Long Lost - By Harlan Coben Page 0,88

face in his arm.

"Ken?"

"What?"

"This girl is missing and probably in serious danger."

He looked up at me.

"I'm trying to find her."

"You don't know her?"

I shook my head. Berleand was finally in view.

"Are you cops?"

"He is. I'm working on this for a personal reason."

"What reason?"

"I'm trying to help"-I didn't see any other way to say it-"I'm trying to help her birth mother locate her. Carrie is missing, and she may be in serious trouble."

"I don't understand. Why come to me?"

"Your friends told us you dated her."

He lowered his head again.

"In fact, they said you did more than just date her."

He shrugged. "So?"

"So what's her full name?"

"You don't know that either?"

"She's in trouble, Ken."

Berleand had caught up to us. He was breathing heavily. He reached into his pocket-I thought for a pencil-and pulled out a cigarette. Yeah, that should help.

"Carrie Steward," he said.

I looked at Berleand. He nodded, wheezed, managed to say: "I'll call it in."

He grabbed his phone and started walking, phone in the air, searching for service.

"I don't understand why you ran," I said.

"I lied," he said. "To my friends, okay? I never slept with her. I just said that."

I waited.

"We met at the library, actually. I mean, she was so beautiful, you know? And she was surrounded by these two other blondes, all staring off like something out of Children of the Corn. It was spooky. Anyway I'm watching her for like three days and she finally goes off by herself and I walk up and say hi. She totally ignores me at first. I mean, I've been given the cold shoulder but this chick is giving me chills. But I figure, what have I got to lose? So I keep talking and I have my iPod, right, so I ask her what music she likes and she says she doesn't like music. I couldn't believe it, so I play her something from Blue October. I can see her face change. The power of music, right?"

He stopped. I looked over. Berleand was on the phone. I texted the name "Carrie Steward" to both Esperanza and Terese. Let them start digging into her too. I kept waiting for someone from the school to start over toward us, but so far, no one had. We both sat on the grass now, facing back toward the campus. The sun was beginning to dip down, painting the sky burnt orange.

"So what happened?" I asked.

"We started talking. She told me her name was Carrie. She wanted to hear other songs. But she kept looking around, like she was afraid her friends would see her hanging out with me. Made me feel like a loser, but maybe it was a townie-versus-preppy thing, I don't know. That's what I thought anyway. At first. We met a few more times after that. She would be at the library with her friends and then we'd sneak out in the back and just talk and listen to music. One day I told her about a band that was playing in Nor-walk. I asked her if she wanted to go. Her face turned white. She looked so scared. I said, no big deal, but Carrie said, maybe we could try. I said I could pick her up at her house. She freaked. I mean, really freaked."

The air was getting cool. Berleand finished on the phone. He looked back at me, saw our faces, knew it was best to stay away.

"So what happened next?"

"So she tells me to park at the end of Duck Run Road. She said she'd meet me there at nine o'clock. So I park there a few minutes before nine. It's dark out. I'm just sitting there. There's no light on the road or anything. I'm waiting. It's nine fifteen now. I hear a noise and then suddenly my car door opens and I'm being pulled out."

Ken stopped. There were more tears on his face. He wiped them away.

"Someone punches me straight in the mouth. Knocks out two teeth." He showed me. "They drag me out of the car. I don't know how many of them. Four, maybe five, and they're kicking me. I just cover up, you know, put my hands over my head, and I think I'm going to die. Then I'm rolled onto my back. And held down. I still can't see any faces-and man, I don't want to. One of them puts a knife right in front of me. He says, 'She doesn't want you to talk to her again. If you say a