“Maybe the highway? Maybe I was too slow, and he thought he could catch a ride there. But you know how he is, he walks everywhere, just like Thoreau. It’s admirable, really.”
“By now, he could be anywhere, with anyone.” Annie pulled her cell phone from her purse. “I’ll call Sheriff Audi and tell him Bo was here. I don’t think any of the search teams came this far north.”
“But shouldn’t we alert the local police?” Lauren asked. “Someone around here might have seen Bo and reported it.”
Annie looked at her. “We could take them a flyer. Maybe put some up in town. I have a few with me.”
“I know the sheriff in town. His name is—it’s—” Charlotte frowned a moment and then brushed the air with her hands as if it were of no consequence that she couldn’t remember. She stood up, saying she had his card somewhere, that he came to see her sometimes, and something about her daughter. “They’re good friends. I think she’s asked him to keep an eye on me. It’s ridiculous, of course. I manage perfectly well on my own.”
The sense of Charlotte’s injury lingered in the air even after she left the room.
“His name is Caleb Neely,” she said when she returned. She handed a business card to Lauren. “I would have called him myself if I had known Bo was missing, but I almost never watch television.”
Lauren thanked her.
Charlotte saw them out.
Sky was lying on the front porch, and when he saw them, he got up and followed Lauren down the steps.
Annie turned to Charlotte. “I’m sorry I was rude.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell the police right away,” Charlotte said.
“Was Bo all right when you saw him on Friday? Was he acting normally? Or as normal as he gets?”
“He was himself, dear. Sweet and kind, if a bit agitated.” Charlotte studied Annie’s face. “I consider Bo my friend, you know? We’re not so different, he and I. My mind slips because I’m old, and he’s—well, sometimes his connections—” Charlotte’s voice caught, and she put her hand to her throat. “He’s very kind to me,” she added. “He’s just a lovely young man.”
Annie’s throat closed; her heart softened, and when Charlotte, seeing this evidence of understanding, of commiseration, reached out a hand, Annie felt the tremor of her fingertips on her wrist, as delicate as the dance of a sparrow’s foot. She thought how much Charlotte was like Madeleine in her care of Bo.
“You’ll let me know when you find him, that he’s safe?” Charlotte asked.
“Yes,” Annie said, and she would have turned away, but something came into Charlotte’s gaze, a clarity and a certainty that Annie hadn’t seen before, and it kept her in place.
“You will find him,” Charlotte said. “I’m convinced of it. I don’t often let on to strangers, but it’s true I have a sense about such things. I’ve had it ever since I was yay high.” She flattened her palm at a height near her hip.
Alive? Is he alive? Annie wanted to ask, but she wouldn’t. She wasn’t sure she believed in what Charlotte was suggesting, and in any case, she didn’t think she could bear to know Charlotte’s answer.
“There’s something else,” Charlotte called after them.
They turned.
“He was carrying cash. A good deal of it in a rubber band. He showed it to me.”
“Did he say, or do you know, how much it was?” Annie asked.
“He counted it at my kitchen table; he had two one-hundred-dollar bills, five twenties, a ten and three ones. And some change.”
“Did he say where he got it?” Annie shaded her eyes.
“He’d done some work for a man. He didn’t give a name.”
Annie’s heart sank.
“It’s bad news, Bo having that much money?” Lauren nosed the SUV down the drive.
“His dad and I—the police, everyone seems to think Bo is involved with drugs.” Annie pushed her hands over her face, over her ears. She blew out a mouthful of air. “I just don’t want to believe it, but if he had over three hundred dollars—I don’t know how else he’d get that much money.” She looked at Lauren. “I haven’t ever bought a bus ticket, but I bet he has enough to get to California.”
“Yes, probably,” Lauren answered, but she seemed abruptly distracted, upset. Annie was on the verge of asking if she was all right when she said, “After my accident, while I was in physical therapy and still in a lot of pain, I—somehow I became dependent on my pain medication. I—my problem was bad enough that I got the drug—OxyContin, illegally. I’m off it now and in 12-step, nearly a year—” Lauren stopped.
“I’m not sure why you’re telling me this.” Annie said the only thing she could think of.
“Because the detectives, Willis especially, seem to think I bought Oxy from Bo last Friday.” Lauren glanced at Annie. “They didn’t tell you?”
“I’ve only spoken to Detective Cosgrove.” Annie shifted her gaze, not wanting Lauren to see her consternation and assume Annie was judging her. She wasn’t. She was remembering yesterday, that when Lauren came back to the center with Jeff to report her car stolen, Sheriff Audi had made a real point of establishing that she was alone the weekend of Bo’s disappearance. He’d inferred Lauren could have been anywhere, doing anything. Annie didn’t want to see the correlation now between that and Lauren’s admission to having a drug habit, but it was impossible not to. “Did you buy drugs from Bo?”
“No!” Lauren was offended. “He wasn’t on anything, either. At least when I saw him, he was clear-eyed and articulate. He was fine. Fine,” she insisted.
Annie stared out at the roadside scruff. She couldn’t decide if Lauren was defending Bo or excusing him. Maybe she was lying for him. Didn’t people on drugs stick together? A sense of foreboding filled her. She regretted having accepted Lauren’s help, and yet without it, would she have found Charlotte? And if she had, could she have managed to get the information Lauren had?
Annie looked at Lauren. “I’m not very good with pain, either,” she said, and it was the closest she could come to saying she understood.
The heart of Cedar Cliff was small enough that it could be taken in with the sweep of one glance. The dozen or so storefronts arranged around the town square were mostly shuttered and wore a sour look, like a group of old men dressed in moth-eaten suits who complained of their backs and the loss of bygone days. Lauren parked in front of the old bank building where Charlotte had said they would find the sheriff’s office, and she held the door for Annie. Once inside, they paused, blinking in the sudden gloom.
Dust, unsettled by their entry, spun idly in the tarnished, late-afternoon light.
“Can I help?”
Annie peered in the direction of the woman’s voice and picked out her silhouette from the shadows in the corner, where she sat at a desk behind an old-fashioned railing. “Maybe we aren’t in the right place.” She suddenly had doubts, not that she knew what a sheriff’s office should look like, but this place was so deserted and quiet, and the woman who addressed them was reading a book, of all things—as if there were nothing pressing or urgent or criminal that required her attention.
Annie explained who she was, that Bo Laughlin was her brother and they had information for the sheriff.
The woman came to life. “I’ve heard about him on the news. I’m so sorry. Oh my goodness—” She was flustered now, shutting the book without marking her place. “Caleb?”
A man in a uniform, obviously Caleb Neely, the sheriff Charlotte had said they should speak to, came to the doorway. Annie had expected someone older, a man Sheriff Audi’s age. Sheriff Neely didn’t appear to be much older than Annie.
In a matter of minutes, introductions were made, and once Annie explained why she was there, she and Lauren were seated in the sheriff’s office.
He sat down, too, and when he asked why she thought Bo was in the area, Annie e
xplained about finding Charlotte and what they’d learned about Charlotte’s connection to Bo.
“So,” the sheriff said when Annie paused, “he does odd jobs for Charlotte, but how did they meet? It seems odd, them knowing each other.”
Annie explained that, too, with increasing frustration. “Look, Sheriff, he was upset about his mother when he left Charlotte’s house; he might have gotten disoriented. He could be lost. He could have hurt himself. Anything might have happened.”
“Well, more likely, he caught a ride—”
“No. Bo wouldn’t get into a car with a stranger.” Annie repeated what she’d known all along. Charlotte Meany, as it turned out, was no stranger to Bo.
“Maybe not under ordinary circumstances,” the sheriff agreed, “but according to you, he was desperate to see his mama.”
“He had a lot of cash, Sheriff.” Lauren spoke for the first time. “I saw it myself, and Charlotte confirmed it was over three hundred dollars. Someone could have robbed him.”
Sheriff Neely didn’t answer. Annie heard the shift of his feet under his desk, and the sound suggested impatience to her. She got the sense that the sheriff wished her gone, as gone as Bo. Her jaw tightened. “You have to do something, Sheriff Neely, get people together to look for him.”
He sighed, audibly, wearily. “I’d like to help,” he fixed Annie with a regretful gaze, “but we’re a small department with limited resources. There are four officers total, including me, and two of the guys are part-timers. And don’t even get me started about the budgetary constraints.”
“I didn’t come here to talk about your budget,” Annie said, and she would have said more that was heated and angry, but the sheriff cut her off, saying sharply that he knew Charlotte Meany and she wasn’t reliable. “You can’t trust what she told you.”
“Are you saying she’s a liar?” Lauren asked.
She sounded incensed, as if the sheriff had accused her of being untrustworthy. She probably got that a lot herself, Annie thought. They were all three alike in that respect, Bo and Charlotte and Lauren. No one put much stock in anything they said.
“No, I’m saying she’s elderly, and like a lot of folks her age, she has trouble with her memory.” The sheriff touched his temple. “Her daughter, Diane, wants her to sell the house and go into an assisted living facility. She’s afraid Charlotte’s going to injure herself. She for sure shouldn’t be driving anymore. The state took her license over a year ago.”
“No, Sheriff, here’s what’s for sure.” Annie bent forward. “She drove my brother from Hardys Walk to her house almost a week ago, and he hasn’t been seen since. That’s what’s for sure.”
The sheriff’s mouth flattened.
Annie brought her palm down on the desktop. “You can’t just dismiss—”
“Wait.” Lauren cut in, holding Annie’s gaze for a single reassuring moment before addressing the sheriff. “It’s true Bo could have found a ride with someone, but that someone might live here in Cedar Cliff. They could have information about where they took him, what shape he was in, what he might have talked about. It could help find him.”
“They would have come forward by now,” Sheriff Neely said.
“Charlotte didn’t,” Lauren countered.
The sheriff looked reluctant, as if he didn’t want to see the logic in what Lauren was saying. He looked as if he was too tired to move, and it infuriated Annie.
“Don’t you even care?” she demanded. The ensuing pause rang with her indignation. She could hear the heave of her breath. Even her heartbeat was loud in her ears.
“Is that your wife and baby?” Lauren asked.
Small talk? Annie stared at Lauren. She was making small talk again? In some disbelief, Annie followed Lauren’s gaze to the credenza behind the sheriff’s desk, where a framed photograph showed a woman sitting in what was clearly a hospital bed, holding a newborn. The woman’s mouth was curled into an exhausted yet triumphant smile.
“Yeah,” the sheriff answered. “That’s the last time he slept, I think. It was taken a month ago,” he added.
“Your first?” Lauren asked.
He nodded. “I wasn’t prepared. I mean, everyone says how they’re up day and night, but my God, I don’t think he’s slept more than ten minutes since we got him home. My wife spends all her time worried sick there’s something terrible the matter with him.”
“It gets easier. In another month or so, you’ll be wondering how you could have ever imagined your life was full before your son was born.”
“I hope you’re right.”
“I hope you’ll consider putting together a search effort for Bo,” Lauren said smoothly. “He’s Annie’s brother but also somebody’s son. As a father yourself, you can imagine how it would feel if your son were to disappear without a trace.”
Annie held her breath.
The sheriff took his time before saying, “All right,” grudgingly.
Annie wanted to whoop. She glanced at Lauren, who was serene. Who looked as if nothing ever ruffled her composure or ever had. And somehow now, Annie doubted the scene she’d witnessed last night, Lauren down on her knees, plowing through the contents of her purse, shaking and distressed. That woman and this one couldn’t be the same.
“We’ve brought flyers with Bo’s photograph on them,” Lauren said.
Annie extracted one from the folder on her lap and pushed it across the desk.
The sheriff picked it up, studying it. He switched his glance to hers. “I doubt he’s still in the area, if he was ever here, but I’ll see if we can get some folks together to have a look around. We’ll start at Charlotte’s place, either side of the highway there.” He indicated the flyer. “Can I keep this? Do you have extras you can spare?”
Annie handed him half of what she’d brought.
“You want to post them around town, go ahead. Talk to people, if you want to, and let me know if you hear anything.”
“Thank you,” Annie said.
He stood up.
Annie and Lauren did, too.
“Leave your contact information with Darlene,” the sheriff said. “She’ll need it for her report.”
Lauren’s cell phone rang, and she took it from her purse. “I need to get this,” she said. “Will you excuse me?”
Once she’d left, Annie addressed the sheriff. “Maybe you should question Charlotte Meany yourself.”
“Yeah, I intend to talk to her, but what’re you saying? She give you some reason to believe she wasn’t being truthful?”
Annie hesitated. “When I said anything might have happened—” she began and stopped.
“Go on,” the sheriff said.
“Suppose Bo was injured doing something at her house?” Annie was unsure how to go on. The implications were enormous. But it plagued her, the idea that he might have been hurt working for Charlotte, and because she was old, probably senile and frightened, she’d covered it up. It seemed outlandish, but so were a lot of things in life.
“I’ll talk to her.” The sheriff seemed to catch the gist of Annie’s concern.
She thanked him as if she believed him, but she knew what he was thinking: that mounting a search for Bo this far north of Hardys Walk, nearly a week after the last sighting of him, was crazy. As crazy as Annie herself or Charlotte Meany. Or maybe he was thinking of his crying baby or his budget constraints. She stopped by Darlene’s desk and gave her the information for her report, because beneath the weight of doubt, Annie harbored a glimmer of hope that something might come of it.
“If you give me a flyer,” Darlene said, “I’ll make copies. I can get some folks together to help get them up.”
Annie thanked her, too, and while her gratitude was immense and heartfelt, it was burdened with resentment at her helplessness, at her overwhelming need, at the yawning and still-growing debt she owed to virt
ual strangers. Sometimes it’s harder to receive a gift than it is to give one. Her mother had said that. Her mother had said some debts couldn’t be paid back, only forward.
Darlene said, “You and your brother are in my prayers.”
“Thank you.” Annie said it again, and she tried not to mind the intensity of Darlene’s gaze, how filled with longing it was for every last detail, the more personal in nature, the better. People craved tragedy, Annie thought, as long as it wasn’t their own. They were like skeletons at the feast, and she was the main course.
She went outside. It was late in the afternoon now, but the day was still warm for early October, and the light was as golden as freshly gathered honey.
“Annie?”
She turned, smiling at Lauren, grateful to her. “It worked so perfectly, what you said to Sheriff Neely. I don’t think he would ever have agreed—” But now, seeing the fear that was back in Lauren’s eyes, her look of utter despair, Annie took Lauren’s hands. “What’s wrong?”
“Oh, Annie,” she said, “what have I done?”
19
Somehow Lauren found her way out of Cedar Cliff, and when she got to the interstate, as she waited in the lane that would take her onto the southbound ramp back to Hardys Walk, she considered not returning there. Looking north, she imagined herself on that ramp instead. She would disappear like Bo, go somewhere far away to lose what was left of her mind alone, without an audience and the continual demand to explain herself and her actions.
Behind her a horn bleated, and she jumped, gunning through the intersection, breath shallow, panic racing through her veins like dark ink. She gripped the steering wheel. Jeff’s voice bounced off the walls of her skull: How could you have forgotten? Your own daughter?
Just yesterday, she’d been torn with worry over the possibility. Now it had come to pass.
Lauren tried to focus on driving, her destination. She was almost positive Mercy General was on the southbound feeder, a little north of Hardys Walk. God, please let me be remembering right! The prayer sat behind her eyes. She thought she’d been there at least once before with Drew when he broke his arm several years ago, playing flag football. Kenzie had never been in a hospital, though, since she was born. She would be so afraid, and Lauren hated that. And yet she’d let this happen. It was her fault.
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