Run Away

by Harlan Coben

  When that was over, he rose and there were no more tears. He sat next to Ingrid and held her hand and talked to her. He didn’t will her to live or tell her how much he loved her or any of that. If Ingrid could hear, she wouldn’t want those words. She wasn’t big on melodrama for one thing, but more than that, she wouldn’t want him expressing thoughts like this when she couldn’t reciprocate or at least comment. Declarations of love or loss with no response were meaningless to her. It was like playing catch with yourself. It had to go two ways.

  So he talked about general stuff—his work, her work, the remodeling of the kitchen that might one day happen (or more likely, not), about politics and the past and a few favorite memories he knew she liked to bathe in. That was also Ingrid. She liked when he repeated certain stories. She was the kind who listened deeply, with her entire being, and a smile would come to her lips and he could see that she was back there with him, reliving the moment with a clarity few people could experience.

  But of course, there was no smile on her face today.

  At some point—Simon couldn’t say how much time had passed—Yvonne put her hand on his shoulder. “Tell me what happened,” she said. “Everything.”

  So he did.

  Yvonne kept her eyes on her sister’s face. She and Ingrid had taken such different paths, and maybe that explained the rift. Ingrid had chosen something of a high life to start—the modeling, the travel, some experimentation with drugs that oddly made her less sympathetic to Paige, not more—whereas Yvonne had always been more the dutiful type-A daughter who studied hard and loved her parents and stayed on the straight and narrow.

  In the end, Ingrid had discovered, as she put it, that searching the whole world just makes you find home. She’d come back and done a year of what was called “post-baccalaureate” at Bryn Mawr College, so as to cram in all her pre-med requirements. With the sort of determination and single focus that Yvonne would undoubtedly admire in another person, Ingrid excelled through med school, residency, and internship.

  “You can’t stay here,” Yvonne said when he finished.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I’ll sit with Ingrid. But you can’t just sit here, Simon. You have to go find Paige.”

  “I can’t leave now.”

  “You have to. You have no choice.”

  “We always promised…” Simon stopped. He wasn’t going to explain to Yvonne what she already knew. He and Ingrid were like one. If one of them got sick, the other was going to be there. That was the rule. That was part of the bargain in all this.

  Yvonne understood, but she still shook her head. “Ingrid is going to wake up from this. Or she’s not. And if she wakes up, she’s going to want to see Paige’s face.”

  He didn’t reply.

  “You can’t find her if you’re sitting here.”

  “Yvonne—”

  “Ingrid would tell you that if she could, Simon. You know this.”

  Ingrid’s hand felt lifeless now, no feel of blood pumping through it. Simon stared at his wife, willing her to give him some kind of answer or sign, but she seemed to be growing smaller, fading away, right in front of his eyes. This didn’t seem to be Ingrid in this bed anymore, just an empty body, as if her being had already fled the building. He wasn’t naïve enough to think the sound of Paige’s voice could bring Ingrid back, but he sure as shit didn’t think him sitting there would do it either.

  Simon let go of Ingrid’s hand. “Before I go, I’ll need to—”

  “I got the kids. I got the business. I got Ingrid. Go.”

  Chapter

  Thirteen

  Night had passed and it was nearly daybreak when the car dropped Simon back off by those concrete blocks in the Bronx. There was no one on the street—no one awake anyway. Two guys were sleeping on the sidewalk in front of the overgrown, abandoned lot, scant feet from where he and Ingrid had entered, what, just a few hours ago. Someone had hung up police tape, but it’d been torn down the middle, flying in the predawn breeze.

  Simon reached the decrepit four-floor brick tenement house that his daughter had called home. He headed back inside this time with no hesitation or fear. He started up the stairs but stopped on the second floor rather than heading up to the third. It wasn’t quite six a.m. Simon hadn’t slept, of course. He felt rattled and juiced up on something that he knew would ebb out of him soon.

  He knocked on the door and waited. He figured that he might be waking him up, but he didn’t much care. Ten seconds later, no more, the door opened. Cornelius looked as though he hadn’t slept much either. The two men looked at each other for a long moment.

  “How is she?” Cornelius asked.

  “Critical.”

  “Better come inside.”

  Simon wasn’t sure what he expected when he stepped into Cornelius’s apartment—something like the dirty hovel Paige had called home—but the interior was like stepping through a magic portal into another world. The place could have been featured on one of those home TV shows Ingrid loved to watch. Built-in oak bookshelves framed the windows on the far wall. A classic Victorian tufted sofa of green sat to the right. The embroidered accent pillows had botanical themes. Prints of butterflies hung to the left. A chess set sat atop an ornate wood table and for a moment, Simon could almost see Paige sitting there with Cornelius, the way her brow would furrow and she’d play with her hair when she concentrated on a move.

  A cocker spaniel burst around the corner, tail wagging so hard she could barely keep her balance. Cornelius scooped her up and held her close. “This here is Chloe.”

  There were photographs in front of the books on the shelves. Family photographs. Lots of them. Simon moved toward them for a better look. He stopped at the first photograph, a standard family shot in front of a rainbow backdrop—a younger Cornelius, a woman who looked to be his wife, and three smiling teenage boys, two of whom were already taller than Cornelius.

  Cornelius put down the dog and joined him.

  “This picture gotta be eight, ten years old. Me and Tanya, we raised three boys here in this apartment. They’re grown now. Tanya…she passed two years ago. Breast cancer.”

  “I’m sorry,” Simon said.

  “Do you want to sit? You look exhausted, man.”

  “If I sit, I’m afraid I’m not going to get back up.”

  “Might not be a bad idea. You need some rest if you want to keep going.”

  “Maybe later.”

  Cornelius placed the family photograph down gently, as though it were exceedingly fragile, and pointed to a portrait of a Marine in uniform.

  “This here is Eldon. He’s our oldest.”

  “A Marine.”

  “Yes.”

  “He looks like you.”

  “That he does.”

  “You serve, Cornelius?”

  “A Marine corporal. First Persian Gulf War. Operation Desert Storm.” Cornelius turned and faced Simon full-on. “You don’t seem surprised.”

  “I’m not.”

  Cornelius rubbed his chin. “Did you see me?”

  “Just a flash.”

  “But enough to figure it out?”

  “I think I would have guessed anyway,” Simon said. “I don’t know how to thank you.”

  “Don’t. I saw Luther heading in, so I followed him. Should have taken him out before he shot Ingrid.”

  “You saved our lives.”

  Cornelius glanced back over at the family photos, as though the images might impart some kind of wisdom to him. “So why are you back here?” he asked.

  “You know why.”

  “To find Paige.”

  “Yes.”

  “She went there too. To that basement. Same as you.” Cornelius moved toward the far corner. “I never saw her after that.”

  “And then Aaron ended up dead.”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you think they killed Paige?”

  “I don’t know.” Cornelius squatted down. He opened a cabinet, revea
ling a safe. “But you should be prepared for bad news, no matter how this shakes out.”

  “I am,” Simon said.

  Cornelius pressed his thumb against the door. Simon heard the beep-beep as the safe read his prints. The door opened. “And you shouldn’t go in this time without backup.”

  He reached inside and pulled out two handguns. He stood up and shut the cabinet. He handed one weapon to Simon and kept the other for himself.

  “You don’t have to do this,” Simon said.

  “You didn’t come here just to thank me, did you?”

  “No.”

  “Let’s go find Rocco.”

  * * *

  The Judge Lester Patterson Houses was one of the city’s oldest and largest low-income housing complexes, featuring fifteen monotonous high-rises of tired brick. The complex sat on more than seventeen acres and housed more than eighteen hundred families.

  Cornelius led the way. The elevators in Building 6 were out of order so they took the stairs. The hour was early, but the place was alive. The stairwells were filled with laughing kids getting ready for school. Adults began their daily treks to the nearby bus and subway stops for the work commute. Most everyone was leaving, heading down the stairs, so that Cornelius and Simon had to swim upstream, two salmon on their way to the eighth floor.

  Rocco’s mother and siblings lived in apartment 8C. Two children sprinted out the door, leaving it open. Simon rapped his knuckles on the door, and a woman’s voice told him to come in.

  Simon entered. Cornelius stayed by the door. Rocco rose from a Barcalounger and started toward him. Again Simon was taken aback by the pure size of the man. A woman came out of the kitchen.

  “Who’s this?” she asked.

  Rocco stared daggers at Simon. “Don’t worry about it, Mama.”

  “Don’t tell me not to worry about it. This is my house.”

  “I got it, Mama. He’s just leaving.” Rocco stepped right up to Simon, spreading out to his full size. Simon was eye to eye with his pectorals. “Aren’t you?”

  Simon tilted so he could see past Rocco, which was no easy task. “I’m looking for my daughter,” he said to Rocco’s mother. “I think your son may know where she is.”

  “Rocco?”

  “Don’t listen to him, Mama.”

  But she wasn’t having any of that. As his mother strode toward him, the big man seemed to wither. “Do you know where this man’s daughter is?”

  “I don’t, Mama.” He sounded liked a ten-year-old now. “I’m telling the truth.”

  Now she turned on Simon. “What makes you think he knows, mister?”

  “Let me talk to him a second, Mama.” Rocco started moving them toward the door. “I got this.”

  Rocco used his bulk to shove Simon back into the corridor, followed him out, and closed the door behind him. “Not cool, man—coming to my mama’s.” He spotted Cornelius. “What the fuck are you doing here?”

  “Just helping him out.”

  Rocco snapped his fingers and pointed at him. “Now I get it. You’re the one who sent him to me in the first place. Get the fuck out of here, both of you.”

  Simon didn’t move. “Rocco?”

  The big man looked down at him. “What?”

  “My wife is in a coma fighting to survive. She got shot in your basement by your man. My daughter is missing. The last place anyone saw her was also in your basement.” Simon didn’t flinch or waver or even move. “I’m not going anywhere until you tell me everything you know.”

  “You think I’m scared of you?”

  “You should be,” Cornelius said.

  “Why’s that?”

  “Look at him, Rocco. He’s a desperate man. You smart enough to know it don’t pay to mess with a desperate man.”

  Rocco did indeed look at him. Simon held his gaze.

  “I’ll tell the police you ordered Luther to shoot us,” Simon said.

  “What? You know that isn’t true.”

  “You called out Luther’s name.”

  “To stop him, man. I didn’t want him to shoot!”

  “I don’t know that. I think it was an order. I think you told him to shoot us.”

  “Ah, I see.” Rocco spread his hands. He looked at Simon and then at Cornelius. “So that’s how it is, is it?”

  Cornelius shrugged.

  “I just want to find my daughter,” Simon said.

  Rocco did a let-me-think-about-it head roll. “Okay, fine, but then I want you gone.”

  Simon nodded.

  “Yeah, she came to me. Paige, I mean. She came to the basement. I could see right away that someone had beaten her up.”

  “Did she say who?”

  “I didn’t have to ask. I knew.”

  “Aaron.”

  Rocco didn’t bother replying.

  “So why did Luther shoot at us?”

  “Because he’s crazy.”

  Simon shook his head. “There’s gotta be more to it than that.”

  “I didn’t tell him to do it.”

  “Who did?”

  “Look, man, the business I’m in—it isn’t an easy one. Always someone trying to move in on us. Aaron, yeah, he was a shitbag. But he was one of us. We figure a rival, shall we say, ‘enterprise’ took him out. Maybe the Fidels.”

  “Fidels?”

  Cornelius said, “Cuban gang,” and even in the middle of all this, with his wife fighting for her life and his daughter God knows where, Simon laughed out loud. The sound echoed in the corridor. People turned and stared.

  “You’re kidding me.”

  “I’m not.”

  “A Cuban gang called the Fidels?”

  Cornelius let a smile hit his lips. “The leader’s name is Castro.”

  “You’re making that up.”

  “Swear to God.”

  Simon spun back toward Rocco. “Why did Paige come to you after this beating?”

  “Why do you think?”

  “For a fix,” Simon said. “Did you give it to her?”

  “She didn’t have any money.”

  “Is that a no?”

  “I’m not a charity,” Rocco said.

  “So what next?”

  “She left, man. Next thing I know, Aaron is dead.”

  “Do you think Paige did it?”

  “Smart money is on the Fidels,” he said. “But yeah, I think there’s a chance Paige killed him. Or maybe you did it, man. Maybe that’s what Luther was thinking. Luther was there when Paige came in. Think about it. Let’s say I’m a father. If some dude hurt my daughter the way Aaron hurt yours, I’d get revenge. So maybe that’s your play.”

  “What’s my play?”

  “Maybe you killed Aaron. And now you’re looking for your daughter to complete the rescue.”

  “That’s not my play,” Simon said.

  But he kind of wished that it was. Rocco was right. If someone hurts your daughter, a father has an obligation to stop him, no matter what. Simon hadn’t. He’d let Paige slip away, trying to throw her useless lifelines instead of doing what a man should do.

  Anything to rescue his child.

  Protect her. Save her.

  Some father he’d turned out to be.

  “She’s probably around here somewhere,” Rocco said. “You can look for her, man, I can’t blame you for trying. But she’s a junkie. Even if you find her, this story won’t have a happy ending.”

  * * *

  Cornelius led the way back to his apartment. When he closed the door behind them, Simon reached into his coat pocket and took out the gun.

  “Here,” Simon said, holding it out toward him.

  “Keep it.”

  “You sure?”

  “I’m sure,” Cornelius said.

  “Do you think Rocco will be able to find her?”

  “With that reward money?”

  Simon had ended up making a simple offer to Rocco: Find Paige and get $50,000.

  “Yeah,” Cornelius said. “If she’s still down here,
he’ll find her.”

  There was a knock on Cornelius’s door.

  “Put that gun back in your pocket,” Cornelius whispered. Then raising his voice: “Who’s there?”

  What sounded like a little old lady with an accent—Polish, Russian, Eastern European maybe—said, “It’s Lizzy, Mr. Cornelius.”

  Cornelius opened the door. The woman was as voice-advertised—small and old. She wore a strange white gown of some sort, long and flowing, almost something you’d wear to bed. Her gray hair ran down her back, loose and unkempt. The hair seemed to be swaying from a breeze, even though there was none.

  “Something I can do for you, Miss Sobek?” Cornelius said.

  The old woman peered around Cornelius with her huge eyes and spotted Simon. “Who are you?” she asked him.

  “My name is Simon Greene, ma’am.”

  “Paige’s father,” Cornelius added.

  The old woman gave Simon a look so heavy he almost stepped back. “You can still save her, you know.”

  Her words chilled him.

  “Do you know where Paige is?” Simon asked.

  Miss Sobek shook her head, the long gray hair dancing across her face like a bead curtain. “But I know what she is.”

  Cornelius cleared his throat, trying to move this along. “Did you want something, Miss Sobek?”

  “Someone is upstairs.”

  “Upstairs?”

  “On the third floor. A woman. She just sneaked into Paige’s apartment. I thought you’d want to know.”

  “Did you recognize her?”

  “Never seen her before.”

  “Thank you, Miss Sobek. I’ll go check right now.”

  Cornelius and Simon stepped back into the corridor. Miss Sobek hurried away.

  “Why did she come to you with this?” Simon asked, following him down the corridor.

  “I’m not just a tenant.”

  “You’re the super?”

  “I’m the owner.”

  They headed up the stairs and down the hall. The yellow tape on the apartment door—blocking off the murder scene, Simon reminded himself—was torn. Cornelius reached out for the knob. Simon realized that he had—intentionally? subconsciously?—put his hand on the gun in his pocket. Is that what happens when you carry? Is it always there, by your side, like some kind of pacifier that calms or gives comfort in stressful situations?