Harlan Coben - Six Years

I could hear footsteps moving closer.

Had to move.

Back toward the house I heard the crunch of tires on gravel. A car was coming up the drive.

“Jed?”

It was a harsh whisper. The flashlight stopped moving. I heard someone call out to Jed again. Now the flashlight went off. I was back in the pure darkness. I heard the footsteps recede.

Get up and run, dumb ass!

My head wouldn’t let me. I lay still another moment and then looked back toward the old farmhouse in the distance. Now I could finally see it from the outside for the first time. I stayed still and stared. Once again, the floor beneath me seemed to fall away.

It was the main house of the Creative Recharge retreat.

I was being held in the place where Natalie had stayed.

What the hell was going on?

The car came to a stop. I rose just enough to get a look. When I did, when I saw the car, I felt an entirely new sense of relief.

It was a police squad car.

Now I understood their panic. Jed and his group had a surveillance camera by the entrance. They had seen the cop car coming to my rescue and had panicked. It made sense now.

I started toward my saviors. Jed and his followers wouldn’t kill me now. Not in front of cops who had come to rescue me. I was almost to the edge of the woods, maybe thirty yards from the cop car, when another thought entered my head.

How had the cops known where I was?

For that matter, how had the cops known I was in trouble? And why, if they were here to rescue me, had the car driven up at such an unhurried pace? Why had Jed made that comment about their being “our friends”? As I slowed down, the relief now ebbing away, a few more questions entered my head. Why was Jed walking toward the squad car with a big smile and casual wave? Why were the two cops getting out of the car waving back just as casually? Why were they all shaking hands and exchanging backslaps like old buddies?

“Hey, Jed,” one called out.

Oh damn. It was Stocky. The other cop was Thin Man Jerry. I decided to stay where I was.

“Hey, fellas,” Jed said. “How are you guys?”

“Good, man, when did you get back?”

“A couple of days ago. What’s up?”

Stocky said, “You know a guy named Jake Fisher?”

Whoa. So maybe they were here to rescue me?

“No, don’t think so,” Jed said. The others were all outside now. More handshakes and backslaps. “Guys, you know a . . . what was the name again?”

“Jacob Fisher.”

They all shook their heads and muttered their lack of knowledge.

“There’s an APB out on him,” Stocky said. “College professor. Seems he killed a man.”

My blood went cold.

Thin Man Jerry added, “The dope confessed to it even.”

“He sounds dangerous,” Jed said, “but I don’t get what that has to do with us.”

“First off, we spotted him trying to get on your land a couple days back.”

“My land?”

“Yep. But that’s not why we’re here now.”

I ducked down in the brush, not sure what to do here.

“See, we got a GPS working a trace on a cell phone,” Stocky said.

“And,” Thin Man Jerry added, “the coordinates are leading us right up here.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Simple, Jed. We can track his iPhone. Not that hard nowadays. Hell, I got a tracker on my kid’s phone, for crying out loud. It tells us that our perp is here on your property at this very moment.”

“A dangerous killer?”

“Could be, yep. Why don’t you all wait inside now?” He looked back toward his partner. “Jerry?”

Jerry reached back into the car and pulled some sort of handheld device into view. He studied it for a few moments, hit the touch screen, and then declared, “He’s within fifty yards—in that direction.”

Thin Man Jerry pointed right to where I was hiding.

Several scenarios flew through my brain. One, the most obvious: Surrender. Throw my hands up, walk out of the woods with them held high, and shout, “I give up,” as loud as I can. Once I was in police custody I was, if nothing else, safe from Jed and his group.

I was seriously considering doing that—raising my arms, calling out, surrendering—when I saw Jed take out his gun.

Uh-oh.

Stocky said, “Jed, what are you doing?”

“It’s my gun. I own it legally. And we’re on my property, right?”

“Right, so?”

“So this murderer you’re after . . . ,” Jed began.

Now I was a murderer.

“He might be armed and dangerous. We aren’t letting you guys go after him without backup.”

“We don’t need backup, Jed. Put that away.”

“This is still my property, right?”

“It is.”

“So if it’s all the same to you, I’m staying right here.”

The obvious scenario suddenly didn’t seem so obvious. Jed was intent on killing me for two reasons. One, he thought that I had something to do with Todd’s murder. That was the reason they had grabbed me in the first place. But now, two, dead men tell no tales. If I surrendered, I could tell the cops what had happened tonight, how they had kidnapped me and fired shots at me. It might be my word against theirs, but there’d be the bullet at Cookie’s house matching his gun. There’d be the phone records of Cookie calling me. It might be a tough sell, but I bet Jed didn’t want to take the risk.

But if Jed shot me now—even if he fired as I tried to surrender—it could be viewed as either self-defense or, at worst, a jumpy trigger finger. He would shoot and kill me and say that he thought I had a gun or something like that and, really, I already killed one man, according to Stocky and Thin Man Jerry. And all of these Vermont buddies would back Jed’s story and the only guy who would contradict them—yours truly—would be worm food.

There was more to consider. If I surrendered, how long would I be jammed up with the police? I was getting closer to the truth. I could feel it. They thought that I killed someone. Heck, I sort of confessed to it. How long could they hold me? A while, I bet.

If they nabbed me now, I’d probably never have a chance to confront Natalie’s sister, Julie.

“This way,” Thin Man Jerry said.

They started walking to me. Jed lifted his gun, keeping it very much at the ready.

I started to backpedal. My head felt as though it’d been encased in molasses.

“If someone is in those woods,” Stocky shouted, “come out now with your hands up.”

They moved closer. I slid backward a few more steps and ducked behind a tree. The woods were thick. If I could get deep enough in them, I’d be safe at least for a bit. I picked up a rock and hurled it as far as I could to my left. All eyes turned. Flashlights came on and shone in that direction.

“Over there,” someone yelled.

Jed led the way, gun pointed.

Surrender? Oh, I don’t think so.

Stocky moved next to Jed. Jed hurried his step, nearly running, but Stocky put up an arm to stop him. “Move slow,” Stocky said. “He might be armed.”

Jed, of course, knew better, didn’t he?

Thin Man Jerry didn’t budge. “This thing says he’s still over here.”

Again he pointed in my direction. They were forty, fifty yards away. Staying low in the thicket, I quickly buried the phone—my second lost in the past three days—under a pile of leaves and hurried away, trying to make as little noise as possible. I started moving backward, deeper into the woods, again trying my best not to make any noise. I kept a few rocks in my hand. I’d throw them if I needed to distract.

The others gathered back around Jerry, all moving slowly toward the phone.

I picked up my pace, getting deeper and deeper into the trees. I couldn’t see them anymore, just the flashlights.