The Boy from the Woods(21)

“So?”

“…yet.” Then for emphasis, Chambers repeated the sentence: “Neither do I yet.” He stood at attention and stared straight ahead. “But with all due respect, I don’t believe in coincidences, especially right now.”

“What do you think we should do about it?”

“I think we need to talk to your son and figure out his relationship to Naomi—” His phone buzzed. He put it to his ear with a snap, almost as though he were saluting a superior officer. “Yes?”

After three seconds, Gavin Chambers pocketed the phone.

“Don’t leave this room,” he told them. “There’s been an incident.”

*



Racing along Skyline Drive toward Maynard Manor—man, what a pompous name—Wilde hoped to feel his phone buzz with another text from Matthew.

It didn’t.

The last text just kept coming back to Wilde, taunting him: Something bad is going down.

Wilde might not go with his gut—that was what he’d told Hester—but as he turned into the manor’s driveway, every instinct told him that he should pay heed to that message.

Something bad is going down.

Maynard Manor sat atop thirty acres of disputed mountain the Ramapough people claimed as their own. There were barns for a dozen horses and a track for steeple jumping and a pool and a tennis court and who knew what else. The centerpiece was an enormous Classical Revival Georgian home, built by an oil tycoon in the Roaring Twenties. The upkeep on the thirty-five-room estate had been so steep that the manor had fallen into disrepair for nearly a quarter century, until Dash Maynard, mega television producer and cable-network owner, and his wife, Delia, swept in and brought the place back to its former splendor and then some.

From the ornate gate where Wilde had to stop, the manor house was still a solid quarter-mile drive up the mountain. Wilde could see some distant lights, but that was about it. He pressed the intercom button while checking his phone, hoping maybe he just didn’t feel the buzz.

Nothing from Matthew.

He sent another text: I’m at the guard gate.

“May I help you?” the intercom said.

Wilde had his driver’s license out. He held it up to the camera.

“I’m here for Matthew Crimstein.”

Silence.

“Matthew is a friend of Crash’s.”

“What’s your relationship to him?”

“To Matthew?”

“Yes.”

Odd question. “I’m his godfather.”

“And what is the purpose of your visit?”

“I’m here to pick him up.”

“He arrived in Mason Perdue’s vehicle. We were told that he was leaving with him.”

“Well, the plans have changed.”

Silence.

Wilde said, “Hello?”

“One moment, please.”

Time passed.

Wilde hit the intercom button again.

No reply.

He pressed down on the button and held it down.

Nothing.

He checked for wires near the gate. None. The fence had no electrocution setup. That was good. It was high with spiked tops, but none of that would be an issue. There were security cameras, of course, lots of them. That didn’t matter to him either. If anything, he wanted to be seen.

Wilde threw the car into park and stepped out. He eyed the gate. Twelve feet high, he guessed. Bars spaced six inches apart. The seam where both halves of the metal gate met would be the way to go. Thicker bar. Get a running start. Just up and over. Wilde had spent his life climbing—mountains, trees, rocks, walls, as a child, as a civilian, as a soldier. This gate, even with the spikes on top of every bar, would offer him little resistance.

He took two large steps toward the gate when he heard the voice from the speaker say, “Halt. Do not—”

He didn’t hear the rest.

Wilde leapt, his foot hitting the bar in midstride. He hoisted himself up, as though running vertically, grabbed the bars with both hands, and tucked his legs. He spun, let go with his left hand, and put his feet out. The soles of his shoes hit the bars on the other side, slowing him. He let go and dropped to the ground as two cars sped toward him.

Not one car. Two.

That seemed like overkill.

Or maybe not. Dash Maynard had been in the news lately. Rumor had it—a rumor Dash Maynard adamantly denied—that he videoed everything when people were on his shows, including conversations in the dressing rooms. Rumor further had it that these videos could take down a lot of top celebrities and politicians, most notably former self-help guru and current United States senator Rusty Eggers, the budding tyrant running for president and gaining ground.

Both cars pointed their headlights at him and screeched to a stop. Four men, two from each car, got out. Wilde kept his hands out where they could see them. The last thing he wanted was for someone to do something stupid.

The two from his left, big men, began to approach him. They both had their chests puffed out, their arms swinging with a little too much alpha preening. One wore a hoodie. The other, the one sporting dyed-Thor locks, had a suit jacket that didn’t fit well.

Didn’t fit well, Wilde noted, because he had a gun holster under the left armpit.

Wilde had known too many guys like these two. They wouldn’t be an issue, except for the weapon. He braced himself, sifting through his options, but the man who got out of the car on the right—close-cropped gray hair, military bearing—held up a hand and stopped them. Clearly the leader.