Drew had no idea if this was true, but the kid didn’t, either. He was close to panic now, and that was good. Panicked people never thought clearly.
“There’s no proof.” Saubers could hardly talk above a whisper. “The money is gone.”
“I’m sure it is, or you wouldn’t be here. But the financial trail remains. And who will follow it besides the police? The IRS! Who knows, Peter, maybe your mother and dad can also go to jail, for tax evasion. That would leave your sister—Tina, I believe?—all alone, but perhaps she has a kind old auntie she can live with until your folks get out.”
“What do you want?”
“Don’t be dense. I want the notebooks. All of them.”
“If I give them to you, what do I get?”
“The knowledge that you’re free and clear. Which, given your situation, is priceless.”
“Are you serious?”
“Son—”
“Don’t call me that!” The boy clenched his fists.
“Peter, think it through. If you refuse to turn the notebooks over to me, I’m going to turn you over to the police. But once you hand them over, my hold on you vanishes, because I have received stolen property. You’ll be safe.”
While he spoke, Drew’s right index finger hovered near the silent alarm button beneath his desk. Pushing it was the last thing in the world he wanted to do, but he didn’t like those clenched fists. In his panic, it might occur to Saubers that there was one other way to shut Drew Halliday’s mouth. They were currently being recorded on security video, but the boy might not have realized that.
“And you walk away with hundreds and thousands of dollars,” Saubers said bitterly. “Maybe even millions.”
“You got your family through a tough time,” Drew said. He thought of adding why be greedy, but under the circumstances, that might sound a little . . . off. “I think you should be content with that.”
The boy’s face offered a wordless reply: Easy for you to say.
“I need time to think.”
Drew nodded, but not in agreement. “I understand how you feel, but no. If you walk out of here now, I can promise a police car waiting for you when you get home.”
“And you lose your big payday.”
Drew shrugged. “It wouldn’t be the first.” Although never one of this size, that was true.
“My dad’s in real estate, did you know that?”
The sudden change in direction put Drew off his stride a bit. “Yes, I saw that when I was doing my research. Has his own little business now, and good for him. Although I have an idea that John Rothstein’s money might have paid for some of the start-up costs.”
“I asked him to research all the bookstores in town,” Saubers said. “I told him I was doing a paper on how e-books are impacting traditional bookstores. This was before I even came to see you, while I was still making up my mind if I should take the chance. He found out you took a third mortgage on this place last year, and said you only got it because of the location. Lacemaker Lane being pretty upscale and all.”
“I don’t think that has anything to do with the subject under discus—”
“You’re right, we went through a really bad time, and you know something? That gives a person a nose for people who are in trouble. Even if you’re a kid. Maybe especially if you’re a kid. I think you’re pretty strapped yourself.”
Drew raised the finger that had been poised near the silent alarm button and pointed it at Saubers. “Don’t fuck with me, kid.”
Saubers’s color had come back in big hectic patches, and Drew saw something he didn’t like and certainly hadn’t intended: he had made the boy angry.
“I know you’re trying to rush me into this, and it’s not going to work. Yes, okay, I’ve got his notebooks. There’s a hundred and sixty-five. Not all of them are full, but most of them are. And guess what? It was never the Gold trilogy, it was the Gold cycle. There are two more novels, both in the notebooks. First drafts, yeah, but pretty clean.”
The boy was talking faster and faster, figuring out everything Drew had hoped he would be too frightened to see even as he was speaking.
“They’re hidden away, but I guess you’re right, if you call the police, they’ll find them. Only my parents never knew, and I think the police will believe that. As for me . . . I’m still a minor.” He even smiled a little, as if just realizing this. “They won’t do much to me, since I never stole the notebooks or the money in the first place. I wasn’t even born. You’ll come out clean, but you also won’t have anything to show for it. When the bank takes this place—my dad says they will, sooner or later—and there’s an Au Bon Pain here instead, I’ll come in and eat a croissant in your honor.”
“That’s quite a speech,” Drew said.
“Well, it’s over. I’m leaving.”
“I warn you, you’re being very foolish.”
“I told you, I need time to think.”
“How long?”
“A week. You need to think, too, Mr. Halliday. Maybe we can still work something out.”
“I hope so, son.” Drew used the word deliberately. “Because if we can’t, I’ll make that call. I am not bluffing.”
The boy’s bravado collapsed. His eyes filled with tears. Before they could fall, he turned and walked out.
12
Now comes this voicemail, which Drew listens to with fury but also with fear, because the boy sounds so cold and composed on top and so desperate underneath.
“I can’t come tomorrow like I said I would. I completely forgot the junior-senior retreat for class officers, and I got elected vice president of the senior class next year. I know that sounds like an excuse, but it’s not. I guess it entirely slipped my mind, what with you threatening to send me to jail and all.”
Erase this right away, Drew thinks, his fingernails biting into his palms.
“It’s at River Bend resort, up in Victor County. We leave on a bus at eight tomorrow morning—it’s a teacher in-service day, so there’s no school—and come back Sunday night. Twenty of us. I thought about begging off, but my parents are already worried about me. My sister, too. If I skip the retreat, they’ll know something’s wrong. I think my mom thinks I might have gotten some girl pregnant.”
The boy voices a brief, semi-hysterical laugh. Drew thinks there’s nothing more terrifying than boys of seventeen. You have absolutely no idea what they’ll do.
“I’ll come on Monday afternoon instead,” Saubers resumes. “If you wait that long, maybe we can work something out. A compromise. I’ve got an idea. And if you think I’m just shining you on about the retreat, call the resort and check the reservation. Northfield High School Student Government. Maybe I’ll see you on Monday. If not, not. Goodb—”