Caught by Harlan Coben Read Free Book Online Page A

are going to drink anyway--might as well be sure they do it in a safe environment. The Milners don't want the kids going into New York City or someplace else unsafe, maybe driving after they drink, whatever. So they let the team get bombed in their basement, contained, where they can't get in too much trouble."
    "It makes sense on some level."
    "Would you do it?" he asked.
    Marcia thought about it. "No. But last year we took Haley and a friend of hers to Tuscany. We let them have wine at the vineyards. Was that wrong?"
    "It's not against the law in Italy."
    "That seems a fine line, Pete."
    "So you don't think what these parents did was wrong?"
    "I think they were dead wrong," Marcia said. "And their excuse also rings a little hollow--buying kids booze? That's about more than keeping their children safe. That's about wanting to be the cool, hip parents. Wanting to be the kid's friend first and parent second."
    "I agree."
    "But then again," Marcia said, turning back to the locker, "who am I to be giving parenting advice?"
    Silence.
    "Pete?"
    "Yes?"
    "What's the gossip?"
    "I'm not sure I know what you mean."
    "Yeah, you do. When you guys talk about it--teachers, students, whatever--do they think Haley was abducted or do they think she ran away?"
    More silence. She could see he was thinking.
    "No filter, Pete. And please don't humor me."
    "I won't."
    "Well?"
    "I have nothing but my gut to go on."
    "I understand."
    Posters were up in the corridors now. The prom wasn't far away. Graduation too. Pete Zecher's eyes traveled back to Haley's locker. Marcia followed his gaze and spotted a photograph that made her stop. Her whole family minus her--Ted, Haley, Patricia, and Ryan--stood with Mickey Mouse at Disney World. Marcia had taken the photo with Haley's iPhone in its pink case with the purple flower decal. The vacation had taken place three weeks before Haley vanished. The police had given the trip a cursory glance, wondering whether somehow someone she had met on that trip could have followed Haley home, but that thread had gone nowhere. But Marcia remembered how happy Haley was down there, no pressure, every person just a happy kid for a few days. The picture had been a spontaneous thing. The line for Mickey was usually half an hour long, little kids queuing up with "autograph" books for Mickey to stamp, but Haley noticed that there was no line for this particular Mickey in Epcot Center. Her face split into a smile and Haley grabbed her siblings and said, "Come on! Let's do a quick pic!" Marcia insisted on being the photographer, and she remembered the roar of emotion she felt as her entire family, her whole world, gathered around Mickey in happy harmony. She looked at the picture now, remembered that small perfect moment, and stared at Haley's heart-splitting smile.
    "You think you know a kid," Pete Zecher said. "But they all have secrets."
    "Even Haley?"
    Pete spread his hands. "Look down that row of lockers. I know this sounds obvious, but every one belongs to a kid with dreams and expectations, going through a hard, crazy time. Adolescence is a war, filled with pressures both imagined and real. Social, academic, athletic--and all the while you're changing and your hormones are out of whack. All those lockers, all those troubled individuals trapped for seven hours a day in this place. My background is science and whenever I'm here, I imagine those particles from the lab trapped under intense heat. How they need to escape."
    "So," Marcia said, "you think Haley ran away?"
    Pete Zecher kept his eyes on the photograph from Disney World. He too seemed to focus on that heart-splitting smile. Then he turned away and she saw tears in his eyes.
    "No, Marcia, I don't think she ran away. I think something happened to her. Something bad."

CHAPTER 5

    WENDY WOKE UP in the morning and flipped on the panini maker, which was a fancy way of saying "toasted sandwich maker" or "George Foreman Grill." It had quickly become the most important