Run Away

by Harlan Coben

  At Christmastime, visitors chopped down their own Christmas trees. In October, they set up the place as the “Haunted Farm,” complete with the “Haunted Maze,” the “Haunted Silo,” the “Haunted Hayride” (key word: Haunted) driven by the “Haunted Headless Horseman.” There was also seasonal pumpkin and apple picking. You could make your own cider in the small cabin on the right.

  Simon parked the car and headed toward the inn’s front door. An ornate sign by the door said, INN GUESTS ONLY. Simon ignored it and entered the foyer. The decor was of the period and more formal than Simon would have expected. Cherrywood chairs with fanned Windsor backs sat on either side of mahogany settees with winged paw feet. The grandfather clock stood next to the oversized fireplace like a sentinel. One mahogany breakfront displayed fine china, the other leather-bound books. There were old oil portraits of stern-looking, hearty men—past patriarchs of the Corval family.

  “May I help you?”

  The woman behind the desk smiled at him. She wore a blouse checkered in the same design as those Italian restaurants that were trying too hard to be authentic. He wondered whether this woman was Aaron’s mother, but then he followed the old oil portraits until he reached a framed photograph of a smiling couple circling sixty behind her head. A plaque under the photograph read:

  THE CORVALS

  Wiley and Enid

  Simon said, “I’m here for the memorial service.”

  The woman gave him suspicious, if not stink, eye. “May I ask your name?”

  “Simon Greene.”

  “I don’t know you, Mr. Greene.”

  He nodded. “I knew Aaron.”

  “You knew Aaron,” she said, her voice tinged with disbelief, “and you’re here to pay your respects?”

  Simon didn’t bother to reply. The woman took out a pamphlet and opened it carefully. Her reading glasses were dangling from a chain. She put them on the end of her nose. “You head back behind the barn. Turn right here. You’ll see the corn maze. Don’t go in it. Twice this week we’ve had to send in employees to get people out. Walk around here.”

  She pointed on the map.

  “There’s a path into the woods. Head down it. You’ll see a green arrow on a tree pointing right. That’s for the hikers. You instead turn left.”

  “Complicated,” Simon said.

  She handed him the pamphlet and frowned at him. “This lobby is only for guests staying at the inn.”

  “And subtle.”

  He thanked her and headed back outside. The hayride was getting under way, a tractor pulling a bunch of people at much too slow a pace. Everyone was smiling, though they looked pretty uncomfortable. A family—man, woman, daughter, son—waved at him in unison. He waved back, and boom, he dropped back in time to taking the kids apple picking in Chester, just north of the New Jersey border. It had been a glorious autumn day, and yes, he remembered putting Paige on his shoulders so that she could reach a higher branch, but what he remembered most, right now, as he stood there and tried not to stare at this happy, innocent, blissfully ignorant family, was the way Ingrid looked in her dark flannel shirt tucked into thin-legged blue jeans and high boots. He had just turned toward her, Paige giggling on his shoulders, and Ingrid had smiled back at him, tucking her hair behind her ear, and even now, just thinking about how their eyes met on that day, Simon could feel his knees give way just a little bit.

  He grabbed his phone and stared at the screen for a few seconds, willing it to give him good news. It didn’t.

  He followed the route past the petting zoo barn. The chickens were loose. One ran up to him, stopped, looked up at him. Simon was tempted to try to pet it. A man dressed in farmer overalls was giving a demonstration involving eggs and an incubator. The corn stalks at the maze were ten feet high. There was a line to get in and a sign telling visitors that the maze’s theme for this year was THE FIFTY STATES—FIND THEM ALL.

  He spotted the walking path, took it as told to the green arrow, turned left when the arrow wanted him to turn right. The woods grew thicker. He looked back to where he’d started, but he couldn’t see the clearing anymore.

  Simon kept going, the path sloping down now, steeper and steeper. He heard what sounded like running water in the distance. A brook maybe. The path veered right. The trees in front of him thinned until Simon found himself in a clearing. It was a perfect square, the clearing made by man rather than natural design. A low wooden picket fence, a foot high, no more, formed the perimeter around small tombstones.

  A family plot.

  Simon stopped.

  Behind the clearing was indeed a roaring brook and a faded teakwood bench. Simon didn’t think the dead cared much, but for the living, this would be a Zen place to grieve and meditate on those you lost.

  A man Simon recognized as Wiley Corval, Aaron’s father, stood alone, staring down at a newer tombstone. Simon waited. Wiley Corval eventually lifted his head toward him.

  “Who are you?” he asked.

  “My name is Simon Greene.”

  Wiley Corval looked a question at him.

  “I’m Paige’s father.”

  “Did she do it?”

  Simon said nothing.

  “Did she kill my son?”

  “No.”

  “How do you know for sure?”

  “I don’t.” The man was about to bury his son. It wasn’t the time to lie. “I could tell you my daughter is not a killer, but that’s not going to offer you much comfort, is it?”

  Wiley Corval just stared at him.

  “But I don’t think it was Paige. The death…it was violent. Do you know the details?”

  “Yes.”

  “I don’t think she could do that.”

  “But you don’t know, do you?”

  “I don’t, no.”

  He turned away. “Leave.”

  “Paige is missing.”

  “I don’t care.”

  In the distance, Simon could hear the scream-laughter of children, probably coming from the corn maze. Aaron Corval had grown up here, in this Norman Rockwell painting come to life, and look how it ended up. Then again, in all fairness, hadn’t Paige been raised in a slightly altered version of an idyllic childhood? And not just on paper. We all see the picket fences or the pretty facades, the two smiling parents, the healthy siblings, all that, and part of us gets that we have zero idea what’s going on behind closed doors, that there is anger and abuse, shattered dreams and blown expectations.

  But that hadn’t been the case with Paige.

  Were their lives perfect?

  Of course not.

  Were their lives pretty close to perfect?

  As close, Simon imagined, as you get.

  And yet their daughter had succumbed to the worst out there. Simon had asked himself a million questions, pondered every decision—had he shown enough interest, paid attention to her friends and studies, supported her hobbies? Were they too strict or too lax? There was that time Simon had exploded in anger and actually thrown a glass on the floor during dinner. Just once. Years ago. He remembered how Paige, only eight at the time, had started to shiver.

  Was that to blame?

  You go through every damn moment like that because even though his mother had warned him, “Kids don’t come with instruction manuals,” and you quickly learn that your child comes to you hardwired, that in the battle of nature vs nurture, nature kicks complete and total ass—still, when things go wrong, when something this dark invades your child’s soul, you can only wonder where the hell you went wrong.

  From behind him, a woman asked, “Who’s this?”

  Simon spun toward the voice. Again he recognized her from the picture in the foyer—Aaron’s mother, Enid. There were people traipsing down the path with her, ten or twelve, Simon estimated, including a man with a clergy collar carrying a Bible.

  “Just a nice gentleman who walked down the wrong path,” Wiley Corval said.

  Simon considered countering that with the truth—full-on confronta
tion, to hell with niceties—but he concluded that it would probably backfire. He muttered an apology and started past the family and friends and back up toward the farm. There was no one close to Aaron’s age here, and Simon remembered Paige telling him something about Aaron being an only child. That meant there’d be no sibling to question—and none of these people looked the right age to be a close friend, if indeed a junkie like Aaron had any close friends.

  So now what?

  Let them have their service, he thought. Whatever their son had turned into, Wiley and Enid had lost him now—brutally, suddenly, unnaturally, permanently. Give them this moment.

  When he got back to the clearing, a group of kids Simon estimated were around ten or eleven years old emerged from the maze breathless. They all started high-fiving each other. Simon pulled out his phone. There were a lot of messages. He went to his favorites. Ingrid was listed first. Yvonne was second, and then Paige (whose number no longer worked but he still kept it in Favorites), Sam, Anya. Age order with the kids. Only fair.

  He hit Yvonne’s number.

  “No change,” Yvonne said.

  “I have to be there with her.”

  “No, you don’t.”

  He looked back at the kids who’d just finished the corn maze. They all had their phones out now, some taking photos, both selfies and group shots, others doing whatever it was we all do on those screens.

  “Reverse roles,” Yvonne said. “You’re the one shot. You’re the one lying here in a coma. Do you want Ingrid sitting next to you and holding your hand? Or—”

  “Yeah, okay, I get it.”

  “So have you found Aaron’s family?”

  He filled her in on what had just occurred.

  “So what’s your plan?”

  “Hang here. Wait until the service is over. Try to talk to them again.”

  “The father doesn’t sound amenable,” Yvonne said. “A mother might be more understanding.”

  “Sexist,” he said.

  “Yep.”

  “How are things at work?”

  “We got you covered.”

  Simon hung up and moved back to his car. He took out his phone again and started to listen to the messages. Word about the shooting had somehow not yet made the papers, so most of the messages were mercifully client- rather than solace-related. He returned some of the client calls, not mentioning his own situation, making it just another workday. Doing something routine was comforting.

  He was blocking on Ingrid. He knew that. But he also knew that was the right way to go right now.

  Half an hour later, while discussing with Dr. Daniel Brocklehurst, a neurosurgeon at Mount Sinai, the financial benefits of retiring in Florida versus Arizona, Simon spotted the mourners coming back over the gentle hill. They were led by Wiley Corval and the clergyman. Wiley’s back was bent over in apparent if not melodramatic grief, and the clergyman had his arm around his shoulders, whispering what Simon assumed were words of comfort. The other mourners trailed them, some squinting up into the sun, others nodding to passing tourists.

  In the back of the group—way in the back, come to think of it—was Enid Corval, Aaron’s mother. For a brief flash, Simon imagined them as a pack of gazelles and him the lion, readying to take down the one farthest away from the pack. Silly image, but there you go.

  But that one would be Enid, the mother.

  Simon kept watching. Enid looked distracted. She glanced at her watch, slowing her walk, staying farther and farther back from the rest of the mourners. Alone.

  Odd, Simon thought. She was the mother. You’d think a few of them would be with her, putting an arm around her, offering her comforting words. No one did.

  She was also dressed differently. The rest of the group, including Wiley Corval, had gone with the blue-blazer, khaki, loafer-sans-socks spirit, even if that wasn’t exactly what they were wearing. Poor man’s yacht club. Enid wore mom jeans, Velcro white sneakers, and a stretched-out cable-knit sweater that was a yellow usually found on a Ticonderoga pencil.

  Wiley and the clergyman started up the porch steps. The receptionist who’d helped Simon greeted Wiley at the door with a buss on the cheek. The rest of the mourners filed in after him.

  Except Enid.

  She was now trailing the group far enough that she remained outside after the door had closed. She glanced left, then right, then headed behind the inn.

  Simon wasn’t sure what his move was here. Get out of the car and confront? Stay where he was and see where she was going?

  When Enid Corval disappeared around the back of the inn, Simon slid out of the car to get a better view. He spotted her getting into a pickup truck. She started it up and put the truck into reverse. Simon hurried back to his car and hit the ignition button.

  Thirty seconds later, he was following Enid Corval’s pickup down Tom Wheeler Road.

  The road was lined with low stone walls offering a modicum of protection to the vast farmland on both sides. Simon didn’t know enough about this area—were these real farms or for show or what?—but most looked pretty worn and dilapidated.

  Fifteen minutes later, the pickup truck pulled into a dirt parking lot with like-minded vehicles. There was no sign visible advertising a name or description for this establishment. Enid got out of the pickup and headed toward a converted barn with aluminum siding, like it’d been snapped together. The color was faux bright orange, like a clown’s hair.

  Simon pulled in, self-conscious of his Audi, and cruised to a far corner. He looked to his left. Hidden from the road on the far side of the barn were a couple of dozen motorcycles lined up in two anally straight lines. Harley-Davidsons for the most part. Simon didn’t know much about motorcycles, had never been on one, but even from this vantage point, he could spot the iconic Harley logo on a few of the bikes.

  Enid was heading across the dirt lot for the saloon-style doors. Two husky men in leather chaps and black bandannas poured out into the lot before she arrived. Their thick, somewhat flabby arms were loaded with tats. Both sported paunches and the prerequisite beard. Bikers.

  They greeted Enid warmly with handshakes and hugs. She kissed one on the cheek and disappeared inside. Simon debated waiting for her to come back out—this place clearly wasn’t his usual hangout—but that seemed like a waste of time. He turned off his car and started for the swinging doors.

  When he pushed them open, he somehow expected that the music would stop and everyone would turn and stare at the interloper. But no one did. There was also no music playing. A television old enough for rabbit ears showed a baseball game. The bar was odd. Too wide in spots, space enough for a dance maybe, but Simon doubted that there’d been one recently. There was a jukebox in the right corner, but it was unplugged. The floor beneath him was mostly dirt, the same as the parking lot.

  Enid Corval took a seat at the bar. Considering it was only eleven a.m., business seemed pretty brisk. There were maybe ten people scattered amongst the thirty or so stools, equally spaced apart, no one right next to anyone else, like men’s urinals in a public bathroom. They all huddled over their drink, eyes down in protective, don’t-converse-with-me mode. A group of bikers on the right played pool on a table with ugly rips in the green fabric.

  There were cans of Pabst Blue Ribbon everywhere.

  Simon sported a dress shirt, tie, and black loafers—he had, after all, been heading to a memorial service—while half the guys in here wore cotton gym tanks with no sleeves, a look no man over forty should ever try, no matter how well built. And these guys weren’t well built.

  Hats off to them, Simon thought, for not caring.

  He took a stool two away from Enid. She didn’t look up from her drink or glance his way. On the other side of him a guy wearing a porkpie hat was bouncing his head up and down as though to music but no music was playing and he wasn’t wearing earphones. A rainbow of rusted license plates took up most of the back wall—probably plates representing all fifty states, but Simon wasn’t really up for checking.
There were neon signs for Miller High Life and Schlitz. An oddly ornate chandelier hung from the ceiling. This place, like the inn, was all dark wood, but that was the only similarity, like this was the poorest of poor cousins of the inn’s rich dark wood.

  “What’ll you have?”

  The barmaid’s hair was the color and texture of the hay on that hayride and done in a quasi mullet that reminded Simon of an ’80s hockey player. She was either a hard forty-five or a soft sixty-five, and there was little question she had seen it all at least twice.

  “What kind of beer do you have?” he asked.

  “We have Pabst. And Pabst.”

  “You choose for me.”

  Enid still had her eye on her drink, not so much as glancing in his direction, when she said, “You’re Paige’s dad.”

  “Wiley tell you?”

  She shook her head, still not looking at him. “He didn’t say a word. Why did you come today?”

  “To pay my respects.”

  “That’s a lie.”

  “Yeah, it is. But I am sorry for your loss.”

  She didn’t react to or acknowledge that. “So why are you here?”

  “My daughter is missing.”

  The barmaid opened the can and plopped it in front of him.

  Enid finally turned her head toward him. “Since when?”

  “Since Aaron’s murder.”

  “That’s can’t be a coincidence.”

  “I agree.”

  “Your daughter probably killed him and ran.”

  Just like that. No emotion in her voice.

  “Would it matter,” Simon said, “if I said I don’t think that’s the case?”

  Enid made a maybe-yes, maybe-no gesture. “You gamble at all?”

  “No.”

  “Yeah, but you’re some big stockbroker or something, right?”

  “I do financial advising.”