Харлан Кобен: Found

Calm down, I told myself.

I had just gotten out of the shower when I heard the locker room door burst open. I peeked around the corner.

It was Troy.

He didn’t see me. I stayed where I was. He collapsed onto the bench in front of his locker. His face fell into his hands. I heard a sound, a sound like...

Troy was crying!

For a moment I thought that maybe Coach Grady had bawled him out for his behavior today. Maybe Coach had seen how Troy had punked me with that fake meeting and whipped the ball into my face, and that was why he had called him into his office.

But I would soon learn that this had nothing to do with me.

The locker room door opened up again. It was Coach Stashower.

“You got your things, Troy?”

Troy sniffled and wiped the tears off his face with his forearm. “It’s a lie, you know.”

“We heard you.”

“I’m being set up.”

“Either way, I’m supposed to stay with you while you clean out your locker.”

“Now?”

“Now, Troy. It all has to go.”

Troy looked as though he was about to protest and then thought better of it. He opened his locker. He took out his bag and angrily stuffed everything into it. Everything. Sneakers, clothes, loose change. His shampoo. His cologne (cologne?). Even, ugh, an old photograph of Troy with his arm around Rachel in her cheerleading uniform that he’d taped to the inside of the locker door.

He jammed it all into his gym bag.

What the heck was going on?

“I’ll escort you out,” Coach Stashower said in a firm voice when Troy was done.

“No need,” Troy said. He stormed toward the door and flung it open. “It’s a lie. All of it.”

Then Troy was gone.

I should have felt elated. My big enemy was apparently off the team. But I didn’t. I felt confused and a little lost. Then again, that seemed to be my permanent status lately. I was at my best when I didn’t have to think too much — either when I was on the court or when I had a specific task.

So what was my next task?

Help Ema find her missing boyfriend, I guess.

I walked up the long driveway and crossed the expansive front grounds. I’d barely put my fingertip on the doorbell in front of Ema’s enormous mansion when the door swung slowly open.

“Master Mickey. Welcome.”

It was Niles, the family butler, speaking with an accent so pronounced, it had to be fake. He wore a tuxedo or tails or something like that. His posture was ramrod straight. He arched one eyebrow.

Ema ran to the door. “Cut that out, Niles.”

“Sorry, madam.”

Ema rolled her eyes. “He’s been watching a lot of British television.”

“Oh,” I said, though I wasn’t sure I got it.

It was funny watching the two of them standing there. Both wore black, but that was where the similarities ended. Niles wore formal wear. Ema was in full goth mode — black clothes, jet-black hair, black lipstick, white makeup. She had silver studs going all the way up her ears, a pierced eyebrow, and one skull ring on each hand.

As we headed down the stairs, I couldn’t help but stare at the movie posters. They all featured films starring the gorgeous Angelica Wyatt. Some were headshots. Some were full body. Sometimes she was alone. Sometimes she was with some guy. On the bottom step, there was one for that romantic comedy she did with Matt Damon last year.

Only a handful of people knew that Angelica Wyatt — yes, the Angelica Wyatt — was Ema’s mom.

“So tell me what happened in California,” Ema said.

We sat on oversize beanbag chairs. I told her everything. When I was done, Ema said, “Maybe it was your father’s wish.”

“What? Being cremated?”

“Right, a lot of people choose that,” Ema said. “It’s a possibility, right?”

I thought about it. We had traveled all over the world. Most foreign cultures — most cultures my father admired — preferred cremation to burial. I remembered that my father once bemoaned the “waste” of good land, land that could have been used to grow crops, because it was being used as a graveyard.

Could he have told Mom he wanted to be cremated?

I thought some more. Then I said, “No.”

“You’re sure?”

“If Dad had wanted to be cremated, he wouldn’t then want to be buried too. He’d choose one or the other.”

Ema nodded. “But it was your mother’s signature on the form?”

“Yes.”

“So?”

“So I need to ask her about it. The problem is, she’s not allowed visitors in rehab right now. She’s going through withdrawal.”

“How much longer?”

“I don’t know.” I looked at Ema. Yes, she was interested, but I knew what she was doing. For some reason, she was asking all these questions to stall. “So tell me about your missing boyfriend.”

“Before I do,” Ema said, “I wanted to show you something.”

“Okay.”

She started pulling up her shirt.

“Uh,” I said, because I’m good with words.

“Relax, perv. I want to show you a tattoo.”

“Uh,” I said again.

“You’ll see why.”

Ema was loaded up with tattoos. This helped cultivate her bad-girl image. She wore them almost like a fence, warning people to stay back. Yes, I know a lot of people have tattoos, but Ema was only a high school freshman. Many of the kids were intimidated that a girl so young could have so many. How did she get her parents’ permission?

I had wondered that myself.

But more recently I learned the simple truth: The tattoos were temporary. She had a friend named Agent at a tattoo parlor called Tattoos While U Wait. Agent liked to try out designs before putting them on someone in a permanent way. He used Ema’s skin as a practice canvas.

Ema turned her back to me. “Look.”

There, in the center of her back, was a familiar image to Ema, Spoon, Rachel, and me.

A butterfly. More specifically, the Tisiphone Abeona butterfly.

That image haunted us. I had seen it on a grave behind Bat Lady’s house. I had seen it on Rachel’s hospital room door. I had seen it in an old picture of hippies from the sixties. I had even seen the image of that butterfly in an old photograph of the famous Lizzy Sobek, the young girl who led children to safety during the Holocaust. I saw it atop my father’s “maybe” grave, on the back of a photograph in Bat Lady’s basement, even in a tattoo parlor.

“You told me about that,” I said.

“I know. But I went back to have it redone. You know. Have Agent make it bright or change it. The tattoos usually wear off after a few weeks.”

I felt a small chill ripple across my back. “But?”

“But he couldn’t.”

I knew the answer but I asked anyway. “Why?”

“It’s permanent,” Ema said. “Agent said he doesn’t know how that happened. But the butterfly is there. For good.”

I said nothing.

“What’s going on, Mickey?”

“I don’t know.”

We sat there in silence. I finally broke it. “Tell me about your missing boyfriend.”

For a second or two, she didn’t move. She swallowed, blinked a few times, and then stared at the floor. “ Boyfriend may be putting it a little too strongly.”

I waited.

“Mickey?”

“What?”

Ema started twisting the skull ring on her right hand. “You have to promise me something.”

Her body language was all wrong. Ema was about confidence. She was big and confident and didn’t care who noticed. She was comfortable in her own skin. Now, all of a sudden, that confidence was gone.

“Okay,” I said.

“You have to promise you won’t make fun of me.”

“Are you serious?”

She just looked at me.