Escape the Night by Richard North Patterson

a large, open square, where the Band Shell was, a cement half-dome, whitewashed and immaculate, perched close to a hill on the square’s eastern edge. Old people, families and nannies pushing babies in English prams strolled along the mall to cluster there on summer afternoons to hear band music or symphonies; Peter liked to listen to the “1812” Overture, which reminded him of his soldiers. After the concert, Charles would take Peter’s hand and lead him across the low traverse to Bethesda Fountain, and the lake.
    It was another world, one that Peter liked most of all.
    A broad flight of steps fell steeply to a brick plaza marked by gaslights and inlaid with a Roman pattern of cement lines and circles. A winged, cast-iron fountain rose from the cement pool at its center, where small boys splashed and played with boats. Behind the plaza a long lake lined with dense green trees and speckled with rowboats and single sculls swept toward a green-roofed boathouse on the far side. Except for the cries of children the plaza was utterly still. Charles would let Peter wade in the fountain. The water was cool on his feet, his father’s laugh bright with summer, the sculls moving on the shimmering lake so slowly that they seemed like special moments captured in a photograph. There, the summer of Peter’s sixth birthday, came his special moment with Charles Carey.
    Charles had just bought a red Jaguar convertible and they drove it to Sutton Square, Peter grinning at the wind in his face. Parking alongside a neat row of town houses, they walked to its end, a brick courtyard with green wooden benches that overlooked the East River. The Queensboro Bridge loomed above and to their left, bright tan in the midmorning sun, running toward Roosevelt Island. An oil tanker swept beneath it, past a long white yacht with its mainsail down, puttering from Florida to Long Island Sound, for the summer. To Peter it looked lonely without its sails. “Will it stay here?” Peter asked.
    They were sitting next to each other on the bench, hands in the pockets of their windbreakers. “No,” Charles answered. “It goes where the sun is.”
    â€œDoesn’t it want to stay?”
    â€œIt can’t. Its owner decides.”
    Peter watched it move away. “I wish it were mine.”
    â€œWhy?”
    â€œBecause then it would have a home.”
    â€œWhat would you do with it?”
    â€œI’d sail to where it was quiet.” Peter felt his father’s arm curl around his shoulders. He moved closer, smelling the aftershave and tobacco that would be his father anywhere. “I’d take you with me, Daddy.”
    Charles smiled. “Anyone else?”
    Peter grew thoughtful. “Sometimes Grandpa.”
    â€œWhat would we do?”
    â€œI’d let you drive the boat. Grandpa would rest so he doesn’t get too old. I could read his books to him.” Peter looked down at his tennis shoes. “Maybe you could, until I learn to read.”
    Charles glanced curiously at his son. “Do you think he’d like that?” he asked softly.
    Peter nodded, still looking down. His father’s arm closed around him. It felt warm.
    They sat like that for a long time.
    When Peter looked up, the yacht was gone. His throat felt tight. “Where did it go, Daddy?”
    Charles watched him closely. All at once he sprang up, pulling Peter by the hand. “Come on, little guy.”
    Peter’s eyes strained after the vanished yacht. “Come on,” his father urged. “I’ve got something to show you.”
    In the window of F.A.O. Schwarz was a rubber pond filled with water and cabin cruisers and floating ducks. In the middle was a trim white yacht, fully two feet long.
    Charles stood grinning by the window. “There’s your boat, Peter.”
    They took it to the park, winding through the crowded zoo and mall and past the Band Shell, until they crossed the