know anything more.”

And then she was gone.

A week later, Simon begged Fagbenle to let him study the files. Fagbenle, perhaps pitying him, acquiesced.

Ingrid seemed to be improving, so there was some glimmer of light there. Despite what you see on television, you don’t just come out of a coma. The process is more two steps up, one step back. Ingrid had regained consciousness and spoken to him twice in short spurts. In both cases, Ingrid had been encouragingly lucid. But the last one was over a week ago. There had been no improvement since then.

From the day he was shot, Simon kept digging because the biggest question remained unanswered.

Where was Paige?

He didn’t get the answer for days, then weeks.

It took, in fact, a month.

A month after he had been shot, when Simon was finally well enough, he headed to Port Authority and took a bus trip to Buffalo. He stared out the window all seven hours, hoping against hope that something he’d see would spark a thought.

Nothing did.

When he arrived, he walked around the bus terminal for two hours. Simon was sure that if he just circled the block a few times, he’d find a clue.

He didn’t.

With his body aching — the trip was probably too much too fast — Simon climbed back on the bus, squeezed into his seat, and took the seven-hour trip back.

Again he stared out the window.

And again nothing.

It was almost two in the morning when the bus pulled back into Port Authority. Simon took the A train north to the hospital. Ingrid was out of intensive care now and in a private room, though she remained unconscious. There was a cot in the room, so that he could sleep with his wife. Some nights, Simon felt that Sam and Anya needed him home. But most nights, like this one, he made his way up to Washington Heights and kissed his wife on the forehead and slept on the cot next to her.

Tonight though, one month after he was shot, there was someone else in Ingrid’s room when he arrived.

The lights were off, so he could only see her sitting in silhouette next to Ingrid’s bed.

He froze in the doorway. His eyes opened wide. Simon put his hand on his mouth, but his muffled cries were still audible. He felt his knees start to buckle.

That was when Paige turned around and said, “Dad?”

And Simon burst into tears.

Paige helped her father up and into a chair.

“I can’t stay,” Paige said, “but it’s been a month.”

Simon was still putting himself back together. “A month?”

“Clean.”

And she was. He could see it. His heart leapt. His baby looked drawn and pale and harried, but she also looked clear-eyed and sober and... He felt the tears come again, this time for joy, but he bit them back.

“I’m not there yet,” she warned. “I may never be. But I’m better.”

“So this whole time—”

“I didn’t know any of this. We aren’t allowed electronics. No access to family or friends or the outside world at all. That’s the rules. Nothing for a full month. It was my best chance, Dad. My only chance really.”

Simon was just numb.

“I have to go back to the retreat. You need to understand that. I’m not ready for the real world. We agreed on a twenty-four-hour pass, and that’s just because of this emergency. I need to go back. Even being here this short of a time, I can feel the pull stronger—”

“You’ll go back,” Simon said. “I’ll drive you.”

Paige turned toward her mother’s bed. “This is because of me.”

“No,” Simon said. “You can’t think that way.”

Simon moved closer to her. She still looked so fragile, so damn fragile, and now he worried that if Paige blamed herself, if she took on that guilt, maybe that would make her want to slip back into the world of oblivion.

“It’s not your fault,” he said. “No one blames you, least of all your mother and me. Okay?”

She nodded a little too hesitantly.

“Paige?”

“Yes, Daddy.”

“Do you want to tell me what happened?”

“When I came back to the room and saw Aaron dead... I hid. I thought... I thought the police would think I killed him. It was awful, seeing what was done to him, but part of me, I don’t know, Aaron was gone. Finally gone. Part of me felt free. Do you know what I mean?”

Simon nodded.

“So I came to the retreat.”

“How did you know about the place?” he asked.

She blinked and looked away.

“Paige?”

“I’d been there before,” she said.

“When?”

“Do you remember when you saw me in Central Park?”

“Of course.”

“I had been at the retreat before that.”

“Wait, when?”

“Right before. To get clean. And it’d been working. That’s what I thought. But then Aaron found me. He sneaked into my room one night. Shot me up while I was asleep. I disappeared with him the next day.”