Six Years

For several seconds, maybe longer, I could not move. I sat in the car. The car radio was on, but I couldn’t tell you what was playing. It felt as though the world had shut down. It took reality a while to get through my haze, but when it did, it hit me like a surprise left hook.

I was alone.

Even my best friend had lied—check that: was still lying—to me.

Wait, I said to myself. There had to be a reasonable answer.

Like what? What possible explanation could there be for having that address in Benedict’s GPS? What the hell was going on? Who could I trust?

I only knew the answer to that last question: No one.

I’m a big guy. I consider myself pretty independent. But right here, right now, I didn’t think that I had ever felt so small or such gut-wrenching loneliness.

I shook my head. Okay, Jake, snap out of it. Enough with the self-pity. Time to act.

First I checked through the rest of the addresses in Benedict’s GPS. There was nothing of interest. I did find his home address, so I set it up to lead me home. I started on my way. I flipped stations on the radio, searching for that ever-elusive perfect song. Never found it. I whistled along with what crappy song came on. It didn’t help. The construction sites on Route 95 pounded the hell out of what was left of my psyche.

I spent most of the ride having imaginary conversations with Benedict. I actually rehearsed how I’d approach him, what I’d say, what he might answer, how I’d counter.

My grip on the wheel tightened when I pulled onto Benedict’s street. I checked the time. He had a seminar for another hour, so he wouldn’t be home. Good. I parked by the guest cottage and started toward his house. Again I debated what to do. The truth was, I needed more information. I wasn’t ready to interrogate him yet. I didn’t know enough. The simple Francis Bacon axiom, one we constantly stressed to our students, applied here: Knowledge is power.

Benedict hid a spare house key in a fake rock by his garbage can. One may wonder how I know this, so I will tell you: We are best friends. We have no secrets from each other.

Another voice in my head: Was it all a lie? Was our friendship never real?

I thought what Cookie had whispered to me in those dark woods: “If you don’t stop, you’ll kill us all.”

It was not meant to be hyperbole and yet here I was, not stopping, risking in a way I could still not fathom “all” these lives. Who was “all”? Was I always, in a sense, risking them? Was Benedict supposed to, I don’t know, keep an eye on me or something?

Let’s not get completely paranoid here.

Right, okay, a step at a time. There was still the possibility of an innocent explanation for the Vermont address being on his GPS. I was not the most creative fellow. I have a habit of seeing things linearly. Maybe someone else borrowed his car, for example. Maybe someone even stole it. Maybe one of his late-night conquests wanted to visit an organic farm. Maybe I was once again practicing self-delusion.

I put the key in the lock. Was I really about to cross this line? Was I really going to snoop on my closest friend?

Bet your ass.

I entered through the back door. My apartment would kindly be described as functional. Benedict’s resembled a third-world prince’s harem. The den featured dozens of upscale, brightly hued beanbag chairs. There were vibrant tapestries on the walls. Slim African sculptures stood tall in all four corners. The room was over the top in a thousand ways, but I had always felt comfortable here. The big yellow beanbag was my favorite. I had watched a lot of football on that. I had played a lot of Xbox there.

The Xbox controllers were lying on it now. I stared down at them, though I didn’t really think the controllers would offer up much information. I wondered what I was looking for. A clue, I guess. Something that would tell me why Benedict would have driven up to that farm/retreat/kidnapper-hideout in Kraftboro, Vermont. What that might be, I didn’t have the slightest.

I started going through the drawers. I searched the ones in the kitchen first. Nothing. I took the spare bedroom next. Nothing. I tried the closet and bureau in the den. More nothing. I headed into the bedroom and tried there. Nothing. Benedict had a desk in there with a computer on it. I checked the drawers underneath it. Nothing.

I found a file drawer. I checked the file cabinet. There were routine bills. There were student papers. There were class schedules. As far as anything truly personal, there was—drum roll, please—nothing.

Absolutely nothing.

I thought about that. Who doesn’t have anything personal in their house? Then again what would you find in my house? More than this, certainly. There would be some old photographs, a few personal letters, something that indicated my past.

Benedict had none of that. So what?

I kept looking. I was hoping to find something that would link Benedict to the Creative Recharge Colony or Vermont or anything really. I tried to sit at his desk. Benedict is a lot smaller than I am, so my knees couldn’t fit under the desk. I leaned forward and hit a key on the computer. The screen lit up. Like most people, Benedict had not shut down his computer. I suddenly realized how old-fashioned my house search had been thus far. No one keeps secrets in their drawers anymore.

We keep them on the computer.

I opened up his Microsoft Office and looked for the most recent documents. The first listed was a Word document called VBMWXY.doc. Strange name. I clicked on it.

The file wouldn’t open. It was password protected.

Whoa.

There was no point in trying to guess the password. I didn’t have a clue. I tried to think of another way around that. Nothing came to mind. The rest of the files under “Recent” were student recommendations. Two were for medical schools, two for law schools, one for business school.

So what was in the password-protected one?

No idea. I clicked on the Mail icon on the bottom. The mail, too, required a password to enter. I looked around the desk for a slip of paper with a password—lots of people did that—but I found nothing. Another dead end.

Now what?

I clicked on his web browser. His Yahoo! news page popped up. Not much to learn here. I clicked the history page and finally hit something approaching pay dirt. Benedict had been on Facebook recently. I clicked the link. A profile for a man named, believe it or not, John Smith, came up. John Smith had no photograph of himself. He had no friends. He had no status reports. His address was listed as New York, NY.

This computer was signed in to this Facebook under the name John Smith.

Hmm. I thought about that. It was a fake account. I know a lot of people have them. A friend of mine uses a music service that goes through Facebook, showing all his friends every song he listens to. He didn’t like that, so he created a dummy account like this one. Now no one can see what songs he likes.