Shelter

by Harlan Coben

  "If it wasn't for having me," I said slowly, "my mother would have been one of the greatest tennis players in the world. She would have been rich and famous instead of a widowed junkie with nothing."

  "Not nothing," Ema said. "She has you."

  I waved her away, afraid to speak because I knew that my voice would crack.

  Ema didn't push it. Again she somehow knew that would be the wrong move. We sat outside together in silence for a few minutes. It was nearing two in the morning.

  "Won't your parents wonder where you are?" I asked.

  Her face closed like a steel gate. "No."

  And now I knew not to push it. A few minutes later, we said good-bye. Once again I asked her if I could walk her home. She frowned at me. "I'm serious," I said. "It's late. I don't like you walking alone. Where do you live?"

  "Another time," she said.

  "Why?"

  "Just . . . another time, okay?"

  I wasn't sure what else to say here, so I went with, "Okay." Then I added, "But promise me one thing."

  Ema looked wary. "What?"

  "You'll text me when you get home."

  She offered up a small smile and shook her head. "You can't be for real."

  "Promise me or I walk you home."

  "Fine," she said with a sigh, "I promise, I promise."

  Myron's backyard was against the neighbors.' Ema headed out that way. I watched her walk away, her back hunched a little, and I wondered how it was, when I swore I wouldn't connect with anyone, that she already meant so much to me. I watched until she vanished from sight, then I started back to the house. The basketball was lying on the ground outside. I picked it up and spun it on my finger. I looked at the hoop, but no, it was too late. I might wake up the neighbors. I spun the ball again and headed for the back door when something made me stop.

  I pushed my back against the wall of the house so I could stay out of sight. My heart started thumping hard in my chest. I put down the ball and slowly slid toward the right, near the garage. I kept low and peered around the corner toward the street in front of Myron's house. And there, parked on the corner maybe two hundred yards away from the house, was a black car with tinted windows.

  It looked like the same car I'd seen today at basketball--the same car I'd seen at Bat Lady's house.

  I debated my next move. I remembered Mr. Waters telling me to call him if I saw the bald guy again, but come on, it was two in the morning. His cell phone was probably off. And if not, did I really want to wake him and his whole family and--what?--wait for him to maybe drive over? The car would probably be gone by then.

  No, this was on me.

  I wasn't particularly afraid--or maybe curiosity just won out over fear. Hard to say. When I was ten, my family spent a year in the Amazon rain forest in Brazil. The local chieftain was an expert in hand-to-hand combat, using an offshoot of what was more popularly known as Brazilian jujitsu. I've practiced martial arts ever since, in those obscure corners of the globe, mostly as a way to keep in shape for basketball. To date, I had only used these skills once. They had worked--maybe a little too well.

  Whatever, it gave me confidence, even if it might be false confidence. I sprinted behind the Gorets' house next door. My goal was to move from house to house and sneak up on the car from behind. Three houses to go. No reason to stall. I peeked out from behind the Gorets' azaleas and dashed to the Greenhalls. They owned a farm up north and were never home.

  A minute later I was hiding behind a bush maybe ten yards away from the black car with the tinted windows. Now that I was this close, I could make out the license plate. A30432. I took out my cell phone and checked the plate number Ema had texted to me. The number was the same.

  No doubt now--it was the same black car.

  I glanced out from the bush. The car's engine was off. There were no signs of movement or life. The black car could be just parked and empty.

  So now what do I do?

  Do I just approach and start slamming my palms on the window, demanding answers? That seemed somewhat logical. It also seemed kind of stupid. Do I sit here and wait? For how long? And what if the car drives off? Then what?

  I was still hunched behind the bush, trying to decide what to do, when the decision was made for me. The front passenger door opened and the bald guy stepped out. He still wore the dark suit, and despite the hour, he even had the sunglasses on.

  For a moment the man stood perfectly still, his back to the bush. Then he slowly turned his head and said, "Mickey."

  Gulp.

  I had no idea how he had seen me, but it didn't matter now. I stood up. He stared at me from behind those sunglasses, and in spite of the heat, I swear I felt a chill.

  "You have questions," the bald man said to me. He spoke with one of those exaggerated British accents that almost sound phony. Like he'd gone to some fancy prep school and wanted to make sure you knew it. "But you're not yet ready for the answers."

  "What does that mean?"

  "It means," he said, still with that accent, "just what it sounds like."

  I frowned. "It sounds like something you'd read on a bad fortune cookie."

  There was the hint of a smile on the bald man's face. "Don't tell anyone about us."

  "Like who?"

  "Like anyone. Like your uncle."

  "Myron? What would I tell him anyway? I don't know anything. Who exactly are you? Or, as you put it, us?"

  "You'll know," he said, "when the time is right."

  "And when will that be?"

  The man slid back into the car. He never seemed to hurry, but every moment was almost supernaturally fast and fluid.

  "Wait!" I shouted.

  I moved quickly, trying to reach the car door before it closed. "What were you doing in that house? Who are you?"

  But it was too late. He slammed the door shut. The car started up. Now, as I semi-planned earlier, I slapped the tinted windows with my palm. "Stop!"

  The car started to pull out. Without thought I jumped on the hood. Like you see in the movies. But here is what you don't see in the movies: there is really no place to grab on to. I went for that area near the windshield but my fingers couldn't get a grip. The car moved forward, stopped short, and I went flying.

  I managed somehow to land on my feet, stumble, and stay upright. I stood now in front of the car, daring them to run me down. Even the front windshield was tinted, but I stared through it toward the passenger seat, trying to imagine I was eye to eye with the bald man. For a few moments, nothing happened. I stayed in front of the car.

  "Who are you?" I asked again. "What do you want with me?"

  I heard the passenger window slide down. I was tempted to go to it, but that might be a sucker move. Maybe the man just wanted me to move out of the way so he could drive off.

  "Bat Lady said my father is still alive," I shouted.

  And, to my surprise, I got a reply. "She shouldn't have said that."

  My heart stopped. "Is he?"

  There was a long silence.

  "Is my father still alive?" I demanded.

  I put my hands on the hood, my fingers digging into the metal almost as though I was going to lift the car and shake the answer out of it.

  "We'll talk," the man said.

  "Don't give me that--"

  And then, without warning, the car flew into reverse. I fell forward onto the street, scraping my hands on the pavement. When I looked up, the car spun around and disappeared around the bend.

  chapter 10

  IT WAS TWO FIFTEEN when I slipped quietly back into the house. My cell phone buzzed. It was a text from Ema: home. happy?

  Me: Ecstatic.

  I started tiptoeing toward the basement door when I heard voices coming from upstairs. At first I figured that it was the television, but no, one voice belonged to Myron. The other--hello--was female.

  Hmm.

  I moved toward the stairs. The light was off in Myron's bedroom, but it was on in the office. The office, as Myron had t
old me maybe a million times, used to be my dad's bedroom, and before Myron moved to the basement, he and my father had shared it. Myron often regaled me with stories of the lame stuff they used to do together in that room--play board games like Risk and Stratego, trade baseball cards, set up their own Nerf basketball leagues. Sometimes, when no one was in the house, I would go in the room and try to imagine my father as a child in there. But nothing ever came to me. The renovation had stripped the room of any memorabilia. It looked like an accountant's office.

  I moved upstairs and stopped by the door. Myron was on the computer, video chatting--at two in the morning? What was up with that?

  "I can't come now," I heard Myron say.

  A woman's voice said, "I understand. I can't either."

  Who was Myron talking to? Wait--was he trying to hook up online? And neither of them wanted to make the trip to the other's town? Oh, gross.

  "I know," Myron said.

  "Carrie isn't ready," the woman said.

  Uh-oh. Who's Carrie? Another woman? Oh, double gross.

  "So what do we do?" Myron asked.

  The woman said, "I want you to be happy, Myron."

  "You make me happy," he said.

  "I know. You make me happy too. But maybe we need to be realistic."

  They no longer sounded like strangers trying to hook up. They sounded like two people with broken hearts. I peeked into the room again. Myron had his head lowered. I could see a raven-haired woman on the screen.

  "Maybe you're right," Myron said. "Maybe we do need to be realistic." He raised his eyes to meet hers on the screen. "But not tonight, okay?"

  "Okay." Then the woman said in the most tender voice I'd ever heard, "I love you so much."

  "I love you so much too," Myron said.

  I didn't know what to do here. I had no idea who this woman was or what they were talking about. I hadn't asked Myron if he had a girlfriend or anything, mostly because I didn't much care.

  Whatever, I came up here because I heard voices. I didn't feel good about eavesdropping like this. I took two steps back and quietly padded back down to my bedroom in the basement. I got ready for bed and slipped under the covers.

  I wondered about how sad Myron and the woman sounded. I wondered who Carrie was and why Myron couldn't be with her right now. But I didn't wonder about it very long. In the morning, we would fly to Los Angeles and see my father's grave. I figured that thought would keep me up the rest of the night. Instead I dropped off in seconds.

  Don't get me wrong--I'm still getting to know them, but as far as I can tell, my grandparents are the coolest grandparents in the history of the world.

  Ellen and Al Bolitar--my grandmother likes to joke that they're "El-Al, like the Israeli airline"--greeted us at LAX airport. Grandma sprinted toward Myron and me, arms wide open, hugging us as though we were innocent men just released from serving an unjust prison term, which is to say, like a grandmother should. She hugged us with everything she had and then she looked us over, inspecting us to make sure that everything was how it should be.

  "You both look so handsome," Grandma said to me.

  I didn't feel handsome. I wore one of Myron's suits. The fit was far from perfect. Grandpa trailed, using a cane and moving too slowly. Myron and I both kissed the old man on the cheek because that was how we all wanted it. Grandpa was still pale and thin from his recent open-heart surgery. I pushed away the feelings of guilt over his condition, but it was hard to escape the fact that I felt at least partially responsible. Grandpa wouldn't have any of that. In fact, he liked to say that I saved his life that day. I had my doubts. As though sensing that, Grandpa gave my shoulder an extra squeeze. I can't tell you why, but that squeeze comforted me like nothing else could.

  Myron had a rental car waiting. We drove to the graveyard in silence. Grandma and I sat in the back. She held my hand. She didn't ask about my mother, though she had to know. I loved her for that.

  When we reached the graveyard parking lot, I felt my entire body shudder. Myron turned off the car. We all stepped out of the car in the silence. The sun beat down upon us.

  "It's up the hill," Myron said. "Maybe I can get you a wheelchair, Dad?"

  Grandpa waved him off. "I'll walk to my son's grave."

  We made the trek in silence. Grandpa, leaning heavily on his cane, led the way. Grandma and I followed him. Myron brought up the back. As we neared my father's burial spot, Myron caught up to me and asked, "You okay?"

  "Fine," I said, picking up my pace.

  No headstone marked my father's gravesite yet.

  For a long time, no one spoke. The four of us just stood there. Cars from the adjacent highway zoomed by without a care, without the slightest concern that just yards away a devastated family grieved. Without warning Grandpa started reciting the Kaddish, the Hebrew prayer for the dead, from memory. We were not religious people, far from it, so I was a bit surprised. Some things, I guess, we do out of tradition, out of ritual, out of need.

  "Yit'gadal v'yit'kadash sh'mei raba . . ."

  Myron started to cry. He was like that--overly expressive--the kind of guy who cried at a greeting card commercial. I looked off and tried to keep my face steady. A strange feeling enveloped me. I didn't believe Bat Lady, but today, standing by my beloved father's grave, missing him so much I wanted to rip my own heart out, I was oddly unmoved. Why? Why, I asked myself, am I not totally devastated by my father's final resting spot?

  And a small voice in my head whispered, Because he isn't here . . .

  With his hands clasped and his head lowered, Grandpa finished the long prayer with the words "Aleinu v'al kol Yis'ra'eil v'im'ru. Amen."

  Myron and Grandma joined in for that fourth and final amen, making the word sound more like "oh-main." I stayed silent. For several minutes, no one moved. We were all lost in our own thoughts.

  I flashed back to the first time I had been in this cemetery, at my father's funeral, just me and my mom. Mom had been stoned to the point of oblivion. She made me promise that we wouldn't tell anybody about Dad's death because Uncle Myron would claim that she was an unfit parent and seek custody. I looked down at the small placard that was there until a gravestone would be ready. The placard had been there on that day too. BRAD BOLITAR, it read, in plain black ink on a white index card in a weather-protected plastic case.

  After another silent minute had passed, Grandpa shook his head and said, "This should never be." He stopped and looked up at the sky. "A father should never have to say the Kaddish for his son."

  With that, he started back down the path. Myron and Grandma followed. They looked back at me. I took a step closer to the loose dirt. My father, the man I had loved like no other, lay six feet below me.

  I didn't feel it, but that didn't mean it wasn't so. I stared down now at the placard and didn't move.

  Behind me I heard Myron say, "Mickey?"

  I didn't reply or react because, well, I couldn't. I was still staring at the placard, feeling my already teetering world spin me off my feet again. I saw Dad's name. I saw the plain black ink on the white index card. But now I saw something else too. A drawing. The drawing was small and in the corner of the index card, but there was no mistaking what it was. An emblem of a colorful butterfly with what might have been animal eyes on the wings. I had seen it before--at Bat Lady's house.

  It was the same emblem as on those T-shirts in that old picture.

  We said good-bye at the airport. Hugs and kisses were exchanged. Grandma said to both Myron and me, "You'll come down for Thanksgiving."

  Grandma didn't ask--she told, and I loved her for that. I regret that my grandparents hadn't been a bigger part of my life until now, but Mom and Dad had their reasons, I guess.

  My grandparents caught a plane back to Florida; Myron and I grabbed one half an hour later to Newark. The flight was full. Myron volunteered to take the middle seat. I had the window. We shoehorned ourselves into our seats. Coach seats are not designed for people our height. Two little old lad
ies sat in front of us. Their feet could barely touch the ground, but that didn't stop them from reclining the seat with great strength into our knees. I spent the four hours with an old lady's scalp in my face.

  At one point during the flight, I almost asked Myron about what I'd seen at two A.M. I almost asked him who the raven-haired woman was and who Carrie was, but I didn't because I knew that would lead to a longer conversation and I wasn't really in the mood to open up.

  After landing, we grabbed Myron's car from long-term parking and started up the Garden State Parkway. Neither of us spoke for the first twenty minutes of the drive. When we passed our exit, I finally said something.

  "Where are we going?"

  "You'll see," Myron said.

  Ten minutes later, we pulled into the strip mall lot. Myron put the car in park and smiled at me. I looked out the windshield, then back at Myron.

  "You're taking me for ice cream?"

  "Come on," Myron said.

  "You're kidding me, right?"

  When we entered the SnowCap ice cream parlor, a woman in a wheelchair greeted us. She was probably in her early twenties and had this big, wonderful smile. "Hey, you're back," she said to Myron. "What can I get you?"

  "Set up my nephew here with your SnowCap Melter. I need to talk to your father for a minute."

  "Sure thing. He's in the back room."

  Myron left us. The woman in the wheelchair held out her hand. "I'm Kimberly."

  I shook it. "I'm Mickey."

  "Sit over there," Kimberly said, gesturing to a chair. "I'll whip you up a SnowCap Melter."

  The Melter was the approximate size and dimensions of a Volkswagen Bug. Kimberly wheeled it over with that big, lovely smile. I wondered why she was in the chair, but of course I'd never ask.

  I looked at the huge plate of ice cream and toppings and whipped cream. "We're supposed to eat this alone?"

  She laughed. "We'll do what we can."

  We dug in. I don't want to exaggerate, but the SnowCap Melter was the greatest thing anyone has ever eaten in the history of the world. I started eating it so fast I feared getting one of those ice cream headaches. Kimberly was having fun watching me.

  "What does Myron want with your father?" I asked her.

  "I think that your uncle has realized a universal truth."

  "What's that?"

  Kimberly's smile fled, and I swear I felt a cold breeze against my neck. "You do what you have to do to protect the young."