I lamented over a bottle of wine while Ethan played on the carpet at our feet, a slice of late-afternoon sun lighting up his curls like spirals of fire. Izzy had come equipped with a gift, a set of old-school alphabet blocks to keep him busy, and Ethan was stacking them into a tall, teetering tower. As he was putting the last block onto the pile, Izzy poked the tower with a toe, and the blocks came tumbling down. Ethan’s brow puckered, but he didn’t cry. When she tried to rectify her clumsiness, he pushed her hands away, his little face determined.
But it wasn’t another tower that he built. It was a long, snaking line of blocks across the carpet, and he’d arranged them in perfect alphabetical order. Not one block out of sequence. Not one letter turned upside down. Izzy was stunned that a thirteen-month-old could do such a thing, but I remember only feeling weepy, because that’s when it hit me: I would never understand what was going on in my own son’s head. Ethan may have come from my body, he may have my DNA coursing through his veins, but his brain was a beautiful, brilliant fluke. There were thoughts inside there I would never know, ones I could never come close to comprehending. I may have been his flesh-and-blood mother, but never have I felt so far removed from my own child as I did in that moment.
Never, that is, until now.
Now I’m standing on the front porch of the tiny cabin at Camp Crosby, hugging the plastic bag filled with clothes I’d brought for Ethan to my chest. The forest rustles all around me, changing colors with my tears—chartreuse to emerald to a deep olive green. Except for a few stragglers, the camp is empty, the sounds of dogs and choppers and shouts long since faded into birdsong. Everyone is gone except us.
“Are you ready?”
I startle at Mac’s voice, coming from just a few feet away on the porch.
I shake my head. “I need a minute.”
He nods and leans a hip onto the railing, settling in like he has all day.
Earlier, when the sheriff’s team packed up their equipment and took their operation across town, to an office with walls and cubicles and Wi-Fi, it felt wrong. Even after Stefanie showed up, throwing the camp into a tailspin with that mysterious six-minute phone call, I can’t contemplate leaving. Leaving now—without Ethan, without answers—feels too much like saying goodbye.
“There have to be more clues. There must be something we missed.” I read once everybody has a sixth sense; we just don’t all know how to tap into it. My gaze searches the woods like they hold the answer. There’s a gravitational pull between me and my son. He’s out there somewhere, I’m sure of it.
Mac leans down to brush some brambles from a pants leg. His once-nice slacks are ruined, snagged in spots and covered in streaks of orange clay. There’s a stick caught in his hair, but I don’t know him well enough to tug it out.
“Just because we’re leaving doesn’t mean we’re giving up, or even that all of us are leaving.” He juts a finger over my shoulder, past the cabin to the trees and the forest beyond. “The feds are staying, and they’re out there right now following the same tracks that we did. If we missed anything, they’ll find it.”
I nod, wanting to believe him. The wind stirs, whisking a chunk of hair across my face and crawling up my spine, covering it with goose bumps despite the sunshine. Like somebody walked over my grave, Lucas would say, and I cringe. My grave. Mine. Not Ethan’s.
“What if he comes back?” I say. “What if somebody finds him and I’m sixty miles away in Atlanta?”
I’ve already been through this line of questioning, first with the sheriff then with Mac and Lucas, all of them multiple times. The sheriff is already gone, and so are most of his team. Only the FBI team is left, sweeping up whatever we’ve missed. Even Lucas thinks it’s time to go, though he’s coming home with me instead of turning north for Tennessee, following behind us on his bike.
Mac gives me the same answer as before. “Then Lucas or I will bring you back.”
Across the clearing, Lucas comes banging out of the dining hall in the same clothes he had on when he first arrived, jeans and boots and his faded orange ball cap. His leather coat is clutched in a fist. He stops at the edge of the porch and slides on his sunglasses before stepping into the bright sunshine. Sometime in the past few hours, the sky has cleared into a brilliant blue.
Time to go. Mac pushes off the railing. “Do you have everything?”
I stare down at the bag in my hand. “Everything” is all I have left of my son, the empty compass pouch and the stuff Mac instructed me to pack from home. A change of clothes, Ethan’s toothbrush, a spare pair of glasses. The only thing missing is his stuffed rabbit. The sheriff wanted to keep it for the dogs. As soon as he told me, I ran outside and threw up in the bushes because I knew he meant cadaver dogs.
Mac takes the lead down the stairs, and I’m following behind when my phone buzzes in my back pocket. That rare spot of service on the pathway to the clearing. I stop and pull out my phone, sucking a noisy breath at the word popped up on the screen.
Unknown.
Every hair on my body soldiers to attention. When the kidnapper called Stefanie, his name was blocked. Her screen said “Unknown,” too.
Mac sees I’m not following and doubles back. “What’s wrong?”
I turn the screen so he can see.
Blood roars in my ears, loud enough I barely hear the phone’s second ring.
“Put it on Speaker.” He steps close, so close we’re practically chest to chest. My phone is wedged between us in a palm, screen to the sky. “I want to hear it, too.”
I nod, then with shaking hands, answer the call. “Hello?”
There are no weird clicking sounds like Stefanie described. No voice distorted beyond recognition. Just a deep, male voice that feels somehow familiar. “Hi, is this Kat Jenkins?”
I look at Mac, who as far as I can tell is not breathing. He dips his chin in a nod.
My voice is high and squeaky. “Yes, speaking.”
“Kat, this is Sam Huntington. Sammy’s father.”
The breath whooshes out of me in a rush, chased by... What? Relief? Disappointment? My whole body is shaking, panting like I just sprinted up to the edge of a cliff.
Sam Huntington and I have never spoken. We’ve never run into each other at school. I know nothing about the man beyond what I see on TV, but now I know where I’ve heard this voice.
My name is Sam Huntington, and I approved this message.
“Mayor Huntington,” I somehow manage.
Mac takes a step back, then swipes a hand through his hair. He turns to Lucas, motioning to wait at the bottom of the hill.
“Please, call me Sam. After everything that happened today, you and I are on the same team. We should be on a first name basis. May I call you Kat?”
“Of course.”
“Excellent. You know, Kat, I spent a good chunk of time trying to come up with what to say to you right now. I mean, there’s not really a protocol for this situation. Whoever took your son meant to take mine instead. Ethan has been put in harm’s way because of something involving me and my family. The only words I could come up with are I’m sorry. Truly. I’m so sorry this is happening to Ethan.”
His words touch me in a way I can’t quite explain. Maybe because I wasn’t expecting them, or because he sounds so sincere. Either way, it’s a hell of a lot more than his wife said to me, only a few hours ago.
“Thank you. That means a lot.”
“This isn’t some empty campaign promise. Whoever did this came after my son. My family. This is personal now, and I’m going to go after your son as if he were my own. I am going to hunt this monster down and make him pay. I won’t rest until he’s behind bars.”
And suddenly, I know why this man was elected mayor. Why people trust him with their well-being, their lives and their livelihoods. I don’t follow politics and I’ve never trusted politicians, and yet I don’t f
or a second doubt he means every word.
“Are you on your way back to Atlanta?”
“Yes. Well, almost...” I sigh, my eyes burning at the thought of quitting this place. “It just doesn’t feel right, leaving him here.”
“You are not leaving him, and no one is giving up. No one. If anything, we are doubling down on the search for your son. I’ve already allocated more funds and manpower to the investigation, and I will call in the National Guard if I need to. This is my cell we’re on. If you have questions, if you need anything at all, even if it’s just a middle-of-the-night pep talk, you call me, okay? I’ll text you the number as soon as we hang up.”
I nod, because I suddenly can’t speak. Stefanie’s antics, Sam’s sincerity, the stealthy woods and my empty arms. It’s all too much. I look helplessly up at Mac, who takes the phone from my hand and says all the words I wish I could say. That I’m grateful for Sam’s support. That I appreciate the effort and this call. That I look forward to his updates.
And then Mac hits End and hands me back my phone, and there’s nothing left to do.
Time to go.
STEF
28 hours, 37 minutes missing
I wake up on Saturday morning alone.
Sam is already up, which wouldn’t normally be a surprise, if he didn’t slide into bed at well past three. He didn’t say a word, either, didn’t offer up explanation or apology for coming home eight hours late for dinner, but I could tell the day had been brutal by the way we made love. Raw. Urgent. Desperate.
Despite the morning’s quiet, my mind is noisy. I check the time on my cell and do the math. Just past seven, which means Ethan’s been missing for more than twenty-eight hours. An eternity for a missing child. I know because I spent most of last night researching the statistics, reading every horror story the internet could cough up. A six-month-old baby vanished from her crib. A toddler from his stroller at a theme park. A second grader walking home from school. All gone without a trace. One of the 800,000 children that go missing each year. Most missing children aren’t found weeks or months or years later—not unless they’re a corpse.
I roll toward my nightstand and hit the button for the blackout shades, thick swathes of material that turn daytime into the darkest night, and they whir up to reveal a brilliant spring morning. Sunshine streams through the windows, painting the walls a golden yellow that’s far too cheery for the second day in the search for a missing boy. I push back the covers and slide out of bed.
On my way to the bathroom, I spot motion in the backyard. Sam, his cell phone pressed against an ear, pacing the length of the pool. Nobody, not even Josh, calls the mayor at seven o’clock on a Saturday morning unless it’s bad news.
I slip out onto the balcony, and Sam’s voice floats up to greet me.
“You said this wasn’t going to be a problem. You assured me, assured me this deal was squeaky clean.”
So not about Ethan, then. Something else.
I start to go inside, but something in Sam’s tone makes me step closer to the railing.
“Well, of course he does business with the city. Half my donors do in some form or another because they live here. They own businesses here. But that’s not why they contribute. They contribute because they want their name listed on the back of the inaugural ball invitation, not because they’re looking for kickbacks. And even if they are, I make things crystal clear before the first paper is signed.”
This is only partly true. Sam may not grant his donors kickbacks when it comes to city business, but he has no problem bringing prospective ones into our social circles, then asking me to charm their pants off. I get them talking about their families, their hobbies, their favorite vacation spots. I laugh at their jokes and pretend to be impressed by their talk of sports cars and mountain homes and big-game hunting trophies. By the time Sam asks them to pull out their checkbooks, they’ve tacked on a few zeros. Hook, line, sinker. Go team.
Turns out I’m more like my father than I thought.
But exchanging money for favors? Sam is too prudent, too careful for that.
Although, he doesn’t seem awfully worried about the neighbors, much less the reporters camped out at the gate. What if one of them has scaled the ten-foot fence? What if he’s crouched behind the backyard bushes, listening to Sam’s words now? Maybe I should call down for Sam to take this conversation inside.
“Hang on, hang on. Back up. Who was asking questions?” Whatever the answer, Sam doesn’t like it. He swings around, his shoulders stiff and straight, twin blades jutting through his white cotton shirt. “Fuck. Fuck. You know what will happen if this gets out. We are six months out from the election. This is not the time for a scandal.”
His words flash-freeze my skin, covering every inch of it in chill bumps, despite the morning’s warmth. My mind rewinds to Josh’s words just last night, his reluctant reveal that their office has sprung a leak, how whatever is going on at City Hall might be connected to Ethan’s disappearance.
Sam pivots and heads for the door. “Give me a couple of hours to huddle with Josh. Marietta was his deal, and he’s more intimate with the details than I am. I’ll call you as soon as...” Sam’s voice fades as he disappears into the house.
Marietta Street, home of the Bell Building and now, apparently, scandal.
I hurry inside and get dressed.
Sammy is up, his door open, the ubiquitous video game sounds bursting in fits and starts into the hall. I pause in his doorway, blinking into the darkness. The heavy curtains are drawn, blocking out the natural light and transforming his room into a cave. Intermittent flashes come from the flat screen on the wall.
“Yesssss,” Sammy hisses, and that’s when I spot him on the bed. He throws both hands into the air in victory. Neither is holding the controller.
My gaze scoots to his gaming chair, to the bare toe peeking out from behind it, the one with a chipped orange nail. “Mom, what are you doing?”
She swings her head around the side, grinning. “Sammy’s showing me how to stick it to the locusts.” She turns back to the TV, punching at the controller with both thumbs. “Now what, darling?”
Sammy springs up and runs to the TV, pointing to the left side of the screen. “Follow Dom. Him and the rest of Delta Team are looking for the locust source. Go up those stairs, but be careful because—look out!” He jumps up and down, right as the screen erupts in another spectacular explosion.
“What happened?” Mom says. “Where’d I go?”
Sammy turns to her, grinning underneath crooked glasses. “You got killed.”
“What? Well, that’s not fair. I wasn’t nearly done.”
He snatches the controller from her fingers, starts the game all over again and hands it back with her marching orders: find the locusts, kill them, don’t get killed again.
“How about some breakfast?” I suggest, but by now Mom has blown another locust to smithereens, and neither seems eager to leave the game.
“Later,” Sammy says, not taking his gaze from the screen.
“Later,” Mom parrots.
I leave them to battle the beasts.
I spend the next hour or so in the kitchen, sipping coffee and scrolling through the ajc.com, channel surfing for news of Ethan and listening for the sounds of Sam in his study. Multiple voices rise and fall through the double wooden doors—closed tight for privacy, which he hardly ever does. Another conference call, by the sounds of it.
I pause on the local NBC affiliate, where a solemn-faced woman stands at the entrance to what I recognize as Camp Crosby. She holds a microphone under overly glossed lips.
“The FBI is asking for information from the public in the disappearance of a second grade boy from Atlanta from the cabin where he was staying here, at Camp Crosby in Dahlonega. Police describe him as a four feet tall white male of approximately ninety pounds, with dark hair
and hazel eyes. He was last seen wearing red plaid pajama pants and a black long-sleeved T-shirt with the words Don’t Wake the Beast written across the front. Anyone with information is asked to call the tip line at the bottom of the screen.”
The reporter moves on, something about a prayer vigil community organizers are planning in downtown Dahlonega for tonight, and by now I’m only half listening. I’m too busy thinking of Kat.
I picture her huddled in front of a television screen across town, watching the same reporter list off a bare-bones, generic description of her son and crying with frustration. Or standing at the edge of the woods in Dahlonega, screaming her son’s name into the trees. I wonder if she spent the night pacing the floors while the clock ticked away at her sanity and the rest of us snored, oblivious to her midnight monsters. I wonder if Ethan is out there somewhere, frantic with fear and missing his mother, or if his body is rotting in a place nobody knows about. The last thought makes my heart race in fear, in sympathy.
A hand presses on my shoulder and squeezes, and I startle at the unexpected touch. “You okay?”
Sam, showered and shaved, in pressed khakis and a button-down shirt, dressed for work even though it’s before eight on a Saturday. Sam likes to live his life as if there are always people watching. I give his hand a pat, and he moves away in a cloud of aftershave and starch.
“I’m fine. Just thinking about Ethan.”
He rounds the island, pulls a cup from the cabinet and slides it under the coffee machine nozzle. “I noticed. I’ve been talking to you for at least a minute now. You didn’t hear a word I said, did you?” He punches a button, and the machine comes to life, grinding the beans with a loud whir.
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