Hester looked over at Tim. Tim shrugged and said, “Long enough?”
“Yeah, I guess so.”
They headed back through the thicket. When they turned to the car, a bearded man with long hair was casually leaning against the hood with his arms crossed.
“So what’s wrong?” Wilde asked.
Hester and Wilde stared for a few seconds. Tim broke the silence.
“I’ll wait in the car,” he said.
Seeing Wilde again opened the floodgates. The memories rushed at Hester, pouring toward her in unceasing waves, the kind of waves that hit you at the beach when you aren’t looking and every time you manage to get up, another pulls you back under. She saw Wilde as the little boy found in the woods, as the teen in her kitchen with David, the high school sports star, the West Point cadet, the groomsman looking so out of place in his tux at David and Laila’s wedding (Wilde probably would have served as best man, but Hester more or less insisted that David choose his brothers for that role), the godfather holding baby Matthew after the birth, the man who kept his eyes down as he told her that David’s death was his fault.
“You grew a beard,” Hester said.
“You like it?”
“No.”
He was still gorgeous, of course. When the little boy was found in the woods, the newspapers had called him a modern-day Tarzan, and physically it was almost as if he grew into that role. Wilde was all coiled muscles and stony angles. He had light brown hair, eyes with gold flecks, a sun-kissed complexion. He stood very still, panther-like, as though preternaturally ready to pounce, which, in his case, might be accurate.
“Has someone else gone missing?” Wilde asked.
That had been the case last time she’d come to him like this.
“Yes,” Hester said. “You.”
Wilde didn’t reply.
“Guess who reported you missing,” she continued. “Guess who was so worried about you that he asked me to find you.”
Wilde nodded slowly. “Matthew.”
“What the hell, Wilde?”
He said nothing.
“Why are you ignoring your own godson?”
“I’m not ignoring him.”
“He loves you. You’re the closest thing he has...” Hester just let the words peter out. She changed subjects for a moment. “I did everything you asked, right?”
“Yes,” Wilde said. “Thank you.”
“So what happened when you found your father?”
“Dead end.”
“I’m sorry. So what’s the next step?”
“There is no next step.”
“You’re giving up?”
“We’ve discussed this before. Finding out how I ended up in the woods won’t matter.”
“What about Matthew?”
“What about him?”
“Does he matter? I know we are all supposed to shrug off your eccentricities as ‘Oh, you know how Wilde is,’ but that’s no excuse for ignoring Matthew.”
Wilde thought about that. Then he nodded and said, “Fair.”
“So what’s the problem?”
“Matthew’s in college.”
“He’s home on break.”
“Yeah, I know.”
Hester nodded. “You’re still keeping an eye on them.”
Wilde did not reply.
“So why...?” Hester shook her head. “Never mind. Get in the car. We’ll drive over together.”
“Nah.”
“Seriously?”
“I’ll be in touch before the end of the day,” Wilde said. “Tell Matthew.”
He turned and started toward the woods.
“Wilde?”
He stopped.
Hester tried to keep her voice even. Hester hadn’t planned on raising this, not yet anyway. She’d hoped to see him a few times, ease into it, but that wasn’t her style and it wasn’t his style, and part of her feared that confronting him on this now, the tragic event that bonded them forever, would just lead him to disappear deeper into the woods. “Right before you left the country” — she heard the crack in her tone, tried to stifle it — “I made Oren take me to that spot up Mountain Road. To the embankment.”
Wilde didn’t move, didn’t turn and face her.
“A makeshift cross is still there. On the side of the road. All these years later. Weathered and faded, I guess, but it still marks the spot where David’s car went off the road. You probably know that. That the cross is still there. I bet you visit sometimes, don’t you?”
Wilde still wouldn’t face her.
“I looked down that embankment. Where the car skidded off. I let myself picture it all — the whole thing. The icy road. The dark.”
“Hester.”
“Do you want to tell me what really happened that night?”
“I told you.”
Her eyes filled with tears. “You always said it was your fault.”
“It was.”
“I don’t believe that anymore.”
Wilde did not move.
“I mean, I never fully believed it, I don’t think. I was in shock for a very long time. And I didn’t see a need to know the truth. Like you. With your past. What’s the difference, you always tell me — you’ll always be the boy left in the woods. What’s the difference, I told myself — my son will always be dead.”
“Please.” Wilde slowly turned back to face her. Their eyes locked. “I’m sorry.”
“You’ve said that before. But I never blamed you. And I don’t want your apologies.”
He stood there and looked very lost.
“Wilde?”
“Tell Matthew I’ll be in touch,” Wilde said, and then he disappeared into the thicket.
Chapter Six
Hester, Wilde knew, was right about Matthew. He should not have stayed away.
Things had changed. That had been his rationale. Matthew was grown and was at college. More to the point, Laila had a boyfriend now, the first guy she’d kept around since David’s death eleven years ago. Wilde had no rights here. He had no standing. He wanted no part of it. In the past, his presence had been, he hoped, a comfort to her. There had been a role for him. Now that role was gone. He could only cause disruptions.
So he stayed away.
Of course, Wilde still kept a clandestine watch on Laila and Matthew from the woods — that was how he knew Matthew was back — but his vigils were becoming less and less frequent. There is a fine balance between being appropriately protective and creepily stalking.
Still, Laila was one thing. Matthew was another. So maybe he was just making excuses. Maybe he had simply been selfish. In the past year, he had taken too many risks in terms of personal entanglements. Now he wanted to take none.
Hester had also surprised him by bringing up the car crash. Why? And why now?
Wilde stopped by a specific tree and dug up one of his hidden stainless-steel lockboxes. He had six such all-weather storage containers throughout the forest, all with fake IDs, cash, passports, weaponry, and disposable smartphones.
Wilde tucked the box under his arm and hurried back to his microhome — a state-of-the-art, off-the-grid abode called an Ecocapsule. The cutting-edge habitat was tiny, under seventy square feet of habitable space, yet it had everything Wilde needed — a folding bed, a table, cabinets, kitchenette, a shower, an incinerator toilet that turned your waste into ash. The Ecocapsule incorporated both solar and wind power. The pill-shaped exterior not only minimized heat loss but facilitated collecting rainwater into water tanks where it could be filtered for immediate use. With the pod being both mobile and camouflage-skinned — not to mention the advanced security features he had set up — Wilde had made himself very difficult to locate.
He opened the box and took out a military-grade disposable phone. The safety features made it virtually impossible to track, but the key word here was “virtually.” No matter what you’re told, there is always a backdoor when it comes to technology, always a way to track and uncover, always, at the end of the line, a human who can see what you are doing if you’re not careful. Wilde tried to mitigate that via various VPNs and internet masking technologies.