Shelter

by Harlan Coben

  I ran at Buddy Ray.

  He thought that I was going to attack him again, try to tackle him to the ground, so he moved to the side.

  That was what I wanted.

  I ran right by him. Ashley was right on my back. Yes, this wouldn't last long. The other men were already closing in. But I didn't need much time. Just two more steps.

  Just to the fire door.

  I banged it open with my back, grabbing Ashley with my free arm and flinging her through it. I fell back too, trying to push the door closed, but by now the other men were there. They were trying to get out. I pushed, but I couldn't hold it. No way.

  And then Ema joined me. And Rachel. And Candy.

  Other girls too. They pushed on the door, ten of them, maybe fifteen. They pushed on that door and held it firm and there was no way that anyone else was going to follow us out.

  "Run!" Candy shouted at us. "We got this!"

  "We all run," I said. "You too."

  But Candy just looked at me and shook her head. "It doesn't work that way, Mickey."

  "What?"

  "You can't save us all."

  There was a strange truth in that. I wondered about Juan, about how he chose to save Ashley and not Candy, but there was no time for that. We had to move.

  In the distance I heard police cars. The commotion must have gotten their attention. They'd be here any second. A few girls scattered. I met Rachel's eye. She was with Ashley. I looked for Ema, but I didn't see her.

  "We all run," I shouted again to the girls. "All of us at the same time."

  And then a voice--a voice with that horrible little lisp, a voice that chilled me like no other--said, "Oh, I don't think so."

  Everything stopped then. Nobody moved. It was as if the very buildings--this very alley--were suddenly holding their breath. I broke through the paralysis. I let go of the door and swiveled my head to the left.

  Buddy Ray had a knife on Ema.

  My heart leaped to my throat. The sirens were getting closer.

  "Let her go," I said.

  Buddy Ray just smiled at me. If the cracked teeth or blood was bothering him, he didn't show it. The smile had nothing behind it. No mirth, no joy, no soul. It was the scariest smile I had ever seen.

  "The cops are on their way," I said. "They'll go easier on you if you let her go."

  Buddy Ray laughed. "Who said I wanted it easier?"

  I didn't know what to say. I was too far away to make a move. He put the knife on Ema's neck. Ema closed her eyes. Tears ran down her cheek. "Please . . . ," she said.

  "You took something that belonged to me," Buddy Ray said, looking directly at me. "Now I'm going to take something that belongs to you."

  "Don't," I said, my voice sounding so weak, so defeated. "If you want to get back at someone, get back at me." I raised my hands and walked toward him. "Take me instead."

  I risked another step. I was still at least ten yards away. We locked eyes, Buddy Ray and me, and when I saw them, when I really took a good hard look into his eyes, my heart crumbled to dust.

  Ema was doomed.

  There was no reasoning here. There was no action I could take. It didn't matter that the cops were bearing down on him. For a moment, there was only him and me--and I had no doubt what he'd do next.

  He was going to kill Ema.

  He was going to kill her just to see my face when he did it. I couldn't talk him out of it. I couldn't reach him in time. I was here, on the edge of victory, and so he would take Ema away from me.

  It was like Buddy Ray knew it all already. I had lost my father. I was losing my mother. And now, when I finally found a real friend, I would lose her too.

  He moved the knife closer to her throat. Ema squirmed, but he held her firm.

  "Say good-bye," Buddy Ray said.

  And then, when all hope seemed lost, with my eyes locked on Buddy Ray's--boom, a small truck plowed into Buddy Ray.

  My mouth dropped open.

  One moment Buddy Ray was standing there with a knife in his hand. The next, he was flying across the alley on the hood of a small truck.

  A familiar truck.

  One I'd seen once before.

  A small truck with a crossed mop-head logo on the side.

  As the sirens surrounded us, as the cop cars came braking to a halt, the driver's door opened, and Spoon emerged.

  He pushed up his glasses, looked at the still man on the hood of the truck, and said, "Man, I really gotta learn how to drive."

  Ema had called Spoon when she couldn't reach me.

  "I figured maybe he could at least pick us up," she said.

  I hugged her for a very long time. Rachel came over and joined us. Spoon came over too.

  Police cars kept pouring in. I saw Tyrell's father arrive. My uncle Myron was there too. The Ford Taurus, I remembered now, had a GPS unit in it. Myron was able to get the coordinates. He just got them a little too late.

  An ambulance came for Buddy Ray. He would live, but the girls were all talking to the police now. There would be charges. He wouldn't be free for a very long time.

  With Rachel on my right and Ema on my left, I looked down the block and spotted Ashley in the distance. She was getting into Juan's van. Juan held the door open for her. Ashley looked back at me one last time and smiled. I smiled back, but there was no joy in it. Juan nodded at me. Ashley vanished into the back of the van, and as she did, I think that we both realized that we would never see each other again.

  At least, that was how it felt.

  I looked at Rachel. She nodded at me. Ema gave me a brave smile. Spoon wasn't sure what to do. We shared looks. My friends, I thought. The only real friends I've ever had. And yet, somehow, I knew that they were much more, that this would not be the last time we would stand together like this.

  I felt overwhelmed. We all moved closer together in an almost protective cluster, looking out now as one.

  "Guess what," Spoon said to me.

  I swallowed hard. "What, Spoon?"

  "George Washington was sterile."

  chapter 26

  HOURS LATER, after my leg got treated for the bite, after the police were satisfied, Uncle Myron drove me home. I expected a full-fledged grilling or a lecture, but he went easy on me. He seemed somewhat lost in his thoughts.

  "You took something of a beating," he said.

  I nodded.

  He gripped the wheel tighter. "Is this the first time you've been hurt like this?"

  I wasn't sure how to respond, so I went with the truth. "Yes."

  "It will be worse in the morning. A lot worse. I have some painkillers that might help."

  "Thanks."

  Myron made a turn, keeping his eyes on the road. "Basketball tryouts are coming up soon."

  "I know."

  We fell into an uncomfortable silence. I was the one who broke it this time. "The other night, I saw you video-chatting with a woman on the computer."

  Myron cleared his throat. "Oh."

  "Who is she?"

  "My fiancee."

  That surprised me.

  "She lives far away," he said. "Overseas."

  "You were supposed to go to her."

  Myron said nothing.

  "You stayed behind," I said, "because of me."

  "Don't worry about it. It will all work out."

  More silence.

  "Can I ask you something else?" I said.

  "Okay."

  "What's the deal with you and Chief Taylor?"

  Myron grinned. "Chief Taylor," he said, "is a power tool."

  "His son is captain of the basketball team."

  "So was he," Myron said. "Years ago. He was the senior captain when I was a sophomore."

  Talk about history repeating itself. "So what happened between you two?"

  Myron seemed to mull it over before he shook his head. "I'll tell you about it another time. Right now I think it's time we took care of some of your wounds."

  Myron was right.

  When I w
oke up the next day, my entire body screamed in agony. It took me ten minutes to sit up and get off the bed. My temples pulsed. My head throbbed. My ribs were so tender that breathing became a new adventure in spiked pain.

  There were two pills on the nightstand next to my bed. I swallowed them down. That helped. Myron had taken the extra Ford Taurus into the shop to get the window Derrick smashed fixed. That meant I'd have to walk. The police, I figured, were still looking for Derrick. I didn't want to tell them not to waste their time.

  A few hours later, I finished my walk to the Coddington Rehabilitation Institute. Christine Shippee greeted me with her arms folded across her chest.

  "I told you," she said. "You can't see your mother yet."

  I thought about everything. I thought about the Abeona Shelter and the work my parents clearly did for them. I thought about my dad's letter to Juan, how he wanted to give me a chance at normalcy. I thought about moving back to the United States, that drive down to San Diego, the crash of the car. I thought about that ambulance driver, the one with the sandy hair and green eyes. I thought about the way the expression on his face told me that my life was over, how I knew right then and there that even he, this stranger with sandy hair and green eyes, knew my future better than I did.

  I thought about my mom's face when she first heard that my dad was dead, how she had died on that day too. I thought about how I tried to help her--enabled, I guess--how I kept her on life support, how she clung to me, how she lied and even manipulated her only son. I thought about the spaghetti and meatballs dinner we never had. I thought about the garlic bread.

  "Mickey?" Christine said. "Are you all right?"

  "Just tell her I love her," I said. "Tell her I'm here and I will always be here and I will visit her every day and I will never abandon her. Tell her that."

  "Okay," Christine said softly. "I will."

  And then I turned and walked away.

  When I reached the bottom of the drive, the black car with the license plate A30432 was waiting for me. I wasn't even surprised. The bald man got out of the passenger seat. As always he wore the dark suit and sunglasses.

  He opened the back door.

  Without saying a word, I got in.

  chapter 27

  I NEVER SAW THE DRIVER. There was a glass partition separating the front from the back. Five minutes after they picked me up, we were bouncing through the woods. I looked out. Up ahead I saw Bat Lady's garage. Just as I had witnessed that day with Ema, the bald guy got out and opened the garage door. We pulled in. The bald guy opened the door for me and said, "Follow me."

  The interior of the garage looked, well, like the interior of a garage. Nothing special. The bald guy bent down and pulled open a trapdoor in the floor. He started climbing down a ladder. I trailed him. We moved through a tunnel in the direction, I assumed, of Bat Lady's house.

  This, I thought, explained the light in the basement I had seen when I was in her house.

  When we passed a door, I asked, "What's in there?"

  He shook his head and kept going. When we reached another door, he stopped and said, "This is as far as I go."

  "What's that supposed to mean?"

  "It means that you see her alone."

  Her.

  He started back down toward the garage, leaving me alone. My head was starting to throb again. The pain meds must have been wearing off. I opened the door and found myself back inside Bat Lady's living room.

  Nothing much had changed. Brown was still the room's dominant hue. The windows were still blocked by a combination of soot and planks. The grandfather clock still didn't work. The old picture of the hippies--the first place I had seen the strange butterfly design. The turntable was working now. HorsePower was playing a sad song called "Time Stands Still." And there, in the middle of the room, dressed in the same white gown I had seen her in just a few short days ago, was the Bat Lady.

  She smiled at me. "You did well, Mickey."

  I wasn't in the mood for more cat and mouse games. "Gee, thanks. Really. I mean, I have no idea what I did or what's going on here, but thanks."

  "Sit with me."

  "No, I'm good here."

  "You're angry. I understand."

  "You said my father was alive."

  Bat Lady sat on a couch that looked as though it had been ready for the scrap heap during the Eisenhower administration. Her hair was still ridiculously long, cascading down her back and almost touching the seat cushion. She picked up a large book, an old photo album, and held it on her lap.

  "Well?" I said.

  "Sit, Mickey."

  "Is my father still alive?"

  "It's not a simple question."

  "Sure it is. He's either dead or he's alive. Which is it?"

  "He is alive," she said, with a smile that seemed somewhere south of sane, "in you."

  I never wanted to smack an old woman before, but boy, I did now. "In me?"

  "Yes."

  "Oh, please. What is this, The Lion King? That's what you meant when you said he was alive?"

  "I meant exactly what I said."

  "You told me that my father was alive. Now you're giving me some New Age mumbo jumbo about him living in me."

  I turned away, blinked back the tears. I felt crushed. I felt stupid. Some crazy old lady rants stuff I know not to be true--and yet I choose to hold on to her words like a drowning man to a life preserver. Man, was I an idiot or what?

  "So he's dead," I said.

  "People die, Mickey."

  "Good answer," I said with as much sarcasm as I could muster.

  "Nothing about what we do is simple," she said. "You want a yes or no. But there is no yes or no. No black or white. It is all gray."

  "There is life or death," I said.

  She smiled. "What makes you sure of that?"

  I had no idea how to respond.

  "We save who we can," she said. "We can't save everyone. Evil exists. You can't have an up without a down, a right without a left--or a good without an evil. Do you understand?"

  "Not really, no."

  "Your father came to this house when he was about your age. It changed him. He understood his calling."

  "To work for you?"

  "To work with us," she said, correcting me.

  "And become, what, part of the Abeona Shelter?"

  She did not reply.

  "So you were the ones who rescued Ashley."

  "No," she said. "You did that."

  I sighed. "Can you stop talking in circles?"

  "There is a balance. There are choices. We rescue a few, not all, because that is what we can do. Evil remains. Always. You can combat it, but you can never fully defeat it. You settle for small victories. If you overreach, you lose everything. But every life matters. There is an old saying: 'He who saves one life saves the world.' So we pick and choose."

  "You pick and choose who gets rescued and who doesn't?"

  "Yes," Bat Lady said. "Take Candy, for example."

  That surprised me. "You know about Candy?"

  She didn't bother replying. "If we had chosen to help her, the odds are that Candy would have ended up no better off. She has no skills, not much intelligence, and would never be able to be mainstreamed into school or society. She would probably have ended up back with Buddy Ray or someone similar."

  "You can't know that," I said.

  "Of course you can't know. But you play the odds. You save who you can and you mourn those you can't. When you follow this calling, your heart gets ripped apart every day. You make the world better in increments, not grand designs. You make choices. Do you understand?"

  "Choices," I said.

  "Yes."

  "Like my father made a choice to leave the Abeona Shelter. Like my father didn't want this life for me."

  "Exactly, he made a choice." Bat Lady looked up at me and tilted her head. "How did that work out for him?"

  I said nothing.

  "With choices come consequences," she said.


  I didn't know what to say to that. I looked out the back, through the kitchen, toward the garden. "You have a tombstone in your backyard."

  She said nothing.

  "The initials E.S.," I said. "Is Elizabeth Sobek buried there?"

  "Lizzy," Bat Lady said.

  "What?"

  "Her name was Lizzy. She preferred Lizzy."

  "Is she buried in your yard?"

  "Sit down, Mickey."

  "I'm fine standing right here. Is Lizzy Sobek, the girl who rescued all those kids in the Holocaust, buried in your yard, yes or no?"

  Now there was steel in her voice. "Sit down, Mickey."

  Bat Lady looked up at me, and I did as she asked. Dust came off the couch. She put her left arm out and pulled up her sleeve. The tattoo was faded but you could still read it:

  A30432

  For a moment, I couldn't speak. Then I managed to say, "You?"

  She nodded. "I'm Lizzy Sobek."

  I sat there in silence as she opened the photograph album. "You want to know how this all began. I will tell you. And then maybe you will understand about your father."

  She pointed to the first picture in the photo album. It was an old black-and-white shot of four people. "This was my family. My father's name was Samuel. My mother's name was Esther. That's my older brother, Emmanuel, with the bow tie. Such a handsome boy. So smart, so kind. He was eleven when this picture was taken. I was eight. I look happy, don't you think?"

  She did. She had been a beautiful child.

  "You know what happened next," she said.

  "World War Two."

  "Yes. For a while we survived in the Lodz ghetto. That was in Poland. My father was a wonderful man. Everyone loved him. They were drawn to him. Your father, Mickey, was a lot like him. But that's not important right now. For a long time we managed to escape and stay hidden. I won't go into the details, the horrors that even now, even all these years later, I, who witnessed it, cannot believe. Suffice to say that eventually someone sold us out. My family was captured by the Nazis. We were put on a train for Auschwitz."

  Auschwitz. Just the word made me shiver. I actually reached out for her hand, but Bat Lady stiffened.

  "Please let me get through this," she said. "Even after all these years, it is hard."

  "I'm sorry," I said.

  She nodded, looked off again. "When my family arrived at Auschwitz, they separated us. I found out later that my mother and my brother, Emmanuel, were taken immediately to the gas chambers. They were dead within hours. My father was brought to a work camp. I was spared. I still don't know why."