The Boy from the Woods

by Harlan Coben

  “This was taken a year after we met. Pia mostly modeled lingerie and bikinis. She tried out for Sports Illustrated’s swimsuit issue. You remember how big that used to be?”

  Wilde said nothing.

  “So Pia goes on an audition or whatever they call it and you know what Sports Illustrated tells her?”

  He stopped and waited for Wilde to answer. To keep things moving, Wilde said, “No.”

  “They say she’s too curvy. That’s the word they used. Curvy. They thought her…”—he cupped his hands in front of his chest—“had to be fake. Can you believe that? They said they were so great, they had to be implants.” He gestured toward the photograph. “But those are real. Amazing, right?”

  Wilde said nothing.

  “I sound like a pig, don’t I?”

  Wilde chose the lie that would keep him talking. “Not really.”

  “Pia and I met at a club in the East Village. I couldn’t believe my luck. I mean, every guy wanted her. But we just hit it off. She was so beautiful. I couldn’t stop staring at her. We fell pretty hard. I was working at Smith Barney back then. Making pretty sweet dollars. Pia was modeling just enough. I’m not saying it was perfect. Beautiful women, women who look like this, they always have a little crazy. It comes with the package, I guess. But back then I found that so exciting, you know, and she was just so superhot. We were in love, we had money, we had the city, we had no responsibilities…”

  Bernard closed the magazine with care, as though it were a fragile religious text, and slipped it back into the protective plastic. He turned back to the file cabinet, placed it in the back, locked the drawer.

  “We were together about a year when Pia told me that she couldn’t have children. This will sound weird, I guess, but we never talked about it before. I don’t know, I guess she worried about my reaction. But—and this might surprise you—I was thrilled. We were having a blast. I didn’t want a baby messing it up, and, man this will sound awful, I loved her bod so much. I had friends with hot wives. Not hot like Pia. But hot. And after childbirth, well, you know what I’m saying?”

  Wilde said, “Uh-huh.”

  “I’m just being honest.”

  Wilde said, “Uh-huh” again.

  “So we got married. Big mistake. Pia and me, we were good before we made it official. But then you start hanging around other married couples and they’re all having babies. Pia, well, what I thought was her being eccentric and maybe a little moody? Now that’s more like depression or bipolar or something like that. She started staying in bed all day. She didn’t take any more jobs. She even put on a few pounds.”

  Wilde wanted to feign a gasp and say “how awful,” but he stayed silent.

  “So now, of course, Pia wants a baby. I don’t know if it’s the best thing, but I love her. I want her happy. And we wouldn’t be the first people to think a baby could save our marriage, right? So we start talking about surrogates and all that, but in the end, I find this adoption agency in Maine. You pay a little more, but they make things smoother. The agency told us we would have a healthy baby in six months. Pia, well, it worked. She heard that news, she started taking care of herself again. We were back, except, you know, she became obsessed with the arrival. Suddenly she didn’t want to live in the city anymore. The city was dirty, she said. It’s no place to raise a child. So she found this place”—Bernard spread his hands—“in the real estate section of the Times. You know. Like unusual homes. So we bought it and moved out here two days before Naomi came home to us. It was all going to be great.”

  Bernard Pine stopped.

  “So what happened?” Wilde asked.

  “I read somewhere that even adoptive mothers can suffer from postpartum depression or something similar. I don’t know if that’s what it was, but Pia kinda lost herself. It was awful. She couldn’t connect to her daughter in any way. Not even in like a cellular way. It was like our baby was a new kidney Pia’s body was rejecting.”

  Interesting way to put it, Wilde thought. “So what did you do?”

  “I hired nannies. Pia kept firing them. I tried to get her to see a shrink, but she flat-out refused. And I still had a job. The commute from out here to the city, no matter how you slice it, is at least an hour each way.” He closed his eyes hard, then opened them. “One day, I came home and there was a bruise on Naomi’s arm. She fell, Pia said. Another day, there was a cut over her eye. The girl is clumsy, Pia said.”

  Bernard made a fist and put it near his mouth. “This is very hard to talk about.”

  “Do you want a glass of water or something?”

  “No, I want to get through this before I chicken out. I’ve never told this story. Not to anyone. I should have done more, I guess. I should have insisted Pia get help or…”

  He stopped again, exhausted, and for a moment, Wilde feared that he wouldn’t go on.

  “We’ve come this far,” Wilde said. “Tell me the rest.”

  “I started to get scared for Naomi’s health. So one day, I didn’t go to work. I just pretended like I was heading to the bus, but I hung in town. I can’t say exactly why. Something felt extra-off that morning. Or maybe I had a premonition, I don’t know. I came home an hour after I left. Totally unexpected. I could hear the screaming from the driveway. Both of them. Screaming. I ran inside. They were upstairs. Pia was giving her a bath. The water. It was so hot, I could see the steam coming up off the top.”

  He squeezed his eyes shut now.

  “That was it. The straw that broke the camel’s back. I forced Pia to get help, though ‘help’ is a relative term. We got divorced—quietly. No reason to let the world know what happened, right? Pia gave up all parental rights. Buying my silence maybe. Or maybe she just knew that she’d never care. That was fifteen years ago. Naomi hasn’t seen her mother since.”

  Wilde tried to wade past what he’d just heard, tried to get past this horrible tale and keep moving ahead with his investigation. Then: “Are you sure?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Could Naomi and your ex have started seeing each other behind your back?”

  “I don’t think so. Pia still battles with severe mental health issues, but she’s managed to lasso in a rich new husband. My guess? She stopped thinking about Naomi long ago.”

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY-SIX

  Hester called Aaron Gerios, a former FBI Special Agent who’d worked hostage situations and kidnappings. “I have a hypothetical situation for you.”

  “A hypothetical,” Gerios repeated.

  “Yes,” Hester said. “You know what the word ‘hypothetical’ means, don’t you, Aaron?”

  “When you call, it means the situation is real, not hypothetical, but you can’t tell me who it is.”

  “I’ll pretend you said that in a hypothetical way.”

  Hester laid out the kidnapping-ransom situation. The suggestions Aaron made were pretty close to what Wilde had already set up. In short, they were doing everything right, considering the circumstances. Gerios also questioned the likelihood that this was a legitimate kidnapping.

  “It sounds more like this kid is pranking his parents.”

  “Could be.”

  “Or some hot girl seduced him into doing this.”

  “A man thinking with his dick first,” Hester said. “I didn’t know such a thing existed.”

  “You’ve always been a naïve waif, Hester.”

  “Yes. Yes, true. Thanks, Aaron.”

  “No worries. But may I offer you one last piece of repetitive advice?”

  “Sure.”

  “Convince your hypothetical parents to contact the very real FBI. Even if it’s a big nothing, these situations tend to go sideways when we aren’t involved.”

  Aaron hung up.

  Hester was still walking the grounds of Maynard Manor. There was little doubt that the estate was grand in the old-school way in which it was intended to be, but some of the modern touches were jarring. Right now, Hester was walking past a �
�sculpture garden” with somewhat tacky bronze likenesses of the Maynard family from several years ago. The twin girls who were now fourteen—Hester couldn’t remember their names, something with K’s like Katie or Karen—looked to be about seven or eight in the bronze. One flew a bronze kite while the other kicked a bronze ball. Bronze Crash was probably around twelve or thirteen and carried a lacrosse stick on his shoulder like Huck Finn with a fishing pole. Bronze Delia and Bronze Dash watched their bronze children and laughed. The entire Bronze Maynard family were laughing, their faces frozen in that laugh, forever and ever, and that was kind of creepy.

  Hester’s phone buzzed. The caller ID read OREN. Despite everything, her cheeks still flushed just seeing his name.

  “Articulate,” Hester said.

  “Why do you answer the phone that way?”

  “Long story.”

  “Can I hear it sometime in the very near future?”

  She smiled. “How near?”

  “I’m on backup duty tonight, so I have to stay in the area. What’s your schedule look like?”

  “I’m in town.”

  “Visiting Matthew and Laila?”

  “Something else,” Hester said. “Business.”

  “Oh. Are you free for dinner then? It won’t quite be last night, but I’m powerful enough to get us a table at Tony’s Pizza and Sub. I’ll even pay.”

  “Thank you for that, by the way.”

  “For what?”

  “For letting me pay last night. For thanking me and not playing the macho card and insisting.”

  “I was trying to be a modern, sensitive man. How did I do?”

  “Very well.”

  “I never understood that really.”

  “What?”

  “This will sound too politically correct.”

  “Go on.”

  “Let’s face it. You make a lot more money than I do. I’m not being all evolved here. Just the opposite. But I never get the guys who get all bent out of shape when the woman makes more money. The way I’ve always looked at it, if I’m lucky enough to be with a highly successful woman, that makes me look better. The more successful my girl is, the more I look good. Make sense?”

  He said “my girl.” Swoon.

  “So,” Hester said, “your being so evolved is really being self-involved?”

  “Exactly.”

  Hester realized again that she was smiling in a way she normally never smiled. “I like it.”

  “That said, I got tonight’s check. Which will be less than the tip on last night’s dinner. Sevenish? Unless you’re heading back into the city tonight.”

  Hester thought about it. She didn’t know what the status of this would be, but either way, she would need to stick around—and she would probably need to eat. They made the plans tentative and then they hung up.

  Hester wandered back toward the house. The grounds were immense and held no appeal to Hester. The constant tranquillity grew unnerving.

  Hester headed inside and found Delia on the phone in that library that was a little too Disneyesque. Delia spotted Hester and waved her in. She put a finger to her lips to signal silence and hit the button for the speakerphone, so Hester could listen too.

  Delia said, “Thanks, Sutton, for getting back to me.”

  “I would have called back sooner, Mrs. Maynard, but I was in class.” The girl sounded very much like a teenager. “Is Crash okay?”

  “Why do you ask?”

  “Well, he’s not in school today.”

  “When did you last talk to him?”

  “Crash? We texted last night.”

  “What time, Sutton?” Delia asked.

  There was a hesitation.

  “He’s not in any trouble,” Delia said. “But he went out last night, and I haven’t heard from him today.”

  “Can you hold on a second?” Sutton asked. “I can look up exactly on my phone.”

  “Sure.”

  There was a short delay and then Sutton said, “One forty-eight a.m.”

  “What did he say?”

  “He just said he had to go.”

  “That’s it.”

  “Yeah. ‘Gotta run.’ That was it.”

  “Do you have any idea where he might be?”

  “No, sorry. I’m sure it’s nothing. I can check with Trevor and Ryan and the guys.”

  “That would be great, thanks.”

  “The only thing is,” Sutton began.

  “Yes?”

  “I mean, I don’t want you to worry or anything. But he usually texts me. A lot. I mean, we all do. We have group chats and just regular texts and Snapchat and whatever else. I mean, I can’t remember the last time he didn’t text me in the morning.”

  Delia put a hand to her neck. “Did you text him?”

  “Just once. No reply. You want me to try again?”

  “Yes, please.”

  “I’ll let you know if I hear anything.”

  Delia looked over at Hester. Hester mouthed the word “Naomi” at her. Delia nodded.

  “Is Crash friendly with Naomi Pine?”

  Silence.

  “Sutton?”

  “Why would you ask about Naomi?”

  Delia looked over at Hester. Hester shrugged.

  “Well, Naomi is missing—”

  “And you think Crash is with her?”

  The disbelief in her voice was palpable.

  “I don’t know. I’m just asking. Are they friends?”

  “No, Mrs. Maynard. I don’t want to be mean, but Naomi and Crash travel in very different circles.”

  “And yet he encouraged her to play that Challenge game, right?”

  “I have to go to class. If I hear from Crash, I’ll let you know right away.”

  Sutton hung up.

  Hester said, “Is that Crash’s girlfriend?”

  “On and off. Sutton is probably the most popular girl in the school.”

  “And Crash is one of the most popular boys,” Hester said.

  “Yes.”

  “So maybe the popular boy suddenly has a thing for the ostracized girl.”

  “Sounds like a bad teen rom-com,” Delia said with a shrug. “Then again, it wouldn’t be the first time.”

  “Maybe even his bullying her—”

  “My son didn’t bully her.”

  “—or whatever you want to call it. Maybe it was like that little boy in the playground who pulls the girl’s pigtails because he likes her.”

  Delia didn’t like that. “That little boy usually grows up to be a sociopath.”

  “What’s on those tapes, Delia?”

  The change of subject caught Delia Maynard off guard. That was the purpose, of course. Hester was studying her face, looking for the tell. She thought she saw one. Not one hundred percent sure. Hester had been questioning people for a very long time. More than most, she could see a lie, but those who claimed to be “foolproof” were, to quote half of the word, usually the fools.

  “There’s nothing important,” Delia said.

  “Then contact the FBI.”

  “We can’t.”

  “Which suggests that you have something to hide. Sorry, I’m not great with subtle, so let me get right to it: I think you’re lying. Worse, you’re lying to me. So let me make this clear. I don’t care what you’re hiding or what’s on those tapes. If I know about it and I’m your attorney? It stays secret.”

  Delia smiled but there was no humor in it. “Always?”

  “Always.”

  “No matter what?”

  “No matter what.”

  Delia crossed the room and looked out the window. The view was spectacular, but it didn’t seem to be bringing Delia Maynard much peace or comfort or joy. “I told you I watched your show the other night. When Saul Strauss was on.”

  “What about it?”

  “Strauss started to raise the ‘if you could have stopped Hitler’ speculation. You cut him off.”

  “Of course I did,” Hester said. “It’s ut
ter nonsense on a thousand levels.”

  “So let’s say hypothetically I knew something that could have stopped Hitler—”

  “Oh please—”

  “—and I confide it to you under attorney-client privilege.”

  “Would I tell?” Hester said. “No.”

  “Even if it means letting Hitler rise to power?”

  “Yes, but it’s a dumb hypothetical,” Hester said. “I don’t want to get too deep into this, but have you read much on the Hitler paradox? In short, if you went back in time and killed baby Hitler, the changes may be so massive that everything would change, almost every birth thereafter, and so you and I wouldn’t be here. But that’s not why this is dumb. It’s dumb because I can’t read the future or go back in time. The future is all conjecture—none of us have a clue what it will be like. So I can tell you that whatever your grave secret is, I won’t tell. No matter what. Because I don’t know if it will really stop the next Hitler. I also don’t know if stopping the next Hitler is even desirable. Maybe if I stopped Hitler, a more competent psycho would have risen instead—after those German scientists developed a nuclear bomb. Maybe it would have gone even worse. Do you see what I’m saying?”

  “I do,” Delia said. “There are too many variables. You may think you’re stopping a slaughter—and end up creating a bigger one.”

  “Exactly. I’ve heard some horrible confessions in this job. Gruesome, terrible…” Hester closed her eyes for a moment. “And maybe the world would have been better if I broke my oath. But only on a micro level. Justice for that family maybe. Preventing another tragedy and even worse. But in the end, I have to believe in the system, flawed though it may be.”

  Delia nodded slowly. “There’s nothing on those tapes.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “I am. There are some things Rusty’s enemies may try to use against him. But there is no smoking gun.”

  “Okay then,” Hester said. Her phone buzzed. She saw a text from Wilde:

  My security people will be there within the half hour.

  Delia was about to make another call. Hester watched her for a moment. Delia felt the eyes on her and looked up. “What?” Delia said.

  “Let me add one caveat to the above,” Hester said, “mother to mother.”