Seconds Away

by Harlan Coben

  I wanted to pump my fist and shout, "YES!" but I managed to keep my emotions in check. "Thank you, Coach."

  "Don't thank me. You'll either earn it or you won't." He looked back down and started writing. "Varsity tryouts are at four thirty. I'll see you then."

  I rose and started for the door.

  "Mickey?"

  I turned back.

  "I know you've already had issues with some of the seniors. Guys like Troy and Buck."

  "Yes, sir."

  "They are a very tight group--Troy, Buck, Brandon, Alec. They won't be happy with this move. If you make the team, you'll be taking a spot from one of their closest friends."

  I shrugged. "Not much I can do about that."

  "Yes, Mickey, there is. We will need cohesion to be successful on the court. Try to remember that. Be the bigger man."

  CHAPTER 27

  When I got to the cafeteria, Ms. Owens, the teacher I liked least (which was a nice way of saying "did not like" or even "hated"), gave me the evil eye and said, "Hall pass?"

  I gave it to her. Ms. Owens studied it as though I were a terrorist carrying a fake passport. After a few more long seconds, she grudgingly let me in. I headed over to my normal table. Spoon and Ema were already in place, though there were two chairs separating them.

  "Where were you?" Ema asked.

  "Mr. Grady wanted to see me."

  "Are you in trouble?" Spoon asked.

  "No. Just the opposite."

  As I explained about getting a varsity tryout, I spotted Troy and Buck. They had changed tables so that they sat now only with boys--more specifically, only boys on the varsity basketball team. I wondered whether they knew that I would join them at tryouts today. My eyes stayed on the table a beat too long.

  Spoon said, "Your future teammates."

  "Yep."

  "You know Buck and Troy, of course. Have you met any of the others?"

  "No."

  "Well, Troy is one captain. The other is Brandon Foley. He's at the end of the table. He's the tallest player on the team. Six foot eight."

  I had seen Brandon Foley in the corridors, and I often heard his voice over the morning announcements.

  "He's student council president," Spoon said.

  "And," Ema added, "he's also Troy Taylor's best friend. They've lived on the same street since birth and started playing together when they were in diapers, which in their case might have been last year."

  Terrific.

  As I was looking over at the table, Brandon Foley turned and met my gaze. I expected the standard mocking glare, but Brandon didn't do that. He made sure that I was looking at him and then he nodded in a gentle, almost supportive way.

  Troy was sitting next to him. He turned to see where his friend was looking, so I quickly diverted my gaze.

  "You okay?" Ema asked.

  "Fine, but I have really big news."

  I told them about the fire at Bat Lady's house. They listened with their mouths agape. When I told them about the portraits in the corridor, Spoon spoke for the first time.

  "Obvious," he said.

  "What?"

  "Those pictures. It was a gallery of the children the Abeona Shelter has saved."

  I told them about getting arrested, about Uncle Myron showing up, and how Angelica Wyatt was the one who saved me from a night in prison. Ema seemed annoyed by this.

  "Wait, how does your uncle know Angelica Wyatt?"

  "She's smoking hot," Spoon added.

  We looked at him.

  "I'm talking about Angelica Wyatt," Spoon explained.

  "Yeah," Ema said, "we got that." She turned back to me. "So?"

  "I don't know. Myron is her bodyguard or something."

  "I thought he was a sports agent."

  "He is. I don't get it either, but Angelica Wyatt knew my mom too."

  "What are you talking about?" There was a snap in Ema's voice now. "How would she have known your mother?"

  "They were, like, celebrity friends when they were young. My mom was a big tennis star, Angelica was a young actress. I guess they hung out. What's the difference?"

  Ema just frowned.

  "I have a thought," Spoon said.

  Ema gave him a withering look. "I can hardly wait to hear this."

  "This sandy-blond guy. Let's call him the Butcher, okay?"

  "What about him?"

  Spoon pushed up his glasses. "He tried to kill you. Doesn't it make sense that maybe he also tried to kill Rachel?"

  Silence.

  "And if that's the case, wouldn't it follow that maybe, just maybe, he's trying to kill us all?"

  More silence.

  "I hate to admit it," Ema said, "but Spoon may have a point."

  "Thank you. I'm not just eye candy for the ladies, you know."

  "We are going to have to be extra careful," I said.

  "Has anyone heard from Rachel since we sneaked into the hospital?" Spoon asked.

  So here we were. I could lie to them or I could betray Rachel's confidence. I aimed for something in between. "I have," I said as, mercifully, the bell rang. "But for right now, I need to leave it at that."

  "What's that supposed to mean?" Ema asked.

  "Yeah," Spoon added. "Aren't we in this together?"

  "Just . . . trust me here." I remembered my schedule--visit Rachel, basketball tryouts. Hmm. They were both still looking at me, waiting for more. "How about this? Let's meet right after basketball tryouts. I should be able to tell you more then."

  CHAPTER 28

  When the final bell rang, I got my backpack and prepared for the walk to Rachel's house. I was just closing my locker when I heard Mrs. Friedman say, "Mr. Bolitar? A word, please."

  Some kids nearby said, "Oooo, you're in trouble."

  Mature, right?

  After I moved into her classroom, Mrs. Friedman closed the door behind us. "I found something you might find interesting," she said.

  "Oh?"

  "I have a colleague who works at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC. Have you ever been?"

  "No, ma'am."

  Her face looked so sad. "You should. Everyone should. It is horrible and yet so necessary. You go into that museum one person, you come out another. At least, you do if you have a conscience. Anyway, I spoke to my colleague and I asked her about Hans Zeidner, the Butcher of Lodz."

  I waited for her to say more. When she didn't, I said, "Thank you."

  Mrs. Friedman pinned me down with her eyes. "Do you want to tell me why you're so interested in this subject?"

  I almost did. I thought about all that I knew, about Lizzy Sobek being the Bat Lady and living so close to where we now stood. I thought about the Butcher and my father and the fire. But in the end, I knew that I shouldn't and couldn't.

  "I can't," I said. "Not yet anyway."

  I figured that there would be a follow-up question, but there wasn't. Instead Mrs. Friedman opened her desk drawer and said, "Here."

  There was a photograph in her hand. I took it from her. It was another old black-and-white picture of a man wearing a Waffen-SS uniform. The man in the photograph had dark hair and a thin mustache. His nose was pointy and mouselike. His eyes were two black marbles.

  "Thank you," I said, looking up at her. "Who is this?"

  Mrs. Friedman made a face. "'Who is this?'"

  "Yes. Who is the man in the photograph?"

  "Who do you think?" Mrs. Friedman said. "It's Hans Zeidner. The Butcher of Lodz."

  CHAPTER 29

  Occam's Razor.

  My father had often repeated that one to me. Occam's Razor states the following: "Other things being equal, a simpler explanation is better than a more complex one." Put more succinctly, the simplest answer was usually the best one.

  So why hadn't I even considered the simple possibility that Bat Lady's photograph was merely Photoshopped?

  As I walked to Rachel's house, my mind traveled between rage at Bat Lady and rage at myself--mostly at myself. How
could I be so gullible? In this day and age when any idiot with a computer can alter an image, why had I jumped to the conclusion that a Nazi from World War II hadn't aged a day in nearly seventy years and now worked as a San Diego paramedic?

  What kind of naive dope am I?

  The sandy-blond paramedic with the green eyes was not the Butcher of Lodz. He was not ninety years old. He was not the same man who had tortured and killed scores in 1940s Poland, including Lizzy Sobek's father. Ema had simply Photoshopped the guy's face onto a modern photograph to send out to San Diego, right? Why couldn't someone do the opposite--take a picture of a guy in his thirties and superimpose it on an old black-and-white?

  Someone--the Bat Lady or Shaved Head, I guessed--had fooled me with simple digital photography.

  Why? And what could I do about it?

  It would have to wait. Right now, I had to concentrate on Rachel. When I approached her house, I saw a police car pulling out. I ducked behind a tree. Chief Taylor was in the driver's seat. No one was with him. As he drove past, he looked distracted and . . . scared?

  I didn't know what to make of that. I waited until the police car was out of sight before making my approach. The gate at the entrance to Rachel's driveway had closed after Chief Taylor drove out. I pressed an intercom button and looked up into the camera. Rachel said, "I'll buzz you in." She was waiting for me at the front door. Other than the bandage on the side of her head, you would never guess that she'd been shot. Of course, the bullet hadn't entered her skin, just skimming the scalp, but somehow that made it all the more poignant. Probably half an inch, no more, was the difference between minor injuries and death.

  The thought made me want to hug her, but it didn't feel right.

  "I'm so glad to see you're okay," I said.

  Rachel gave me a tight smile and kissed my cheek. She wore a short-sleeved shirt so that the burn mark was visible. I had always wanted to ask her how that had happened because it still looked painful, but of course, now was not the time. The red in her eyes told me that she'd been crying recently and probably a lot.

  "I'm so sorry about your mom."

  "Thank you."

  "Did I just see Chief Taylor drive out?"

  Rachel nodded and frowned.

  "What did he want?" I asked.

  "I don't know. He's been talking to my father a lot. Every time I come near them, they tell me it's nothing. Oh, and Chief Taylor keeps asking me what I remember."

  He had done that at the hospital too. "I guess that's normal. Him investigating what happened and all."

  "I guess," Rachel said. But she didn't seem convinced. "It's just weird."

  "Weird how?"

  "He seems on edge or something."

  Rachel shrugged and led me down the hall. We stopped at an open doorway with yellow crime-scene tape across it. This, I could see, was clearly where it had happened. There was still blood on the floor. I moved closer to Rachel. She began to shake. I put my arm around her and pulled her toward me.

  "Why don't we go somewhere else?" I said as gently as I could.

  "No, it's okay. I wanted to show this to you."

  The house was silent.

  "Who's home with you?" I asked.

  "No one."

  That surprised me. "Where are your father and stepmother?"

  "My stepmother needed a vacation--thankfully. She's at a spa in Arizona. My father is at work." When she saw the concerned look on my face, she waved it away. "Believe me, it's better."

  For a moment we both just stared at the blood on the floor. Rachel's eyes flooded with tears again. Not sure what to say, I went with, "Do you want to tell me what happened?"

  "I got my mother killed," Rachel said. "It's as simple as that."

  Now I really wasn't sure what to say. When I spoke again, I did so slowly and carefully. "I don't see how that could be true."

  "I got her to come here. I put my mother right in the crossfire."

  "What crossfire?"

  Rachel shook her head. "It doesn't matter anymore."

  "Of course it does. Someone tried to kill you--and last night . . ." I stopped.

  "Last night what?"

  "Last night, someone tried to kill me."

  Her body stiffened. "What are you talking about?"

  I told her about the Butcher and the fire at Bat Lady's house. Rachel stood there, stunned. "Is she okay?"

  "Bat Lady? I don't know. I never saw her."

  "I don't understand this," Rachel said.

  We both looked back toward the room.

  "Tell me what happened," I said.

  "I don't remember all of it."

  "Tell me what you do remember."

  I turned toward Rachel. The lights were low, casting a shadow on her lovely face. I wanted so badly to reach out and touch her cheek and pull her close. I didn't. I stood and waited.

  "I have to go back a little," Rachel said. "I have to explain why my mom was here in the first place."

  "Okay. No rush."

  "Well, yeah, there is." She almost smiled. "Don't you have tryouts?"

  "There's time."

  Rachel stared down at the bloodstain on the carpet. "I was angry at my mother for a very long time. I thought she abandoned me."

  I looked down at the blood too.

  "My mother left us when I was ten. My father told me she still loved me, but that she needed to"--Rachel made quote marks with her fingers--"rest. I didn't know what that meant. I mean, in some ways I still don't. I just knew that she'd abandoned me. My parents got divorced, and I didn't see my mother for three years."

  "Three years? Wow."

  "I didn't even know where she was."

  I thought about that. "The other day, you told me that your mother lived in Florida."

  "That wasn't exactly true. I mean, she was in Florida, at least part of the time . . ." Rachel stopped and shook her head. "I'm telling this all wrong."

  "It's okay," I said. "Take your time."

  "Okay, so where was I? The divorce. The next time I saw my mother, I was thirteen years old. She just showed up after school one day. I mean, it was so surreal, you know? Mom was just standing there with the other mothers, smiling like . . . well, a crazy person. She looked horrible. She had too much bright red lipstick on, and her hair was all over the place. She wanted to drive me home, but I was actually scared of her. I called my dad. When he showed up, there was this big horrible scene. My mother went berserk. She started screaming at him, about how he had locked her up, how she knew the truth about him."

  The temperature in the room felt like it dropped ten degrees.

  "So what happened next?" I asked.

  "My father got really quiet. He just stood there and let her rant, until the police came. It was so horrible. Her lipstick was all smeared, her eyes were wide . . . it was like she couldn't even see me. Later, after she was gone, my father explained to me that my mom hadn't just run off--she'd had a nervous breakdown. He said that she'd always had mental health issues, but when I turned ten, she became manic and even dangerous. He said that she had been in and out of hospitals for the past three years."

  "When you say dangerous . . . ?"

  "I don't know what he meant," Rachel said too quickly. "Dad said she was out of control. He said he had to get a court order to get her treatment. I was so confused. I was angry and scared and sad. I mean, it made sense, in a way . . ." She shook her head. "It doesn't matter. I just thought, well, my mother is crazy. My father, he tries, I guess, but he's distant. It didn't matter. I had my friends and school."

  Rachel finally looked away from the bloodstain.

  "Two weeks ago, my mom was let out again. By this time there were all kinds of court orders against her to stay away from us. She couldn't visit me without a social worker present, stuff like that. But I wanted to see her. So when she called, we met up in secret. I didn't tell my dad. I didn't tell anyone." Rachel looked up and a small smile came to her lips. "When we first met up, Mom hugged me and, I don't know, t
his will sound weird, but I flashed back to being a happy kid again. Do you know what I mean?"

  I thought about the way my own mother hugged me. "Yes."

  "I realized something--no one hugged me anymore. Isn't that weird? My dad, well, it got awkward as I got older, and boys never just wanted to hug like that, if you know what I mean."

  I wished that I didn't. I nodded, feeling a lump in my throat. I thought about Troy Taylor and realized how incredibly selfish that was, so I made myself stop.

  "So it was nice," I said, "seeing your mother."

  "For a few days, it was great. And then something went wrong."

  "What?"

  "Mom started ranting again, saying what an evil man my father was, how he lied about her and poisoned her and told everyone she was crazy just to protect himself. She became paranoid and started asking me if Dad knew that we were meeting. I tried to reassure her, but she just kept saying he'd kill her if he found out."

  Silence.

  "What did you do?"

  Rachel shrugged. "I tried to calm her down. I asked about her meds. In a way, I mean, I wasn't surprised. I had seen her like this before. Maybe I blamed myself too."

  "Why?"

  "It's like, if I had been a better daughter, maybe--"

  "You know that isn't the case."

  "I do know. I mean, my dad explained it to me a hundred times. She was sick. It wasn't my fault, it wasn't his fault--and it wasn't her fault. Like Cynthia Cooper's mother has cancer, my mom had a disease that attacked the brain. She couldn't help it."

  I thought about my own mother, in a rehab clinic. They told me the same thing, about how her drug addiction was an illness. It wasn't a question of willpower and I shouldn't take it personally, the experts said, but still, no matter how much you told yourself that, no matter how much I still loved her and was sympathetic to what had happened to her, a part of me always felt that in the end my mother chose drugs over her son.

  "So I'm looking at this woman who had raised me, the last person to show me genuine warmth, and suddenly I started to wonder something strange--something I hadn't really considered before."

  "What?" I asked.

  Rachel turned and suddenly her eyes were dry and clear. "What if my mother wasn't crazy? What if she was telling the truth?"