Харлан Кобен - Found

I just looked at him, dumbstruck.

“And, third, there’s this cute little video I made with my camera phone. Don’t worry. I have copies. If need be, I can send it anonymously to the police or even the media.”

It was a short video, just a few seconds — me inside the shed. I remembered now when he came into the room and hit me with the flashlight. I hadn’t realized at the time that his video camera was on.

I sat there, feeling numb.

Troy started up the car and pulled out. Danny Brown and a couple of the other guys walked by. Troy waved at them. I didn’t.

“It will be your word against mine,” Troy said, “and all the physical evidence will back me up. I bet you left fingerprints at the scene, didn’t you? I made sure not to touch anything. I stayed hidden when you ran. The police followed you. They know the suspect was tall. I’m not.”

I tried to strike back. “But I have no motive.”

“Sure you do, Mickey.”

“What?”

“You wanted to be the big hero,” Troy said. “You wanted to get me back on the team. You’re a troubled new kid with no friends and figured this was your way to ingratiate yourself with the popular crowd.”

I shook my head. How could I have not seen this coming? But I knew the answer. Troy, in his own horrible way, had nailed it on the head. I had wanted to fit in. Hadn’t Ema warned me about that? But I wouldn’t listen. I had wanted to be liked. I wanted to be part of the team. I had wanted Troy to be innocent because it would serve my purposes. More than that, I had wanted to be the one to prove him innocent — to be the big hero.

And in the end, Troy was guilty. He had lied and cheated, and now he sat across from me with a big smile on his face.

“So, sure, Mickey, you can tell on me. But think it through. Even if somehow they did believe you — even if they ignored all the physical evidence I have and believed every word you say — well, then what? At best, we both get thrown off the team. You still broke into that storage shed. You can’t escape from that fact.”

“Wow,” I said.

“What?”

“You thought of everything, Troy.”

The grin was back. “I don’t want to brag but, yeah, I did.”

I was trapped. I was searching for an escape route. There was none.

“But it’s not all bad,” Troy said.

I said nothing. He made a right turn.

“We’re teammates now. You saw today how good we can be. We’re going to win the states, and now that you have my blessing, the entire team loves you. We are going to win a lot of games together. We are going to celebrate and go far, and then next year, I’ll be gone to a top-echelon college and you’ll be the new team leader.”

Troy stopped the car in front of Uncle Myron’s house. He leaned across me and opened the door.

“Cheer up, Mickey. It’s all going to be fine. Just be smart about it. See you tomorrow at practice, okay?”

I texted Ema. No reply. I called her. No answer.

I sat at the kitchen table and stewed. Forget her. Hadn’t she said that she’d be there when I got hurt from this? She’d known, hadn’t she? She tried to make me see what Troy was, but I wouldn’t open my eyes. She knew that I’d have to make a big mistake like this and that it would hurt. How had she put it?

I want to protect you from that pain. But I can’t. I can only tell you that when it hurts, I’ll be there for you.

And then she added, Always.

“So where are you now?” I said out loud.

An hour later, Uncle Myron came home. He saw the expression on my face and said, “What happened?”

I wasn’t allowed to tell him about Abeona. That was part of the rules. Both Lizzie Sobek and Dylan Shaykes had made that crystal clear to me. But I could tell him about Troy. I could tell him about how my wanting to belong to a team had ruined everything.

Uncle Myron listened with great patience and even understanding. When I finished, he asked one simple question: “Do you know what you’re going to do?”

I gave a simple answer: “No.”

“Good,” he said. “You should sleep on it. Or maybe it’s more accurate to say, you should toss and turn on it.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I don’t expect to get much sleep.”

“Don’t beat yourself up. You messed up. We all do.”

“Even you,” I said.

It wasn’t a question.

“Yeah,” Myron said. “I messed up. I thought I was helping your dad all those years ago. It ends up, I made him run away. And, yeah, I know that if I hadn’t done that, he’d be alive right now. I live with that ghost every day. And your father isn’t my only ghost. There are a lot more who won’t let me go.”

“Myron?”

“Yeah?”

“How do you live with that?”

“With what, the ghosts?”

“Yeah. How do you live with them?”

“You don’t have much choice. What else are you going to do?”

“That’s it?” I frowned. “That’s your answer.”

“Mostly, yeah. And I try to remember that the mistakes I made were just that. Mistakes. I never meant to hurt anyone. Sometimes you try to do right but wrong still seems to find you. I remind myself of that. And I also remember that it’s not the battle, it’s the war.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning in the end, I’ve done more good than evil. I’ve saved more than I’ve harmed. You are a sum of your life, not just one part.”

I nodded. He started to walk away. “Myron?”

“What?”

“Dad wouldn’t want you to blame himself,” I said.

“I know,” Myron replied. “And that just makes it harder.”

I didn’t sleep. But in a little while, none of that would matter.

In fact, what Troy Taylor had done to me wouldn’t matter either.

As I grew more tired, delirium started to set in. I saw Troy’s mocking grin. Then I saw Luther’s mocking grin. Sometimes the smiles were superimposed on top of each other. Sometimes one face slowly transformed into the other.

Luther and Troy. My enemies. My Butchers.

At 6:00 A.M., still lying on my back, I heard the phone ring. Early, I thought.

A few minutes later, I heard the basement door open. Uncle Myron trudged down the stairs slowly. I sat up when I saw his face. It looked like someone had just punched him in the stomach.

“Who was on the phone?” I asked.

“Buck’s father.”

“What happened?”

Uncle Myron swallowed hard. “Buck.”

“What about him?”

“He’s dead.”

Speed was of the essence, so I asked Myron to drive me to Ema’s house.

“Was Ema close to Buck?” Myron asked.

He saw the look on my face, nodded, and grabbed his keys. We sprinted to the car. He gave me details, though it all came to me through a haze. Buck’s body was found buried in the woods not far from his father’s gym. The news hadn’t been released to the media yet. Myron had been called in his “professional capacity.”

I wasn’t sure what he meant by that.

We reached the front gate. There were two lion heads on either side. Uncle Myron had already called Angelica Wyatt, Ema’s mom, so the gate was open. We drove through and up the long hill toward the estate.

“The cause of death is still unknown,” Uncle Myron said.

“But he was murdered, right?”

“I don’t think so.”

In front of us, the huge baronial mansion started to come into view.

“Wait, you said someone buried him in the woods.”

“Yes.”

“So how could it not be murder?” I asked.

He didn’t reply. Or maybe I didn’t wait long enough for the answer. We’d arrived. I said, “Stay here,” and hopped out of the car. Before I knocked on the door, Angelica Wyatt opened it. I hesitated for a moment. It is odd what star power does to a person. I had only met her in person a couple of times, so seeing her in the flesh, after so many years on the screen, still felt surreal.