Lost Boy (30 page)

She took it and turned it in her hand, frowning at the torn seams, but examining the signatures before setting it down in
front of her. “Very good, Stephen.”

Another ball on the desk had caught Ryder's attention and Esther saw him looking at it.

“You know what that one is?” she asked. “Go ahead, pick it up.”

Ryder lifted the ball off its stand. It was fresh and new and it had a World Series logo on it. “What?”

“Game six. Green Monster. Foul ball. Know how I got it?”

Ryder shook his head and replaced the ball in its stand.

“Fell right into my lap.” She glanced at Mr. Starr. “Seriously. Bounced twice. I didn't even move. That's fate, right? That's life, isn't it?”

“So . . .” Esther picked up a thin stack of paper and let it drop beside the ball, her voice changing to signal that this was business. “People are interested. . . . These days no one's buying outlines with a few sample chapters, but in your case, with your background, I think we might be able to do something. Probably not what you want, but
something
.”

“Not what I want?” Mr. Starr sounded like he was trying to contain some anger.

Esther shook her head. “To really cash in on this, I need to have the whole thing, Stephen. People will be able to sink their teeth into it then, and I can get you some real money.”

“They can't have the whole thing!”
Mr. Starr startled Ryder, but Esther Newberg didn't even blink.

“Why not, Stephen?” Esther delivered the question as a challenge.

“It'll take me six months,
a year
if I take the time I should. I can't wait six months. I can't wait one. I need this
today
,
Esther!” Mr. Starr was breathing hard and Ryder remembered Ashleigh Love's warning about his health. “I'm . . . I don't mean to be so abrupt.”

“Abrupt works with me.” Esther was unfazed. “I think I can get you a couple hundred thousand for this . . . but you've got to finish it.”

“Esther,” Mr. Starr sounded tired and sad, “I need the money now. Today.”

Esther touched the thin stack of paper on her desk. “That part's all true? The mother? The operation?”

“It's why I'm
doing
this.” Mr. Starr stared and a single tear rolled down his face. “I can save her. I have to . . . I need two hundred thousand, but I need it
now
.”

Esther took a breath and held it before letting it out. She gave a curt nod, held up a finger, and picked up her phone.

“Zoe, get me Lindsey Frost.” Esther turned her chair toward the window, looking out over the budding trees of Central Park and the row of skyscrapers it seemed to hold at bay. “Lindsey? Good. I can give it to you, but not for fifty. I've got seventy-five on the table from someone else, but I need two hundred and I need it right now. . . . Well, you're the one who said it's a bestseller, not me, and Tearsten Casanova thinks the same thing and I'm calling her next unless you give me two hundred. . . . I don't care how business is done these days, Lindsey. I have a deal and I
will
sell it today because I
have
to sell it today and I've got enough buyers that I'm not worried. It's just that I thought of you before anyone and you can see why. If it's beyond you, then let me go. . . . No, eighty is not two hundred, Lindsey. . . . You're way off. . . . No, that's fine.”

Esther hung up the phone. “That didn't go very well.”

Mr. Starr's tongue crept out of his mouth and worked the edges of his lips. “Can you get two hundred from the other person?”

Esther looked at him hard. “If I can't get two hundred from Lindsey, I can't get it from anyone, Stephen. She wants this, but it's a tough market right now. You don't even have a finished book.”

Mr. Starr made a gurgling noise. The phone buzzed. Esther hit the speaker.

“Esther?” It
was Zoe's voice. “I've got Lindsey Frost on line two.”

Esther's eyes twinkled. She pursed her lips and picked up the phone. “Lindsey? Talk to me.”

The agent listened, her face giving nothing away.

Ryder held his breath.

He couldn't believe this was happening. He'd given up hope, but now it was alive. Mr. Starr was right, they were so close, but they'd been close before with Thomas Trent, and Ryder wondered what this book was and what it would mean for the Trents. He doubted it could be anything good.

Finally, Esther took a breath and said, “I told you, two hundred, Lindsey. Why are we wasting each other's time? Tearsten Casanova already offered me seventy-five and that was before she knew
you
wanted it too. . . .”

Esther winked at them. “Well, I don't care about your board. Your board won't complain when this thing becomes a bestseller. There aren't a lot of stories like this out there. You know that. . . .”

Esther listened and then she bit her lip and scowled. “Hang on, Lindsey.”

Esther covered the phone and her eyes bored into Mr. Starr. “I've got her up to a hundred, Stephen. Do you want me to take it or not?”

“It's not what we
need
, Esther. Keep going. Get more.”

Esther's look got even darker. “I'm telling you that without the whole book this is the absolute
best
you're going to get, Stephen. Tearsten Casanova wants it, but she hates unfinished manuscripts and she said seventy-five was her final and when she says ‘final,' she means it. This is the best we are going to get, so, take it or leave it.”

“You're
sure
, Esther?” Her name barely escaped Mr. Starr's twisted lips.

“I'm sorry,” she whispered, shaking her head.

“Then tell her no.”

“No?”

“
No
. Come on, Ryder. Let's get out of here.” Mr. Starr jammed his hand against the controller and the chair jerked awkwardly toward the door.

“Stephen . . .” Esther stood up.

“No,” Mr. Starr said, “it's not your fault. I know you did your best. We have to go.”

Ryder followed, glancing back at the agent.

Zoe stuck her head in the doorway. “Esther, I've got Caroline Kennedy on line two.”

Esther Newberg shook her head sadly, sighed, and picked up the phone. “Caroline?”

Mr. Starr navigated his chair through the desks to the
elevator. Ryder got on with him, dazed and unable to even think.

“Why didn't you take the money?” he asked as the car dropped toward the ground.

“I promised myself that if I ever wrote a book, it'd have a happy ending, not like this. Not like me. The world doesn't need another tragedy.” Mr. Starr stared hard at him. “I'm not writing that book.”

Ryder started to cry.

“I'm sorry, Ryder.” Mr. Starr's voice was tattered with pain.

Ryder sniffed and tried not to sob. “I never had a father, and now it's like I've got two. You and Doyle, but now it's too late.”

The elevator stopped. The bell rang as the doors opened. Mr. Starr buzzed out into the lobby without a word. Ryder held the door open and they were out on the street, people streaming by in the kaleidoscope of his tears. They had no idea how sick he was with grief.

“What now?” Ryder whispered.

“Now?” Mr. Starr let out a ragged sigh, his voice cracking. “We go say good-bye.”

Ryder didn't think the machines hooked up to his mother could sound any slower, any weaker.

Doyle sat tucked into the corner, just looking at Ryder's mom. Ryder knew it was her, but if someone had showed him a picture like this three weeks ago he would never have believed it was his mom. His mom glowed with life. She bubbled with it.

Now her parted lips were dry and motionless beneath the oxygen tubes snaked into her nose. Her hair lay matted, greasy, and lifeless; gone was its luster and bounce. He felt so tired he wanted to just lie down beside her, go to sleep, and never wake up.

Mr. Starr bumped into the backs of his legs with the wheelchair and softly apologized. Ryder made room for him. He didn't know what else he could do but stand there and
look. Doyle cleared his throat, stood, and gripped Ryder's shoulder.

Ryder looked up at him, tears streaming silently down his cheeks. “Can't we do anything? There has to be
something.
”

Doyle's mustache drooped to his chin. He swallowed and looked over at Mr. Starr with red and weary eyes. Mr. Starr ignored them both. He navigated his chair alongside the bed, awkwardly leaned forward and sideways, raised an arm, and let his mangled hand drag its fingers across her cheek.

He whispered something. It was more than a good-bye, or a long good-bye; then he settled back into the chair and reversed it toward the foot of the bed.

Ryder suddenly knew what he had to do.

He slipped free from Doyle's grip and moved a chair next to her bed. He sat down and took her hand in both of his, twining their fingers. Then he rested his head on the bed so that he could watch the rise and fall of her chest. He would stay there and hold her hand and watch, until the very end. He knew no one could take him away from this spot. No one could separate them . . . until she was gone.

Time crawled. Nurses and doctors came and went, talking in low voices that floated behind him, ghostlike in the sterile room.

Ryder drifted in and out of sleep, the slow steady sound of the heart monitor lulling him, and the exhaustion of it all coaxing him under for five or ten minutes at a time. When he wasn't sleeping, he was praying. He couldn't help that. He thought it was what she'd want.

When the voices rose to a sudden high pitch, he jerked
awake. His heart sprinted in panic. The beeping? Was it gone? The noise. The hurry. The commotion.

Doyle lifted him up and away and he struggled, kicking and screaming and crying. “No! No! No!”

They picked her up and laid her onto a white gurney. There were five of them, rushing, frantic, shouting.

Ryder shrieked, but his shrill cry was lost in the noise, and then she was gone.

“No! No! No!”

Doyle held him tight, so tight he grew faint from want of air. “Ryder, no. Stop. Please.”

“They
took
her! She's
gone!
” The agony tore him in half, his eyes desperately searching the empty space she'd disappeared through.

The doorway grew suddenly dark with the tall figure of a man. Ryder choked at the sight of him.

Thomas Trent wore a dark leather jacket and a somber face. He looked like he needed some sleep and a shave. His green eyes were red-rimmed and puffy. “They're going to try and save her, Ryder.”

Thomas Trent let his words sink in before he continued. “I'm sorry you had to wait.”

“What?” Ryder knew it was a dream.

It was like the shark dream, so real, so horribly real.

But Thomas Trent crossed the threshold, stepped into the room, and placed a strong hand alongside Ryder's face. Trent's fingers curled around the cord of muscle in the back of Ryder's neck.