“He’s gone,” Sammy shouts.
My gaze whips back to the television screen. Next to MadIQ158’s name is a message: Offline. Last seen 2 seconds ago. “Where’d he go?”
Sammy shrugs. “I don’t know. He didn’t die. He just stopped playing.”
Still, Sam’s thumbs don’t stop moving on the controller. I settle back onto the bed, hold my breath and watch as his message takes shape. Who took u? Help on way.
A low rumbling from just outside alerts us to a car, coming up the driveway. Sam’s head and shoulders rise in tandem, like a puppet on a string, his head pulled to the window as if by magnetic force. I look, too, and it’s Josh.
Sam hands the controller to Sammy. “Keep searching for Ethan. Let me know the second he’s back online.”
“Sam, no.” I hop off the bed and slide a few feet to the left, stepping between Sam and the hall. “We’re in the middle of a family crisis here.”
“Ethan’s is not the only crisis I’m dealing with at the moment.” He rests his hand on my shoulder—a show of support, a plea—then pushes past me for the door.
I turn to argue, but he’s already gone.
KAT
56 hours, 58 minutes missing
I come downstairs to find a note, taped to the inside of the front door. Gone to the store, back asap. —L. I shove my feet into some sneakers, unlock the door and step outside.
Outside on the stoop, the street is quiet, the whole neighborhood locked up tight. My neighbors are still sleeping off last night’s mischief, and most won’t emerge from their beds until much later this afternoon. Then their noise will carry until deep in the night, but for now, there are only birds and the low hum of the highway, miles away.
Sometime in the past hour, clouds have rolled in, low and bottom-heavy, ushering in air thick with humidity. It clings to my skin and sticks in my lungs and turns everything in the mailbox damp and tacky. I thumb through the soggy papers—bills, a stack of coupon flyers, a box of checks from the bank. I flip through everything a second time, bend down and peer inside the mailbox. Empty. There’s nothing here but mail.
“Kat.”
The voice comes from right behind me, lurching my heart into my throat. I whirl around and there he is, standing in the middle of the empty street. My tall, familiar-looking almost-ex with his fancy clothes and familiar smile, his thick brown hair swept off his forehead by a generous cowlick.
The last time we stood this close, he punched me in the face.
I press my free hand to my pounding chest. “Andrew. You scared me.”
He’s scaring me now. Andrew knows full well he’s not supposed to be here, and I’m pretty positive he chose this moment, after Lucas motored off to the store, to emerge from whatever bush he was hiding behind. I glance up and down the road, scanning for cars or a neighbor smoking a cigarette on their front porch, but there’s nothing. A woman peeks out from the house behind him, a curious face in the grubby gray sheets stretched across an upstairs window. Just as quickly, she’s gone.
He cocks his head to the side, watching me with a slight frown. “You’re frightened of me?”
I nod.
He holds up both hands as if to prove that they’re empty, then shoves them in his front jeans pockets. See? his expression seems to say. Innocent.
He’s lost weight since I saw him last, and not in a good way. His cheeks are sunken, his body too trim to be healthy.
“The sheriff told me you were on St. Martin.”
“That’s right.”
I study his face, his arms, the tops of his hands. “How come you’re not tan?”
Andrew scowls, and his eyes skit away like Ethan’s do, whenever I ask him if he had fun at his father’s. “I used sunscreen.”
“Where’s the gift from Ethan?” I shake the papers in my hand. “You said you put it in the mailbox, but it wasn’t in there.” I see his expression, a combination of pride and defiance, and the realization sinks: “You tricked me?”
Andrew doesn’t deny it. “You wouldn’t have seen me otherwise.”
Even for him, the level of deceit is evil. “Our child is missing and you’ve lured me outside under false pretenses. What kind of asshole does that?” The first flame of anger licks at my insides.
“I needed to know whose side you’re on.”
“What are you talking about?” I shake my head, frown. “Whose side of what?”
“Whose side are you on, mine, or the police’s? Because those dickheads still think I had something to do with Ethan’s disappearance, and I want to know if you, my wife and mother of my child, think the same. Even though I was an ocean away when he disappeared. Even though you’re the one who let him go on that stupid school trip in the first place. I told you an eight-year-old didn’t have any business spending a night away from home, and as usual, you didn’t listen. So pick a side, Kat. Which one is it?”
For the longest moment, I don’t respond. Andrew wants me to say, out loud and to his face, that I don’t suspect him of snatching Ethan, but of course I do. I told him as much when I left that voice mail from the camp, begging him to bring Ethan back. I meant what I said to Mac: he doesn’t know Andrew like I do. After hearing the police are still watching him, still trailing him to gas stations and coffee shops, my suspicions have only grown. I press my lips together and say nothing.
Andrew shakes his head like he’s scolding a naughty child. “That’s what I thought.”
“Oh, come on, Andrew. What am I supposed to say? I couldn’t reach you, and now you pull this stupid stunt? Of course I suspect you. You broke my bones. You broke my heart.” My voice cracks on the last word, surprising both of us.
He shakes his head. “You broke mine when you filed for divorce.”
“So you attacked me? You thought you’d make me pay?”
Andrew’s forehead creases in a frown. “That’s not what I meant and you know it. When I followed you to that CVS, I swear I had no intention of hurting you. I don’t even remember doing what I did.”
“You ran. You left me bleeding in that parking lot and you ran.”
“I didn’t mean to. I was just so angry, like something inside of me was on fire. I didn’t think, I just reacted. I didn’t want to lose you. And just so you know, I’ve stopped drinking. I haven’t had a drop in four months.”
It’s the apology I’ve been waiting for, and yet it’s not. He didn’t say he’s sorry. He didn’t express regret for what he did. Just I didn’t mean to and I stopped drinking. The nonapology rubs across my nerves like acid.
“So now what? You come here to make me pay for suspecting, even for a split second, that you took Ethan? To use me as a punching bag for all your little self-centered frustrations again?”
“What? No. Stop blaming me for something I didn’t do.” And just like that, he’s pissy again, his voice sharp with accusation.
“Okay, so maybe you wanted to remind me if I hadn’t let Ethan go on this school trip, he’d be upstairs in his bedroom right now and this whole weekend wouldn’t have happened? To rub in my face that I’m a bad mother?” I say the words, and another flash of anger sparks in my belly. I’m suddenly glad he’s here. I’m glad we’re talking. I’ve held these words in for so long, it feels good to let them out.
Andrew shakes his head. “That’s not what I said at all. Yet again, you’re putting words into my mouth.”
“Then what? Is it to check out my crappy house and dollar-store dye job so you can tell all your friends at Dunwoody Country Club how far I’ve fallen? Because you know what? I don’t care about your fancy cars and vacations. I don’t want a house in the suburbs if it means I have to live there with you. I only want Ethan back. Give me back my son.”
“Jesus, you’re just as bad as the police. Did you know they searched my house, my computers, they even sicced dogs on my car. Cadaver do
gs, Kat. They think because of what I did to you, I would do something worse to my own son. It’s all bullshit. I was on a beach a thousand miles away. I want him back just as much as you do.”
Maybe it’s the Xanax pumping through my bloodstream and making me impervious to danger. Maybe it’s the hardships of these past six months, and the way conquering them has given me back my spine. Maybe it’s because without Ethan here, I’ve got nothing left to lose. Whatever the reason, I don’t hold back. I fling the mail to the ground, plant my hands in the center of his chest and shove. Andrew stumbles backward across the asphalt.
“Tell me what you did to him.” The words echo around the neighborhood.
“Would you just calm down? Jesus.” His tone is patronizing and all too familiar.
“Where is he, in the trunk of your car? Tied up in your basement? Tell me you didn’t hurt him.”
Andrew holds both hands in the air. “Kat, I’m not going to talk to you if you can’t be reasonable.”
His reprimand ignites static in my ears, a sharp hissing like my head is spouting steam. I know that tone. It’s the same tone he once used, right before hauling back his arm for a backhand. Conditioning, I think somewhere in the back of my mind, but this time I’m the aggressor. I shove him again, this time with all my might.
“You monster! Give me back my son!”
I go to push him again, but he snatches my arms out of the air, his fingers clamping down on the bones of my wrists like a vise. I struggle to wrench free, but he’s too strong, his grip too solid. I do the only thing I can think of; I start kicking. The first couple of swings catch air and the empty hem of his pants, but then my foot connects with bone and he curses. “Ow. Stop it, Kat. Just stop.”
A police siren whoops farther up the road, a warning sound, and we freeze. Andrew, because he’s just been caught with his hands on the woman he’s not supposed to be within two hundred feet of, and me because I’m thinking of Mac. Of his promise to deliver bad news in person. Of my cell phone, silent and still in my back pocket. I think this and I start trembling, my skin and blood and lungs turned to ice. Because if that’s Mac with his finger on the siren, I know what his appearance here means.
Andrew releases me like I’m a hot poker, scrambling backward on the street, putting some much-needed space between us. His hands are up, palms flat in the air like a man caught red-handed.
I look over, and my heart stops.
It’s Mac. Coming to blow my whole world apart.
STEF
56 hours, 59 minutes missing
I open the door, and never have I been so happy to see three policemen standing on my front stoop.
Not cops. Federal agents. I know it from their clothes, well-tailored suits in varying shades of black and navy. From their matching mirrored sunglasses on grim but clean-shaven faces. And when they pull out their wallets, from the laminated cards they flash in front of my nose, and the three letters written across them in bold, blue ink.
FBI.
I scan their names, and nerves chase them from my memory almost instantly.
“Come in. The Xbox is upstairs.” I close the door and point to the ceiling, to the steady rumbling of video game thunder above our heads. “I told Sammy to keep playing in case Ethan came back online.”
The men exchange confused glances.
“That’s why you’re here, isn’t it? Because my son saw Ethan Maddox on a video game.”
The name falls into the foyer and sticks to the silence. For a good couple of seconds, no one speaks. The middle agent flips off his shades and hooks them by an arm in his suit pocket. His voice is low and gravelly like a smoker’s. “Did you notify the authorities?”
“Well, of course we did. My husband called Darryl Phillips at least ten minutes ago. I thought...”
The words die in my mouth, because that’s when it hits me: these men are not here about the Xbox. Chief Phillips would have sent a patrol car, not the FBI. These agents didn’t come to collect the machine or trace the IP address back to Ethan. They’re here for something else entirely.
My body goes hot like an oven.
Sam steps up behind me, reaching around to give them a hand. “Gentlemen. What can I do for you?”
The tall agent pulls an envelope from his pocket, offers it to Sam like a gift. “Mayor Huntington, we have a warrant to search the premises.”
My nerves, already wired from the weekend’s events, explode in a ball of fiery static. I struggle to come up with an innocuous explanation, but then I realize there isn’t one. A warrant means the authorities suspect Sam of something criminal. A warrant means they have convinced a judge there’s good cause to search through his things for evidence. I picture the agents driving through the dozens of reporters down at the gate, their cameras capturing everything in full-color, high-definition, and my skin prickles. A warrant means scandal.
Sam’s body is concrete against my shoulder blades. “A warrant. For what?”
The agent jiggles the paper in the air. “Take it, sir, and then step aside.”
After forever, Sam takes the paper.
The men head straight for the study, filing past Josh at the edge of the foyer. I stare across the space at him, wondering why everything about him exudes calm. His pleasantly bland expression, the relaxed slope of his shoulders, the way he’s slumped against the wall, one hand casually tucked into his pants pocket. And then I see his other hand, curled around a crystal glass of amber liquid, and my heart revs at the sight. Whatever is going on here, it calls for a good three fingers of Sam’s best bourbon.
I look back to Sam. “Sam, what—”
“Not now.” His face is a furious mask, and I have to remind myself his rage is not directed at me. Sam glares across the foyer in a way that makes it seem like all this—the agents, the warrant—is somehow Josh’s fault.
There’s more commotion at the door, a uniformed Atlanta police officer coming to collect the Xbox.
I shoo Sam and Josh to the living room. “Let me deal with this. I’ll get rid of him as soon as I can.”
Once they’ve disappeared around the corner, I open the door and let the officer inside. If he’s surprised to see a slew of federal agents here, carting armloads of office supplies out the door, he doesn’t say a word.
“The console is upstairs,” I tell him. “Wait here. I’ll just be a minute.”
He gives me a polite nod. “Thank you, ma’am.”
I turn, taking the stairs by twos. Video game thunder greets me in the upstairs hallway, Sammy still battling the troikas. I can tell from Mom’s face there’s been no further sign of Ethan.
“He’s not here, Mom.” Sammy’s voice is distraught, his gaze steady on the screen. His thumbs punch at the buttons on the controller. “I’ve looked everywhere, but he’s still not back online.”
I ruffle his hair. “It’s okay, bud. Thanks for trying, but the police are here to pick up the console.”
This time, Sammy doesn’t put up a fight. He powers everything down, unhooks the machine from the wall and hands it to me himself. “The password is supersammy123. Sorry.”
I give him a we’ll-talk-about-this-later smile, then turn to Mom. “Keep him up here for a while, will you? I’ll come get you when you can come out.”
She agrees, but just in case, I say it again. “I mean it, Mom. Don’t open that door until I say.”
Downstairs, I pass the console and the password to the cop. He thanks me, tucks the Xbox under an arm and falls in line behind two FBI agents carting cardboard boxes out the door. The backseat of one of their cars is already full, as are both trunks. The cop falls behind his wheel without giving them a second glance, as if federal agents at the mayor’s house happens every day.
At the bottom of the hill, Gary punches the code to crank open the gate, and the reporters swarm. They stand shoulder to jostling s
houlder in the opening, a human wall to the street and beyond, their zoom lenses pointed up the broad expanse of lawn. I leap away from the glass, hiding behind the open wooden door.
The entire search-and-seizure process takes a half hour at best, which is terrifying on all sorts of levels. It means they knew what they were looking for and where to look for it. Sam watches from a spot by the plate glass window in the living room, cataloging every box they cart out the door. All his files and binders, his collection of Moleskine notepads, his laptop. By the time the last box is loaded up, his skin is pink and shiny.
One of the agents pauses on his way out the door. “Sir, I need to collect your cell phone.”
To the point and matter-of-fact. Not an order, but not a request, either. Said with neither remorse nor apology.
After a long, painful pause, Sam digs the device from his pocket and slaps it in the man’s palm.
The agent leaves, the door closing behind him with a soft click, and I wait for someone to speak. I stare at Sam, Sam stares at Josh, and Josh stares at his glass, clutched in a fist so white-knuckled I’m afraid he might shatter the glass. I don’t know what’s more terrifying, a warrant or the silence.
Sam’s voice, when it comes, is low and deadly. “Somebody want to tell me what the actual fuck just happened here?”
Blood thrums in my ears at the alarm in his tone. Sam is never nervous, about anything, ever, not even when Sammy almost choked on a grape when he was two. The fact that he is now—and not hiding it—dries my throat.
But as for Sam’s question, he needn’t have asked it. Sam saw the three federal agents waltz out of here with his laptop, his cell phone and all his bank records, too. It’s painfully clear what just happened here.
“Shit. Shit.” He plows a hand into his hair and gives it a good tug, his whole body wound tight. “No way we’re going to get in front of this one now, not with all those reporters down at the gate.”
“Want me to call Brit?” Josh suggests. “She might have an idea or two.”
His question hits an obvious nerve with Sam. “If you had answered any one of my million phone calls, you’d know she’s in Macon. Her mother had a stroke or something.” Sam scowls. “Why didn’t you answer my phone calls, by the way? Where the hell have you been all weekend?”
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