Харлан Кобен - Found

I stood there. I was gripping the basketball so hard, I thought it might pop.

“Island?” I said.

“Yeah, his mom lives on an island. It’s got a weird name. Like Apollonia or Adonis or something with an A. ”

I swallowed. “Adiona?”

“Yeah, that’s it,” Brandon said. “Buck’s mom lives on Adiona Island.”

Ema and I barely talked on the way back up to Adiona Island.

The seas were choppy this morning. We stood at the front of the ferry. The wind ripped at our faces. I watched Ema’s pale complexion redden under the onslaught. She didn’t care. I didn’t care either.

We had stopped trying to piece this together. There comes a time when you need to put all the theories aside. Mrs. Friedman had a poster in her classroom with a saying from Sherlock Holmes. I don’t remember the exact quote, so I’m paraphrasing, but it says that it’s a mistake to theorize before you have all the facts because then you twist facts to suit theories instead of the other way around.

We simply had no theories anymore.

We needed more facts.

The wind picked up. Everyone else had ducked inside to escape. Ema and I did not. We stared out as the island emerged from the fog.

“Mickey?”

The wind snatched away the word, making it hard to hear her.

“What?” I shouted back.

“I’m scared.”

“We’ll be fine,” I said.

“I love when you’re condescending.”

“I’m trying to be comforting.”

“Same thing, Mickey.” Ema looked up at me. “It’s cute that you want to be the hero, but I’d rather you were just honest, okay?”

I put my arm around her. It was just to keep her warm. Nothing else. She moved in closer and rested her head against my chest. We stood like that as the ferry moved closer to the port. I could almost feel something change as we docked. There was something in the air on this island.

A tension. An electricity.

We both felt it.

I moved my arm away. I still hadn’t heard from Troy, but then again, I hadn’t contacted him either. Spoon had tried to find where on the island Buck’s mother lived, but he couldn’t come up with anything. It didn’t matter. The island was small.

We would find the house.

Meanwhile, there was still the other matter. Ema had to go face-to-face with Jared Lowell, this online persona who had, it seemed, captured her heart. We started down the same road I had walked with Rachel. The wind grew less powerful as we moved inland, but it never left.

“Do you remember what Bat Lady said to me?” Ema asked.

“She said a lot of things.”

“At the very end. Right before she got in that car and she drove off with that shaved head guy.”

I did remember. “She asked if you loved the boy.”

“She didn’t ask. She said it. Like she knew.”

I nodded. “Right.”

“Do you remember what she said after that?”

That line I remembered verbatim: “‘It will hurt.’”

“Right.”

“And then you asked what will. And she said the truth.”

We were nearing Jared’s road now. If the island had seemed quiet last time, it seemed completely abandoned now. We had not seen anyone or even a passing car since leaving the dock.

“I think,” Ema said, “we may be coming close to that truth.”

We made the turn onto Jared Lowell’s road. It was completely still, silent. I almost expected one of those ghost-town tumbleweeds to blow across the street. Ema turned to me and said, “Which door?”

I pointed up the block a bit. “That one.”

“Okay, good.”

“Do you want me to wait here?”

Ema thought about it. “No, come with me.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah,” she said. “If this is going to hurt, I want you to be there for me.”

We started up that same cracked-concrete path. I knocked. Ema and I stood there, adjusting our shoulders and then our heads and doing that dumb stuff you do when you’re waiting for a door to open.

Eventually we heard footsteps heading toward us. I glanced at Ema. She gave me a hesitant smile. The door opened.

But it wasn’t Jared. It was his mother.

She frowned at me. “You were here a few days ago.”

“Yes, ma’am,” I said.

“What do you want?”

She said it as though it were an accusation.

“We’re here to see Jared.”

“What do you want with him?”

I didn’t know how to answer that. I looked toward Ema. She said, “We’re his friends.”

“From the Farnsworth School?”

“No, ma’am,” I said.

“Then where are you from?”

“Kasselton, New Jersey,” Ema replied.

A look of horror crossed the woman’s face. She leaned toward us, baring her teeth like a feral dog. Her eyes were wide. “Get out of here!” she screamed. “Get off this island and never come back!”

She slammed the door so hard that we nearly fell off the stoop.

Ema and I stood there, trying unsuccessfully not to look flabbergasted.

After some time had passed, Ema said, “What the heck was that?”

“I have no idea.”

“Did you see how she reacted when she heard where we’re from?”

I nodded.

“What could that have to do with my online relationship with her son?”

“Same answer,” I said.

“You have no idea?”

“Bingo.”

“So now what? Do we start searching for Buck?”

I thought about it. “Did you notice that tennis club on the way in?”

“The snooty-looking one?”

“Right. When Rachel and I were here last time, Jared said something about having to get to his job at the club. I mean, there may be more than one club on this island—”

“No, it’s that one,” Ema said. “Look at this street. This is where the workers live. I bet ninety percent of the people who live here work at that tennis club. The bigger problem is, look at us. You’re wearing jeans. I’m wearing, well, not tennis whites.”

“I have an idea,” I said.

We started back down the street toward the main road. We turned right. The tennis club was up ahead. I thought that maybe there would be a guard or a gate, but this was the kind of island where you didn’t need that. Guards at clubs were there to keep out the riffraff. This island had no riffraff. Just members and staff.

We started down the entrance road when a young man in tennis whites with a sweater tied around his neck hurried toward us. “May I help you?”

“No,” I said. “We’re fine.”

We kept walking toward the clubhouse. I thought that maybe Mr. Tied Sweater would let us be. He didn’t. He ran alongside us and said, “Uh, excuse me?”

“Yes?”

“Why are you here?”

I had expected this. I had hoped, though, to get lucky and walk around a little more and maybe spot our boy, but that was not to be. Still, we kept walking and looking as we spoke. “My name is Will. This is my sister, Grace.”

Ema nodded. We kept walking and scanning for Jared.

“Yeah, okay. What can I do for you? This club has a strict dress code. Neither one of you is adhering to it.”

“We are here seeking employment,” I said.

Tied Sweater was getting annoyed that we wouldn’t stop walking. “I don’t think we are hiring at the current time.”

“Oh, that’s too bad,” Ema said.

We were at the door to the clubhouse. I pushed through. “Maybe we could fill out an application. Just to keep it on file. In case someone quits.”

“We require references. Do you have them?”

“Yes, we do.” It was time to take a chance. “Jared Lowell will recommend us.”

“Oh,” Tied Sweater said, suddenly smiling. His whole persona changed. Jared clearly had some clout. “You’re both friends of Jared’s?”