by Harlan Coben
“Solo segment?” Arnie rubbed his face. “I don’t want some point-counterpoint crap.”
“One-on-one interview. Just you and me.”
He crossed his arms and pretended to think it over for a millisecond. “What do you want to know?”
“Tell me about the Rusty Eggers tapes you claim Dash Maynard has in his possession.”
“They exist.”
“How do you know?”
“I was on The Rusty Show. You know this, right?”
“Right.”
“Big ratings when I was on. No one talks about that.”
Hester sighed. “Arnie.”
“Right, right. So anyway, I overheard them. Rusty and Dash. They were talking about the tapes. Dash swore he’d destroyed them.”
“So if Dash destroyed them—”
“Oh come on. No one really destroys tapes, Hester. You know that. And Rusty knew it. That’s why he was so upset. He knew that Dash would never get rid of them totally. Why would he?”
“Dash Maynard swears he doesn’t have any damaging tapes.”
“Yeah, well, Dash is a selfish prick, isn’t he? He has this big empire. You ever been to his house? It’s like something out of Gatsby.”
“Have you seen the tapes?” Hester asked.
“Me? No.”
“So how do you know they exist?”
“I heard them.”
“Heard the tapes?”
“No. I heard Dash and Rusty arguing about them.”
“What did they say exactly?”
“It was late at night, see. I was the only one still around. They thought I was gone. That they were alone. Can I tell you the truth though?”
“Yeah, that’d be nice, Arnie.”
“I passed out on the toilet.”
“Sorry?”
“Yeah, I was in the studio office. In a toilet stall. Sitting down on—”
“I got the visual, Arnie.”
“Anyway, I was snorting some coke, whatever. I don’t know. I passed out. When I woke up, the bathroom was totally dark. It was ten at night. I pulled up my pants. They were still down around my ankles.”
“Hey, thanks for that detail.”
“You want the whole story, don’t you?”
“Boxers or briefs?”
“Huh?”
“Never mind,” Hester said. “You pulled up your pants.”
“Right, I pull up my pants. But like I said, it’s totally dark. I mean, pitch black. I feel my way to the latch. You know, the one that opens the stall.”
“Yes, Arnie, I know about those latches. We have them in women’s bathrooms too.”
“Anyway, it’s still dark. I feel my way out of the can. I get into the hallway. I’m worried that maybe they lock the doors at night. Like maybe I can’t get out. You know what I mean?”
“Right, go on.”
“Then I hear voices. Two men.”
“Let me guess. Rusty and Dash.”
“Right. And they’re arguing. I get closer. I heard Rusty say, ‘You got to get rid of the tape. You have to promise me.’ He’s drunk. I can hear it in his voice. Rusty is usually in control, but he’s got that sloppy-drunk thing going on. And he keeps saying, ‘You don’t get what it could do to us, you should destroy it, you don’t want anyone to ever know.’”
“And what did Dash say?”
“He just said don’t worry, no one would ever know, he’d make sure of it. But Rusty kept insisting. He kept begging Dash to delete it, but then he’d sort of take it back.”
“What do you mean, take it back?”
“He knew, Hester. Rusty knew.”
“Knew what?”
“That Dash Maynard would never really delete it. Dash sees himself as a serious documentarian or journalist or something. An observer. I wouldn’t be surprised if even that conversation was recorded. I’m telling you. There were bugs everywhere. Maybe even in that bathroom.”
“Uh-huh,” Hester said. This was sounding more and more like a waste of time. “So what else?”
“That’s not enough?”
“Not really.”
“They knew I was there.”
“Did they say something?”
“No, but three days later, I got called in for a surprise urine test. They found drugs in my system. I was fired. Me. Their big ratings draw. Not only that, the test was leaked to the media. You know why, right? It was a plot to discredit me. I was clean.”
“You just told me you took cocaine—”
“That was three days earlier!”
He was getting more and more agitated, shifting in his seat, eyes darting, sweat beads popping up on his forehead, and Hester bet that Arnie Poplin was on something right now. “They needed to discredit me. They needed to get rid of me.”
“Okay, thanks.”
“Rusty killed someone.”
Hester stopped. “What do you mean?”
“That’s what Dash has on him.”
“Are you saying,” Hester began slowly, “that Dash Maynard has a tape of Rusty Eggers committing murder?”
“I can only tell you what I heard.”
“Which was?”
“Rusty saying, ‘I didn’t mean to kill him, it was an accident.’”
“Those were his exact words?”
“No. I don’t know. That was the meaning. Rusty killed someone. That was their bond. Dash even said that, now that I think of it.”
“Said what?”
“That he’d never tell because that was their bond. Something like that. That all the good things that came after were based on that bond. I’m telling you, Hester. They’re killers. Or Rusty is. Dash has the proof. He has a legal obligation to release that information, doesn’t he?”
Hester thought about her earlier conversation with Delia, about what she knew and wouldn’t reveal despite attorney-client privilege. She glanced over at Rola. Rola shrugged as if to say she didn’t know whether to believe him or not.
“So can I come on the show?” Arnie Poplin said. “I’m free tonight if you want to do it then.”
CHAPTER
TWENTY-NINE
Gavin Chambers pulled into the 7-Eleven lot in a blue Chevrolet Cruze. Alone. Gone for now at least were both the driver and the SUV. Discretion? Maybe. He slid out of the Chevy wearing a baseball cap and sunglasses, which, Wilde thought, was always a dumb disguise because the only people who don that look are trying to disguise themselves. Then again it was sunny out. Maybe Gavin was just wearing them because they were comfortable.
Maybe not everything is a freaking clue.
“Why are you at a 7-Eleven?” Gavin asked.
“The Slurpee isn’t reason enough?”
Gavin sighed. “So what have you learned?”
“I learned not to move because you had something you needed me to see. At least, that’s what you told me on the phone.”
He shook his head. “You remind me of my first wife.”
“Was she hot too?”
“A hot mess.”
Wilde checked his phone. “Do you mind giving me a lift back to the Maynards’? We can talk on the way.”
“Suit yourself.” He hit the unlock button on the remote. As they got in, Gavin dropped the bomb: “We know that there’s been a ransom demand.”
He started up the car and put it in reverse.
Top four possibilities, Wilde thought.
One, Chambers was completely fishing. That didn’t seem likely.
Two, what with the panic around the Maynards, Chambers had simply surmised that there must have been a ransom demand. If so, that was a hell of a guess.
Three, he did indeed have certain areas of the house bugged. Very possible. Rola would run a sweep and he’d know about that soon enough.
Four, Gavin had an inside source.
Whatever, Wilde wasn’t going to confirm or deny. At the traffic light, Gavin Chambers turned and stared at him. Wilde stared back. For a few moments, neither of them blinked. When the lig
ht turned green, someone behind them honked their horn. Gavin shook his head and muttered something under his breath as he pulled out his phone.
“You know I told you that Crash stayed a step ahead of us with the messaging apps—Snapchat, Signal, WhatsApp, whatever?”
“Yes.”
“One of my best tech guys found a message received on his ISP last night at 2:07 a.m. via a new app called Communicate Plus. It’s encrypted so the message and sender get automatically deleted a minute after the file is opened. I obviously don’t know the details, but somehow, don’t ask me how, my tech guy was able to get the tail end of the last message before it was erased.”
He handed Wilde his phone. The message read:
Of course I forgive you. I know you did that to fool your friends. I’m waiting at the same place right now. So excited!!!
There were three heart emojis at the end.
Wilde asked the obvious: “Do you know where the message came from or who sent it?”
“No. We know it had to be someone else with this app obviously, but the contact and incoming ISP or whatever gets deleted.”
Wilde stared at the message. He read it again.
“Did someone make a ransom demand?” Gavin asked.
“You said you already know.”
“What?”
“Your exact words were, ‘we know that there’s been a ransom demand.’ If you know, there’s no reason to ask me.”
“Can you stop being a pain in the ass for five minutes? Rusty wants to help.”
“I’m sure he does.”
“And we both know who wrote that message.”
He meant, of course, Naomi.
“Assuming you’re right,” Wilde said, “what do you want to do about it?”
“Did you check Naomi’s house?”
“I visited the father.”
“Did you check the whole house? Last time that’s where she was the whole time, right? In the basement?”
Wilde said nothing. He checked his watch. It was almost three p.m., an hour until the deadline. When they approached the gate in front of the Maynard house, Wilde said, “Thanks for the ride.”
“You know I’m right,” Gavin said.
“About?”
“About everything. You know Naomi is somehow involved in this.”
“Uh-huh. What else are you right about?”
He gave him the dagger glare. “That you and your sister can’t handle this alone.”
“I’m not calling the shots,” Wilde said.
“If you tell the Maynards to bring us back in, they’ll listen to you.”
Something here, something about this whole encounter, was definitely not adding up.
“Thanks for the ride, Gavin. Stay in touch.”
* * *
Rola met him by the Maynards’ security gate in a golf cart.
“I’ll drive you up to Hester.”
He sat beside her as they started up the drive. The grounds were overmanicured. Many would find that beautiful. Wilde did not. Nature paints her canvas, then you come along and think you can improve it. No. Nature is supposed to be, pardon the wordage, wild. You tame it, you lose what makes it special.
After he filled her in, Rola asked, “So what do you need from me?”
“The ransom note.”
“What about it?”
“It asked specifically for the ‘oldest’ tapes.”
“Meaning?”
“The first time Dash Maynard met Rusty Eggers was in DC when they were Capitol Hill interns. See if you can find out anything about that time period.”
“Like what?”
“Like I have no idea. Did they room together? Hang out? It’s a long shot, I admit.”
“I’ll put some researchers on it.”
“Also, see if you can locate Saul Strauss. He has to be Suspect Number One here.”
“Okay. Anything else?”
Wilde thought about it and then figured better safe than sorry. “I need you to go to Naomi Pine’s house when it gets dark.”
Rola looked at him. “Weren’t you just there?”
“I need the place searched.”
“For?”
“Crash and Naomi.”
Rola nodded. “On it.”
Hester sat alone on a stone bench facing the Manhattan skyline. As Wilde approached, she turned toward him and shaded her eyes. With her other hand she patted the concrete. “Sit with me.”
He did. For a moment, neither of them spoke. They just stared at the skyline over the trees. The sun was at the height where everything—buildings, trees, formations—looked like it had angel halos.
“Nice,” Hester said.
“Yes.”
“And boring.” Hester turned to him. “You want to go first?”
“No.”
“Didn’t think so,” Hester said. Then: “I talked to Arnie Poplin.”
She filled him in.
“Killed someone,” Wilde said when she finished.
“That’s what he claims he heard.”
“I assume you weren’t the first person he told this to.”
“I would highly doubt it.”
“So why hasn’t anyone reported it?”
“Because Arnie Poplin is an attention-seeking, unreliable drug addict with an axe to grind.”
“Okay.”
“Journalists would be wary of him under any conditions, but Rusty Eggers rides the refs better than anyone.”
“Rides the refs?”
Hester squinted into the sun. “A good friend of mine was a star basketball player in college. A first-round draft pick out of Duke. You a basketball fan at all?”
“No.”
“Then you wouldn’t know him. Anyway, he’s taken me to a few games at Madison Square Garden. College mostly. You know what I always notice?”
Wilde shook his head.
“The way the coaches rant and scream at the referees. These little men in their suits and ties spend the entire game running up and down the sidelines, having nonstop tantrums like toddlers wanting candy. It’s embarrassing to watch. So I asked my friend, the basketball star, what was that all about, and he said it’s an intentional strategy. People by nature want to be liked. Not you, not me. But people in general. So if you scream at the refs every time they blow the whistle on you—legitimate or not—they are more likely to give you a call.”
Wilde nodded. “And that’s what Rusty does with the media.”
“Exactly. He constantly berates them and so they cringe and get scared, to keep within the metaphor, to blow the whistle. All politicians do it, of course. Rusty is just better at it.”
“We should still confront Dash with what Arnie Poplin told you.”
“Done already.”
“And?”
Hester shrugged. “What do you think? Dash denied it. He called it ‘rubbish.’ He actually used the word too. Rubbish.”
“Unfortunate. Your takeaway?”
“Same as yours.”
“They’re hiding something.”
“Right.” She patted his leg. “Okay, bubbalah, so what did you learn?”
Wilde started by telling her what Bernard Pine said about his ex-wife abusing Naomi. Hester just shook her head. “This world.”
“Something isn’t sitting right with that.”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t know,” Wilde said. “I still think we need to talk to Naomi’s mother. I told Rola to find her.”
“Good. What else?”
Wilde told her about the app communication between Crash and maybe Naomi as well as Ava’s conversations with Naomi about a budding relationship between the two teens.
“All signs point to Crash and Naomi being together,” Hester said.
Wilde said nothing.
“So let’s say that’s true for the moment,” she continued. “Let’s say these two teens secretly fell for each other and decided to run off.”
“Okay.”
Hes
ter shrugged. “How does that turn into a ransom demand?”
Wilde didn’t reply. He checked the time. “Less than an hour to the kidnapper’s deadline. Should we head inside?”
“They said to meet at 3:45 p.m. in the library.”
“They, meaning Dash and Delia Maynard?”
“Yes.”
“Any idea what they plan on doing?”
“They don’t want to tell us until then.”
Wilde looked back at the view. “That’s not normal.”
“No, it’s not.”
They both faced the view now. Hester closed her eyes and let the rays warm her.
“How to put this delicately,” Hester said.
Wilde kept his eyes on the distant skyscrapers. “Delicately,” he repeated. “Not your forte, Hester.”
“True, so here goes: I was thinking about spending the night at Laila’s, but I don’t want to sleep over if you are.”
Wilde couldn’t help but smile. “I definitely won’t be.”
“Oh.”
“Doesn’t mean it’s a good idea to stay though.”
“Oh,” Hester said. And then again: “Oh. Really?”
Wilde said nothing.
“Can I be nosey?”
“I assume that’s a rhetorical question.”
“It’s been six years since we really communicated.”
“I’m sorry about that,” he said.
“Me too, and I hope it’s not because of David.”
David. Saying the name out loud stilled even the trees.
“I don’t blame you. I never have. You understand that, right?”
Wilde didn’t answer. “Is that what you want to be nosey about?”
“No,” Hester said. “I won’t say you’re like a son to me because that’s way over the top. I have three sons. They’re the only ones like a son to me. But I was there from the beginning—from the first day you came out of the woods. We were all there. Me. Ira. David, of course.”
“You were very good to me,” Wilde said.
“That’s not why I’m raising this either, so let me put it bluntly. Those online DNA genealogy tests have become super popular. I even took one a few years ago.”
“Any surprises?”
“Not a one. I’m so boring.”
“But you want to know if I took one,” he said.
“It’s been six years,” she said. “So yes, I want to know if you took one.”