Харлан Кобен - Found

“I’m coming down,” Ema said.

“Wait.”

“What?”

The beam of the flashlight danced around the room. In one corner, there was a washer and dryer that looked like something from the Eisenhower administration. Some old clothes were piled on the left. I opened two of the cardboard boxes. There was nothing but junk in them. No files, no clues, all a mess of dust and soot.

“Don’t bother,” I said. “There’s nothing here.”

“Are you sure?”

I checked the floor again. That was where I’d found the photograph last time we were here. But there was nothing now. Finally I raised the beam toward where I knew the answer would be.

The reinforced steel door.

I had seen it last time I was here. While everything else in this house had been decaying, this door was stronger than ever. I put my hand against it. The soot fell away and I could still see a shine. I tried the knob.

Locked.

I had expected that. I tried to push my shoulder against it. It didn’t budge a bit.

I needed to get to the other side of that door.

But there was no way I was going to make it this way. That didn’t mean I was defeated. I just had to go another route.

“Mickey?”

“I’m coming back up.”

I tested the bottom steps. They were sturdy enough. I climbed a few. Ema lowered her hand to offer me help. I didn’t need it, but if I refused it, she would make another crack about me being sexist or whatever. So I took it, which may have been an even more sexist move.

“So what now?” she asked when I was back aboveground.

“The garage,” I said. “When Dylan Shaykes brought me here, he had me go through a tunnel that started in the garage out back and made its way to the house. I saw other corridors and doors. One, I bet, leads to whatever is behind that steel door.”

The garage was in the woods, about fifty yards away. It seemed so odd, but then again everything about this property did. The woods came right up to the very house, as though they had sneaked in one night and taken over the backyard. That had made no sense to me. Now, of course, I understood it better. There was a road in the woods. You could drive up to the garage back there without fear of being seen. You could even use the tunnel in the garage and enter the house without anyone ever noticing.

There was a lot of secrecy surrounding the Abeona Shelter.

The garage doors were locked, but this time the doors weren’t reinforced with anything. I checked the bolt and saw it was right by the knob. Good. I lifted my leg and smashed my heel into the spot directly above the knob.

The door gave way.

“So we’re breaking and entering,” Ema said.

“Probably.”

She shrugged and headed in first. I aimed the flashlight at the ground and said, “Stop.”

“What?”

I gestured toward the floor. There were fresh footprints in the dirt.

I put my foot next to one of the prints. I wear a size thirteen. This shoe was only slightly smaller, which meant that the prints probably belonged to an adult male.

Using my flashlight, I followed the footprints right up to the...

The trapdoor that led to the tunnel. They stopped there.

Never one to miss the obvious, I said, “Someone’s been here recently.”

“Or is still here now,” Ema added.

Silence.

Then I said, “Let me—”

“If you say ‘go down alone,’ I will punch you.”

I looked up at her. “Then neither of us goes down.”

“Huh?”

“Spoon is paralyzed. He got shot. I’m not taking any more chances.”

Ema shook her head. “We have to do this, Mickey. You know that.”

“We don’t have to do anything. Suppose Luther is down there.”

“Then we have him cornered.”

“You’re kidding, right?”

Ema moved closer to me. “What else can we do, Mickey? Go home?”

I wanted her to go home. But I knew that she wouldn’t.

“We’ll be careful,” she said. “Okay?”

What choice did I have? “Okay.”

The trapdoor had a latch. I bent down and pulled the handle. We both looked down into the tunnel.

Darkness. Nothing but a black hole.

“Terrific,” I said.

Ema had already turned on her flashlight app. There was a ladder leading down. She said, “Me first,” and put her foot on the first rung.

“Let me go.”

“I don’t trust you. You’ll look up my skirt.”

“Uh, you’re wearing jeans.”

“Oops.” She smothered a nervous laugh and started down the ladder. I followed. When we reached the bottom, Ema aimed the beam in front of her. The flashlight wasn’t all that strong, but it just confirmed what I already knew: We were in a tunnel. At the end of it, if we made the proper turns, would be that steel-reinforced door.

The question was, what else would we find?

She was about to start forward when I put my hand on her arm. She turned toward me. I put a finger to my lips to signal for her to stay silent. She did so. I listened hard.

Nothing.

That was a good sign. Everything echoed down here. If Luther or someone else was moving, we would have heard them. Of course, that didn’t mean that they weren’t down here. The echo worked both ways. They would have heard us descending the ladder. Luther or whoever could be waiting somewhere, ducking low, ready to pounce.

“We move slowly,” I whispered.

Ema nodded.

We started down the tunnel. I wondered how something like this had been built. No way it passed Kasselton code. Did Lizzy Sobek hire construction workers? I doubted it. Did volunteers work on it? Did those “chosen” by the Abeona Shelter build this tunnel?

Maybe. Maybe my father helped build it.

But I somehow doubted it. It seemed older than that. How long did it take to construct? And really, who cared anyway?

We reached a door.

I remembered passing this door the last time I was here. Dylan Shaykes, who had brought me, told me to keep going. I tried to flash back and remember now. Did he seem afraid? No. He had just wanted me to keep going because I had been brought here to see Bat Lady.

I reached for the knob.

But there wasn’t one.

Huh? I looked again. I could see what looked to be a keyhole. Nothing else. The door was smooth. It was also reinforced steel. I pushed against it. No yield at all.

What was Abeona trying to hide?

We were about to continue along the corridor when Ema said, “Mickey, look.”

I turned to Ema. At first I didn’t see it, but then I followed the flashlight beam down toward the ground. There was a small lever, like something you’d pull for a fire alarm.

“What do you think?” I asked her.

“I think we pull it.”

Ema reached for it before I could. Her hand took hold and pulled. At first, it didn’t give at all. Then she pulled harder. The lever gave way with a sucking pop sound.

The wall next to us started to slide.

We stepped back and watched it move. It was bizarre. The front part of the wall came forward and moved to the right. It slid in front of the steel-reinforced door, covering it.

Ema said, “What the...?”

The door was gone now. Completely camouflaged.

We stood there for a moment and stared, half expecting something else to happen. It didn’t. The door was gone. I wondered whether there were more doors in this tunnel.

Or more levers.

“Pull it again,” I said.

She did. The wall grunted before moving back to where it had been before. The door was once again visible. I pushed on the door one more time, hoping that maybe the lever unlocked it or something, but it didn’t give.

“I don’t get it,” I said.

“Neither do I. Should we keep moving?”

I nodded. There wasn’t much more for us to do here.