Shelter

by Harlan Coben

  When the hour was finally over--the slowest hour imaginable--I grabbed my cell phone and checked for texts.

  Nothing from Rachel.

  Feeling dejected, I headed out the front door of the school--and there she was. I rushed over to her. "Thanks for waiting."

  Rachel nodded, said nothing. She looked distracted, unsure of herself.

  "So you were going to explain?" I asked.

  "You said you saw me on a surveillance video, right?"

  Now I could see. She wasn't distracted. She was frightened. "That's right."

  "How? I mean, how did you get a hold of school security stuff?"

  I shook my head. I didn't trust her enough to tell her about Spoon. "It's not important."

  "It is to me," she said. "Do other people know?"

  "What's the difference?"

  "Why would you have been looking at video surveillance?"

  "I told you. I'm trying to figure out what happened to Ashley. Why were you at her locker?"

  "Why do you think?"

  "I don't have a clue," I said. "You told me you didn't really know her."

  "I didn't," she said.

  I spread my hands. "Yet there you are, cleaning out her locker."

  Rachel looked off and shook her head. "You don't get it."

  "You're right. I don't. So explain it to me. And while you're at it, why don't you explain to me why you were pretending to be my friend?"

  "Ashley asked me to do that."

  "Ashley asked you to pretend to be my friend?"

  Rachel sighed, as though there were no way I would understand. "She wanted me to check up on you. She wanted to make sure that you were okay."

  "Okay?" My head was spinning. "What are you talking about?"

  "Ashley didn't want you hurt. She didn't want you involved."

  "Involved in what?"

  "It's not my place to say. She said I shouldn't tell you."

  My heart picked up speed. "Wait, hold up. Ashley said that?"

  "Yes."

  "So you know where she is?"

  She didn't reply.

  "Rachel?"

  She looked up at me slowly. Our eyes met. I know that I should know better by now, but if this was an act, if I was just being played . . . No. They say the eyes don't lie. I saw something there, in the way she looked at me, and it wasn't just deception. "Yes," Rachel finally said. "I know where Ashley is."

  "Where?"

  "Come on," Rachel said, finally breaking eye contact. "I'll show you."

  chapter 19

  WE WALKED IN COMFORTABLE SILENCE for a while. I tried to wait her out, hoping that she would volunteer some information, but she didn't. Finally I asked, "Where are we going?"

  "My house."

  "And Ashley is there?"

  She made a face like maybe-yes, maybe-no. "You'll see."

  "What does that mean? What happened?"

  "I'll let Ashley explain."

  "I'd rather hear it from you."

  "Like I said before, it's not my place to explain."

  We walked in silence a little more.

  "Mickey?"

  I looked at her.

  "I wasn't pretending to be your friend. I mean, Ashley did ask me to look after you and maybe that's why I started talking to you at first, but then . . ." She stopped, keeping her eyes on the pavement, and said, "Never mind."

  I wanted to do something here, reach out and take her hand, something. But I didn't know what. My cell phone buzzed. It was a text from Ema: where r u?

  I showed it to Rachel. She shook her head. "Don't answer it."

  I nodded, put my phone away. Rachel's sprawling estate--it wasn't a house, it was an estate--sat atop a hill. There was an electric gate at the end of the driveway. Rachel pressed a code into the number pad and it swung open. We started up the drive.

  "Are your parents home?" I asked.

  A smile crossed her lips. "No."

  The smile was saying something, but I wasn't sure what.

  "Is Ashley here?"

  "Yes."

  "Where?"

  "The guesthouse in the back."

  "How long has she been here?"

  "Over a week."

  "So your parents know?"

  "Let's just say"--again she flashed the small smile, only this time I could see it was a sad one--"that my parents aren't around very much."

  Everything about this place said big bucks. We walked around back, past the marble patio and clay tennis court. There was a small house next to the pool. I gestured toward it with my chin.

  "Ashley's in there?" I said.

  "Yes."

  I swallowed and hurried my step. This was it. All my questions were about to be answered. We got to the door. Rachel had a key in her hand. She put it in the lock and turned the knob.

  "Ashley?" she said.

  There was no reply.

  "Ashley?"

  Still nothing. We stepped all the way in. The bed was made. The room was neat. But no one was there. I looked at Rachel. Her face was pale now, her eyes wide. I glanced around the room, and there, on the table next to the bed, was a note. I picked it up. Rachel was next to me, looking over my shoulder.

  RACHEL--

  SORRY TO JUST RUN OFF LIKE THIS. CAN'T EXPLAIN WITHOUT DRAWING YOU INTO THIS DEEPER. THANK YOU FOR HIDING ME, BUT I CAN'T CAN'T HIDE FOREVER. DON'T CALL THE POLICE. THIS IS SOMETHING I HAVE TO DO.

  --ASHLEY

  "I don't understand," Rachel said. "She was terrified."

  We were inside Rachel's house now. We had quickly checked just to make sure that Ashley wasn't here. She wasn't. No one was. The big house was as silent as a mausoleum.

  "Tell me what happened," I said.

  "A little more than a week ago, we had tryouts for the cheerleading squad. There was only room for three new girls this year, and maybe fifty girls showed up. One of them was Ashley."

  That surprised me. "She was trying out for cheerleading?"

  Rachel nodded.

  "So how did it go?"

  "Not well. The new girls were being selected by three of us. Cathy, Brittany, and me. I thought that she was good, had real talent, but her audition was, well, it was weird."

  "In what way?"

  "This place is old-school. We do classic cheerleading. It's more gymnastic based. Most of the girls did familiar routines--acrobatics, tumbling, showing that they could help form a pyramid. That kind of thing. Ashley, on the other hand, danced. I thought she was pretty good, showed a lot of promise, but the other girls thought . . ."

  "Thought what?"

  "That her routine was a tad"--she stopped, either searching for the word or afraid to say it--"well, it was pretty racy. Not over the top. But it was enough to get the other girls going."

  I said nothing. I thought about the Plan B Go-Go Lounge and wanted to close my eyes.

  "And so Ashley finishes this, and then, well, she's waiting for applause. No one claps. Ashley is standing there, all nervous, waiting for feedback. And the girls just dig into her. First Cathy snickers and says, 'Where's your stripper pole?' Then they start in on her clothes, her hair, the whole thing."

  "What's wrong with her clothes and hair?"

  "You're a guy, so you wouldn't notice. The clothes are secondhand."

  I couldn't believe what I was hearing. "So what? You guys made fun of her for having old clothes? Are you really that snobby?"

  Rachel looked hurt when I said that. "You guys?"

  "I just meant--"

  "I'm not a snob. I don't care how much money someone has. That's not the point."

  "What is then?"

  "The clothes weren't even secondhand, so much as thirdor fourth-hand. There was a pretense here. It's like she went to a thrift shop and searched for Eighties Prep. I mean, a monogrammed sweater?"

  "I still don't get it."

  "It was like," Rachel said, "she was trying to look like something she wasn't. Like she was in disguise. Anyway, it got cruel. Everyone started laughing at her."


  "Did you laugh at her too?"

  "No," she said quickly. Then Rachel looked down at the floor and her voice got softer. "But I didn't stop it either. I should have. I mean, she was just standing there, alone, in front of everybody. She didn't know us. She looked so vulnerable and there we were, laughing in her face, until finally, she just ran off."

  Rachel stopped then. I tried to imagine the scene, how it must have wounded Ashley to hear those laughs.

  "Nice," I said, trying to sound sarcastic without crossing into bitter.

  "Yeah, I know."

  "So what happened next?"

  "I ran after her. You know, to apologize. She started down Collins Drive, so I headed that way. I looked down Mountainside Road, and there, about a hundred yards down, I spotted her walking toward Northfield Avenue. I called out, but Ashley didn't stop. I don't know if she didn't hear me or was just ignoring me." She stopped and swallowed. "And then something weird happened."

  "What?"

  "A car screeched up to her, and this big guy jumped out of the passenger side before the car had even stopped. Ashley started to back up, but he was on her fast. I mean, it was a second, maybe two. He picked her up and threw her over his shoulder. She screamed. I screamed too. I ran as fast as I could toward them. I didn't even think, you know? I just started running and screaming. The big guy ignored me. He started to throw her in the back, but Ashley resisted. She got her hands on the outside of the door, trying to pull herself back. The big guy started pushing, but she held on. The driver yelled, 'Hurry!' and then the big guy actually made a fist. He reared back to hit her, but I was closer now. I screamed again, kept trying to get his attention. I took out my cell phone and pointed it at him. I shouted, 'I called nine-one-one and I'm recording everything. Let her go.' "

  "Were you?" I asked.

  "Was I what?"

  "Recording it."

  "I wish. You have to find the app button and click it and then hit Record . . . There was no time. I was just reacting."

  My cell phone buzzed again. I took a quick glance. It was from Ema again: where r u??! IMPORTANT.

  No time to respond now. I nodded at Rachel to continue.

  "Anyway, the big man finally turned toward me. Ashley used that. She kicked out, and the guy stumbled back. She broke free and ran. The guy was going to go after her, but he saw me with the phone and I guess he decided to cut his losses. He jumped back in the car. Before they peeled out, the driver called out in the spookiest voice, 'You can't hide forever, Ash, you know I'll find you.' And then they were gone."

  "Did you get the license plate number?"

  Rachel nodded. "I memorized it and then I ran over to make sure Ashley was okay. I started to dial nine-one-one for real now when Ashley put her hand on mine and whispered, 'You can't call the cops.' She sounded so scared."

  Rachel had her hands in her lap. She started nervously twirling a ring on her right index finger. My phone buzzed again. Then another time. I didn't even look.

  "Why didn't she want you to call the police?"

  "She said it would make it worse. She begged me not to, so, I mean, what was I going to do? We went back here, to my house. At first, Ashley didn't want to talk about it. She just kept crying and blaming herself. I told her it wasn't her fault, but she wouldn't listen. I got on the computer and Googled the Kents' phone number. I said, 'Let's call your parents,' but again she stopped me. She told me that her real last name wasn't Kent. What she did was, she found a Kasselton resident without any kids in the school system. Then she just pretended to be their child so she could enroll in the school."

  "You can just do that?"

  Rachel shrugged. "I guess."

  "So the Kents didn't know about her?"

  "I don't think so. She said she worked at a horrible nightclub and that everyone there thought that some creepy guy kidnapped her and sold her overseas into white slavery. But really she escaped."

  White slavery, I thought, feeling a chill slip down my spine. Candy had talked about Antoine making girls disappear into "White Death." White death, white slavery--they had to be the same thing.

  "So," Rachel said, "here she was, in Kasselton, hiding from her past until she got sent to the final place."

  "The final place?"

  "That was what she said. Like staying here in Kasselton was only temporary. But she liked being here. She said . . . she said she'd never been this happy before. She wanted to find a way to make Kasselton her final place, but they found her. That, she said, was her mistake."

  Another buzz. I risked a quick look. Yep, it was Ema: I need to show you something. promise me you won't get mad.

  "The guy in the car," I said to Rachel. "Did he have a tattoo on his face?"

  "No. He was tall--your height maybe--but twice your size. And he was black."

  I thought about Derrick the bouncer at the Plan B Go-Go Lounge. "How did they find her?"

  "Ashley didn't know, but I think I figured it out," Rachel said.

  "How?"

  "Both of you were new students, right?"

  "Right."

  "So you participated in Ms. Owens's weird bonding orientation."

  I remembered. Man, how dumb had that been? "So?"

  "We get the Star-Ledger delivered every day. They did a story on it. One of the pictures was some kind of relay race. And there, pretty clear to see, was Ashley."

  The Star-Ledger was the state's biggest newspaper and it covered Newark. It made sense.

  "Okay," I said, "so you're back here at your house. What did you guys do next?"

  "Ashley needed to hide and figure that out. I told her she could stay here with me." She saw me opening my mouth, so she held up her hand to stop me. "To answer your next question, my parents are divorced. My mother lives in Florida. My father is on his third trophy wife. They travel a lot."

  "Do you have any brothers or sisters?"

  "One older brother. He's in college. We do have full-time help, but they only go into the pool house on Thursdays."

  "So you put her up out there?"

  "Yes. Ashley worried that the guys who tried to grab her would keep searching. She said they'd be relentless--that they might go after her only friend here."

  "That," I said, "would be me."

  She nodded. "I went into her locker to get out her notebook and clothes. She'd written your name and number down there. You'd shared notes. If those guys found them, they'd know that you two were close. But even then, she still wasn't positive that they hadn't approached you."

  "So that's why she asked you to keep an eye on me."

  "Yes."

  "Which you did. You even got me to be your history partner."

  Rachel glanced around the ridiculously formal living room as though she had never seen it before. It looked like something out of a European palace. We sat on a couch with very little padding.

  "Why?" I asked.

  "Why what?"

  "You barely knew Ashley. She wasn't your friend."

  "True."

  "And it was dangerous. They'd seen your face. They could have tracked you down."

  "I guess."

  "So why did you help her?"

  Rachel thought about it a minute. "Because she was in trouble. Because I didn't help her at the cheerleading audition. I don't know. I wanted to help. It just felt like the right thing to do. I don't want to make it sound like more than it is, but I get that way. I felt somehow obligated."

  I said nothing. I knew what she meant. My father and mother lived lives of obligation. If you asked them why, they would have given an answer like Rachel's.

  The phone buzzed again. I sighed and grabbed it. No surprise--it was yet another message from Ema: wanted to show you in person but will send image now. it's been here for months.

  There was a photographic attachment. I clicked on it and the photograph came up. For a moment, I couldn't figure out what it was. It was a close-up of some sort, and blurry. I saw skin. I turned my head a little, focused my eyes
, and then I felt my blood run cold.

  It was a blue-and-green tattoo. I could see that now. And it was a tattoo of that same emblem--the blurry butterfly with the animal-eye wings.

  With shaking hands, I typed: Whose tattoo is that??

  There was a delay. Rachel looked over at me. I waited for the next text. It took longer than it should. Finally, a full minute later, almost as though the very letters were hesitating, came Ema's response: it's mine.

  Chapter 20

  WITH MY FAKE DRIVER'S LICENSE in my wallet, I picked up Ema on the outskirts of Kasselton Avenue. She slid into the Ford Taurus with a sheepish look on her face.

  "I don't understand any of this," I said.

  "It was Agent's idea," Ema explained, talking fast.

  That was where we were headed--to Tattoos While U Wait to confront Agent.

  "Over the summer, I went to Agent for a back tattoo. I wanted something big and dramatic. So he drew up this elaborate artwork, with swirls and lettering and then . . ." She stopped. "You're looking at me funny."

  "You're kidding, right?"

  She said nothing.

  "Of course I'm looking at you funny," I said, with more snap in my voice than I intended. "That tattoo was in an old photograph in Bat Lady's house. It was on that tombstone in her backyard. And someone even drew it on a placard marking my father's grave. Now all of a sudden it's a tattoo on your back?"

  "I know. I don't understand it either. See, the tattoo is pretty big and the butterfly is just a small part. It wasn't even in the original plan, but Agent said he was inspired."

  I shook my head. "So why didn't you tell me about it as soon as you saw it on that tombstone?"

  "You ran off, remember? You got arrested."

  "And what about yesterday? At Baumgart's? Or today at school?"

  Ema said nothing.

  "Hello?"

  "Stop yelling at me," she said.

  "I'm not yelling. It's just . . . how could you keep that from me?"

  "Well, why didn't you tell me you were secretly meeting with Miss Hot-Bod today? Huh?" She folded her arms. "You don't tell me everything. I don't tell you everything."

  "Ema?"

  "What?"

  "That's a load of crap and you know it. Why didn't you tell me about the tattoo?"

  Ema looked out the front windshield. We were getting closer to Agent's place. I let it sit. There was no reason to push, not yet, but I wanted to know what was going on. I switched on the radio, but Ema reached for the knob and turned it off.