Харлан Кобен - Found

There was a fork up ahead in the tunnel. We stopped at it. I tried to remember when I was here last which way I went. I didn’t remember the fork but I was pretty distracted. Dylan Shaykes — at that time I only thought of him as Shaved Head — was leading me toward the house.

What way had we gone — left or right?

Right, I thought. I don’t have a great sense of direction, but right also seemed the way to the house. Plus, the bigger prong in the fork — the one you would more naturally take — was the one on the right.

I had already gone in that direction, though, hadn’t I?

I was about to shine the flashlight to the left when I heard a noise. I froze.

Ema whispered, “What?”

“Did you hear that?”

“I don’t think so.”

We stayed still. I heard it again. I couldn’t tell what it was, though. My imagination? Maybe. But whatever it was, it seemed very far away. Have you ever had that? Have you ever heard a sound so soft, so far away, so muffled that you aren’t even sure that you are hearing anything at all? Like maybe your ears are ringing and you’re just imagining the whole thing.

That was what this was like.

“Do you hear it?” I asked her.

And again, because we are so much in tune, Ema replied, “Maybe. Something really faint...”

We didn’t know what to do.

“It could just be an old pipe,” Ema said. “Or house noises. You know. You can barely hear it at all.”

“I know.”

“So what should we do?”

“Probably not stay much longer.”

I shone the flashlight to my left. When we both saw what was there, Ema said, “Bingo.”

Maybe, I thought.

The first thing we saw was an old television set. I don’t know how old exactly. I mean, it wasn’t ancient — not like that noisy refrigerator that broke on the Bat Lady — but it was a thick console set with a screen that couldn’t be more than eight inches. A machine that looked like a giant old-fashioned tape recorder was attached to it.

“It’s for VCR tapes, I think,” Ema said. “We still have something like it in the theater room.”

I stepped into the room. On the shelf above, there were dozens of tapes, lined up like books. I started to pull them down from the shelf.

“I don’t think they’re for a VCR,” I said.

Uncle Myron had old VCR tapes of his high school games in the house. These tapes looked slightly different. They were a little smaller, less rectangular. I hoped to find something on the labels, but the only thing written on them were numbers.

“Mickey?”

It was Ema. Her tone made my blood go cold. I turned slowly toward her. Ema’s eyes were wide. Her hand was resting on top of the television.

“What’s the matter?” I asked.

“The television,” she said.

“What about it?”

I saw her swallow. “It’s warm,” she said. “Someone was just using it.”

We both froze again, in this dark, dank space, and listened.

Another noise. This one was real. No mistaking it.

Ema looked down at the attached tape machine. She pressed a button and a tape ejected from the machine. She jammed it into her purse and said, “Let’s get out of here.”

I didn’t argue. We hurried back into the tunnel, this time heading toward the garage. We had gone about ten yards when I heard the noise behind me. I stopped and turned to look back.

Luther was there.

He stood at the far end of the tunnel, glaring at us. For a moment, none of us moved. Even down here, even in this faint light, I could still see the sandy hair and green eyes. I flashed back to the first time I had seen them — the day of the car accident. I was lying injured, woozy, not sure what had happened. I looked to the side and saw my father lying very still. A paramedic looked back at me and shook his head.

That paramedic was down at the end of the tunnel.

Luther’s hands formed two fists. He looked enraged. When he took a step toward us, Ema grabbed my arm and yelled, “Run!”

I didn’t move.

He took another step.

Ema said, “Mickey?”

“Go,” I said to her.

“What?”

“Go!” I shouted.

I wasn’t leaving. I wasn’t letting him escape again. This Luther, this man I didn’t know, was my father’s sworn enemy. That made him mine.

My father’s grave might not have held any answers. But I bet this guy did.

I wasn’t going to let him out of my sight again.

Luther and I faced each other like two gunslingers in an old Western movie. I wasn’t sure what move to make. I had spent most of my life overseas, in a variety of countries, and my father had insisted that I learn the various martial arts. I was big. I was strong. I knew how to fight.

But most martial arts work by using your opponent’s aggression. I had never learned, for example, how to sprint toward an opponent in a tunnel and take him down. I knew better how to counter an attack like that, how to roll with my adversary and incapacitate him.

So I waited another second for him to come toward me.

He waited too.

I wondered whether he knew how to fight. It didn’t matter. He was not getting out of here. He was not getting near Ema. It was just the two of us.

No reason to wait any longer.

I started to calculate the distance and figure an angle of attack — go low, take out the legs — when I heard a voice behind us.

“What the—?”

Someone was coming down via the trapdoor in the garage. I thought maybe I recognized the voice.

“Kasselton police! Everybody freeze!”

It was Chief Taylor, Troy’s father. He hurried down the ladder. I glanced for a second, no more. I kept my eyes on Luther’s. He kept his eyes on me. But I turned away just for a second.

“For the love of...” Chief Taylor’s mouth dropped open as he looked around in disbelief at the tunnel. “What is this place?”

Another officer was coming down the ladder behind him. I quickly turned back to Luther.

Luther started to run the other way.

“No!” I shouted.

“Freeze!” It was Chief Taylor again. The beam of his flashlight was on me. “Mickey Bolitar! Freeze right now!”

I didn’t listen. I sprinted toward the end of the tunnel. When I veered right, I saw the door — the steel-reinforced one in the basement, maybe? — slam closed.

Luther had run through it.

I ran toward it. I put my hand on the knob.

“Okay, Mickey,” Chief Taylor said, standing side by side with another officer, “that’s far enough.”

They were there. I had my hand on the knob and tried to calculate how long it would take to open the door and run through it. Too long. Taylor and the other officer would be on me.

That was when we all heard the scream.

The two police officers turned toward it.

“Help! Oh, help!”

Suddenly I got it. The scream and call for help had come from Ema, but I could tell, from the exaggerated tone, she wasn’t in real danger.

Genius that she was, Ema was intentionally diverting their attention from me!

I didn’t wait. I pulled open the door and ran through it. I was back in the basement. It was darker now. I heard a crunching noise above me. I used my flashlight app and shone it upward.

I saw Luther’s leg on the top step.

I ran and leapt toward it. I grabbed the ankle and hung on for all I was worth. I was actually suspended in the air, my grip on his ankle loosening, when I felt his other foot stomp on my arm. I didn’t care. I hung on.

“Let go of me!” Luther shouted.

“Where’s my father?”

“He’s dead!”

I didn’t believe him. And I had a plan.

If I could just swing my legs to the stairs, I would have enough leverage to pull Luther down to the concrete basement floor.