Free Found by Harlan Coben Page A

with a brief hug but only nodded at me and turned away. Ema looked at me, puzzled. Rachel was usually much friendlier with me, but of course, Ema didn’t know about our last conversation, when I told her the truth about her mother’s death.
    “Four of us,” Spoon said. “Do you know that the number four is considered unlucky in many East Asian cultures? That’s because the word for four sounds like the word for death.”
    He pushed his glasses up his nose.
    “Spooky, right?”
    Ema sighed and said, “Did you find anything about Jared Lowell?”
    Before he could answer, the door behind us opened. A nurse in pink hospital scrubs stepped into the room. She did not look pleased to see us. “What is this?”
    Spoon spread his arms. “My posse.”
    “Your what?”
    “My posse. These are my peeps, my crew, my homies—”
    “Are they immediate family?”
    “More than immediate family,” Spoon said. “They’re my posse, my peeps, my crew, my—”
    The nurse was having none of it. “You’re only allowed one non-family visitor at a time, Arthur. You know that.”
    Spoon frowned. “But I had two here yesterday.”
    “Then someone was breaking the rules. I need two of you to leave this room immediately.”
    We all looked at one another, not sure what to do. Spoon took care of it.
    “I will talk to all three of you separately, but—and I hope you lovely ladies don’t consider this in any way to be sexist—Mickey and I first need to have a man-to-man talk.”
    He winked at me. I tried not to frown. Ema did not look pleased. I got that. She was the one most interested in finding Jared Lowell.
    “I can wait,” I said. “You and Ema can go first.”
    Spoon shook his head. “Man to man. It’s important.”
    He looked at me hard, trying to send a message. I noticed now that the call button was near his right hand. I wondered whether he had pressed it—whether that was the reason why the nurse had suddenly appeared.
    The nurse clapped her hands. “Okay, ladies, you heard the man. Let’s leave them alone for their
bro
talk.” She gestured toward the door, escorting Ema and Rachel out into the corridor.
    Spoon and I were alone.
    “Did you call for the nurse?” I asked.
    “Yep.”
    “Why?”
    “I wanted to show you what I found before we tell Ema.”
    “Why? He’s a fake, right? Jared Lowell.”
    “No. Her boyfriend, Jared, is very much real. Maybe too real.”
    “What do you mean?”
    Spoon pressed the button next to his bed so that he could sit more upright. “Jared Lowell’s residence is in Massachusetts, a small place called Adiona Island.”
    “Lie Number One,” I said.
    “What?”
    “He told Ema that he lives in Connecticut.”
    “Well, he does. Sorta. That’s why I used the word
residence.
Jared Lowell actually lives at the Farnsworth School, a fancy-shmancy prep school in Connecticut. All boys. They have to wear a jacket and tie every day. Could you imagine? That would put a crimp in my fashion statements, I think. I’m normally known in school as a pretty natty dresser, right?”
    “Natty?”
    “Sharp. I’m a sharp dresser, don’t you think?”
    To keep Spoon on track, I said, “I do.”
    “Anyway, Jared Lowell is seventeen years old and a senior. He does indeed have a Facebook page, but he almost never used it—not until recently anyway. After he, uh, disappeared or whatever, he took down almost all the photographs on his page. You know this already, right?”
    “I guess,” I said.
    “So have you seen any pictures of him?” Spoon asked.
    “Just the profile picture.”
    “So you probably don’t know that he’s tall.”
    I didn’t see the relevance. “Okay.”
    Spoon looked me in the eye. “He’s six-four.”
    My height. “Okay,” I said again.
    “Or that he plays basketball. In fact, he’s the leading scorer for his high school team, averaging nineteen points per game.”
    I nodded and said, “Okay.”
    “Or that his father’s dead, so he only has his