by Harlan Coben
“I know.”
“Paige wasn’t adopted.”
“I know that too.”
“Elena?”
“Yes?”
“What did Damien Gorse tell you?”
“Nothing, Simon. Gorse is dead. Someone murdered him too.”
Chapter
Twenty
Ash always tried to be prepared.
There were fresh clothes in the car for both of them. They managed to change on the move and dumped the old clothes in a charity bin behind a Whole Foods near the New York state border. At a Rite Aid, Dee Dee, donning a baseball cap, bought ten items, but only two really mattered—hair dye and a scissors.
He didn’t go in with her.
There were cameras everywhere. Let them look for a lone woman or lone man. Confuse them. Don’t stay anyplace too long.
Dee Dee had thought she could just color her hair in the Rite Aid bathroom. Ash told her that would be a mistake.
Keep moving. Don’t give them anything to go on.
They drove another ten miles and found an old-school gas station—poorer CCTV, Ash figured. Dee Dee headed into the bathroom wearing the baseball cap. Using the newly bought scissors, she sawed off the long blonde braid and cropped her hair close, then she flushed the cut hair down the toilet. She dyed the shorter locks a subtle auburn, nothing too striking, and put the cap back on her head.
Ash had told her: Always walk with your head tilted down. CCTV cameras shot from above. Always. So wear a cap with a bill and keep your eyes on the ground. Sometimes, depending on the weather, sunglasses were a good idea. Other times, they drew the wrong kind of attention.
“This is overkill,” Dee Dee said.
“Probably.”
But she didn’t argue—and if Dee Dee really had an issue with his precautions, she’d argue.
Once they were back on the road, Dee Dee took off the cap and mussed her hair with her hand. “How do I look?”
He risked a look and felt the ka-boom in his heart.
Dee Dee pulled her knees up to her chest and fell asleep in the seat next to him. Ash kept sneaking glances at her. At a red light, he rolled up a shirt he’d kept in the backseat and placed it between her head and the car door, just to make sure she was comfortable and didn’t hurt herself.
Three hours later, when she woke up, Dee Dee said, “I need to pee.”
Ash pulled off at the next rest stop. They put on baseball caps. Ash bought some chicken fingers and fries to go. When they got back on the highway, Dee Dee asked, “Where are we headed?”
“We don’t know what the cops have on you.”
“That’s not an answer to my question, Ash.”
“You know where we’re going,” he said.
Dee Dee did not reply.
“I know it’s near the Vermont border,” Ash said. “But I don’t know the exact location. You’ll have to direct me.”
“They won’t let you in. No outsiders.”
“Got it.”
“Especially men.”
Ash rolled his eyes. “Gee, that seems normal.”
“That’s the rules. No outside men in Truth Haven.”
“I don’t have to go in, Dee. I just need to drop you off.”
“Why?”
“You know why.”
“You think it’s not safe for me anymore.”
“Bingo.”
“But it’s not up to you to decide what’s safe,” she said. “It’s not up to me either.”
“Don’t tell me,” Ash said. “It’s in God’s hands.”
She smiled at him. It was, as always, even with the strange hair color and new cut, beatific. The smile struck his heart with a gentle boom.
“It’s not just God. It’s the Truth.”
“And who tells you the truth?”
“For those who can never understand, it’s easiest to call him God.”
“He talks to you?”
“Via his personage on earth.”
Ash had studied up on the nonsense of her cult. “That would be Casper Vartage?”
“God made his choice.”
“Vartage is a con man.”
“The devil doesn’t want the Truth to flourish. The devil dies in Truth’s light.”
“So Vartage’s jail time?”
“That’s where he was told the Truth. In solitary. After they beat him and tortured him. Now when the media and outsiders speak ill of him, it is because they are trying to silence the Truth.”
Ash shook his head. Pointless.
“It’s the second exit after the Vermont border,” she said.
Ash flipped the station. The seventies classic “Hey, St. Peter” by Flash and the Pan came on the radio. Ash had to smile. In the song, a man arrives at the gates of heaven and pleads for St. Peter to let him in because living in New York City means he’s already done his time in hell.
“Do you have music at the compound?” Ash asked.
“We call it Truth Haven.”
“Dee Dee.”
“Yes, we have music. Many of our members are talented musicians. They write their own songs.”
“You don’t have outside music?”
“That wouldn’t spread the Truth, Ash.”
“One of Vartage’s rules?”
“Please don’t use his before name.”
“His before name?”
“Yes. It’s forbidden.”
“Before name,” he said again. “You mean like you’re now Holly?”
“Yes.”
“Did he give you that name?”
“The Truth Council did.”
“Who makes up the Truth Council?”
“The Truth, the Volunteer, the Visitor.”
“Three people?”
“Yes.”
“All men?”
“Yes.”
“Like the Trinity.”
She turned toward him. “Nothing like the Trinity.”
No reason to get into that, he thought. “I assume the Truth is Casper Vartage.”
“He is, yes.”
“And the other two?”
“They are the offspring of the Truth. They were born and raised in the Haven.”
“His sons, you mean?”
“It’s not like that, but for your purposes, yes.”
“My purposes?”
“You wouldn’t understand, Ash.”
“Another line from every cult.” He held up a hand before she could admonish him. “And what happens if you question the Truth?”
“Truth is truth. By definition. Anything else is a lie.”
“Wow. So everything your leader says is gospel.”
“Can the lion not be a lion? He’s the Truth. How can what he says not be true?”
Ash shook his head as they crossed into Vermont. He kept sneaking glances at her.
“Dee Dee?”
She closed her eyes.
“Do you really want me to call you Holly?”
“No,” she said. “It’s okay. When I’m not in Truth Haven, I’m not Holly, am I?”
“Uh-huh.”
She said, “Dee Dee can do things that Holly cannot.”
“Nice moral out.”
“Isn’t it?”
Ash tried not to grin. “I think I like Dee Dee more.”
“Yes, I think you do. But Holly is more complete. Holly is happy and understands the Truth.”
“Dee Dee?” Then, pausing, he sighed and said: “Or should I say, ‘Holly’?”
“This exit.” He took it. “What, Ash?”
“Can I be blunt?”
“Yes.”
“How can you believe this crap?”
He glanced at her. She tucked her legs up so that she was sitting cross-legged in the seat. “I really do love you, Ash.”
“I love you too.”
“You did some Googling, Ash? On the Shining Truth?”
He had. Their leader, Casper Vartage, was born of a mysterious birth in 1945. His mother claimed to
have woken up one day seven months pregnant—the very moment her husband died leading the charge on Normandy Beach. There is no proof of any of this, of course. But this is the story. As a youngster in Nebraska, Casper was considered a “grain healer” and farmers sought him out during droughts and the like. Again no one backs up this claim. Vartage rebelled against his powers—something about the Truth being so potent he tried to fight it off—and ended up in prison sometime around 1970 for fraud. That part—the fraud—there is evidence of and plenty of it.
After losing an eye in a prison fight and being thrown into a hellhole described as the “heat box,” ol’ Casper was visited by an angel. Hard to say if Vartage just made this part up out of whole cloth or if the sun caused delusions. Either way, the angel who visited him is known in the cult’s clever folklore as the Visitor. The Visitor told him about the Truth and the symbol he had to find behind a rock in the Arizona desert when he was free, which supposedly he did.
There was more crap like that, typical nonsense mythology, and now “The Shining Truth” had a compound where they brainwashed disciples, mostly women, or beat or drugged or raped them.
“I don’t expect you to see the Truth,” Dee Dee said.
“I just don’t get how you don’t see this is a crazy-ass cult.”
She angled her body toward him. “Do you remember Mrs. Kensington?”
Mrs. Kensington, a foster mother they’d had in common, took those in her care to church twice a week—Tuesday afternoons for Bible studies and Sunday mornings for mass. Always. She never missed them.
“Of course you do.”
“She was good to us,” he agreed.
“Yes, she was. Do you still go to church, Ash?”
“Rarely,” he said.
“You liked it though. When we were kids.”
“It was quiet. I liked the quiet.”
“Do you remember the stories that we heard back then?”
“Sure.”
“Mrs. Kensington believed every one of them.”
“I know.”
“So remind me: How old was Noah when he built the ark?”
“Dee Dee.”
“Somewhere around five hundred years old, if I recall. Do you really think Noah put two of every creature on that ark? There are a million types of insects alone. Think he managed to get them all on board? That all makes sense to you and all the Mrs. Kensingtons out there—but the Truth doesn’t?”
“It’s not the same thing.”
“Sure it is. We sat in that church and Mrs. Kensington had tears in her eyes and nodded when they told us about salvation. Do you remember the stories?”
Ash frowned.
“Let me see if I can recap: A celestial baby boy, who was his own father, was born to a married virgin. Then the baby’s father—who was also him—tortured and killed him. Oh, but then he came back from the dead like a zombie, but if you eat his flesh, which is a wafer, and drink his wine blood and promise to kiss his ass, he will suck all the evil out of you—”
“Dee Dee—”
“Wait, I’m getting to the best part. The reason why there is evil at all in the world—do you remember this part, Ash?”
He did, but he kept quiet.
“No? Oh, you’ll love this. Evil exists because an airheaded bimbo, who started life as a man’s rib, got tricked into eating a piece of bad fruit by a talking reptile.” Dee Dee clapped her hands together and fell back on the car seat, laughing. “Do I need to go into the other stuff? The parting of seas, the prophets ascending on animals up to the sky, Abraham pimping out his wife to the pharaoh? How about even now, all these ‘holy’ men who live in Roman compounds with homoerotic art and wear costumes that would make a drag queen blush?”
He just kept on driving.
“Ash?”
“What?”
“It may sound like I’m mocking these beliefs,” she said, “or that I’m mocking Mrs. Kensington.”
“That it does.”
“I’m not. My point is, maybe before you dismiss other beliefs as wacko, you should take a closer look at the stories that ‘normal’”—Dee Dee air-quoted—“people find credible. We think all religions are crazy—except our own.”
He didn’t want to admit it, but she had a point. And yet something in her tone…
“The Truth is more than a religion. It’s a living, breathing entity. The Truth has always existed. It will always exist. Most people’s God lives in the past—thousands of years ago, stuck in old books. Why? Do they think God gave up on them? Mine is here. Today. In the real world. When this Truth dies, his offspring will continue. Because the Truth lives. The Truth, if you could be objective, Ash, if you hadn’t been brainwashed by the big religions since childbirth, makes more sense than talking snakes or elephant gods, doesn’t it?”
Ash said nothing.
“Ash?”
“What?”
“Talk to me.”
“I don’t know what to say.”
“Maybe that’s because you’re hearing the Truth.”
“Uh no, that’s not it.”
“Take your next right,” she said. “We’re getting close.”
The road was one lane now, with forest on either side.
“You don’t have to go back,” Ash said.
Dee Dee turned and stared out her window.
“I have some money saved,” Ash continued. “We could go somewhere. Just you and me. Buy a place. You could be Holly with me.”
She didn’t reply.
“Dee?”
“Yes.”
“Did you hear me?”
“I did.”
“You don’t have to go back.”
“Shh. We’re getting close now.”
Chapter
Twenty-One
Simon called the phone number on Professor van de Beek’s bio page. After two rings, it went to voicemail. Simon left a message asking van de Beek to call him back about his daughter, Paige Greene. Simon doubled up then, sending an email to the professor with the same request.
He called both Sam and Anya, but the calls went right into voicemail, which was no surprise. Kids never talked on the phone, only texted. He should have known better. He sent them both the same text:
You okay? Wanna call me?
Sam answered right away.
All good. Nah no need.
Again, no surprise.
He started back toward New York City. He and Ingrid shared a stream or cloud or whatever, so that all his photos and documents and all her photos and documents were in the same place. Music too. They shared a service, so he told Siri to play Ingrid’s most recent playlist and sat back and listened.
The first song Ingrid had put on her playlist made him smile: “The Girl from Ipanema,” the 1964 version sung by Astrud Gilberto.
Sublime.
Simon shook his head, still in awe of the woman who had somehow, out of all the options, chosen him. Him. Whatever life had thrown at him, whatever turns he’d made or bizarre forks he’d seen in the road, that fact—that Ingrid had chosen him—always kept him balanced, made him thankful, guided him home.
The phone rang. The caller ID appeared on the car’s navigation screen.
Yvonne.
He quickly answered it.
“It’s not about Ingrid,” Yvonne said right away. “No change there.”
“What then?”
“And nothing is wrong.”
“Okay.”
“Today is the third Tuesday of the month,” she said.
He’d forgotten about Sadie Lowenstein.
“Not a big deal,” Yvonne continued. “I can call Sadie for you and postpone or I can head out myself or—”
“No, I’ll go.”
“Simon…”
“No, I want to. It’s on my way anyhow.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah. If something changes with Ingrid—”
“I’ll call you. Or Robert will. He’s taking over for me soon.”
“Anya is with your neighbor. Sam is on his phone all the time, texting or whatever. He’d started dating a girl two weeks ago. Did you know that?”
Another pang, though a small one this time. “No.”
“The girlfriend wants to come down from Amherst and sit here with him, which is making him smile in spite of himself, but Sam’s told her not to yet.”
“I’ll be back soon.”
“They miss you, but they don’t need you, if you know what I mean. They get what you’re doing.”
* * *
Sadie Lowenstein lived in a brick colonial in Yonkers, New York, just north of the Bronx. The neighborhood was no-frills and working class. Sadie had lived here for fifty-seven of her eighty-three years. She could afford better. As her financial advisor, Simon knew that better than anyone. She could get a place down in Florida for the rough winters too, a condo maybe, but she scoffed. No interest. She took two trips per year to Vegas. That was it. Other than that, she liked her old home.
Sadie still smoked and had the raspy voice to prove it. She wore an old-school housedress/muumuu. They sat in her kitchen, at the round Formica table where Sadie once sat with her husband Frank and their twin boys, Barry and Greg. They were gone from here now. Barry died of AIDS in 1992. Frank succumbed to cancer in 2004. Greg, the only one still living, had moved out to Phoenix and rarely came home to visit.
The floor was filmy linoleum. A clock above the sink had the numbers displayed with red dice, a souvenir from one of her early Vegas trips with Frank, maybe twenty years ago.
“Sit,” Sadie said. “I’ll make you some of that tea you like so much.”
The tea was a store-brand chamomile with lemon and honey. He didn’t drink tea. For Simon, tea was weak, a “coffee wannabe,” and much as he wanted tea to be something more, tea always ended up being little more than brown water.
But a decade ago—maybe more, he couldn’t remember anymore—Sadie had made him tea with this particular flavor bought at this particular store, and she’d asked him if he liked it, and he said, “Very much,” and now that tea was here, waiting for him, every time he visited.
“It’s hot, so be careful.”
A monthly calendar, the kind with generic photographs of mountains and rivers, hung on the ivory-to-yellow refrigerator. Banks used to hand out calendars like these for free. Maybe banks still did that. Sadie was getting them somewhere.
