large flat-screen TV suspended from the ceiling was tuned to an all-news channel. The middle of the room was open with an assortment of large desks cojoined in pairs.
“Please have a seat.” Lang rolled out two chairs beside their desks. “First, we need you to sign the consent-to-search authorizations.”
“They’re ready. I’ll get them,” Price said, going to another office, returning with a file folder and placing a legal-looking document on the desk before Cal and Faith, who tried to read the several stapled pages.
“This allows us to immediately begin collecting material from your home—fingerprints, DNA—and search your computers and phones for anything connected to Gage.” Price extended a ballpoint pen to Faith, who stared at it without accepting it.
Lang said, “Gage’s disappearance could be tied to someone who was in your home, contacted you or hacked your computer or phone. Unless we investigate, we won’t know.”
Cal and Faith hesitated while Price kept the pen extended.
“We could get warrants,” Lang said. “This is faster, lets us send an evidence team to your house right away. And our IT people can clone your phones right here right now in a very short time. That way we’ll monitor all the calls here, so if someone contacts you for a ransom, or finds Gage, or he tries to call you, we’re on it. No time is lost.”
Cal was nodding but Faith remained hesitant as the detectives looked at them.
“But you’ll also go through all of our private information?” she asked.
“With your consent,” Price said.
“I don’t have a problem with that,” Cal said. “Whatever it takes to help find Gage, right, Faith?”
“Yes,” she said, “of course.”
Cal and Faith signed, then handed their phones to the detectives. “Thank you,” Lang said. “We’ll take these to IT.”
“What about the police officers at our home?” Faith asked.
“What about them?” Price said.
“How long will they be living with us?”
Price and Lang exchanged a glance.
“Are you uncomfortable having them there?” Price asked.
“A little,” Faith said.
“We’ve posted officers there for support and for your safety during this time,” Price said. “But after we clone your phones, they can be available at your discretion. Any time you’d prefer they not be inside, you tell us. We can post them outside, okay?”
“Thank you,” Faith said.
“Good. We’re going to get some coffee, fuel for the job,” Price said. “Can we get you coffee, juice, water?”
The Hudsons declined.
“We’ll be back in a few minutes.” Price offered a small smile. “And once we’re done the interviews we’ll take you down to processing for your prints and swab for DNA, then get you home.”
Price and Lang left, leaving Cal and Faith alone.
“I didn’t understand the consent we just signed.” Faith blinked back her tears. “I almost feel like we need a lawyer. I can’t think at all.”
“This is all procedure. One way or another they’ll get what they want and we have to cooperate so they can focus on Gage.”
“I’ll do whatever it takes to find him but I’m so afraid, Cal, I can’t think.” Faith cupped her hands to her face.
Cal’s impulse was to put his arm around her but he abandoned the idea. Taking stock of the squad room, he pointed his chin to one of the outlying offices. Two men in sports shirts, wearing shoulder holsters, were questioning an overweight tattooed man.
“Look, that’s the ticket taker. The guy who was in front of the horror house when we went in,” Cal said. “I didn’t like the way he eyed you.”
“You noticed that, did you?”
Cal studied her for a moment.
“Yes, I noticed,” Cal said. “He gave off a bad vibe.”
Faith let a few tense seconds pass before she nodded to another office where two other detectives were talking to a man. “That’s the chain-saw guy. At least they’re talking to the carny people. That’s a good thing.”
As the minutes swept by, Cal and Faith looked at the desks. Their sides were pushed against a wall under a corkboard of notes, calendars, phone lists and personal items. To one side there was a framed degree from Elmhurst College for Rachel Price and a photo of her beaming in formal blues, with two men to her left and two men to her right. Congrats, little sis! The fifth cop in the family! Doug, Spence, Danny and Deke was penned below it.
On the right side, there was a framed degree in Criminal Justice for Leon Wesley Lang from the University of Illinois. There was a snapshot of him with a woman and a little girl, about Gage’s age, by a mountain lake. The girl bore a resemblance to Lang.
Each desk had a computer monitor and keyboard. File folders were fanned over the work area and notebooks were bound with elastic and neatly stacked. On one of the desks were splayed copies of the morning editions of the Chicago Tribune and the Chicago Star-News. The headline in the Star-News said Star-News Reporter’s Son Vanishes in River Ridge Fair Horror House. It ran atop photos of Gage in his blue Cubs shirt and Cal and Faith at the press conference.
Faith’s hand flew to her mouth. “Cal,” she said, her voice quavering. “I don’t like this. What’re we really here for?”
“They need to know exactly what happened and we have to help.”
“It’s making me nervous. Will they need to know everything about us?”
Cal looked at her.
“They’re going to ask us whatever they feel they need to ask us, Faith. That could be anything. Are you ready for that?”
She stared back at him. He was unable to read what was behind her eyes but her tone cooled when she finally said, “Are you, Cal?”
For a moment, neither of them breathed.
Suddenly she took his hand, squeezing it with both of hers, as if she’d been cued by Price and Lang’s return.
“All set?” Price smiled briefly, taking note of the handholding. The detectives had returned with ceramic mugs of coffee, their clipboard folders and the Hudsons’ phones. “Thanks for those. Now, Cal, if you’d come with me, and Faith, if you’d go with Leon.”
They led them to the far end of the floor, down a hall with several closed rooms. Price indicated Interview Room 402 on the left side for Cal, while Leon did the same for Interview Room 403 on the opposite side for Faith.
“We don’t want to be interrupted,” Price said, “so we’ll talk in these interview rooms.”
Before they entered, Faith threw her arms around Cal, surprising him with a kiss on his cheek and a tight hug, her body trembling against his.
Again, she searched Cal’s face.
Then she turned and joined Lang.
Still feeling Faith’s kiss, Cal stepped into Interview Room 402.
He took a quick look at the small room, barren of furniture but for the hard-back chairs on either side of a table with a wood veneer finish.
As a reporter, Cal had been inside enough police stations, precincts and districts to know how investigators truly regarded these rooms. All of them were like this one, bright and