Харлан Кобен - Found

“You’re safe now,” Lizzy told them.

One of the kids stepped forward in a challenging way. He put his fists on his hips, almost Superman style. “Who are you? Why are we here?”

I heard Ema gasp. “Mickey?”

I nodded, unable to speak.

The boy looked to be about twelve years old. He moved closer to the camera — close enough that we could see that his hair was sandy blond. The picture quality wasn’t good enough to see the green eyes, but I didn’t need to know the color. The facial features were all the same. I would guess he was fifteen or twenty years younger, but there was no doubt in my mind.

It was Luther. My Butcher.

“We will explain everything to you in due time,” Lizzy said.

But Luther was having none of it. “I want to know now.”

The other children moved forward. One looked younger than Luther by maybe five years. The little boy was scared and confused. Luther threw his arm around him protectively.

“It’s okay,” Lizzy said in a gentle voice. “No one can ever hurt you again.”

Another child, the one on the far right, started to cry. Lizzy moved toward him, her arms spread. He ran into her arms. She stroked his hair. The fourth child did the same. Lizzy took him in her grasp too.

“What the...?” Ema asked.

“It’s a rescue,” Spoon said.

“Shh.”

I stared at the screen. Still comforting the two children, Lizzy looked toward Luther and the other boy. Luther shook his head. His grip on the other boy tightened.

“It’s okay,” she said again.

A tear ran down Luther’s cheek.

“You’re safe here. No one will harm either of you.”

From behind the camera, I heard Dylan say, “Uh-oh, I think we have company.”

Lizzy turned toward him. I could see something like fear on her face. “Get them to the safe room. Hurry.”

Then she turned back and said one word that made my whole world crumble anew:

“Brad?”

And then the voice, at once so familiar and yet so different: “I’m right here.”

My teenage father stepped forward.

Ema said, “Oh my God. Is that...?”

Tears were running freely down my face. I nodded.

“Get them fed and situated,” Lizzy said to the teenager who would one day become my father.

“Yes, ma’am.”

Lizzy, her face set, started back toward the camera. She walked past it and disappeared. For another second or two, I could see them all — the two children she had been comforting, Luther with his arm around the other scared boy, and my father. They all stood there, completely still, and then, with a snap, the screen went black.

For a few moments, none of us moved. We just sat and stared at the TV screen.

“I have more information to use now,” Spoon said. “Luther disappeared with three other boys approximately, what, twenty years ago. There has to be something about it on the web.”

I nodded numbly. I did everything numbly. I could barely talk or think since we had watched the tape.

“Mickey?”

“Yeah, Spoon.”

“We will find out what happened to your father, okay? I promise.”

Look who was suddenly making the promises. I nodded. Numbly.

Ema took my hand. “Are you okay?”

Another numb nod. Then I said, “It’s just...” I stopped myself, but there I sat, Ema holding my hand, Spoon looking at me from his bed with such concern. “After my dad was killed, I didn’t look at any pictures of him. You know? It just hurt too much. I don’t know. I couldn’t handle it.”

“We understand,” Ema said.

“Now I not only see him,” I said, pointing toward the screen, “but I see him on a video made before I was even born. So it’s just...”

No more words would come out.

“Totally get it,” Spoon said.

“Absolutely,” Ema added.

Ema and I were still holding hands. It felt good.

“Perhaps,” Spoon said, “a distraction would be nice.” He opened his laptop and started typing. “As you may remember, Jared Lowell lives on Adiona Island, off the coast of Massachusetts. It requires two buses and a ferry to get to. Since the only day in the next week where you don’t have either school or basketball practice is tomorrow, I took the liberty of booking two tickets. You’ll have to leave early again in the morning.”

“Wait, I can’t go tomorrow,” Ema said. “I promised my mom I’d go to her show in New York.”

“Maybe that’s better,” I said.

“What?”

“I can find Jared and talk to him without you there. Maybe he’ll be more forthcoming.”

Ema frowned. “You’re kidding, right?”

“No, he’s right,” Spoon said. “Perhaps it is best you don’t go.”

“So Mickey goes alone?” Ema asked.

Then I remembered my texts with Rachel. “Not alone,” I said. “I’ll have backup.”

I admit that this action — coming all the way out to this island — seemed extreme.

Ema and I had already wasted half a day heading up to the Farnsworth School trying to find Jared Lowell. That was one thing. It made some sense. But now we stood on the ferry, watching Adiona Island grow larger as we approached, hoping against hope that maybe Jared was here and we would find him and this mystery would be over.

I shook my head thinking about it.

“What’s wrong?” Rachel asked me.

The wind blew her hair across her face. I wanted to reach out and push it back, tuck it behind her ear, but of course, I didn’t. “What are the odds he’s even here?”

“Jared? He lives here, right?”

“Right.”

“And that guy you met up at the prep school said he’d gone home, right?”

“Right.”

“So I’d say the odds are pretty good.”

I shook my head again.

“You don’t agree?” she asked.

“Do you think we’re going to just knock on his door and find him home?” I frowned. “It’s never that easy for us.”

Rachel smiled. “True.”

But that was exactly what happened.

The ferry was loaded with two classes of people. The crowd on the top deck looked like they were going to a cricket match or an equestrian show. Some of the men had sweaters tied around their shoulders. Others wore tweed jackets. The women wore tennis skirts or summer dresses in loud pink and green. They spoke with jutted jaws and used the word summer as a verb. One guy wore an ascot. He called his wife “sassy.” I thought it was a personality description, you know, like she was sassy, but after eavesdropping I realized that was her name. Sassy with a capital S.

The other class, on the deck below, were what I assumed were day workers or domestics. I had seen the same expressions, the same slumped shoulders on the bus going from Kasselton back to Newark. I didn’t know much about Adiona Island, but judging by the ferry, it was a playground for the old-money jet-setter crowd.

When we got off the ferry, Rachel had the GPS app on her smartphone ready.

“The Lowells live on Discepolo Street,” she said. “It’s less than a mile from here. I guess we should walk.”

It was a good guess, especially since there were no other options. There was nothing by the dock area. No taxis. No car rental. No restaurant or deli or even snack machine. Almost everyone else had cars at the dock. The lower deck hopped into the back of pickups. The upper tier had roadsters and antique cars and brands you normally associate with money.

In the distance we could see fancy homes along the water. They were big, of course, but not huge or new. They were more what one might call “stately” rather than some nouveau palace. Half a mile down the road we passed a ritzy tennis club, the kind where everyone wore only whites, like they were at Wimbledon or something.