Hold Tight (2008)

by Harlan Coben

  He opened Adam's door. The room was empty. Mike looked for clues as to where his son had gone. There were none.

  "Oh, he wouldn't..." Mike said out loud.

  He checked his watch. Adam should definitely be home by now-- should have been home the whole time. How could he leave his sister alone? He knew better than that. Mike took out his cell phone and pushed the speed dial. He heard it ring and then Adam's voice came on and asked him to leave a message.

  "Where are you? We need to leave soon for the Rangers. And you just left your sister alone? Call me immediately."

  He pressed the END button.

  Ten more minutes passed. Nothing from Adam. Mike called again. Left another message through gritted teeth.

  Jill said, "Dad?"

  "Yes, sweetheart."

  "Where's Adam?"

  "I'm sure he'll be home soon. Look, I'll drop you off at Yasmin's and come back for your brother, okay?"

  Mike called, left a third message on Adam's cell explaining that he'd be back soon. He flashed back to last time he had done this-- leaving repeated messages on the voice mails--when Adam had run away and they didn't hear from him for two days. Mike and Tia had gone nuts trying to find him, and in the end it had been nothing.

  He better not be playing that game again, Mike thought. And then, at the very same moment, he thought: God, I hope he's playing that game again.

  Mike took out a sheet of paper, jotted down a note, left it on the kitchen table:

  ADAM,

  I'M DROPPING JILL OFF, BE READY WHEN I GET BACK.

  Jill's backpack had a New York Rangers insignia on the back. She didn't care much for hockey, but it had been her older brother's. Jill cherished Adam's hand-me-downs. She had taken lately to wearing a much-too-large-for-her green windbreaker from when Adam played Pee Wee hockey. Adam's name was stenciled in threaded script on the right chest.

  "Dad?"

  "What, sweetheart?"

  "I'm worried about Adam."

  She did not say it like a little girl playing grown-up. She said it like a kid too wise for her years.

  "Why do you say that?"

  She shrugged.

  "Has he said anything to you?"

  "No."

  Mike pulled onto Yasmin's street, hoping that Jill would say more. She didn't.

  In the old days--way back when Mike was a kid--you just dropped kids off and drove away or maybe waited in the car for the front door to open. Now you walked your offspring all the way to the door. Normally this bothered Mike somewhat, but when there was a sleepover, especially at this relatively young age, Mike liked to check in. He knocked on the door and Guy Novak, Yasmin's father, answered.

  "Hey, Mike."

  "Hey, Guy."

  Guy still wore his suit from work, though the tie was undone. He wore too-fashionable framed tortoiseshell glasses and his hair looked strategically mussed. Guy was yet another father in town who worked on Wall Street, and for the life of him, Mike could never figure out what any of them did. Hedge funds or trust accounts or credit services or IPOs or working on the floor or trading securities or selling bonds, whatever--it all became one big blurry mass of finance to Mike.

  Guy had been divorced for years and, according to the scuttlebutt Mike got from his eleven-year-old daughter, dated a lot.

  "His girlfriends always kiss up to Yasmin," Jill had told him. "It's kind of funny."

  Jill pushed passed them. "Bye, Dad."

  "Bye, pumpkin."

  Mike waited a second, watched her disappear, then he turned to Guy Novak. Sexist, yes, but he preferred to leave his child with a single mom. Something about his prepubescent daughter spending a night in the same house with only an adult male--it shouldn't matter. Mike took care of the girls sometimes without Tia. But still.

  They both stood there. Mike broke the silence.

  "So," Mike said, "what do you have planned for the night?"

  "Might take them to the movies," Guy said. "Ice cream at Cold Stone Creamery. I, uh, hope you don't mind. I have a girlfriend coming out tonight. She'll go with us."

  "No problem," Mike said, thinking: Even better.

  Guy glanced behind him. When he saw both girls were out of sight, he turned back to Mike. "You got a second?" he asked.

  "Sure, what's up?"

  Guy stepped outside onto the stoop. He let the door close behind him. He looked into the street and put his hands deep in his pockets. Mike watched him in profile.

  "Everything all right?" Mike asked.

  "Jill has been great," Guy said.

  Mike was not sure how to react to that so he stayed silent.

  "I'm not sure what to do here. I mean, as a parent, you do all you can, right? You try your best to raise them, feed them, educate them. Yasmin already had to deal with a divorce at a very young age. But she adjusted to that. She was happy and outgoing and popular. And then, well, something like this happens."

  "You mean with Mr. Lewiston?"

  Guy nodded. He bit down and his jaw began to quake. "You've seen the changes in Yasmin, haven't you?"

  Mike opted for the truth. "She seems more withdrawn."

  "Do you know what Lewiston said to her?"

  "Not really, no."

  He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, opened them again. "I guess Yasmin was acting up in class, not paying attention, whatever, I don't know. When I confronted Lewiston, he said he gave her two warnings. The thing is, Yasmin has a little facial hair. Not much, but you know, a bit of a mustache. Not something a father would notice, and her mother, well, she's not around, so I never thought about electrolysis or whatever. So anyway he's explaining chromosomes and she's whispering in the back of the room and Lewiston finally snaps. He says, 'Some women display male traits like facial hair--Yasmin, are you listening?' Something like that."

  Mike said, "Awful."

  "Inexcusable, right? He doesn't apologize right away because, he says, he didn't want to draw more attention to what he said. Meanwhile every kid in the class starts cracking up. Yasmin is beyond mor- tified. They start calling her the Bearded Lady and XY--for the male chromosome. He apologizes the next day, implores the kids to stop, I go in, shout at the principal, but now it's like unringing a bell, you know what I mean?"

  "I do."

  "Kids."

  "Yeah."

  "Jill has stuck by Yasmin--the only one. Amazing for an eleven-year-old to do that. I know she's probably taking some ribbing for that."

  "She can handle it," Mike said.

  "She's a good kid."

  "So is Yasmin."

  "You should be proud. That's all I'm saying.

  "Thanks," Mike said. "It'll pass, Guy. Give it some time."

  Guy looked off. "When I was in third grade, there was this boy named Eric Hellinger. Eric always had a huge smile on his face. He dressed like such a dork, but he seemed oblivious, you know? Just always smiling. One day he vomited in the middle of class. It was nasty. The smell was so bad we had to leave the classroom. Anyway, the kids start picking on him after that. Called him Smellinger. It never ended. Eric's life changed. The smile fled, and to tell you the truth, even when I saw him alone in the halls in high school years later, it was like the smile never came back."

  Mike said nothing, but he knew a story like this. Every childhood has one, their own Eric Hellinger or Yasmin Novak.

  "It's not getting better, Mike. So I'm putting the house on the market. I don't want to move. But I don't know what else to do."

  "If there is any way Tia or I can help..." Mike began.

  "I appreciate that. And I appreciate you letting Jill sleep over tonight. It means the world to Yasmin. And to me. So thank you."

  "No problem."

  "Jill said you're taking Adam to a hockey game tonight."

  "That's the plan."

  "Then I won't keep you any longer. Thanks for listening."

  "You're welcome. You have my cell number?"

  Guy nodded. Mike patted the man's shoulder and headed bac
k to the car.

  That was how life was--a teacher loses his cool for ten seconds and it changes everything for one little girl. Nuts when you think about it. It also made Mike wonder about Adam.

  Had something similar happened to his son? Had one incident, maybe something small even, changed Adam's path?

  Mike thought about those time-travel movies, the ones where you go back and change one thing and then everything else changes, a ripple effect. If Guy could go back in time and keep Yasmin out of school for that day, would everything be as it was? Would Yasmin be happier--or by forcing her to move and maybe learning a lesson about how cruel people can be, will she end up ultimately better off?

  Who the heck knew?

  The house was still empty when Mike got home. No sign of Adam. No message from him either.

  Still thinking about Yasmin, Mike headed into the kitchen. The note he left still sat on the kitchen table, untouched. There were dozens of photographs on the refrigerator, all neatly aligned in magnet sleeve-frames. Mike found one of Adam and himself from last year when they went to Six Flags Great Adventure. Mike was normally ter- rified of big rides, but his son had somehow persuaded him to go on something aptly called The Chiller. Mike loved it.

  When they got off, father and son posed for a dumb picture with a guy dressed like Batman. They both had their hair messed from the ride, arms around Batman's shoulders, goofy grins on their faces.

  That had been just last summer.

  Mike remembered now sitting in the coaster, waiting for that ride to start, heart pumping. He turned to Adam, who gave him a crooked smile and said, "Hold tight," and then, right then, he flashed back more than a decade, when Adam was four and they were at this same park and there was a crush of people entering the stuntman show, a total crush, and Mike held his son's hand and told him to "hold tight," and he could feel the little hand dig into his but the crush got bigger and the little hand slipped from his and Mike felt that horrible panic, as if a wave hit them at the beach and it was washing his baby out with the tide. The separation lasted only a few seconds, ten at the most, but Mike would never forget the spike in his blood and the terror of those brief few moments.

  Mike stared for a solid minute. Then he picked up his phone and called Adam's cell phone again.

  "Please call home, son. I'm worried about you. I'm on your side, always, no matter what. I love you. So call me, okay?"

  He hung up and waited.

  ADAM listened to the last message from his father and almost started to cry.

  He thought about calling him back. He thought about dialing his dad's number and telling him to come get him and then they could go to that Rangers game with Uncle Mo and maybe Adam would tell them everything. He held his cell phone. His father's number was speed-dial one. His finger hovered by the digit. All he had to do was press down.

  From behind him a voice said, "Adam?"

  He moved his finger away.

  "Let's go."

  Chapter 11.

  BETSY Hill watched her husband, Ron, pull his Audi into the garage. He was still such a handsome man. His salt-and-pepper hair had gone pretty much to salt, but his blue eyes, so like his dead son's, still shone and his face remained smooth. Unlike most of his colleagues he'd kept the gut off, worked out just enough, watched what he ate.

  The picture she'd printed off the MySpace page sat on the table in front of her. For the past hour she had sat here wondering what to do. The twins were with her sister. She didn't want them home for this.

  She heard the door from the garage open and then Ron called out, "Bets?"

  "In the kitchen, honey."

  Ron bounded into the room with a smile on his face. It had been a long time since she had seen him smile and as soon as she did, she slid the picture under a magazine and out of view. She wanted, even for a few minutes anyway, to protect that smile.

  "Hi," he said.

  "Hi, how was work?"

  "Fine, good." He still smiled. "I have a surprise."

  "Oh?"

  Ron came over, bent down and kissed her cheek, tossed the brochure on the kitchen table. Betsy reached for it.

  "A one-week cruise," he said. "Look at the itinerary, Bets. I bookmarked the page with a Post-it note."

  She turned to the page and looked down. The cruise left Miami Beach and hit the Bahamas, St. Thomas and some private island owned by the ship.

  "Same itinerary," Ron said. "Exact same itinerary as on our honeymoon. The ship is different, of course. That old vessel isn't running anymore. This one is brand-new. I got the top deck too--a cabin with a balcony. I even got someone to watch Bobby and Kari."

  "We can't just leave the twins for a week."

  "Sure we can."

  "They're still too vulnerable, Ron."

  The smile started fading. "They'll be fine."

  He wants this gone, she thought. Not wrong, of course. Life goes on. This was his way of coping. He wanted it gone. And eventually, she knew, he will want her gone too. He might hang on for the twins, but all the good memories--that first kiss outside the library, the overnight at the shore, the spectacular sun-drenched honeymoon cruise, scraping that horrid wallpaper off at their starter home, that time at the farmers' market when they started laughing so hard, tears ran down their faces--all of that was gone now.

  When Ron sees her, he sees his dead son.

  "Bets?"

  She nodded. "Maybe you're right."

  He sat down next to her and held her hand. "I talked to Sy today. They need a manager at the new Atlanta office. It would be a wonderful opportunity."

  He wants to run, she thought again. For now he wants her with him, but she will always bring him pain. "I love you, Ron."

  "I love you too, honey."

  She wanted him happy. She wanted to let him go because Ron did have that ability. He needed to run away. He couldn't face it. He couldn't run with her. She would always remind him of Spencer, of that terrible night on the roof of the school. But she loved him, needed him. Selfish or not, she was terrified of losing him.

  "What do you think about Atlanta?" he asked.

  "I don't know."

  "You'll love it."

  She had thought about moving but Atlanta was a long way to go. She had lived her whole life in New Jersey.

  "It's a lot to take in," he said. "Let's take one step at a time. First the cruise, okay?"

  "Okay."

  He wants to be anywhere but here. He wants to go back. She would try, but it won't work. You can't go back. Not ever. Especially not when you have the twins.

  "I'm going to go get changed," Ron said.

  He kissed her cheek again. His lips felt cold. Like he was already gone. She would lose him. Might take another three months or two years, but the only man she had ever loved would eventually leave. She could feel him pulling away even as he kissed her.

  "Ron?"

  He stopped with one hand on the stair's railing. When he looked back, it was as though he'd been caught, as though he'd just missed a chance to make a clean escape. His shoulders sunk.

  "I need to show you something," Betsy said.

  TIA sat in a Boston Four Seasons's conference room while Brett, the office computer guru, toyed with the laptop. She checked the caller ID and saw it was Mike.

  "On your way to the game?"

  "No," he said.

  "What happened?"

  "Adam's not here."

  "He didn't come home at all?"

  "He came home, he hung out in his room a little and then he took off."

  "He left Jill alone?"

  "Yes."

  "That's not like him."

  "I know."

  "I mean, he's been irresponsible and all, but leaving his sister without supervision..."

  "I know."

  Tia thought a moment. "Did you try his cell phone?"

  "Of course I tried his cell phone. How stupid do you think I am?"

  "Hey, don't take this out on me," Tia said.

  "The
n don't ask me questions like I'm a moron. Of course I called him. I called him several times. I even left--gasp--messages for him to call me back."

  Tia watched Brett pretend not to listen in. She moved away from him.

  "I'm sorry," she said. "I didn't mean--"

  "Me neither. We're both on edge."

  "So what should we do?"

  "What can we do?" Mike said. "I'll wait here."

  "And if he doesn't come home?"

  There was a pause.

  "I don't want him at the party," Mike said.

  "I agree."

  "But if I go over and stop him..."

  "That would be weird too."

  "What do you think?" he asked.

  "I think you should go over and stop him anyway. You can try to be subtle about it."

  "How would that work?"

  "I don't know. The party won't start for a couple of hours probably. We can think about it."

  "Yeah, okay. Maybe I'll get lucky and find him before that."

  "Did you try calling his friends' houses? Clark or Olivia's?"

  "Tia."

  "Right, of course you did. Should I come home?"

  "And do what?"

  "I don't know."

  "Nothing you can do here. I got it under control. I shouldn't have even called."

  "Yes, you should have. Don't try to protect me from stuff like this. I want to be kept in the loop."

  "I will, don't worry."

  "Call me when you hear from him."

  "Okay."

  She hung up.

  Brett looked up from the computer. "Problem?"

  "You were listening?"

  Brett shrugged. "Why don't you check his E-SpyRight report?"

  "Maybe I'll tell Mike to do that later."

  "You can do it from here."

  "I thought I could only get it off my own computer."

  "Nah. You can access it anywhere you have an Internet connection." Tia frowned. "That doesn't sound secure."

  "You still need your ID and password. You just go to the E-SpyRight page and sign in. Maybe your kid got an e-mail or something."