before mine can get there.
I slam the door and pivot around, and suddenly it’s all too much. The fear, the shock, the worry, combined with my exhaustion and the key-snatching cop, the fact that there’s nobody here but me. The tears come in a well of frustration and helplessness and maybe a tiny bit of self-pity.
The cop’s shoulders soften, and he drops my keys into his pants pocket. “Go get dressed. Make sure whatever you put on is comfortable, and wear sneakers. Pack an overnight bag with the basics—change of clothes, your toothbrush, any toiletries you need. Pack one for Ethan, too, and toss in any toys or stuffed animals he might want for when we find him.” He plucks my cell phone off the counter, waves it in the air by his ear. “Where’s the charger for this thing?”
I’m too shocked to answer with anything but, “Upstairs, I think.”
“Pack it, too. We’ll leave as soon as you’re ready.”
3 hours, 23 minutes missing
My east-Atlanta neighborhood, a ramshackle development on the wrong end of Tucker, is the kind of neighborhood that’s used to seeing cop cars roll by in the middle of the night. The people who live on my street are rough—chain-smoking women waving their fists at strangers from the stoop, potbellied men with gold teeth and sleeves of faded tattoos, teens with saggy pants lounging on the curbs with kids too young to be smoking. The houses aren’t much better—run-down and raggedy, with drooping gutters, peeling and patchy paint jobs, overgrown yards choked by weeds. I watch them pass by on the other side of the cop’s rain-soaked passenger-side window, taking in their sad state under the dingy glow of the streetlamps and the occasional front porch light. I thought marrying Andrew would save me from a neighborhood like this one, yet thanks to the countless sneaky smoke screens Andrew erected to hide his company’s money and assets, here I am all over again.
“How you holding up?” the cop asks, and I startle. “Sorry, didn’t mean to scare you.”
“How come you’re not in uniform?” The question comes out unsteady and without rhythm. I am surprised I am able to speak at all; my throat is desert-dry, and my tongue feels like a deadweight, swollen to twice its size.
“Because I’m not a patrol officer. I’m a detective working the night shift.”
“Isn’t this a little above your pay grade?”
“What, a missing child?”
“No. Carting me all the way to Dahlonega. What is it, fifty miles?”
Without taking his eyes from the road, he says, “More like sixty-five.”
The number makes me more than a little uncomfortable. I know this man has sworn to protect and serve, but it’s the middle of the night and I’m a stranger—one he initially suspected of having a hand in her own son’s disappearance. Does he still see me as a suspect? Did he offer to drive me in order to stay close, to watch for signs? I try to push my suspicions away, but I can’t. Ever since Andrew, my once-sharp instincts have gone haywire. Who knows why anybody does anything?
And speaking of Andrew, has someone called him? Did an officer bang on his door and haul him out of bed, too? The thought of seeing him again, of having our first face-to-face in months at the camp, makes my skin itchy with nerves.
I dig through the bag by my feet, fumbling for my cell phone. “I need to call Lucas.”
The detective reaches for the volume knob and silences his car speakers, which up until now have been bleating copspeak in intermittent spurts.
The first three tries shoot me to voice mail, just as I knew they would. Finally, on the fourth attempt, Lucas’s deep and dusty voice creeps down the line. “What’s wrong? Is it Andrew?”
“No, it’s Ethan.” I say his name, and my voice cracks. “He’s missing.”
“What do you mean he’s missing?” It was pretty much my first question, too. There’s a reason why I called Lucas first. “Missing from where?”
“From the cabin where he was staying with his class. He was on that field trip to Dahlonega, remember? His teacher did a head count and he wasn’t there.” A fresh wave of terror surges, hitting me like an anvil right between the ribs. “He’s been gone for over three hours now, Lucas.”
There’s a rustling, a squeaking of mattress springs, and I picture him sitting on the edge of his bed on the south side of Knoxville, in a house only slightly bigger than mine but minus the leak spots on the ceilings and the mold climbing the walls of the cellar. Lucas works in construction, which, ever since the housing crash, means he’ll do whatever it takes to make a buck. He’s a welder, a bricklayer, a craftsman, a roofer, a painter, an electrician, a landscaper, a plumber, a handyman and a jack-of-all-trades.
He’s also an ex-marine trained in search and rescue. He can track any animal through any forest. If he leaves now, he can be there in just over three hours.
A sleepy female voice floats up from the background, and he shushes her. Lucas is a good-looking guy with a tool belt and a Harley. There’s always a woman in his bed, though it’s rarely the same one. More rustling, the click of a door. “Okay. Tell me what happened. Start at the beginning.”
“That’s all I know. He was there—now he’s not. The cops are looking for him now.”
“How many?”
“I don’t know.”
“Have they called in the dogs? The volunteers and helicopters?”
“I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know.” The panic is building inside me like a scream, a tightening noose.
“Shit. Okay, I’m on my way. Where are you?”
I look for a road sign, trying to get my bearings. By now we’ve merged onto the highway, citywide and busy, filled with big, lumbering trucks that cling to the right lanes. Up ahead, a green sign points us north to Cumming.
“We’re about to get on 400, so that’s what, another hour or so?” The detective dips his chin. “Yeah, he says another hour.”
“Who’s ‘he’?”
“The detective who came to my house. He’s driving me.” I know he showed me his badge, said his name and credentials through my front door window, but none of it stuck. The panic and shock of finding a strange man on my doorstep washed it all away. I pull the phone away from my ear. “I’m so sorry, but I’ve forgotten your name.”
He glances over. “Detective Brent Macintosh, Atlanta PD.”
I repeat the words to Lucas, who says, “I’m walking out now.”
Relief hits me square in the chest, followed by a spark of something sharper. “Do you think he just... I don’t know, went to the bathroom or something and lost his way back?” This is the version I keep telling myself, that Ethan’s disappearance is as simple as an accidental turn, a mistaken path. I want so badly to believe that it’s only a matter of time before someone finds him hunkered down behind a tree. The alternative is too awful to contemplate.
“He’s too smart for that,” Lucas says, and I wince, even though I know he’s right. “Look, wherever he is, he couldn’t have gotten far.”
On the other side of the windshield, the wipers slap out a frenetic beat, but they can’t clear the glass fast enough. I think about the dangers that could come from a downpour in the mountains—freezing pools of swirling water and leaves; saturated ground, boggy as quicksand; mudslides, fast and heavy, taking down everything in their path.
“It’s still dark out, Lucas.”
“I know.”
“And it’s pouring. He’ll be drenched.”