Харлан Кобен - Found

“Do you know who Abeona was?”

“A Roman goddess who protected children.”

“Something like that,” Dylan said. “To be more exact, Abeona is the Roman goddess of outward journeys. She guards over children as they leave their home for the first time to explore the world.”

“Okay,” I said. “And how long has the Abeona Shelter existed?”

He smiled. “No one knows.”

“What does that mean?”

“I was called. You were called. Lizzy Sobek was called. There were ones called before her. There will be ones called after us.”

“And you don’t know when it all started?”

“No.”

“Who calls us?”

“For now? It’s Lizzy Sobek. One day, we will have a new leader.” He smiled at me. “I have been on both ends, Mickey. I’m a rescuer. And I was rescued.”

I flashed back to the “memorial” service for a little boy named Dylan Shaykes. “Everyone thinks you’re dead.”

He kept walking.

“Even your father.”

“Yes.”

“You’re okay with that?”

“He’s the reason I was rescued. My father...” He closed his eyes for a second, as though in pain. “He was a cruel man.”

“Did Bat Lady rescue you?”

“Her name is Lizzy Sobek.”

“I know. But it’s dangerous to use her real name, right?”

He nodded. “Good point. Yes. She rescued me. I was in the hospital. My father had hurt me. Again. I told the police that I fell down the stairs. Again. I don’t think they believed me, but my father could be a very charming man when he wanted to be. I remember sitting in the hospital room and thinking about hurting myself again. So I could stay longer. I didn’t want to go back to that house. I was scared.” He stroked his chin. “Do you know those containers for disposable needles?”

I nodded.

“I tried to break into it. So I could get a needle. I thought maybe I could use it as a weapon or...”

“Or what?” I asked.

“Or I could use it to kill myself.”

There may have been sounds around us. There may have been cars driving by or children playing somewhere nearby or something like that. But I heard none of it.

“Bat Lady came in. She was dressed like a nurse. She took me away.”

“Where did she take you?”

A small smile came to his lips. “Where do you think?”

I remembered the tape he wanted. “To that tunnel?”

“Yes. For a long time, that was where we hid the rescued until we could find them safe transport. There is a door down there. It can be hidden by a false wall.”

“I saw it,” I said.

“When you found that tape?”

I remembered it now. I had walked past it. “Yes.”

“Anyway, that’s where I stayed for the first two weeks. There was so much attention that they couldn’t move me. The room has all this canned food and a toilet and a shower. It’s soundproof so if, say, a scared child started crying, the police or a nosy visitor wouldn’t hear. Two other boys were down there with me too. One was already there when I arrived. One came a few days later. Eventually we were moved.”

“Moved where?”

“Someplace safe. We never find out where they go. That’s part of how Abeona works. We compartmentalize. So I don’t know what happened to those boys.”

“And you?”

“In my case, I was sent to England. I grew up in the town of Bristol.”

That explained the accent. This all made sense. No one knew about that tunnel. You could approach it hidden, from the woods and into the garage. “I blew it, I guess.”

“Pardon?”

“You can’t use that secret room anymore,” I said. “Now I understand what Bat Lady meant. The police know about it now. If more kids go missing, it will be the first place they look.”

“True,” he said. “But the house is gone anyway. We had been using the tunnel. But that secret room...” A shadow crossed his face. “We stopped using that room a long time ago.”

“I don’t understand.”

“We sealed it shut. It hasn’t been open in years.”

“Why?”

Dylan didn’t answer right away.

“Why did you stop using that room?”

“That’s what I need you to understand, Mickey.”

“What?”

“You watched the tape with Luther and your father?”

It felt as though a cold hand had caressed the back of my neck. “Yes.”

“Those boys were the last ones to ever use that secret room.”

Dylan started walking faster.

“Wait,” I called to him. “What happened?”

“We rescued a little girl once. I won’t tell you the horrors she had to endure. Her mother had done things to her that would boggle the imagination. But the little girl still thought that woman was her mother. She didn’t know any better. She thought that she loved this evil woman. That’s what happens. You get attached to your abuser, especially when you’re a young child who doesn’t know any better.”

Spoon had said something like this. Something about Stockholm syndrome. I remembered how defiant Luther had been on the tape.

“And that was the case with Luther?”

“Yes.”

“So what happened?”

“Your father made a mistake that night.”

“What kind of mistake?”

“Someone had seen him.”

Again I thought about what we had seen when we watched the video in Spoon’s room. There had been a sudden interruption. “They followed him back to the house,” I said.

“Yes.”

“That’s when you all started panicking. I saw it on the tape.”

Dylan nodded.

“So who was it?”

“The state police.”

“Did they search the house?”

“Yes.”

“But they didn’t find the boys.”

“No. They were in the secret room. We had the false wall covering the door. Luther was calling for help.”

“But the police couldn’t hear him.”

Dylan looked pained again. “Exactly.”

“So what happened?” I asked.

“You noticed the smaller boy on the tape. The one Luther had his arm around?”

“Yes.”

“His name was Ricky.”

Was. He said “was.”

“He wasn’t Luther’s biological or even adopted brother. But in most ways, Ricky meant more to Luther than that. Those two had gone through hell and back together. Luther had always protected him.”

“What happened to him?”

Dylan took a breath and let it go. “He died.”

I felt my throat clench. “How?”

“You have to understand. The police were watching us. They even brought Lizzy Sobek to the police station to ask her questions. We have a powerful lawyer on the Abeona team. She came and helped us get through it. But that was the thing about that room. We didn’t have wires. We didn’t have a sound system. We wanted to make sure that there was no way anyone could get in or out of that room. Like I said, it was soundproof. All of those precautions had saved many children over the years. But it also meant that if something went wrong, it might be a while before we knew about it.”

“So what happened?”

“Ricky was a sickly child. He often suffered seizures. When your father rescued them, it had been chaos. He had to rush. Luther told him that they needed to go back and get the boy’s medicine. But your father didn’t have a chance. That wasn’t his fault, of course. Normally we would have taken care of it right away. We would have gotten our hands on the medications. That was part of our protocol. We always ask about that when they arrive.”

“But not that night,” I said.

“No. That night, when the police came, we didn’t have time. Ricky had a seizure. A really bad one.”

“And he died?” I asked.

“Yes.” Dylan Shaykes looked into my eyes. “Can you imagine it? Watching the only person you ever loved die on the floor in front of you. Pounding on the big metal door. Screaming for help.”