The Boy from the Woods

by Harlan Coben

  “Imagine being in a place like this every day, screaming out the truth every way you know how, but no one ever hears you…”

  Wilde closed his eyes and gulped down deep breaths.

  By the time he reached Maynard Manor, he felt stronger, more himself. Hester’s Escalade was parked by the gate. Tim, her driver, opened the rear door, and Hester got out.

  She pointed to him. “What the hell happened to you?”

  “What?”

  “You look like a kitten someone left in a dryer.”

  So much for stronger, more himself.

  “I’m fine.”

  “You sure?”

  “I’m sure.”

  “Rola found Naomi’s mother. She’s agreed to see me.”

  “When?”

  “If I want to talk to her today, I have to leave now. She’s back in New York.”

  “Go,” Wilde said, “I can handle here.”

  “Tell me where you were first. So I know why you look like hell.”

  He gave her the heavily abridged version of his trip with Saul Strauss to Sing Sing. Turned out the abridged was more than enough. Hester’s face darkened to a deep scarlet. Her fists tightened. With all the distraction of Crash and Naomi, Wilde had almost forgotten that Hester Crimstein was one of the most famed and dogged criminal defense attorneys in the country. Nothing upset her more than prosecutorial overreach.

  “Those bastards,” Hester said.

  “Who?”

  “Cops, prosecutors, judges—take your pick. Railroading an innocent man like that. And now they know this Kindler guy was crooked and they still have this man locked up? Disgraceful. Do you have Saul’s number?”

  “I do.”

  “Tell him I’ll take Raymond’s case pro bono.”

  “You don’t even know all the details.”

  “See this?” Hester tapped with her finger.

  “Your nose?”

  “Exactly. The nose knows. This case stinks like the thirty-year-old garbage it is. Tell Strauss I’ll make some calls and kick some ass. Tell him.”

  “One more thing,” Wilde said. “Do you know anyone at Sing Sing?”

  “Like?”

  “Like someone who can let me see the visitors log.”

  She started back toward the car. “Text me the details, doll face. I’ll get on it.”

  Tim already had the door open. Hester climbed back in. Tim gave Wilde a small nod, got in the car, and drove away.

  Wilde trekked up the hill. Rola had the whole team here now—all women with hard eyes.

  “The Maynards know I’m back?” he asked.

  Rola nodded.

  There was still a half hour until noon. No reason to go inside yet. If the Maynards needed him, they’d know where to look. He headed back toward the path in the woods, the one that led to where Matthew had first sneaked away with Naomi. He couldn’t say why he came here. Mostly, he supposed, because he craved peace and quiet and the outdoors. The outdoors more than anything else. He didn’t want to be inside that damned library any longer than he had to.

  He checked his phone and was surprised to see a message from the genealogy website. The message came from “PB,” the person who’d been listed as his “closest” relative. He debated just deleting it or at least leaving it unopened for now. It was probably nothing. Genealogy was a big hobby for many, connecting in a “fun and social way,” as the website put it, maybe asking questions so that you can fill in empty branches on your family tree.

  Wilde had no interest in doing that. Then again, rudeness and willful ignorance weren’t his style either. Neither was procrastination.

  He hit the message link and read PB’s message:

  Hi. Sorry about not giving my name, but there are reasons I don’t feel comfortable letting people know my real identity. My background has too many holes in it and a lot of turmoil. You are the closest relative I’ve found on this site, and I wonder whether you have holes and turmoil too. If you do, I may have some answers.

  Wilde read the message twice, then a third time.

  Holes and turmoil. He didn’t need that right now either.

  Wilde put away the phone. Then he looked up, past the branches stretching to the deep blue of the sky. His thoughts turned to Raymond Stark. When, he wondered, had Raymond last been outside like this? When had he last been surrounded by green and blue instead of institutional gray? Wilde reached into his back pocket. He unfolded the photograph of the Capitol Hill interns Saul Strauss had given him. He searched the faces again, finding Rusty Eggers, then Dash, then Delia.

  The hell with it.

  He hurried back into the Maynards’ side yard. He took the steps two at a time and burst into the library. Dash Maynard was staring at the computer screen, as though it were some crystal ball that might tell him the future. Delia paced.

  “We’re glad you’re back,” she said.

  He crossed the room. “Do you recognize this photograph?”

  Wilde held it up so both could see it. He wanted to see if they’d react. They did—recoiling like vampires near a cross.

  Dash snapped, “Why do you have that?”

  Wilde pointed to Christopher Anson. “Do you recognize him?”

  “What the hell is this?”

  “His name was Christopher Anson.”

  “We know,” Delia said. “But what the hell, Wilde. We’re waiting for a word from our son’s kidnapper. Don’t you get that?”

  Wilde saw no reason to reply.

  “Why are you raising this now?”

  “Because whoever has your son clearly wants a very damaging tape.”

  “Which we gave them,” Dash said.

  “Arnie Poplin said he overheard you and Rusty Eggers talking about a murder.”

  “Arnie Poplin is a lunatic,” Dash said with a dismissive wave.

  Delia added, “You can’t possibly think we had something to do with what happened to Christopher.”

  “Maybe not you two,” Wilde said.

  “Rusty?” Delia shook her head. “No.”

  “You don’t get how unreliable Arnie Poplin is,” Dash said. “When we fired him from the show, he grew resentful. You mix his crazy with the drugs and the bitterness—”

  “I don’t understand,” Delia interrupted. “Who gave you that photograph?”

  “Raymond Stark.”

  Silence.

  Wilde waited. He wanted to see whether either of them would go so far as to pretend that they didn’t recognize the name. They didn’t.

  After a while, Dash said, “Oh my God.”

  “What?”

  “Is that what Raymond Stark is saying? Is that what he’s trying to pull now to get out of jail?”

  Delia looked at her husband. “Could he be behind all this?”

  “What?”

  “Raymond Stark,” Dash said, turning back to Wilde. “Maybe some convict he met in prison is doing him a favor. They kidnap our son and claim it’s related to the killing of Christopher. They demand some tape that will prove his innocence.”

  “Maybe,” Delia joined in, “Raymond Stark told someone the story and they are acting on their own.”

  “Wilde,” Dash said, turning to him, “how did Raymond Stark reach out to you?”

  That was when they heard the ding on the computer.

  It was noon.

  Delia refreshed the page and a message came up.

  You can find Crash at 41°07'17.5"N 74°12'35.0"W.

  Wilde felt his mouth go dry.

  Delia pointed at the screen. “Are those—?”

  “Coordinates,” Wilde said with a nod.

  But not just any coordinates.

  Someone was seriously fucking with him.

  “I don’t understand,” Delia said. “Where is that?”

  Wilde didn’t even have to bring up the map app on his phone. He knew where the coordinates would lead. “It’s in the woods, about three miles from here, up near the Ramapoughs. It’ll be fastest if I hike it. Gi
ve the coordinates to Rola. Tell her to get a car and meet me there.”

  He didn’t explain more. He just took off, down the steps, out the door, into the sticky air. Sweat broke out on his face first. Would Crash really be there? In many ways, it was a great drop-off spot—remote, away from any roads or cameras, deep enough in the forest.

  But why those particular coordinates?

  Because someone wanted to seriously mess with Wilde’s head.

  Without breaking stride, he stuck an AirPod into his ear and called Hester. When she answered, he said, “The kidnappers sent coordinates forty-one degrees, oh-seven—”

  “Speak English, Wilde.”

  “It’s a remote spot in the Ramapough Mountains. By the old burial site.”

  “Wait. Are you saying—?”

  “It’s the exact location where the police found me when I was a kid.”

  “Holy moly,” Hester said. “Who would know about that?”

  “The specific coordinates? The cops, maybe the press, I don’t know. It’s not a secret.”

  “But it’s not a coincidence either.”

  “No, it’s not a coincidence.”

  “Where are you?” Hester asked. “You sound winded.”

  “I’m running there now. I’ll call you back.”

  Wilde knew the route, of course. He knew it would take Rola and whoever she brought longer to drive because there was no immediate road access. You had to hike more than a mile off the road to find the spot.

  So why there?

  Wilde was starting to get it now, starting to maybe piece together what the hell was going on. They’d hope to seed confusion and chaos. But maybe for the first time, Wilde was seeing things clearly.

  He dodged to the left, ducked under branches, tried not to break stride. Decades ago, when the park rangers and local police surrounded him, he’d been using a Coleman dome tent and an Eddie Bauer sleeping bag he’d stolen from a house in Ringwood. He didn’t remember how long that particular camping site, far away from any hiking trails, had been his home, but when he saw them coming for him, young Wilde—what had he called himself back then? He didn’t even know his own damned name—had been tempted to run for it. He had done that before, of course, whenever anyone spotted him or got close.

  Why?

  Why had he always fled? Was it some kind of primitive survival instinct? Was man’s basic nature to fear rather than engage with other humans? He often wondered. Why, as a young child, had his instinct been to run? Was that genetic, human nature—or had something happened that made him that way?

  But on that brisk early morning, with young Wilde in his tent and four officers and rangers surrounding him, he chose not to run. Perhaps because he realized that it would be futile. Perhaps because one of them was Oren Carmichael and even back then, Oren had a calming, trustworthy, safe aura.

  Three, maybe four minutes until Wilde reached the coordinates.

  He was north of the forest area called the Bowl, a mile or so from the New Jersey–New York state border. On the surface, this rendezvous had all the earmarks of an ambush. Wilde debated slowing down, taking some extra precautions now that he was getting nearby. Unless they were very good, he’d spot them with a fairly quick reconnaissance. If they were pros or snipers in trees, then his advanced scouting wouldn’t do any good. They could simply take him out whenever they wanted.

  There would be no reason for these dramatics.

  So no, this wasn’t an ambush. This was a distraction.

  The woods grew thicker now, making it harder to see. Even as a child, Wilde had known not to make camp in clearings because he’d be too easy to spot. Most nights he’d surround his tent with twigs or even old newspapers. If someone (or more likely, some animal) came close, the sounds emanating from those twigs and papers would warn him. Wilde was a light sleeper, probably because he spent most nights as a child half listening for predators. Even now, while most people plunged deep into slumber, Wilde barely did more than skim the surface.

  A hundred yards now.

  He spotted something red.

  Not a person. A few seconds later, as he hurried closer, he could see that the red thing was fairly small—maybe a foot high by a foot long.

  It was, he saw now, a carry cooler, the kind that holds a six-pack and a couple of sandwiches.

  Wilde felt the hairs on the back of his neck rise.

  He couldn’t say why. It was just a cooler. But instinct is a funny thing.

  He ran over and flipped down the handle. Then he opened the top of the cooler and looked inside.

  Wilde had braced himself. But not enough. Still, he didn’t scream. He didn’t call out.

  He just stared down at the severed finger with the smile-skull ring.

  CHAPTER

  THIRTY-FIVE

  Naomi’s mother, Pia, lived in an ornate four-story Renaissance Revival town house off Park Avenue in Manhattan. A woman in a black French maid’s uniform opened the door and led Hester over the herringbone parquet floor, past the oak-paneled walls and the intricately sculptured staircase, and out back into a lush courtyard garden.

  Pia sat in a chaise. She wore sunglasses, a beige beach hat, and an aqua blouse open at the top. She didn’t rise when Hester came out. She didn’t even turn and look at her.

  “I don’t understand why you keep hounding me.”

  Her voice was high-pitched and shaky. Hester didn’t wait to be asked. She pulled a free chair next to Pia and sat as close as she could. She wanted to get in the woman’s space a little.

  “Nice place,” Hester said.

  “Thank you. What do you want, Ms. Crimstein?”

  “I’m trying to locate your daughter.”

  “Your assistant mentioned that.”

  “And you refused to talk to her about it.”

  “This is the second time you called,” Pia said.

  “Correct. The first time you cooperated. You told me that you didn’t know anything. So why the change?”

  “I felt enough was enough.”

  “Yeah, Pia, I’m not buying that.”

  With the dark sunglasses it was impossible to know where the woman was looking, but she wasn’t facing Hester. The former Mrs. Pine was, no doubt about it, a stunning woman. Hester knew that Pia had been some kind of bathing suit model back in her day, but that day was really not that long ago.

  “She’s not my daughter, you know.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “I terminated all my parental rights. You’re an attorney. You know what that means.”

  “Why?”

  “Why what?”

  “Why did you terminate all parental rights?”

  “You know that she’s adopted.”

  “Naomi,” Hester said.

  “What?”

  “You keep calling her ‘she.’ Your daughter has a name. It’s Naomi. And who cares if she was adopted or not? What does that have to do with it?”

  “I really can’t help you, Ms. Crimstein.”

  “Has Naomi been in contact with you?”

  “I’d rather not say.”

  “Did you voluntarily terminate your parental rights—or were they taken away from you?”

  Pia still looked off, but a small smile came to her face. “It was voluntary.”

  “Because you would have been brought up on charges?”

  “Ah,” Pia said, with a small nod, “you spoke to Bernard.”

  “You should be in jail.”

  From behind them: “Mrs. Goldman?”

  It was a young woman with a stroller.

  “It’s time to take Nathan for his walk in the park.”

  Pia turned toward the woman. Her face broke into a wide smile. “You start, Angie. I’ll catch up to you by the Conservatory Water.”

  The young woman pulled the stroller away and left.

  Hester tried to keep the horror out of her voice. “You have a son?”

  “Nathan. He’s ten months old. And yes, he’s biologically mine and
my husband’s.”

  “I thought you couldn’t have children.”

  “That’s what I thought. But of course, that’s what Bernard told me. Turns out the problems were with him.” She tilted her head. “Ms. Crimstein?”

  Hester waited.

  “I never abused her.”

  “Naomi,” Hester said. “Her name is Naomi.”

  “Bernard made that all up. He’s a liar and worse. I should have known what he was right away. Isn’t that what they say? But I didn’t. Or maybe I’m weak. Bernard abused me—verbally, emotionally, physically.”

  “Did you tell anyone?”

  “You sound skeptical.”

  “Don’t worry about how I sound,” Hester said, a little more sharply than she intended. “Did you tell anyone?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “Do you really need to hear another abused-woman tale, Ms. Crimstein?” Pia smiled and tilted her head, and Hester wondered how many men had been smitten by that simple move. “Bernard can be very charming, very convincing. He’s also extremely manipulative. Did he tell you the hot-water story? That’s his favorite. Of course, if it had been true, she”—this time, Pia stopped herself—“I mean, Naomi would have gone to the hospital, wouldn’t she?”

  Fair point, Hester thought.

  “I don’t want to give you my whole life story. I came from a small town. I was…I guess the word is ‘blessed’ with a figure that drew too much attention. Everyone told me I should be a model. So I tried it. In truth, I was too short to make it big. I also wasn’t anorexic enough. But I got some jobs, mostly in lingerie ads. And then I fell for the wrong man. Bernard was good to me at first, but then his insecurities ate him alive. He was sure I had to be cheating on him. I’d come from a shoot and he’d ask a million questions—did any men talk to you, did anyone flirt with you, come on, someone had to have flirted with you, did you smile at them first, did you lead them on, why were you late?”

  Pia stopped, took her sunglasses off, wiped her eyes.

  “So you left?” Hester asked.

  “Yes, I left. I had no choice. I got help. A lot of it. When I was back on my feet a little, I met Harry, my husband. You know the rest of the story.”

  Hester made her voice as gentle as possible. “Has Naomi been in touch with you?”