by Harlan Coben
“What’s happened before?” Ingrid asked.
Cornelius turned his attention to her. “Paige just sprinting by me, like that. Like she’s so out of it, she doesn’t know who I am. Lots of times, she runs to that empty lot next door. You see it when you come in?”
They both nodded.
“Got that razor wire up front, but there’s an opening around the side. Goes there to get her fix from Rocco.”
“Rocco?”
“Local dealer. Aaron worked for him.”
Ingrid said, “Aaron dealt drugs?”
Cornelius cocked an eyebrow. “That surprise you?”
Simon and Ingrid exchanged a glance. It did not.
“Point is, when a junkie needs a fix, you could put NFL defensemen in her way and she’d break through. So what I’m saying is, that part—her sprinting out like that—that isn’t what made it strange.”
“So what did make it strange?” Simon asked.
“Paige had bruises on her face.”
Simon felt a rushing in his ears. His own voice sounded far away. “Bruises?”
“Some blood too. Like she’d taken a beating.”
Simon’s hands tightened into fists. The rage crawled up him, heating his entire body. Drugs, junkie, strung-out, whatever—somehow he could either deal or block on all that.
But someone had punched his little girl.
Simon could see it, a cruel hand tightening into a fist—tightening just as his was now—and then the fist cocking back, a sneer on the face, and that fist launching straight at his helpless daughter.
Anger, fury, rage consumed him.
If it was Aaron—and if Aaron could somehow be alive and standing in front of him right this very moment—Simon would kill him without a moment’s hesitation or thought. No regret. No guilt.
He’d end him.
Simon felt Ingrid’s hand on his arm, a warm touch, an attempt perhaps to bring him back.
“I get what you’re feeling,” Cornelius said, looking straight at Simon.
“So what did you do?” Simon asked.
“Who says I did anything?”
“Because you get what I’m feeling,” Simon said.
“Doesn’t mean I did anything. I’m not her father.”
“So you just shrugged and went about your day?”
“Could be.”
Simon shook his head. “You wouldn’t just let something like that slide.”
“I didn’t kill him,” Cornelius said.
“If you did,” Simon said, “it would never leave this room.”
Cornelius glanced toward Ingrid. She nodded as if to reassure.
“Please tell us the rest,” Ingrid said.
Cornelius fiddled with the gray-white beard. He took another look around the room, making a face as though he’d just entered the room for the first time and realized the filth.
“Yeah, I came up here.”
“And?”
“And I banged on the door. It was locked. So I took out my key. Just like I did today. I opened the door…”
The music upstairs stopped. The room was completely silent now.
Cornelius looked down to the mattress on the right. “Aaron was right there. Passed out. Stench so bad I could barely breathe. I just wanted to run out of there, forget the whole thing.”
He stopped.
“So what did you do?” Ingrid asked.
“I checked his knuckles.”
“Pardon?”
“The knuckles on Aaron’s right hand, they were scraped up. Fresh scrapes too. So I knew then. No surprise, I guess. It’d been him who beat her. So I stood over him…”
Again he stopped. This time he closed his eyes.
Ingrid stepped toward him. “It’s okay.”
“Like I told you before, I daydreamed about it, Ingrid. Maybe…maybe I would have done more, if I got the chance. I don’t know. If that punk was awake. If he was awake and tried to explain himself. Maybe then I would have just exploded. You know what I’m saying? So I’m standing there and I’m staring down at this piece of garbage. And maybe this time, after what I’d seen, maybe I thought I’d do more than just shake my head and shuffle away.”
Cornelius opened his eyes.
“But I didn’t.”
“You left the room,” Ingrid said.
He nodded. “Enrique and Candy come down the hall, just like today. I closed the door and went back downstairs.”
“And that’s it?”
“That’s it,” Cornelius said.
“You haven’t seen Paige since?”
“Not Paige. Not Aaron either. When you two showed up, I figured maybe I was wrong.”
“Wrong about what?”
“Maybe Paige didn’t go to that empty lot and see Rocco. Maybe she ran home and told her mommy and daddy what happened. Maybe they came out here and…well, they’re her kin. They’re her blood. So maybe they did more than daydream.”
Cornelius studied their faces.
“That’s not what happened,” Simon said.
“Yeah, I get that now.”
“So we need to find her,” Simon said.
“I get that too.”
“We need to follow her steps after she ran out of here.”
Cornelius nodded. “That means you got to go see Rocco.”
Chapter
Nine
Cornelius had told them how to find Rocco: “You duck through the opening in the fence. He’ll be in the abandoned building on the other side of the lot.”
Simon wasn’t sure what to expect.
On TV, he’d seen plenty of drug deals amongst urban blight, men with dark stares and guns and do-rags and low-slung jeans, little kids on bikes doing the deals because they were easier to get out of jail or some such thing, probably just TV nonsense. As he stood with Ingrid by the opening in the fence, there was no one visible. No lookout. No armed guard. He could hear faint voices in the distance, probably coming from the abandoned building, but the expected menace was not yet visible.
Which did not mean that this was a safe situation.
“So,” Simon said to Ingrid, “yet again I ask: What’s our plan?”
“Damned if I know.”
They looked at the opening in the fence.
“Let me go in first,” he said, “just in case it isn’t safe.”
“And leave me out here alone? Oh right, that sounds supersafe.”
Ingrid had a point.
“I could tell you to go home,” he said.
“You could,” Ingrid agreed, as she pulled back the chain link and ducked into the abandoned lot.
Simon quickly followed. The weeds were up past his knees. They both walked, lifting their feet as though in deep snow, afraid of tripping over rusted axles and bearings, shredded hoses and worn tire treads, shattered windshields and cracked headlights.
They had been somewhat smart, though some might say stereotyping, before making the trek to this neighborhood. Ingrid had removed all her jewelry, including her wedding band and engagement ring. Simon wore only his wedding band, which wasn’t worth that much money. Between them, they had maybe a hundred dollars in cash. Robbery—and face it, they were walking into some sort of drug den—was a possibility but it wouldn’t be a profitable one.
The steel exterior cellar doors were open. Simon and Ingrid looked down into the darkness. They could see a concrete floor. Nothing else. Sounds came up from the depths, muffled voices, maybe whispers, maybe light laughter. Ingrid took the first step, but Simon wasn’t having any of that. He jumped in front of her and hurried down, reaching the dank concrete before Ingrid reached the second step.
The smell hit him first—that always-awful sulfurous stench of rotten eggs mixed with something more chemical, an ammonia-like taste that stayed on his tongue.
The voices were clearer now. Simon started toward them. He didn’t hide his step or try to be silent. Sneaking up on them would be the wrong move. He didn’t want to startle them into doing someth
ing stupid.
Ingrid caught up to him. When they reached the center room of the basement, the voices stopped as if they’d been on a switch. Simon took in the scene, even as the stench started to get to him. He tried to breathe through his mouth. To his right, four people were sprawled as though they had no bones or were old socks someone had casually tossed there. The light was dim. Simon could make out their wide eyes more than anything else. There was a torn futon and what might have been a beanbag chair. Cardboard boxes once used for cases of cheap wine had been turned into makeshift tables. Spoons and lighters and burners and syringes lay atop them.
No one moved. Simon and Ingrid just stood there. The four people on the floor—was it four? might have been more, hard to tell in this light—stayed still, as though maybe they were camouflaged and if they didn’t move, they might not be seen.
A few more seconds passed before someone in the group began to stir. A man. He got to his feet slowly, moment by moment, a huge man, rising off the floor like Godzilla wading out of the water, his entire being expanding and filling the room. When he stood all the way up, the top of his head nearly scraped the ceiling. The big man shuffled toward them like a planet with two feet.
“What can I do for you fine folks?”
The voice was pleasant, affable.
“We’re looking for Rocco,” Simon said.
“That’s me.”
The huge man stuck out a hand that belonged on a balloon in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. Simon shook it, his hand disappearing into the folds of flesh. Rocco’s smile split his face in two. He wore a Yankees cap, same as Ingrid’s, though his looked much too small for his head, like one of those mascots with a giant baseball on his shoulders. Rocco was dark-skinned black. He was decked out in a hemp hoodie with kangaroo pockets, denim shorts, and what looked like Birkenstock sandals.
“Is there something I can help you guys with?”
His voice stayed light, folksy, maybe a bit of the stoner. The other people in the room went back to their business, which involved the lighters and the burners and plastic bags with unknown—unknown to Simon, at least—powder or other contents.
“We’re looking for our daughter,” Ingrid said. “Her name is Paige.”
“We understand she came here recently,” Simon added.
“Oh?” Rocco folded Greco-Roman-column arms across his chest. “How do you understand that?”
Simon and Ingrid exchanged a glance. “We just heard,” Simon said.
“Heard from who?”
Someone from the floor yelled, “Whom!”
“What?”
A white hipster wearing an overgrown soul patch and skinny-legged jeans tucked into faux work boots scrambled to his feet. “Heard from whom, not who. Come on, Rocco. Prepositional phrase.”
“Shit, right, sorry.”
“You’re better than that, man.”
“It was a mistake. Don’t make a big thing of it.” Rocco turned his attention back to Simon and Ingrid. “Where were we?”
“Paige.”
“Right.”
Silence.
“You know Paige, right?” Simon asked.
“I do, yes.”
“She’s”—Ingrid stopped, searched for the word—“a client of yours?”
“I don’t really discuss clients. Whatever business you might imagine I am in, confidentiality would have to be a key component of it.”
“We don’t care about your business,” Ingrid said. “We are just trying to find our daughter.”
“You seem like a nice woman, Miss…?”
“Greene. And it’s Doctor.”
“You seem like a nice woman, Dr. Greene, and I hope you don’t take offense, but look around you.” He spread his arms wide, as though he were about to pull in the entire basement for a hug. “Does this look like the kind of place where we tell relatives where their loved ones might be hiding?”
“Is she?” Simon asked.
“Is she what?”
“Is Paige hiding from us?”
“I’m not going to tell you that.”
“Would you tell me for ten thousand dollars?” Simon asked.
That caused a hush.
Rocco rolled a little closer to them, almost like that boulder in the first Indiana Jones movie. “You might want to keep your voice down.”
“The offer stands,” Simon said.
Rocco rubbed his chin. “You got the ten grand on you.”
Simon frowned. “Uh, no, of course not.”
“How much do you have on you?”
“Maybe eighty, a hundred dollars. Why, you want to rob us?” Simon raised his voice. “But what I said goes for anyone in this room: Ten grand if you tell me where Paige is.”
Ingrid looked up into Rocco’s face, forcing him to make eye contact. “Please,” she said. “I think Paige is in danger.”
“Because of what happened to Aaron?”
That name—just hearing Rocco say it—changed the very air in the room.
“Yes,” Ingrid said.
Rocco tilted his head. “What do you think happened, Dr. Greene?”
His tone remained calm, level, even, but Simon thought that perhaps he heard something else in it now. A crackle. An edge. What should have been obvious was starting to reach him. Rocco might have a friendly facade. He may come across as a great big Teddy bear come to life.
But Rocco was a drug dealer working his turf.
The brutality of Aaron’s murder suggested a drug hit, didn’t it? And if Aaron worked for Rocco…
“We don’t care about Aaron,” Ingrid said. “We don’t care about this place or your business or any of that. Whatever happened to Aaron, Paige had nothing to do with it.”
“How do you know?” Rocco asked.
“What?”
“Seriously. How do you know Paige had nothing to do with what happened to Aaron?”
Simon took that one. “Have you seen Paige?”
“I have.”
“Then you know.”
Rocco nodded slowly. “A strong wind could knock her over. I get that. But that doesn’t mean she couldn’t drug a man and slice him up when he’s out.”
“Ten thousand dollars,” Simon said again. “All we want to do is bring our daughter home.”
The dank basement went still. Rocco stood there, his face expressionless. He was mulling it over, Simon thought. He didn’t interrupt. Neither did Ingrid.
Then a voice said, “Hey, I know you.”
Simon turned toward the corner. It was Hipster Grammar guy. He pointed at Simon and then started snapping his fingers. “You’re that guy.”
“What are you talking about, Tom?”
“He’s that guy, Rocco.”
“What guy?”
Hipster Grammar Tom used his thumbs to hitch his jeans up by the belt loops. “He’s the guy in that video. The guy who punched Aaron. In the park.”
Rocco rested his hands in the hoodie’s kangaroo pouch. “Whoa. I think you’re right.”
“I’m telling you, Rocco. That’s the guy.”
“For real.” Rocco smiled at Simon. “Are you the guy in that video?”
“Yes.”
Rocco put up his hands in mock surrender and stepped back. “Oh, Lordy, please don’t hit me.”
Hipster Grammar Tom laughed. Some of other guys did too.
Later, Simon would claim he felt the danger before it all went wrong.
There may indeed be something primal in human beings, some survival mechanism from our caveman days of constant danger that lies dormant in modern man, some sixth sense or instinct that almost never needs to surface in our society, but it’s still there, still potent yet latent in a deep part of our genetic makeup.
As the young man stumbled into the basement, the hackles on the back of Simon’s neck rose.
Rocco said, “Luther?”
The rest took a second, maybe two at the most.
Luther was shirtless, his chest gleaming and completel
y hairless. He was early twenties, all coiled muscle, wiry, bouncing on his toes like a bantamweight boxer impatient for the bell. He stared wide-eyed at Simon and Ingrid and then without the least bit of hesitation, he whipped out a gun.
“Luther!”
Luther took aim. There was no warning, no delay, no words spoken. Luther simply took aim and pulled the trigger.
BLAM!
Simon swore that he could actually feel the bullet graze by his nose, could hear the whistling hiss as it sped past him. He remembered a time when he was golfing and his brother-in-law Robert shanked the ball and it sailed right past his nose and hit the caddy next to him, giving him a concussion. Sounded like a dumb comparison, but even though this whole experience couldn’t have taken more than a second, that was where his mind traveled to—a golf outing in Paramus, New Jersey—as the bullet shrieked past him and the blood splashed onto his cheek.
Blood…
Ingrid’s eyes rolled back as she dropped to the ground.
Simon watched her fall in slow motion. Gone was all that primitive survival stuff, the stuff that might tell him to flee or fight or whatever. He watched Ingrid, his entire world, crumble to the concrete, bleeding, and another instinct took over.
Protect her…
He collapsed to the ground and, without conscious thought, covered her body with his, trying to position himself in such a way as to shield as much of her as possible, while at the same time seeing if she was alive, where the wound was, whether he could stem the bleeding.
Somewhere else, in another part of his brain, he knew that Luther was still there, still armed with a gun, still in all probability preparing to fire again. But that was a secondary or even tertiary thought.
Protect her. Save her…
He risked a look. Luther stepped toward him and pointed his gun down at Simon’s head. A dozen thoughts raced through his head—kick out, roll away, try to strike him in some way, any way, before he could fire again.
But there was nothing to be done. He could see that too.
There was no time to do anything to save himself, so he pulled Ingrid even more under him and curled his body inward, making sure none of Ingrid was exposed. He lowered his head toward hers and braced himself.
Simon heard the gunshot.