I press the doorbell, and a complicated melody starts up just inside. “I’ll admit, that’s a little weird.”
Lucas bounces on his toes next to me, a soldier ready for battle. “What, the chorus of fancy church bells?”
“No. Ringing a doorbell that used to be mine.”
Inside the house, the melody dies down into silence.
No voices, no footsteps, no nothing.
Lucas leans his upper body over the railing, presses his face to a side window. “Looks like Mac was right. Nobody’s home.”
“Are the sconces on either side of the hallway mirror on?”
So we don’t have to put in the alarm code in the dark, Andrew always argued, turning them on as we were on our way out. I found it a colossal waste of energy and money. We have sixty seconds to put in the code, I’d argue back. I think we can spare one second to flip a light switch.
“Yeah,” Lucas says, swinging his boots firmly back onto the porch. “They’re on.”
“Then nobody’s home.”
Just in case, he lifts a fist, bangs on the front door hard enough to rattle the stained glass.
Somewhere up the street, a dog barks, but inside the house, there’s nothing but quiet.
“Now what?” he says.
I turn and head for the side yard. “Now we take a peek inside.”
“What are we looking for?”
“I don’t know. Maybe nothing.”
Then again, maybe everything.
I lead us through the patch of monkey grass and onto the stepping-stones, following them around to the right side of the house. The pine straw is a wild and shaggy carpet, tickling at my ankles above my sneakers and I wish I’d worn boots like Lucas. His thick soles slap the dirt and stones right behind me.
We halt at the study window.
“What?” Lucas says, his voice eerily low, cautious.
“It’s empty.” I cup my palms on either side of my face and squint into the glass. “The carved writing desk, the leather executive chair, the fringed Persian on the floor—he loved that stupid carpet. Is he moving or something?”
“There aren’t any boxes, and look.” Lucas taps a finger on the windowpane. “All his books are still there.”
Lucas is right. The bookshelves are still packed.
“Maybe he’s just redecorating,” he says.
“But—”
A voice, pitchy with adolescence, stops my heart. “Hey, Mrs. Maddox.”
I whirl around to face him—a teenager in bare feet and clothes that look slept in, clutching a dusty newspaper he must have just fetched from the street. The neighbor’s kid. He’s grown half a foot and sprouted a fuzzy mustache since I saw him last. Does he know I don’t live here anymore? Does he know about the abuse, the divorce, the restraining order?
His name comes to me in a flash. “Hi, Brandon,” I say, then stop, trying to think what to say next. The best I can come up with is, “You remember my friend, Lucas.”
Brandon gives Lucas the side-eye. His size, his brawn, his ten-hut demeanor... Kids—especially boys—find Lucas either awe-inspiring or terrifying, and clearly, Brandon here falls in the second category. He takes a step backward. “So how was the camping trip?”
“I...” I shake my head. “I’m sorry?”
“Ethan. Wasn’t he going on some trip up to the mines? He was pretty stoked about it. Him and Mr. Maddox were practicing putting up the tent all weekend. Did they ever figure out how to operate that thing? It looked pretty complicated.”
I am completely speechless. Andrew’s idea of “roughing it” is sleeping in a hotel with no room service. Now he has a tent? Since when?
But more important, why?
I turn to Lucas, whose eyes have turned a deep, stormy gray. They squint at me, and I know he’s thinking the exact same thing: camping.
“Did Ethan say anything to you?” Lucas asks.
I shake my head, my head swirling with questions, with suspicion. Why didn’t Ethan tell me he and his father were going camping. Why didn’t Andrew?
Before I can think, before I can say the very first word, Lucas is pulling me toward the car.
STEF
35 hours, 30 minutes missing
At a few minutes before two, I let Detective Macintosh through my front door. He’s cleaned up since the last time I saw him, when he was rain soaked and covered in mud. He stands on my doorstep in a lightly starched shirt, dark pants and black leather lace-ups, and I don’t quite know what to make of him, other than that he’s not a fan. Not of me, and not of my husband, who, officially speaking, is his boss. A million bucks says he voted for the other guy.
He lowers his chin in greeting. “Mrs. Huntington. Sorry to disturb you on the weekend. I know this is the last thing you want to be doing on a Saturday afternoon.”
Sam reaches around me to give him a hand. “Not a problem at all, Detective. Anything we can do to help.”
He drapes his other hand over my shoulder. He’s been holed up in his study all morning, either on the phone or pounding away at his keyboard, and I am beyond relieved he’s put down his laptop and phone to be here for me. I lean into his heat.
The detective’s gaze grazes his surroundings while he gives us a quick update—no leads, no sign of Ethan. The message hangs in the air like a weighted balloon. Thirty-five hours. That’s how long the police have been combing the North Georgia woods and my cell phone records, looking for clues. I think of Kat and I can barely breathe.
Sam motions us deeper into the house, through the sunken living room to the dining area, which I’ve set with crystal glasses and a tray of glass-bottled water. To our left, a wall of floor-to-ceiling windows overlook the patio and beyond, the pool shimmering in the springtime sun. The detective doesn’t so much as glance that way, posing his first question before our butts have hit the padded leather seats. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to start by going over the phone call.”
I reach for the bottle of Pellegrino, twist it open with a hiss. “Of course. What would you like to know?”
Sam isn’t that agreeable. He threads his fingers together on the table, his steel watch peeking out from his long-sleeved button-down. “Is this really necessary? Stefanie has been through it a million times already. She’s already told you everything she can remember.”
“I understand that, sir, but all due respect, a missing boy’s life is at stake.” He plants an elbow on the table and looks down at his notes, ticking off the specifics on his fingers. “You said the caller asked if he was speaking to Stef Huntington. You confirmed that he was. He told you he had Sammy. You screamed and begged. He said Sam was not to touch the Bell Building. He put Ethan on the phone, who said, Mommy, help. Did I miss anything?”
I shake my head, even though it’s spinning. I don’t think he forgot anything, but he rattled everything off so quickly, I can’t be sure.
“I’m just trying to figure out how all of that fills six minutes and forty-three seconds of airtime when it just took me, what, ten?” The detective’s hawk-like eyes latch onto me like a field mouse. “Seconds. Not minutes.”
“I...” I swallow, darting a gaze to Sam. This is why I’ve been dreading this meeting. Why all day now, my skin has been crawling and my stomach has been in knots. The thing is, I don’t remember all the things said in those six minutes. I promised him money, Sam’s influence. To be the keeper of any intrigue, or to blow it all to pieces. I was babbling, trying to guess what he wanted from me, willing to trade anything to keep Sammy safe.
But six minutes is a long time. Too long. Logically, I know that.
I look across the table at the detective. “I already told you at the camp, it was early and the call was unexpected. His message didn’t make sense. I wasn’t thinking clearly. It took me a while to grasp what he was saying.”
He scribbl
es something onto his notepad, and I try to read the messy handwriting upside down, but the only thing I can make out is six minutes. I picture him and all his colleagues seated around a conference table back at the station, listing all the ways my story doesn’t add up on a whiteboard, and my palms go slick. I drop my hands onto my lap, wipe them dry on my jeans.
“I thought it was a joke. Some kind of sick, crazy prank. And then when I finally realized it wasn’t, when that man’s awful message sank in, I was too busy trying to figure out who would have done this to pay much attention to the clock.”
“Stef,” Sam says, draping a hand over mine under the table. “It’s all right.”
“No, it’s not.” I know my protest is making me sound guilty somehow, but I can’t seem to stop myself. Ever since that phone call, a weight has been sitting on my chest, pressing down like a pile of bricks. The responsibility, the terror, the obvious suspicion from the detective sitting across from me... I can’t take another second. “I was completely frantic. I don’t know everything I said, only that nothing about the situation was making any sense. You try getting a call about your kidnapped son and see how you do.”
The detective doesn’t answer, but his expression goes hard, and I wonder if I misspoke. Maybe he’s not a father, or maybe he wants to be. The bottles of water sit untouched in the middle of the table.
“And you’re positive he hasn’t called back.” He doesn’t phrase it as a question.
“Yes,” I say, at the same time Sam says, “Your department is monitoring Stef’s phone, so I’m pretty sure you know he hasn’t.” I can’t decide if he says this because he’s sticking up for me, because he’s losing his patience with the detective or because he needs to get back to whatever has him holed up in the study. Maybe all of the above.
Detective Macintosh looks at Sam. “I thought maybe he called the house line, or your cell.”
“He didn’t.”
“It would most likely be from another blocked number.”
“There have been no more calls, Detective. We would have reported it.” Sam’s smile is friendly enough, but his message is clear: next question.
The detective returns his gaze to me. “Why do you think he called your cell and not Sam’s?”
Another question I’ve spent hours pondering, and long enough to have a ready answer. “Maybe he knew Sam was in meetings. Maybe he knew that my cell was the only way he’d be able to reach either of us.”
“I’d imagine as the wife of the mayor, your cell is unlisted.”
I nod. “I don’t go around advertising the number, but I’m also not stingy with it. I give it to stores, to Sammy’s teachers, to my friends. It’s listed in the school directory. It wouldn’t have been all that hard for someone to track down.”
The detective’s next question is for Sam. “Let’s talk about the Bell Building. Who wants to see that thing stand?”
“We’ve already had this conversation, too, Detective. Multiple times. For my answer, you can see my sworn statement. It still stands.”
I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised by Sam’s answer, but I am. Sam spent most of yesterday at City Hall. He and I have barely spoken other than via text and hurried phone conversations. Of course the police would have already questioned him.
But sworn statement?
“It’s just that it’s highly unusual for a kidnapper to make contact, then go so completely silent without stipulating a deadline.”
There’s a question in there somewhere, but since he doesn’t verbalize it, Sam doesn’t answer.
My gaze darts between the two men. What is going on here? Why all the pushback, the barely concealed animosity? There’s an unspoken tension between them I don’t understand.
“It’s only been a day,” Sam reminds him, and with a shock, I realize he’s right. The call hit my phone early yesterday morning. It feels like a million years ago.
“True, but Ethan has been gone for longer than that. In fact, by the time his teacher reported him missing, we’d already missed those most crucial first sixty minutes. His kidnapper already had plenty of time to drag him through the woods, shove him in the back of a car and take off before we had the first inkling he was gone. And the longer he’s gone, the more sharply the chances of ever finding him diminish.”
I know what he means to say. He means more than likely, Ethan is already dead.
“To be perfectly frank,” the detective says, “we are growing more than a little concerned something scared the kidnapper off.”
Sam all but rolls his eyes. “There are two armed men patrolling the yard and who knows how many journalists on the other side of the driveway gate watching them do it. If whoever’s behind this is smart enough to use an untraceable number, they’re smart enough to be keeping an eye on the house. On us.” Sam bounces a finger between us. “Of course he’s scared off.”
His words skitter a chill down my spine because I’m terrified he’s right. I think about poor Ethan, and a heavy weight clenches in my stomach.
“We’re just covering all our bases, sir.”
“Have you made any headway with the list of names my office gave you?” Sam says, moving the conversation along. It’s one of the traits I’ve always admired about him, this ability to always be moving forward, to always be thinking ahead when the rest of us are still reeling from the news.
The detective gives him a look I can’t interpret. “We’re cross-checking them against property owners in the vicinity of Dahlonega and Murrayville, but so far, nothing.”
“Why Murrayville?”
“We got a lead on an unidentified man and child stopping there for gas. A long shot, but unfortunately, it’s all we’ve got. Security cameras are pretty sparse in that area, but we’re hoping to catch a lucky break.”
Another statistic I’ve learned: of the 800,000 children reported missing each year, only 115 are taken by strangers. The list of possible suspects Sam compiled for the police was shockingly long, encompassing everyone from city employees to household workers to neighbors and friends of friends. Surely one of those names will lead to Ethan.
“With your permission, sir, we’d like to put a tap on your phone lines.”
“Which one?”
“Both. Home and cell.”
Sam smiles, and the gesture feels so sincere that no one but me would know it’s his politician’s smile, the one he wears when shaking hands and kissing babies. “I’d love to help you out, Detective, but I’m afraid I can’t do that. Those lines are used for official city business.”
The detective doesn’t look the least bit chastised. “I’m sure I don’t need to remind you that a child is missing.”
“No you don’t, Detective, nor do I need to remind you that there are one hundred and eighty days left in this campaign. I won’t have every conversation in my own home, with my own wife, being listened in on, analyzed and taken out of context. Just think what the media would do if they got a hold of it. How they’d twist my words and take them entirely out of context. Sorry, Detective, but if you want to tap our phones, you’re going to need a court order.”
“Which I’d probably be able to get.”
But Sam has never liked being on the receiving end of an ultimatum. He leans back in his chair, and his body goes deceptively calm, his lips curving into another smile. “When you do, we’ll have this conversation again.”
Detective Macintosh puffs a sharp breath through his nose, slides his pen into his pocket and flips his notebook closed, and it’s uncanny how, when he looks up, his smile is identical to Sam’s.
And just like that, the meeting is adjourned. Everyone stands, and Sam offers to walk the detective to the door. I’m gathering up the bottles and glasses, piling everything onto the tray to carry into the kitchen, when the detective stops.
“One more thing.” He pauses, waiting for me to look up and
meet his gaze, and something about his tone makes me brace. “Why do you think he called you Stef?”
I straighten. “Excuse me?”
“The caller. He asked if he was speaking to Stef Huntington. Not Stefanie.” Detective Macintosh lifts his meaty shoulders high, then lets them fall. “I’m just wondering who would shorten your name to Stef.”
He doesn’t wait around for a response. It was a rhetorical question, and one everybody here knows the answer to: someone who’s not a stranger.
* * *
Sam stands at the foyer window, watching the detective on the front drive. On the other side of the glass, the detective waves goodbye to the guards and drops into an unmarked car.
Sam sighs, turning away from the window. “That detective has a crappy attitude.”
“So?” I would, too, if my job was to chase rapists and kidnappers and murderers all day long.
“So I don’t like him. I don’t like the way he keeps harping on that phone call. It makes it seem like you did something wrong.”
Or you, I think. “He seems to think you know more about the Bell Building than you’re saying.”
“I already told him everything I know. I gave him the plans, the investor prospectus, the transcribed notes from the neighborhood meetings. That building is an eyesore and an environmental disaster, covered in mold and asbestos. Nobody wants it renovated, least of all the neighborhood.”
“So who would want to keep it?”
He shrugs. “The only pushback we got on our plans for demolition were from a couple of loony tunes known for stirring up trouble. I gave Detective Macintosh their names, but I advised him to look at it from my viewpoint, as well. Keeping the Bell Building would flip the Marietta development upside down. It would destroy the budget and cause investors to bolt. So maybe it’s not a preservationist but someone looking for revenge. If Marietta fails, so do I. So does my administration, or at the very least, my reelection campaign. Either way, until this guy is found, we have to keep Sammy inside. He’s still in danger, and so are you.”
I look up the empty stairwell, where video game thunder still floats down the wooden treads. My heart thuds at Sam’s sinister words, as much for the warning as the fear Sammy might hear. This house is a fortress of steel and glass and concrete, but still. I don’t want him to worry for his safety.
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