by Harlan Coben
Two rings, a pickup, and a heavy sigh. "You know you can't talk to her, Mickey."
I did know. Mom had had a "relapse"--in short, she had taken drugs again within hours of her earlier release--and was now being isolated. The woman on the other end of line was Christine Shippee, the head of the rehab center. "I just want to hear her voice," I said.
"You know I can't do that."
I did. But I missed her, especially now when it felt as though everything was caving in on me again. Before my dad died, Mom had been so vibrant, so wise and wonderful--I'd have called her the perfect mother, but many of us think that, don't we?
"How is she?"
"You know I can't answer that either."
"What can you answer?"
"I'm pretty good at math."
"No, you're not."
"Yeah, that's true," Christine Shippee said. "How are you, Mickey?"
"How do you think I am?"
"You don't sound good."
"I'll be fine."
"Your uncle."
I frowned. "What about him?"
"I know you blame him for a lot, but he's not a bad guy."
"Thanks."
"Cute too."
"Well, that changes everything," I said.
"Talk to him, Mickey."
Christine Shippee hung up then. I stared at the phone and frowned. I tried not to think about what my mother might now be going through. I had tried to be there for her. I had gotten a job and supported us. I had dragged her home from bars, motels, and trailers. I had cleaned her off. I had made her shower and dress and get out of the house, all in the hopes that she would pull out of her nosedive. But that just wasn't happening. I was, according to Christine Shippee, an enabler. I wasn't so sure, but I decided to listen to the supposed expert. So now, much as it went against every innate tendency in my body, I let her be.
Except, well, when I weakened and called. Like this.
The front door opened. "Hello?" Myron shouted. "Mickey?"
"In the kitchen," I said.
Uncle Myron hurried in with an expectant smile on his face. "So how was basketball?"
My gut reaction, I'm not proud to say, was to lie. I didn't want to get into it. I didn't want to have Uncle Myron lecturing me about all the wrong I'd done or, worse, looking at me with pity. But I didn't have the strength to lie and he'd know soon enough.
"I got thrown off the team."
The look was closer to shock than pity. "What? What happened?"
So I sketched it out for him, awaiting the inevitable I-told-you-so, you-knew-the-rules, what-did-you-expect--but that didn't happen. Uncle Myron's muscles began to tighten. When I mentioned Chief Taylor's involvement, I saw the vein in his neck start to throb in anger.
Once I finished, there was silence. I was okay with silence. Uncle Myron wasn't. He was one of those guys who couldn't stand quiet, who constantly had to interrupt it because quiet made him feel uncomfortable. But right now, he stayed silent, unmoving, and for the first time, I could see what must have made him such a great basketball player. There was a fury in him now, one that made even me want to step back. His eyes had gone dark, and he had a look on his face that not only challenged the world but knew he could whip it.
"Ed Taylor," Uncle Myron finally said between clenched teeth.
"It's okay," I replied, which was dumb to say on several levels, not the lowest being that it was totally untrue.
"I'll talk to him."
"Who? Wait, with Chief Taylor?"
He didn't reply.
"Please don't," I said. "This is my battle."
"With Taylor?" He shook his head. "No, it's mine. You're just an innocent bystander caught in the line of fire."
"It won't make a difference. I broke the rules. Coach Grady made the call, not Taylor."
Uncle Myron didn't reply.
"Myron?"
"Do you remember what you asked me yesterday?" Myron asked.
For a second I was confused by the shift in topic. But then I remembered. "About exhuming my dad's body?"
"Yes. Why do you want to do that?"
"I told you."
"For closure."
"Right."
Uncle Myron shook his head. "You can't just exhume a body for reasons like that. There are strict regulations. That particular cemetery doesn't grant any exhumations. Even if they did, we'd need to get the permission of the next of kin. That would be your mother. Do you want to ask her to sign a certificate like that right now?"
I could feel my hope deflate. "No."
"So let me ask you again. Why do you want to exhume your father's body?"
I shrugged. "What difference does it make now?"
Myron seemed to be weighing his words on a hand scale. "Because there is a chance I can get it done."
"How?"
"I have this friend. This very well-connected friend . . ."
"Angelica Wyatt?"
"No."
I almost asked him whether he knew about Ema, about Angelica Wyatt having a daughter, but I knew that there was some secrecy regarding her identity, and I didn't want to say anything I shouldn't.
"So who?"
"You don't know him. He's the friend who asked me to watch Angelica."
"He can get Dad's body exhumed?"
"If I really push it, yes, he can do it. But I need to know your real reason, Mickey. I would go out on a limb for you for no reason. I can't ask my friend to. You get that, don't you?"
I nodded. We sat at the kitchen table. It had been updated within the last five years, but again, this was the kitchen of my father's childhood. Dad had spent countless hours here with his family. It was a simple thought and yet, for a moment, it overwhelmed me.
"I'm not sure Dad is in that grave."
Uncle Myron opened his mouth, closed it, opened it again. "I don't understand."
"I know it sounds crazy," I said, "but I need to know for certain that Dad is in that coffin."
Myron blinked twice. "Do you have reason to believe he's not in there?"
I wasn't sure how to respond. I couldn't go into the sandy-blond paramedic. For one thing, Myron would never believe me, but even if he did, both Bat Lady and Shaved Head had warned me not to tell Myron. I also knew that my father never told Myron about Abeona. There had to be a reason, right?
"Mickey?"
I met his eye and held it. "Yes," I said. "I have a reason."
Then Myron caught me off guard with his next question. "Does this have something to do with the fire at Bat Lady's house?"
"What makes you think that?" I asked.
"I told you. Your father visited that house. It changed him. Now suddenly you're drawn to it too." Myron leaned a little closer to me. "Have you met the Bat Lady?"
"Yes," I said before I could stop myself.
"What did she say to you?"
I shook my head, remembering the warnings. "Please, Myron. Please ask your friend to help us."
"I need to know more."
"Can't you just trust me on this?"
"That's not the issue. You know that."
I wasn't sure what to say to that, but Myron's cell phone buzzed. He checked a text message and sighed. "It's Angelica. I have to go. We aren't done with this, okay?"
"Okay."
He rose and looked at me as though he were seeing me for the first time. "Mickey?"
"Yes."
"I'll talk to my friend. I'll try my best to help you."
CHAPTER 36
I could smell the charred remains of the Bat Lady's house.
It was eight P.M.--not too late. Night had fallen. I had a flashlight, but for now, standing on the sidewalk, the streetlight gave me enough illumination. A few wooden beams from the house remained upright, stretching up into the darkness like fingers on a giant hand.
"Hey."
I turned. It was Ema. "Hey. How did you get past Niles?"
"Are you kidding? He's so happy I have a friend, he practically shoved me out the door."
We slowly approached the house. I kept my flashlight off because I didn't want the neighbors to see. We stopped at the crime-scene tape. Ema turned to me, shrugged, and ducked under it. I followed her up those front porch steps and inside the house. There was debris all over the floor.
"This was the living room," I said to her.
The light was getting pretty dim now. I still didn't want to use the flashlight, but I figured that maybe the light of my mobile phone would do the trick. Ema did the same.
"What's this?" she asked.
The frame was shattered, but I recognized it right away--the faded color photograph of the five hippies.
"Is that . . . ?" Ema pointed to the attractive woman in the tight T-shirt in the middle. Across her chest was the Abeona butterfly.
"Yep," I said. "I think it's Bat Lady."
"Wow. She was kind of hot."
"Subject change," I said, and Ema smiled. I tried to pick up the frame from the sides, but it pretty much fell apart. I slid the picture out and slipped it into my pocket. I figured that it might come in handy at some point.
The old record player had been damaged. There was no vinyl on the turntable, but I did manage to find the Beatles, the Beach Boys, and the Who albums. I doubted that they were in working condition anymore. I looked for the album that Bat Lady seemed to always play--Aspect of Juno by HorsePower--but it had either been burned completely or . . .
Or what?
"Should we head to the garage?" Ema asked.
I shook my head. That had been the original plan. We would go to the garage, try to break in, see if we could find the tunnel. But the tunnel I had gone through had led from the garage to the basement below us, to a door that no longer existed between the kitchen and this living room. With the garage locked, wouldn't it be simpler and probably more productive to simply go in reverse--to start in the living room, go down to the basement, see where it led?
Okay, the basement door was gone. So was most of the kitchen. I tried to picture the house's layout as it had been before the fire. I moved closer to where I thought the basement door would be. The remnants of the second floor and roof had collapsed over it. I started to pull up the plywood, trying to dig through the rubble. Ema joined me.
We worked in silence, removing debris, carefully moving it to the side. When I stopped and thought about it, we were, in fact, tainting a crime scene. I was already in plenty of trouble, but what about Ema?
"We should stop," I said.
"Huh?"
"We're tainting a crime scene."
"You're kidding, right?"
Ema kept on digging.
"Seriously," I said, "this was a mistake."
"You didn't tell me what happened with Detective Waters."
Ema was trying to distract me, but that was okay. "He got pretty annoyed with me."
"Annoyed how?"
"Annoyed like he wants me to stay away from it all."
"Annoyed like we got it right about Rachel's father?" Ema asked.
"Yes."
"Whoa."
"Remember I told you about those two hoodlums talking to Mr. Caldwell right after I left?"
"What about them?"
"Detective Waters had a picture of the guy with the scar. He said he was dangerous."
"So they have to be drug dealers."
"Or at least bad guys."
"And you saw Rachel's dad being all friendly with them."
"Yes," I said.
"So then we still believe that Rachel found something incriminating about her dad--some kind of package that backed what her mom had said about him?"
"Yes," I said, back on the floor, moving debris. I tried to make sense of it. What had Rachel done with the package? Had her father gone ballistic when he found it missing?
Had Scarface?
Ema stopped digging. "Mickey?"
I shook away the thoughts and looked toward her voice. The debris was gone now. I could see steps leading down into the basement. I bent low, took out my flashlight, shined it down into the hole.
Nothing much to see.
"I'm going down," I said, "alone."
"It's cute when you get all macho bossy on me," Ema said, "but no. I'm going too."
"The floor up here may be weak. It could collapse."
Ema looked as though someone--me, I guess--had punched her in the stomach. "You think I'm going to break the floor?"
"What? No. Listen, I need you to be my lookout."
She wasn't appeased. "Excuse me?"
"Someone might come. Be my lookout." I grabbed her shoulders and made her look up at me. "Please. Just this once. For me?"
"Just this once what?"
"Don't be a pain in the butt. I don't want you to get hurt. That's all."
The tears in her eyes broke my heart, but she nodded through them. "All right, go. I'll be your"--she wiped her eyes and wiggled her fingers at me--"lookout."
I didn't wait for her to change her mind. I quickly started down the steps into the black hole. Now that I was pretty much out of view, I turned on the flashlight. I descended slowly.
"What do you see?" Ema called down in a whisper.
"Give me a second."
The basement was, as you might expect, dingy and dusty and, well, old. There were rusted pipes and broken glass and old cardboard boxes filled with who knew what. There were spiderwebs in the corner and mud on the floor. The mud could have been wet soot from the fire, but I suspected the origin was somewhat older. Okay, the garage would be behind me and to the left, ergo, that was probably where the door to that tunnel would be.
Found it.
"Mickey?"
"I found the door to the tunnel."
"Wait for me."
"No. Hold up."
The door was made of some kind of reinforced steel. I remembered that from my previous visit with Shaved Head. There were other doors and corridors too, but he wouldn't let me go down them. I grabbed the door handle. Locked. I grabbed it again and shook.
"It's locked," I said.
"So now what?" Ema asked. "Oh, enough. I'm coming down too."
Ema started down the stairs. I swung my flashlight in her direction--and that was when I saw it. I stopped, retraced the beam back to the spot on the floor, and stared. Ema came up behind me.
"What is it?"
I said nothing.
"Wait," Ema said. "Is that a picture of Ashley?"
I nodded. Ashley. The girl we--Rachel, Spoon, Ema, and I--had risked our lives to rescue.
"That's the portrait you saw upstairs?" Ema asked.
I nodded numbly.
"So somehow her picture survived the fire."
"No," I said.
"What do you mean, no? You said you saw it upstairs with, like, thousands of others, right?"
"Right."
"So now it's down here--somehow it survived the fire," Ema said.
"No."
"Why do you keep saying that?"
"There were thousands of pictures up there. Yet only one managed to float down to the basement, make it all the way through the debris, and end up on the floor right in front of the door to the tunnel?"
Now Ema looked skeptical.
"Forget the odds of any photograph making that voyage," I said. "What are the odds that the one that does happens to be the girl we rescued?"
Ema swallowed and said, "You have a better explanation?"
"Sure," I said.
"What?"
I felt a chill even as I thought it. "Someone left it for us."
"Why would someone do that?"
I picked up the photograph of Ashley. I turned it over. On the back, there was a butterfly with two animal eyes on the wings. The Abeona butterfly. It looked like the other butterflies I had seen--and yet the col
oring was just slightly different.
The eyes were purple. Like the one on Rachel's hospital door.
It hit me like a surprise wave on the beach. "Oh my God," I said.
"What?"
"I think I know where Rachel hid the package."
CHAPTER 37
Here was how Spoon answered the phone: "Spoon Central."
"What are you up to?" I asked.
"Dad and I are watching the season-three Glee season finale. For the fourth time. Have you seen it?"
"No."
"It's very moving."
"I'm sure."
"Don't worry. I have it on DVD. You can borrow it. Did you know that Lea Michele was the original Wendla in Spring Awakening?"
"Yeah, that's great. Listen, Spoon, can you get out?"
"Get out? You mean, like, out of this house?"
"Yes."
"And do you mean, like, now?"
I sighed. Ema stood next to me. We were back on the street, heading toward Kasselton High. "Yes, I mean now."
"I'm still grounded, remember? Why, what's up?"
"I need to get into Ashley's locker," I said.
"Ah," Spoon said, "I knew something was wrong with that."
"With what?"
"With Ashley's locker. See, there was a Sevier combination lock on it."
"So?"
"So the school only issues Master Lock. If a new student had taken over Ashley's locker, that would be what they used. A Master Lock. The school would never permit a Sevier."
It just confirmed what I now realized when I looked at the photograph. Bat Lady or Shaved Head or someone high up in the Abeona Shelter had left it on the basement floor so the message would be loud and clear: Help Rachel.
That was our current assignment. Forget the fire. Forget finding Bat Lady or Shaved Head. Our first assignment had been to save Ashley. Now we needed to save Rachel.
"When the episode ends, it'll be my bedtime anyway," Spoon said. "I'll get my warm cup of milk, climb into bed, turn out the lights, and then I'll climb out the window. What do you think?"
"Sounds good," I said.
"Maybe I'll stick a couple of pillows under the blanket so it looks like I'm still in there. Do you think that's a good idea?"
"Your choice, Spoon."
"Okay, the show is almost over. I'll meet you by that same door as last time."
Then another thought struck me. "Wait," I said.
"What?"
Ema looked at me, confused. How could I explain this? Spoon was just a kid. Yeah, we all were, but he seemed younger. He was home innocently watching Glee with his father. I couldn't ask him to come down here and illegally break into the school again.
I was about to tell Spoon to forget it--to stay in his nice cozy bed and drink his warm milk--but then I remembered something else. Spoon was his own person, and he could make his own decisions. Hadn't he told me that he'd even been arrested once? Maybe he wasn't such an innocent, and maybe I shouldn't act like I was his overprotective big brother.