by Harlan Coben
"Step outside."
I told Hoyt that I had to go. He seemed too drained to care. I retrieved the Glock and hurried for the door. Tyrese and Brutus were waiting for me. The rain had let up a bit, but none of us seemed to care.
"Got a call for you. Stand over there."
"Why?"
"Personal," Tyrese said. "I don't want to hear it."
"I trust you."
"Just do what I say, man."
I moved out of hearing distance. Behind me I saw the shade open up. Hoyt peered out. I looked back at Tyrese. He gestured for me to put the phone to my ear. I did. There was silence and then Tyrese said, "Line clear, go ahead."
The next voice I heard was Shauna's. "I saw her."
I remained perfectly still.
"She said for you to meet her tonight at the Dolphin."
I understood. The line went dead. I walked back to Tyrese and Brutus. "I need to go somewhere on my own," I said. "Where I can't be followed."
Tyrese glanced at Brutus. "Get in," Tyrese said.
Chapter 42
Brutus drove like a madman. He took one-way streets in the wrong direction. He made sudden U-turns. From the right lane, he'd cut across traffic and make a left through a red light. We were making excellent time.
The Metro Park in Iselin had a train heading toward Port Jervis that left in twenty minutes. I could rent a car from there. When they dropped me off, Brutus stayed in the car. Tyrese walked me to the ticket counter.
"You told me to run away and not come back," Tyrese said.
"That's right."
"Maybe," he said, "you should do the same."
I put my hand out for him to shake. Tyrese ignored it and hugged me fiercely. "Thank you," I said softly.
He released his grip, adjusted his shoulders so that his jacket relaxed down, fixed his sunglasses. "Yeah, whatever." He didn't wait for me to say anything more before heading back to the car.
The train arrived and departed on schedule. I found a seat and collapsed into it. I tried to make my mind go blank. It wouldn't happen. I glanced around. The car was fairly empty. Two college girls with bulky backpacks jabbered in the language of "like" and "you know." My eyes drifted off. I spotted a newspaper ' more specifically, a city tabloid ' that someone had left on a seat.
I moved over and picked it up. The coveted cover featured a young starlet who'd been arrested for shoplifting. I flipped pages, hoping to read the comics or catch up on sports ' anything mindless would do. But my eyes got snagged on a picture of, well, me. The wanted man. Amazing how sinister I looked in the darkened photo, like a Mideast terrorist.
That was when I saw it. And my world, already off kilter, lurched again.
I wasn't actually reading the article. My eyes were just wandering down the page. But I saw the names. For the first time. The names of the men who'd been found dead at the lake. One was familiar.
Melvin Bartola.
It couldn't be.
I dropped the paper and ran, opening those sliding doors until I found a conductor two cars away. "Where's the next stop?" I asked him.
"Ridgemont, New Jersey."
"Is there a library near the station?"
"I wouldn't know."
I got off there anyway.
Eric Wu flexed his fingers. With a small, tight push, he forced the door.
It hadn't taken him long to track down the two black men who'd helped Dr. Beck escape. Larry Gandle had friends in the police department. Wu had described the men to them, and then he went through the proper mug books. Several hours later, Wu spotted the image of a thug named Brutus Cornwall. They made a few calls and learned that Brutus worked for a drug dealer named Tyrese Barton.
Simple.
The chain lock snapped. The door flew open, the knob banging against the wall. Latisha looked up, startled. She was about to scream, but Wu moved fast. He clamped his hand over her mouth and lowered his lips to her ear. Another man, someone Gandle had hired, came in behind him.
"Shh," Wu said almost gently.
On the floor, TJ played with his Hot Wheels. He tilted his head at the noise and said, "Mama?"
Eric Wu smiled down at him. He let Latisha go and knelt to the floor. Latisha tried to stop him, but the other man held her back. Wu rested his enormous hand on the boy's head. He stroked TJ's hair as he turned to Latisha.
"Do you know how I can find Tyrese?" he asked her.
Once off the train, I took a taxi to the rent-a-car place. The green-jacketed agent behind the counter gave me directions to the library. It took maybe three minutes to get there. The Ridgemont library was a modern facility, nouveau colonial brick, picture windows, beech-wood shelves, balconies, turrets, coffee bar. At the reference desk on the second floor, I found a librarian and asked if I could use the Internet.
"Do you have ID?" she asked.
I did. She looked at it. "You have to be a county resident."
"Please," I said. "It's very important."
I expected to see a no-yield, but she softened. "How long do you think you'll be?"
"No more than a few minutes."
"That computer over there" ' she pointed to a terminal behind me ' "it's our express terminal. Anyone can use it for ten minutes."
I thanked her and hurried over. Yahoo! found me the site for the New Jersey Journal, the major newspaper of Bergen and Passaic counties. I knew the exact date I needed. Twelve years ago on January twelfth. I found the search archive and typed in the information.
The Web site went back only six years.
Damn.
I hurried back over to the librarian. "I need to find a twelve year-old article from the New Jersey Journal," I said.
"It wasn't in their Web archive?"
I shook my head.
"Microfiche," she said, slapping the sides of her chair to rise. "What month?"
"January."
She was a large woman and her walk was labored. She found the roll in a file drawer and then helped me thread the tape through the machine. I sat down. "Good luck," she said.
I fiddled with the knob, as if it were a throttle on a new motorcycle. The microfiche shrieked through the mechanism. I stopped every few seconds to see where I was. It took me less than two minutes to find the right date. The article was on page three.
As soon as I saw the headline, I felt the lump in my throat.
Sometimes I swear that I actually heard the screech of tires, though I was asleep in my bed many miles away from where it happened. It still hurt ' maybe not as much as the night I lost Elizabeth, but this was my first experience with mortality and tragedy and you never really get over that. Twelve years later, I still remember every detail of that night, though it comes back to me in a tornado blur-the predawn doorbell, the solemn-faced police officers at the door, Hoyt standing with them, their soft, careful words, our denials, the slow realization, Linda's drawn face, my own steady tears, my mother still not accepting, hushing me, telling me to stop crying, her already frayed sanity giving way, her telling me to stop acting like a baby, insisting that everything was fine, then suddenly, coming close to me, marveling at how big my tears were, too big, she said, tears that big belonged on the face of a child, not a grown-up, touching one, rubbing it between her forefinger and her thumb, stop crying David! growing angrier because I couldn't stop, her screams then, screaming at me to stop crying, until Linda and Hoyt stepped in and shushed her and someone gave her a sedative, not for the first or last time. It all came back to me in an awful gush. And then I read the article and felt the impact jar me in a whole new direction:
CAR DRIVES OVER RAVINE
One Dead, Cause Unknown
Last night at approximately 3:00 AM, a Ford Taurus driven by Stephen Beck of Green River, New Jersey, ran off a bridge in Mahwah, not far from the New York state border. Road conditions were slick due to the snowstorm, but officials have not yet made a ruling on what caused the accident. The sole witness to the accident, Melvin Bartola, a truck driver from Cheyenne, Wyomi
ng'
I stopped reading. Suicide or accident. People had wondered which. Now I knew it was neither.
Brutus said, "What's wrong?"
"I don't know, man." Then, thinking about it, Tyrese added, "I don't want to go back."
Brutus didn't reply. Tyrese sneaked a glance at his old friend. They had started hanging out together in third grade. Brutus hadn't been much of a talker back then either. Probably too busy getting his ass whipped twice a day ' home and school ' until Brutus figured out the only way he was going to survive was to become the meanest son of a bitch on the block. He started taking a gun to school when he was eleven. He killed for the first time when he was fourteen.
"Ain't you tired of it, Brutus?"
Brutus shrugged. "All we know."
The truth sat there, heavy, unmoving, unblinking.
Tyrese's cell phone trilled. He picked it up and said, "Yo."
"Hello, Tyrese."
Tyrese didn't recognize the strange voice. "Who is this?"
"We met yesterday. In a white van."
His blood turned to ice. Bruce Lee, Tyrese thought. Oh, damn... "What do you want?"
"I have somebody here who wants to say hi."
There was a brief silence and then TJ said, "Daddy?"
Tyrese whipped off his sunglasses. His body went rigid. "TJ? You okay?"
But Eric Wu was back on the line. "I'm looking for Dr. Beck, Tyrese. TJ and I were hoping you could help me find him."
"I don't know where he is."
"Oh, that's a shame."
"Swear to God, I don't know."
"I see," Wu said. Then: "Hold on a moment, Tyrese, would you? I'd like you to hear something."
Chapter 43
The wind blew, the trees danced, the purple-orange if sunset was starting to give way to a polished pewter. It frightened me how much the night air felt exactly the same as it had eight years ago, the last time I'd ventured near these hallowed grounds.
I wondered if Griffin Scope's people would think to keep an eye on Lake Charmaine. It didn't matter really. Elizabeth was too clever for that. I mentioned earlier that there used to be a summer camp here before Grandpa purchased the property. Elizabeth's clue ' Dolphin ' was the name of a cabin, the one where the oldest kids had slept, the one deepest in the woods, the one we rarely dared to visit.
The rental car climbed what had once been the camp's service entrance, though it barely existed anymore. From the main road you couldn't make it out, the high grass hiding it like the entrance to the Batcave. We still kept a chain across it, just in case, with a sign that read No Trespassing. The chain and sign were both still there, but the years of neglect showed. I stopped the car, unhooked the chain, wrapped it around the tree.
I slid back into the driver's seat and headed up to the old camp mess hall. Little of it remained. You could still see the rusted, overturned remnants of what had once been ovens and stoves. Some pots and pans littered the ground, but most had been buried over the years. I got out and smelled the sweet of the green. I tried not to think about my father, but in the clearing, when I was able to look down at the lake, at the way the moon's silver sparkled on the crisp surface, I heard the old ghost again and wondered, this time, if it wasn't crying out for revenge.
I hiked up the path, though that, too, was pretty much nonexistent. Odd that Elizabeth would pick here to meet. I mentioned before that she never liked to play in the ruins of the old summer camp. Linda and I, on the other hand, would marvel when we stumbled over sleeping bags or freshly emptied tin cans, wondering what sort of drifter had left them behind and if, maybe, the drifter was still nearby. Elizabeth, far smarter than either of us, didn't care for that game. Strange places and uncertainty scared her.
It took ten minutes to get there. The cabin was in remarkably good shape. The ceiling and walls were all still standing, though the wooden steps leading to the door were little more than splinters. The Dolphin sign was still there, hanging vertically on one nail. Vines and moss and a m+!lange of vegetation I couldn't name had not been dissuaded by the structure; they burrowed in, surrounded it, slithered through holes and windows, consumed the cabin so that it now looked like a natural part of the landscape.
"You're back," a voice said, startling me.
A male voice.
I reacted without thought. I jumped to the side, fell on the ground, rolled, pulled out the Glock, and took aim. The man merely put his hands up in the air. I looked at him, keeping the Glock on him. He was not what I expected. His thick beard looked like a robin's nest after a crow attack. His hair was long and matted. His clothes were tattered camouflage. For a moment, I thought I was back in the city, faced with another homeless panhandler. But the bearings weren't right. The man stood straight and steady. He looked me dead in the eye.
"Who the hell are you?" I said.
"It's been a long time, David."
"I don't know you."
"Not really, no. But I know you." He gestured with his head toward the bunk behind me. "You and your sister. I used to watch you play up here."
"I don't understand."
He smiled. His teeth, all there, were blindingly white against the beard. "I'm the Boogeyman."
In the distance, I heard a family of geese squawk as they glided to a landing on the lake's surface. "What do you want?" I asked.
"Not a damn thing," he said, still smiling. "Can I put my hands down?"
I nodded. He dropped his hands. I lowered my weapon but kept it at the ready. I thought about what he'd said and asked, "How long have you been hiding up here?"
"On and off for" ' he seemed to be doing some kind of calculation with his fingers ' "thirty years." He grinned at the dumbstruck expression on my face. "Yeah, I've watched you since you were this high." He put his hand at knee level. "Saw you grow up and ' " He paused. "Been a long time since you been up here, David."
"Who are you?"
"My name is Jeremiah Renway," he said.
I couldn't place the name.
"I've been hiding from the law."
"So why are you showing yourself now?"
He shrugged. "Guess I'm glad to see you."
"How do you know I won't tell the authorities on you?"
"I figure you owe me one."
"How's that?"
"I saved your life."
I felt the ground beneath me shift. "What?"
"Who do you think pulled you out of the water?" he asked.
I was dumbstruck.
"Who do you think dragged you into the house? Who do you think called the ambulance?"
My mouth opened, but no words came out.
"And" ' his smile spread ' "who do you think dug up those bodies so someone would find them?"
It took me a while to find my voice. "Why?" I managed to ask.
"Can't say for sure," he said. "See, I did something bad a long time ago. Guess I thought this was a chance at redemption or something."
"You mean you saw...?"
"Everything," Renway finished for me. "I saw them grab your missus. I saw them hit you with the bat. I saw them promise to pull you out if she told them where something was. I saw your missus hand them a key. I saw them laugh and force her into the car while you stayed underwater."
I swallowed. "Did you see them get shot?"
Renway smiled again. "We've chatted long enough, son. She's waiting for you now."
"I don't understand."
"She's waiting for you," he repeated, turning away from me. "By the tree." Without warning, he sprinted into the woods, darting through the brush like a deer. I stood there and watched him vanish in the thicket.
The tree.
I ran then. Branches whipped my face. I didn't care. My legs begged me to let up. I paid them no heed. My lungs protested. I told them to toughen up. When I finally made the right at the semi-phallic rock and rounded the path's corner, the tree was still there. I moved closer and felt my eyes start to well up.
Our carved initials ' E.P. + D.B. ' had dar
kened with age. So, too, had the thirteen lines we had carved out. I stared for a moment, and then I reached out and tentatively touched the grooves. Not of the initials. Not of the thirteen lines. My fingers traced down the eight fresh lines, still white and still sticky from sap.
Then I heard her say, "I know you think it's goofy."
My heart exploded. I turned behind me. And there she was.
I couldn't move. I couldn't speak. I just stared at her face. That beautiful face. And those eyes. I felt as though I were falling, plummeting down a dark shaft. Her face was thinner, her Yankee cheekbones more pronounced, and I don't think I had ever seen anything so perfect in all my life.
I reminded myself of the teasing dreams then ' the nocturnal moments of escape when I would hold her in my arms and stroke her face and all the while feel myself being pulled away, knowing even as I had been bathing in the bliss that it was not real, that soon I'd be flung back into the waking world. The fear that this might be more of the same engulfed me, crushing the wind out of my lungs.
Elizabeth seemed to read what I was thinking and nodded as if to say "Yeah, this is real." She took a tentative step toward me. I could barely breathe, but I managed to shake my head and point at the carved lines and say, "I think it's romantic."
She muffled a sob with her hand and sprinted toward me. I opened my arms and she jumped in. I held her. I held her as tight as I could. My eyes squeezed shut. I smelled the lilac and cinnamon in her hair. She buried her face into my chest and sobbed. We gripped and regripped She still... fit. The contours, the grooves of our bodies needed no adjusting. I cupped the back of her head. Her hair was shorter, but the texture hadn't changed. I could feel her shaking and I'm sure she could feel the same emanating from me.
Our first kiss was exquisite and familiar and frighteningly desperate, two people who'd finally reached the surface after misjudging the depth of the water. The years began to melt away, winter giving way to spring. So many emotions ricocheted through me. I didn't sort through them or try to figure them out. I just let it all happen.
She lifted her head and looked into my eyes and I couldn't move. "I'm sorry," she said, and I thought my heart would shatter all over again.