I wait for the noise to die down. “No. What did you say?”
“I asked if there was any word.”
“Not on the TV.” I awaken my cell on the counter next to me and check the screen, even though I know there’s nothing. The ringer volume is turned on high, and the phone hasn’t left my side. “Nothing from the kidnapper, either.”
“Jesus, what a mess.” Sam leans with both elbows on the countertop, the morning sun lighting him up from behind. People often refer to him as Atlanta’s Golden Boy, and despite his Mediterranean coloring, they’re not wrong. Even now, barreling toward the wrong end of forty, his beauty still dazzles me.
But his remark might just be the understatement of the century.
“There were more than two thousand comments on this morning’s AJC article,” I say, pushing off my stool to fetch a yogurt from the fridge. I offer him one, but he shakes his head. “You wouldn’t believe the conspiracy theories. Someone suggested Ethan was abducted by aliens, or carted off to Mexico by a gang of human traffickers. Most seemed to think it was a hoax, though. An elaborate and sneaky trick to garner attention.”
“Attention for what?”
“To get you reelected, apparently. They think you’ve masterminded the kidnapping in order to drum up votes, and that when he’s found safe and sound, you’ll take all the credit. Voters do love a hero.”
Sam pushes himself upright, digging a spoon from the drawer in front of him. “That’s ridiculous. Tell those folks to check the polls. I’m up seven points. It’s not like I need the publicity.”
“Four and a half.”
He holds out the spoon, but when I reach for it, he doesn’t let go.
“The polls,” I say. “The split is down to four and a half. Josh told me last night when he dropped by.”
“Another ridiculous rumor.” Sam releases the spoon, but his forehead doesn’t uncrease. He pulls his cell from his pocket, his thumbs flying across the screen. “Shit,” he murmurs, and I know Josh was right.
“He also told me about the leaks, and the possibility they might be connected somehow to Ethan.”
Sam looks up from his cell. “Connected how?”
“I don’t know. Didn’t you and Josh talk about this last night?”
“I haven’t seen Josh. He texted when he was on the way back from his sister’s, but we’ve been crossing paths ever since. What else did y’all talk about?”
“The phone call, mostly. He said the Bell Building was part of the Marietta property.”
Sam confirms it with a nod. “Smack in the middle, too. There’s no other option than to raze it.”
“The kidnapper said he’d kill Ethan if you did that.”
“No, he said he’d kill Sammy. No telling what he’ll do once he figures out he’s got the wrong kid—that is, if he hasn’t already.”
I sink back onto my stool, the yogurt forgotten. “Does this have anything to do with this morning’s phone call? I heard something about a scandal.”
“You heard that, did you?” Sam inhales deeply, his chest puffing with a sigh that smells of coffee and toothpaste. “Long story, but a reporter is sniffing around, asking some pretty explosive questions about the Marietta deal. None of it’s true, of course, but I need to get a handle on the situation before things blow out of control. I’m going to be tied up most of the day. What time is that detective coming again?”
The same detective I met at the camp, who gave me the side-eye while the sheriff delivered a barrage of questions in an accusatory tone. Who asked me about that phone call over and over, as if repetition might somehow carve out a new explanation for what was said in those six and a half minutes. And who called me late last night, demanding another round of questioning this afternoon.
“Not until two. Will you be here for that?”
Sam’s cell buzzes in his palm, and he frowns at the screen. A text.
“Sam, did you hear me? I’d really like you to be there for the talk with the detective. I could use the support.”
Nothing. His thumbs are tapping out a response.
“Sam.”
He glances up, his expression distracted, his body jittery in that way it gets after a third cup of coffee. “The police are going to find this guy, babe. They’re not going to rest until whoever took Ethan is behind bars.”
I try to believe him, really I do, but this isn’t his campaign. Sam is not pledging to get tough on crime or patch up the city’s potholes. We both know this is a promise he might not be able to keep.
“Okay, but that’s not what I asked. Will you be here at two?”
“Huh? Oh, sure.”
I’m pretty positive he doesn’t have the first idea what question he just answered. I’d ask again, but he’s already walking away.
* * *
My phone rings just after lunch, as I’m rinsing the shampoo from my hair in the shower. I swipe the soapy water from my eyes and lean my head out the glass door, trying not to drip directly on the screen. I want it to be the kidnapper. I don’t want it to be the kidnapper. Relief surges when I see it’s Emma, followed closely by irritation. Now she calls me, a full twenty-four hours after I crammed her voice-mail box with frantic messages.
I turn off the water, dry my hand on the bath mat and pick up, right before it goes to voice mail. “Hi, Emma.”
“Omigod, Stef. I’m so glad I caught you. Please tell me you’ve got some good news.”
I step out of the shower and wrap a towel around my body, wedging the phone between my wet shoulder and an even-wetter ear. “Unfortunately, no. I don’t know any more than you do. There’s still no word about Ethan.”
“Oh Jesus. Oh God.” Her voice spirals a good octave higher than normal. “Oh my God oh my God oh my God. I am just sick about this. Like, literally sick. I’ve been throwing up ever since I turned around and Ethan was gone.”
The Emma I’ve come to know is even-keeled. Calm to the point of Zen, unruffled in the face of emergencies, like when Jamie Lawson’s father dropped dead of an aneurysm during morning car pool. She had corralled the kids and was dialing 9-1-1 before his head hit the concrete. I’ve never once heard her raise her voice, much less wail and make herself sick.
Then again, Ethan disappeared on her watch. How could she not blame herself?
“I overheard one of the cops say something about a kidnapping. Is that what you heard?”
“No.” I pad through the bedroom and slip out onto the balcony for some fresh air. It’s a glorious day, neither too humid nor too hot, the kind of afternoon Atlantans spend outside, on terraces or in the park. Not cooped up in a house. I sink onto the couch under the eaves, curl my feet underneath me on the seat and lie my face off. “I haven’t heard anything.”
Emma makes a choking sound, and I realize she’s crying. “I swear on a stack of Bibles, Stef. I only turned my back for two seconds. The fire was huge and the kids were screaming, and I was trying to keep everybody calm. You know how I am with those kids.”
I start to hum, then stop myself, keeping silent instead. I do know how Emma is with them, but I also know this experience will put her out of a job. Whether it was her fault or not doesn’t matter. The board will never keep her on after this.
“What’s Kat going to do?” Emma is saying. “She doesn’t have the money for ransom. She probably owes her divorce lawyer more than she earns in a year. I don’t know how she manages to scrape together tuition, much less a ransom. What if the kidnapper wants millions of dollars? She doesn’t have that kind of cash.”
“I don’t know.” I sink back into the cushions, careful to keep my tone neutral. The police warned me to not speak to anyone but them or Sam about the phone call. No way I’m going to be the one to tell Emma that this isn’t about money.
“And her husband sure as hell can’t pay. In fact, for a while there I was positive he w
as the one behind it. I even told the sheriff that Andrew would be my first guess. I mean, he’s not allowed to pick his son up from school except on his allotted Fridays, so she must have suspected he was capable of trying something awful. What if that kidnapping rumor is some sort of trick, to throw the police off? It’s possible, you know.”
She cries some more, and I shift uncomfortably on the couch. I don’t like that she’s spilled this little tidbit about Andrew’s pickup limitations, about their messy divorce and Kat’s finances. Emma and I aren’t friends. If she’s this loose-lipped with me about another mother, what else has she let slip, and to whom? If I had any questions before as to her discretion, she just answered them.
Mom’s words come back to me suddenly: Sammy knows more than what he’s telling you. If I’m totally honest, that’s a big reason I picked up this call. “Emma, did anything happen on this trip? Something I need to know about?”
The problem is, there’s always something. Ethan and Sammy can’t be within a hundred yards of each other without name-calling or a shoving match or flying fists. When I suggested the school separate the two, put them in different classrooms on opposite ends of the building, they thought I was overreacting.
“Sammy and Ethan need to learn how to tolerate each other,” Dr. Abernathy, the kind-eyed principal with wild salt-and-pepper frizz told me. “We wouldn’t be doing either of them any good by separating them. Learning to coexist with people we don’t particularly like is a life skill, and even if we did place them in different classrooms, different buildings even, they’d still run into each other on the playground, during lunchtime, at every school-wide event. It’s better to put them in an environment where we can monitor their behavior and correct when necessary.”
Which is all the freaking time.
Emma sighs, long and hard. “Oh, Stef, those two are like oil and water, you know that, but I talked to both the boys individually, and then we sat down together, the three of us, and talked everything out. I thought I had things under control. I was positive I did. They shook hands and told each other they were sorry. The argument was over. Buried.”
For all her good intentions, Emma doesn’t know my son at all. If she did, she’d know that Sammy doesn’t bury any argument, at all, ever, unless he wins it, and her penal system would not be a deterrent but a spark, one that would only fuel his anger. Case in point? Sammy would sooner change the subject than admit he feels bad about Ethan. Whatever concessions he might have made that day for Miss Emma were only for show.
“But?”
“But then there was another argument at the camp. Pretty normal stuff for those two, a lot of shoving and finger-pointing. It’s sometimes hard to tell who’s tormenting whom.”
“What was the argument about?”
“The stones they found at the mines, apparently. Sammy accused Ethan of stealing his. Ethan denied it, of course, but there was no way to prove who was right. I made them put all the stones in a pile and take turns choosing until they’d divvied everything up.” The phone rustles as she blows her nose. “Anyway, will you call me as soon as you know anything?”
Hell, no. I will not be calling her, not after this conversation. Emma is mental if she thinks I’ll be sharing confidences with her ever again.
“Of course,” I lie.
“Thank you. And Stef?”
“Yes?”
“Please don’t mention to anyone what I told you about Andrew. His pickup rules. I shouldn’t have said anything, but I’m just so wrecked. I mean, I looked that woman in the face and told her I’d take care of her son, and then... She blames me, you know. She thinks this is all my fault.”
Emma dissolves into a sobbing, blubbering mess, and I hold my tongue. I know she’s waiting, expecting me to say something comforting, but I’ve got nothing. Maybe she did nothing wrong. Maybe none of this is her fault. But if I were in Kat’s shoes right now, if the person who took Ethan had taken my son as planned, I’d sure as hell be looking for someone to blame.
And whether or not any of this is her fault, there’s really only one obvious choice.
“Bye, Emma,” I say, and hang up.
KAT
32 hours, 4 minutes missing
Dunwoody Stables is a quiet enclave of million-dollar homes, separated from the bustle of Mount Vernon Road by a lazy creek, a thick fringe of evergreens and a heavy iron gate. The last is more for show than anything else, as it swings open all day long—for visitors, the UPS truck, the hordes of workers that descend every weekday to clean neighborhood pools and trim hedges. I stop in front of it now and press the button on my old remote, and after a couple of breathless seconds, the gate groans, then slides apart.
“We’re in.” I hand Lucas the remote, which he tosses onto the dash.
“Good thing Feckless didn’t change the frequency.”
“For the same reason he didn’t bother changing the locks. Never in a million years would he think I’d actually dare to come here.”
Neither did I. Neither did Lucas, for that matter, though he didn’t argue when I told him what I was planning. He didn’t bring up the restraining order or the fact that I could be arrested. He didn’t tell me to let the police handle things or that I had lost my mind. He just reached for his shoes and said no way he was letting me go alone.
Mac and his men have already searched the house and my son is not here. What the sheriff said at the camp was right: Andrew was nowhere near Dahlonega when Ethan disappeared. He was an ocean away, stretched out on the white sands of St. Martin. And yet here I am. Despite what Mac tells me, despite all the evidence that says otherwise, I can’t seem to let go of my suspicions that Andrew was somehow involved.
We motor past my former neighbors, their McMansions looming like stone sculptures over half-acre lots, the yards pristine and untrampled by tiny feet. No abandoned bikes or scooters left on the sidewalks, no forgotten footballs or soccer goals tucked under a tree. The HOA requires all toys and sports equipment be stored out of sight in the garage or backyard.
“Where is everybody?” Lucas says, gesturing to the empty street ahead of us.
“The soccer field. The grocery store. Inside watching cartoons or playing video games. People generally keep to themselves.”
“Well, what the hell kind of fun is that?” Lucas mumbles.
In Lucas’s book, exactly none. Weekends at his house are a revolving door of neighbors and friends, stopping by to watch a game or shoot the shit because they know he keeps his pantry loaded with snacks and his fridge stocked with beer. If he spots a buddy on the road, he rolls down his window and stops to say hi.
But this is Dunwoody, and people here prefer their backyard lanais over the cushioned benches on the front porch. Neighborly interactions occur from the fancy womb of their air-conditioned cars, drivers waving to each other as they zoom past.
I pull to a stop at the curb and stare up at a monstrosity of brick and stone. The shingles have turned a darker shade of gray. The bushes on either side of the front door could use a trim. The attic shutter I was bitching about six months ago still sags on the left-hand side. I lean into the windshield, tipping my head to see all the way up to the peak. The place looks exactly the same, and yet it’s like I’m seeing it for the first time.
“Those window boxes cost $750 apiece,” I say, “and that’s excluding the cost of the plants, which Andrew has replaced four times a year so the flowers are always in season. You can’t see it from here, but there’s a hose attached to the irrigation system so he never has to worry about watering them.”
Lucas snorts. “That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.”
Exactly my point.
“Look at this place, everything about it is ridiculous. Its overplanted yard, all that tumbled river stone. But Lucas, I swear, the first time I walked through that door, it was like winning the lottery. I mean, how ma
ny people go from food stamps to a mansion in the suburbs? I felt so lucky, so blessed.”
“You were never on food stamps.”
I puff a sarcastic laugh. “No, but there were times I was close, and I wouldn’t have said no to some free groceries. But I guess what I’m saying is, if I hadn’t been so poor, would I have seen through Andrew’s bluster? Because this house, his sports car and designer watches, the casually dropped comments about his big-number business deals. I can see now it was all for show—one I fell for like some lovesick sucker.”
“Lots of people fell for Andrew’s bluster. That’s what a con man does. He cons people.”
“But why was I so susceptible to it? I hate to think it was because of all the things he could give me, but maybe it was. You saw through him right away. Why didn’t I?”
Lucas twists on the seat to face me, his gaze direct, unbothered. Confrontational as hell. Marines don’t skirt around the difficult issues.
“One thing I learned growing up across the street from your mother is that people are put in our lives for a reason. Y’all moved in when I was lonely and in need of a friend and mentor, and Nicolette filled that void for me, just like I did for her when she was looking for someone to take care of you after she was gone. The way I see it, there’s a reason Andrew came into your life when he did, and my advice to you would be to stop beating yourself up about it because you are blessed. You did win the lottery.” He pauses, leaning in. “The prize was Ethan.”
My tears are pretty much instant, because Lucas is right. Ethan is a prize. No, he’s the prize—one my mother will never have the chance to know. A familiar grief swirls in my stomach. Graduations. My wedding. The birth of my only child. These are the moments when you long for your mother, but never in my life have I needed her more than now.
“Mom would have loved Ethan so much.”
“Loves, Kitty Cat. Present tense.” Lucas reaches for my hand, gives it a squeeze. “Wherever your mama is right now, she loves the heck out of that kid.”
* * *
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