The Boy from the Woods(43)

Not now. No distractions.

There had been no security guards when Wilde had attended. That wasn’t the case anymore. The crisply uniformed rent-a-cops were both serious and armed. They had their eyes on him the moment he hit the main road. Wilde took the most visible approach, smiling and keeping his hands in plain view.

Hands in plain view approaching a high school. What a world.

“What can we do for you?” the taller cop asked.

“I’m supposed to meet Ava O’Brien in the teacher lot.”

The other rent-a-cop sported a pencil-drawn mustache and looked young enough to be, if not still a student here, that guy who graduated a year or two earlier and spends all his time cruising around town in a beat-up sedan. He checked his clipboard for Wilde’s name while the taller cop tried to stare him down. Wilde didn’t mind that or the pat-down or the pocket emptying or the stroll through the metal detector. Sad how the world was now—really, did you want to arm two guys like this and stick them near a school? Do we really want to protect our children by giving guns to two underpaid cop wannabes and then mixing them in with a bunch of wiseass teens? Seemed a recipe for disaster. Wilde had worked in the security industry, so he knew that a lot of his competitors stoked these parental fears so they could cash in with big school contracts.

Create the problem—then monetize the solution.

The young armed guard made a phone call, and two minutes later, Ava O’Brien was leading him down a corridor. He liked the way Ava walked, which might seem like an odd thing to be thinking about, but there it was. She looked beautiful and strong.

It must have been between classes because the only sound was their feet on the linoleum. Wilde flashed back to his own years in these hallways. He still knew his way, of course. Do you ever forget? When they passed the gymnasium, Ava gestured to the portraits on the wall.

“I get to see your face every day.”

There were probably fifty faces under the listing “Sweet Water Sports Hall of Fame.” Wilde had been inducted under Track and Field. He didn’t attend the ceremony. Not his scene. During his senior year, Wilde had set almost every running record in the school—hurdles, sprints, miles. The school’s football coach tried to convince him to go for tailback, but Wilde didn’t like team sports with their comradery and rah-rah high fives. He didn’t like the football team in particular. Too tribal and clan-like.

“You look angry in the picture,” Ava said.

“I was aiming for macho.”

She studied it a second. “I’d say you didn’t hit that mark.”

“I rarely do.”

His eyes scanned down the plaques searching for Rola Naser. It didn’t take long. Rola’s beaming smile—no attempt at macho here—hit him like a sunburst. That was how Rola Naser was—beaming, loquacious, earnest, enthusiastic—even at home. Pretty much the opposite of Wilde. Maybe that was a forced facade, her way of compensating for her upbringing, but if so, Wilde rarely saw her break character.

“Soccer captain,” Ava said, following his eyes and reading Rola’s plaque. “Wow, she was an all-American?”

“Rola was the best soccer player the school ever had.”

“Was she a close friend?”

“Sister,” Wilde said. Then: “Foster sister.”

Ava led him into a classroom-cum-art-studio. There were splashes of color everywhere. Wilde took it all in. The room was comforting, what with the creations of the über-amateurish blended in with the super-gifted, the half-baked sculptures with works that could find a place in a museum. There was just life here. Lots of life.

“So I checked already,” Ava began.

Her tone was matter-of-fact. Wilde waited.

“Naomi has been out for a few days,” Ava said. “The absences are unexcused. The school has sent out warnings by email.”

“I heard it was bad when she got back from the last disappearance.”

“Heard from whom?”

“Her father,” he said. No reason to bring Matthew in. Wilde quickly updated her on the rest—Bernard Pine reaching out to him, Naomi’s bedroom, the missing clothes and backpack.

“Yeah, it was bad,” she said when he finished. “As expected.”

“How did Naomi react?”

“To the bullying?”

“Yeah.”

“Naomi, I don’t know, maybe she became withdrawn. I tried to get her to open up, but she didn’t share much.”

“Was there anyone else she might have talked to?”

“Not that I know of.” Ava tilted her head. “She told me you were the one who found her. She said you two talked in her basement.”

“Yes.”

“She liked you, Wilde.”

“I liked her too.”

“Did she tell you why she went along with that awful game?”

“She hoped that it would be a reset,” Wilde said.

“A reset?”

“A way to start again with her classmates. A do-over. She thought that maybe if she did it, really made a splash, everyone would look at her differently.”

Ava shook her head. “I get it, but…”

Wilde said nothing.

“I wish these kids could understand how short high school is,” she said.