by Harlan Coben
Still, they happened. And that could be the case here.
When the second and third motion detectors kicked in, it became clear that the car had no intention of turning around. That meant that someone was looking for him.
Wilde lived in a customized spheroid-shape pod called an Ecocapsule. The Ecocapsule was a micro smart house or off-the-grid eco-abode or compact mobile home, whatever you wanted to call it, created by a Slovakian friend he met while serving in the Gulf. The structure resembled a giant dinosaur egg, though Wilde, using five different matte colors, had painted it camouflage to keep it hidden from view. The total living space was small, under seventy square feet, one room, but it had all he needed—a kitchenette with a cooking plate and mini fridge, a full bathroom with water-saving faucet and showerhead and an incinerator toilet, which turned waste into ash. The furniture was build-ins—table, cabinets, storage, a folding bed that could be either a twin or double—all made from lightweight honeycomb panels with an ash-wood veneer finish. The egg exterior was made from insulated fiberglass shells overlaid on a steel framework.
The Ecocapsule was—no reason to pretend otherwise—supercool.
There were those who would assume from the dwelling that Wilde must be an “eco-nut” or extremist. He wasn’t. The capsule gave him privacy and protection. It was self-sustainable and thus totally off the grid. There were photovoltaic power cells on the roof and a pole with a wind turbine that could be mounted when he needed more battery charge. The spheroid shape made collecting rainwater easy, but if there was a dry spell, Wilde could add water by any source—lake, stream, a hose, whatever. The water would then be cleaned via reverse-osmosis water filters and UV LED lamp, making it instantly potable. The storage tank and water heater were adequate for one man, though Wilde would confess to enjoying luxuriating under Laila’s jet-propulsion showerhead and seemingly limitless supply of hot water.
There was no washer and dryer, no microwave, no television. He didn’t really care. His electronic needs consisted of a laptop and phone, which were easy enough to power up in the capsule. There were no thermostats or light switches—all of those sorts of functions were performed via the smart-home app.
The pod was also easy to put on a trailer and move, something Wilde did every few weeks or months, even if the move was only fifty or a hundred yards. At this stage of the game, it was probably overkill to move that often, but when his home stayed in one place too long, it felt to him as though the pod (and thus he himself?) were taking root.
He didn’t like that.
Right now, Wilde was standing outside the gull wing door, taunted by that DNA site link. The sensors and cameras, all set up to solar power cells, streamed digital videos to his smart device. He took a look as the car on the screen—a red Audi A6—came to a stop. The driver’s door opened. A man half fell out and took some time to right himself. Wilde recognized him. They had met only once.
Bernard Pine, Naomi’s dad.
“Wilde?”
Wilde heard him through the microphones in place. He was still too far away to hear him without that. He hurried down the familiar path toward the road. The hike was a little more than a quarter mile. He had a weapon in his pod—a standard military-issue Beretta M9—but he saw no reason to pack it. He didn’t like guns and wasn’t a good shot. The night at Maynard Manor, when he’d taken the gun off Thor, he’d been glad that he hadn’t been required to fire it, not so much because he didn’t want to hurt anyone, but because from that distance, Wilde’s marksmanship with a handgun could kindly be described as suspect.
Wilde silently came up behind Bernard Pine.
“What’s up?”
Pine startled and spun toward him. Wilde wondered how he had learned about this spot, but it wasn’t really that much of a secret. This was how you contacted Wilde. People knew that.
“I need your help,” Pine said.
Wilde waited.
“She’s missing again,” Pine said. “Naomi, I mean. She didn’t run away this time.”
“Did you contact the police?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
He rolled his eyes. “What do you think?”
They thought, of course, that she ran away again. Her Challenge game, Pine explained, had been exposed as a hoax, which just fueled the school bullies. The taunts intensified. Naomi had grown even more despondent. For the police, there was also the Boy (or in this case, Girl) Who Cried Wolf aspect of the whole thing too.
“I’ll pay you,” Pine said. “I’ve heard…” He stopped.
“Heard what?”
“That you do stuff like this. That you were a hotshot investigator or something.”
That, too, was an overstatement. He’d been the W in the security firm CRAW, his specialty being overseas protection and defense. Because of his unusual status—and because no one could even find a birth certificate for him—he handled the most sensitive cases that required the greatest amount of secrecy. When he’d made enough money, he quit the daily routine but stayed on as a silent partner at CRAW, officially “retiring” into that murky part of any business called “consulting.”
“She didn’t run away,” Pine repeated.
There was a slur in his speech. Pine had the whole after-work-drinks thing going on—the bloodshot eyes, the wrinkled shirt, the loosened tie.
“Why do you say that?”
Pine mulled that over. Then he said, “Would it sway you at all if I said a father just knows?”
“Not in the least.”
“She was taken.”
“By?”
“I have no idea.”
“Any signs of foul play?”
“Foul play?” He frowned. “Are you for real?”
“Any evidence at all she was taken?”
“I have the absence of evidence.”
“Meaning?”
Bernard Pine spread his hand and smiled in a creepy way. “Well, she’s not here, is she?”
“I don’t think I can help you.”
“Because I can’t prove she was taken?”
Pine staggered toward Wilde a little too quickly, as though he was going to attack. Wilde took a step back. Pine stopped and held up his hand in surrender.
“Look, Wilde or whatever the hell they call you, have it your way. Let’s say Naomi ran away. If that’s the case, well, she’s out there all alone.” He lifted both arms and spun, as though to indicate his daughter might be in these specific woods. “She’s been traumatized by those Neanderthals in her school and now she’s scared and sad and…and she needs to be found.”
Tough for Wilde to admit, but that made sense.
“Will you help me? No, not me. Forget me. You met Naomi. I can tell you connected with her. Will you help Naomi?”
Wilde stuck his hand out. “Give me your car keys.”
“What?”
“I’ll drive you home. You can tell me everything you know on the way.”
CHAPTER
THIRTEEN
Hester tried to focus, but she also felt giddy as a schoolgirl.
Her guest right now on Crimstein on Crime was famed activist/attorney Saul Strauss. The topic, like the topic of nearly every broadcast on every show right now, was the disruptive presidential campaign of Rusty Eggers, a talk-show guru with a sketchy background.
But her mind heading into commercial break was on the text she’d just received from Oren Carmichael:
I know you’re going on air. Can I come up and talk when you’re done?
She’d giddily—man, she was too old for all this giddy—replied yes and that she’d leave Oren’s name at reception and he could come up at any time. She almost typed one of those emoji hearts or smiley things at the end, but a fly-through of common sense restrained her.
But still.
Coming out of commercial, Hester read the quick bio on Saul Strauss off the teleprompter—son of an old-school Republican governor from Vermont, served in the military, graduated from Brown Universit
y, taught at Columbia Law School, worked tirelessly now as a staunch defender of the underserved, of the downtrodden, of green causes, for animal rights…in short, he never met a bleeding-heart cause he didn’t betroth with total ferocity.
“Just to be clear,” Hester said, diving straight in, “you are suing the producers of The Rusty Show, but not Rusty Eggers himself, is that correct?”
Hester guessed that Saul Strauss was in his early sixties. He had the trappings of a stereotypical liberal arts professor—long gray hair in a ponytail down his back, flannel dress shirt under corduroy burnt-orange sports coat, complete with the patches on the sleeves, facial hair that sat somewhere between fashionable and Amish, reading spectacles dangling from a chain around his neck—but no matter how he dressed, Hester could still spot the steeliness of the old Marine.
“Exactly. I represent one of the advertisers for The Rusty Show, who is justifiably concerned that he was sold a false bill of goods.”
“Which advertiser?”
Strauss’s hands, folded on the desk, were thick, enormous, his fingers like sausages. Last time he’d been on, Hester had rested her hand on his forearm during the conversation, just for a second. The forearm felt like a marble block.
“We’ve asked the judge to keep my client’s name confidential for now.”
“But you’re suing for fraud?”
“Yes.”
“Explain.”
“In short, we feel that The Rusty Show defrauded my client and other advertisers by deliberately hiding information that could be damaging to their brands.”
“What information?”
“We aren’t sure yet.”
“Then how can you sue?”
“My client in good conscience connected their company to Rusty Eggers and his television program. We believe that when they did so, both the network and Dash Maynard—”
“Dash Maynard being the producer of The Rusty Show?”
Saul Strauss grinned. “Oh, Dash Maynard was much more than that. The two men are longtime friends. Maynard created the show—and really, he created the fake entity we now know as Rusty Eggers.”
She debated following up on the fake entity thing, but it would keep. “Okay, fine, but I still don’t understand your claim.”
“Dash Maynard is sitting on information damaging to Rusty Eggers—”
“You know that how?”
“—and by not revealing what that damaging information is, even with all the NDAs in place, Dash Maynard knew that he was selling advertising for a program that could blow up at any moment and harm my client’s brand.”
“But it didn’t blow up.”
“Not yet it hasn’t.”
“In fact, The Rusty Show is off the air. Rusty Eggers is now a leading candidate to be the next president of the United States.”
“Exactly, that’s the point. Now that he’s running for office, there will be much more scrutiny. When Dash Maynard’s damaging tapes are released—”
“Wait, do you have any evidence that these tapes even exist?”
“—my client’s business will be seriously and maybe irrevocably harmed.”
“Because they advertised on the show?”
“Yes, of course.”
“So in short, you’re suing for a fraud that hasn’t happened and that you have no proof was committed based on something you don’t know exists or even if it does, how or if it would damage you. That about sum it up?”
Strauss didn’t like that. “No, that’s not—”
“Saul?”
“Yes?”
Hester leaned forward. “This lawsuit is complete nonsense.”
Strauss cleared his throat. The big hands tensed. “The judge said we had standing.”
“You won’t for long. We both know that. Can we be honest here? Just between us? This is a frivolous suit designed to raise awareness and pressure Dash Maynard into releasing tapes that might be embarrassing to Rusty Eggers and derail his campaign.”
“No, that’s not the case at all.”
“Are you a backer of Rusty Eggers?”
“What? No.”
“In fact”—Hester had the pull quote on a graphic that they put on the screen now—“you said, ‘Rusty Eggers needs to be stopped at all costs. He is a deranged nihilist who could lead us into unimaginable horrors. He wants to tear down the world order, even if it kills millions.’” Hester turned to him. “You said that, right?”
“I did.”
“And you believe it?”
“Don’t you?”
Hester wasn’t about to be drawn into that one. “And so if Dash Maynard has something in his possession damaging to Rusty Eggers, you believe that this information should be released to the public.”
“Of course it should,” Strauss said. “We are voting for the most powerful position in the world. There should be total transparency when it comes to a candidate.”
“And that’s really the point of this lawsuit.”
“Transparency is important, Hester. Don’t you agree?”
“I do. But you know what I think is much more important? The Constitution. The rule of law.”
“So you’re defending Rusty Eggers and Dash Maynard?”
“I’m defending the law.”
“I don’t want to sound hyperbolic—”
“Too late.”
“—but if you saw Hitler coming to power—”
“Oh, Saul, don’t start with that. Please.”
“Why not?”
“Just don’t. Not on my show.”
Saul Strauss leaned toward the camera and addressed it directly. “Dash Maynard may have tapes that could change the course of human history.”
“Well, as long as you don’t want to sound hyperbolic,” Hester said with an eye roll. “By the way, how do you even know these tapes exist?”
Strauss cleared his throat. “We, uh, have our sources.”
“For example?”
“Arnie Poplin, for one.”
“Arnie Poplin?” Hester couldn’t keep the skepticism from her voice. “Arnie Poplin is your source?”
“One of them, yes.” Strauss cleared his throat. “He has direct knowledge—”
“Just to clarify for our viewers, Arnie Poplin is the celebrity has-been-turned-conspiracy-nut who appeared as a contestant on The Rusty Show.”
“That characterization is misleading.”
“Arnie Poplin claimed, did he not, that 9/11 was an inside job?”
“That’s not relevant.”
“This same Arnie Poplin calls my producer weekly demanding to be a guest so he can air some new whacked-out theory involving UFOs or chemtrails or some similar malarkey. Seriously? Arnie Poplin?”
“With all due respect—”
“That’s never a good way to begin a sentence, Saul.”
“—I don’t think you see the danger in this Rusty Eggers campaign. We have an obligation to air these tapes and save our democracy.”
“Then find a legal way to air them—or there isn’t much of a democracy to save.”
“That’s what I’m doing.”
“With this dinky fraud case?”
“I can start by going after someone for a parking violation,” Strauss said, “and if I stumble across a murder, well, so be it.”
“Wow, that’s a stretch, but it seems to be a philosophy you and Rusty Eggers have in common then.”
“Pardon me?”
“Ends justifying the means—a tale as old as time. Maybe you two should find your own country?” Strauss’s face turned scarlet, but before he could counter, Hester spun to the camera. “We’ll be right back.”
A producer shouted, “Clear.”
Saul Strauss was not a happy man. “Jesus, Hester, what the hell was that?”
“Arnie Poplin? Are you for real?” She shook her head and checked her texts. There was one from Oren sent two minutes ago:
On the way up.
“I have to go, Saul.”
&nbs
p; “My God, did you hear yourself? You just compared me to Rusty Eggers.”
“Your lawsuit is nonsense.”
Saul Strauss put his hand on her arm. “Eggers is not going to stop, Hester. The destruction, the mayhem, the nihilism—you get that, right? He basically wants anarchy. He wants to tear down everything you and I cherish.”
“I have to go, Saul.”
Hester unclipped the microphone from her lapel. Her producer Allison Grant waited in the wings. Hester tried to be nonchalant.
“Do I have a visitor?” she asked.
“You mean that Giant Yum in the police-chief uniform?”
Hester couldn’t help herself. “He’s cute, right?”
“Welcome to Beefcake City. Population: Him.”
“Where is he?”
“I put him in the greenroom.”
Every studio has a greenroom, a place for guests to sit before they come on air. They are, for some odd reason, never actually green.
“How do I look?” Hester asked.
Allison inspected her to the point where Hester feared that she’d do a horse-purchase check on her teeth. “Smart.”
“What?”
“Having him come by right after you go on air. Makeup and hair already done.”
“Right?” Hester smoothed her business skirt and headed down the corridor. The greenroom was loaded up with posters of the network anchors and talking heads, including one taken three years ago of Hester, turned to the side, arms crossed, looking tough. When she entered the room now, Oren was standing with his back toward the door, looking at her poster.
“What do you think?” Hester asked.
Without turning toward her, Oren said, “You’re hotter now.”
“Hotter?”
He shrugged. “‘Prettier’ or ‘more beautiful’ don’t seem to fit you, Hester.”
“I’ll take hotter,” she said. “I’ll take hotter and run.”
Oren turned and smiled. It was an awfully good smile. She felt it in her toes.
“Nice to see you,” he said.
“Nice to see you too,” Hester said. “And I’m sorry about that whole Naomi thing.”
“Water under the bridge,” Oren said. “I imagine it ended up being more embarrassing for you than me.”