“I will. As soon as this is done. I can sleep all day tomorrow.”
Right. Hopefully she and Sammie would be able to sleep, as well. As long as her ten-year-old would consent to sleeping in the same room with her like he’d done when he was little. Before he’d gotten the idea that sleeping in the same bed as your mom was for sissies.
If he wouldn’t consent she’d stay away until he was asleep and then camp out on his floor beside his bed.
“Julie sounded like she hadn’t slept all night.” She’d called her friend before the press conference, just to let her know it was going to air, and then again after arrangements were made for a team of local area detectives to meet with her father’s men, to close in on the motel in southern Alabama where they were pretty sure the man who’d been making calls to her was staying. The Tyler police wanted someone with local jurisdiction on-site to make the arrest.
“She probably didn’t.”
“It’s hard talking to her.” She didn’t blame Julie for what had happened. But Julie seemed to blame herself.
“There’s no way to control the emotions that attack you when a child goes missing.” Cal’s voice was soft. Calm. “And no way to predict them, either.”
“I know it’s not her fault,” Morgan said, still staring outside. She felt closer to Sammie when she was looking out the window. He was out there. Somewhere. “She’s the office administrator at the school. Watching the kids isn’t her job.”
But there was a screen in the principal’s office. A monitor showing the halls and bathrooms—identical to the one in the office of the school security guard.
Julie could see the principal’s monitor.
“That doesn’t stop someone from feeling like there’s something he or she could have done.”
Maybe that’s why Cal’s presence was such a godsend. When it came to missing kids he seemed to know so much.
And the comfort she took from his presence stemmed from more than just his knowledge. The detectives could have given her statistics.
Cal gave her something far more personal—something she had no business taking from him because he had no idea she was taking it.
“I think it’s more than that.” She couldn’t believe she was saying this. That she was allowing herself to think it about her friend. “I don’t blame her, but I can’t help wondering what would have happened if she’d been watching when Sammie went to the bathroom. If she’d seen him walking down the hall, she’d have noticed when he didn’t come back. And then we’d have known to look for him before he had a chance to get away.”
“The what-ifs are unavoidable, Morgan. They’re a natural human response.”
She hoped so and turned to tell him so. He was unshaven. Unwashed. His shirt and slacks were wrinkled and his eyes were red-rimmed. And he looked so…right. So strong and capable and reliable.
“I—”
The phone rang. Detective Martin’s line, not hers. Morgan froze for a split second.
And then she ran.
* * *
CAL STOOD IN THE ARCHWAY between the living room and the dining area just behind Morgan.
“Okay,” the redheaded detective, dressed in brown slacks, a blouse and matching tweed jacket, said for the fourth time. And then, “You’re sure?”
There was no expression on her face and, taking that to be a bad thing, Cal moved a little closer to Morgan, pulled out a chair and helped her to sit.
Martin hung up the phone.
“They got him,” she said, looking Morgan straight in the eye.
“And?” His student’s voice held none of the life he heard in his classroom. Her question was anticipatory, but her tone was deadpan. He hardly recognized it.
“Derek Gunder was in the hotel room, just as suspected. There was no sign of Sammie.”
“So maybe he wasn’t the one. Obviously Daddy’s men were wrong.”
The detective was shaking her head even before Morgan finished. “Gunder admitted to making the phone calls. He had identification on him. And he was on the list of people who could be out to get your father that your mother provided. Gunder’s wife was fired from one of your father’s investment companies—a data collection company where she was an office supervisor—for excessive absence.”
The older woman’s voice was even, her facial features straight and unchanging. “Turns out she was terminally ill but hadn’t said so, because she was afraid that if the company knew she was dying she’d lose her job, and her husband was out of work. She hadn’t figured on being fired, but when she was, she lost her insurance and didn’t qualify for a new treatment that might have saved her life. Gunder sued your dad, but lost the lawsuit because his wife had not been honest about her illness. The guy swears he never had Sammie. He only found out Sammie was missing when he saw the Amber Alert. That’s when he started making the calls. They were strictly to get back at your father for, what he considers, killing his wife.”
“He’s lying. He has to have Sammie. Why would he admit to kidnapping if no one can prove anything yet?” Morgan’s tone was tremulous now. And angry. The second stage of grief, or so several of the many counselors Cal had contacted on behalf of his father had told him. Anger followed denial.
Detective Martin covered Morgan’s fidgeting hand on the table. “They’re still investigating, Morgan, but it looks like this guy is telling the truth. He was at work yesterday when Sammie was kidnapped. He worked all day and then was seen in a restaurant, eating dinner. A gas station attendant saw him after midnight, on a southbound exit, and he was traveling alone.”
“Sammie could have been in the trunk or—”
“They checked his car and there was no sign of your son. Or of any kind of struggle. No body fluids. The crime lab’s going for the car, checking for fingerprints, among other things, but it’s only a formality at this point. It’s pretty clear this is not our guy.”
“Then…” Cal felt his throat tighten as Morgan’s sentence fell off and her shoulders started to shake. She couldn’t take much more of this.
And she could be facing a lifetime of it.
He’d never felt so helpless.
Watching his star pupil, watching the woman who’d become more than a pupil to him, Cal Whittier’s life altered course.
For the first time since he was seven years old he had a glimpse of understanding into the cruel actions—the reactions—of Rose Sanderson.
For the first time since he was seven years old, he felt an ounce of forgiveness.
CHAPTER NINE
SOMETIME IN THE EARLY afternoon on Saturday numbness set in. Morgan had finally agreed to lie down for a bit. But only on the couch. She’d tried her room, but hadn’t been able to stay put. She’d spent a few minutes in Sammie’s room, too, but being surrounded by his things, by the feel of him, only brought tears.
The couch had brought some physical relief to a body that was aching with tension and fatigue, but her mind still had not allowed her the bliss of unconsciousness. She’d doze, only to wake herself up immediately with attacks of fear. If she let go, left her vigil for one second, Sammie might give up, too. She had to send him strength every single second, to stay tuned in on the only level she could right now, a soul-deep level, a mother/child level. She had to help him hold on.
She’d kept her eyes closed, though, for the sake of anyone who might be looking in on her. Cal was still there, but he’d finally given in and fallen asleep in the reclining chair ad
jacent to the couch.
Detective Martin was in the other room doing whatever a detective did while waiting for word. The Tyler Police Department was still canvassing the neighborhood where Sammie had been seen last. They were still looking for the man her son had been seen talking to. They were setting up larger-scale searches of the area and already had dogs out.
She’d wanted to join them. Needed to be out there looking. Her job, she’d been told, was to stay home in case someone tried to contact her. They wanted her voice on the other end of the line. It was when Elaine Martin had mentioned that they might put Sammie on the line that she’d agreed to do as they’d ask and stay put.
At the moment, staying put was the hardest thing she’d ever done.
Hearing a rustle, Morgan opened her eyes to see Detective Martin in the archway from the dining room, her phone suspended in her hand. She’d said she was putting the ringer on silent when Morgan had agreed to lie down.
“They found the guy who was speaking with your son,” Elaine said. Morgan flew off the couch as the clank of the recliner lowering sounded. “He says Sammie was asking him directions to the bus depot,” the detective continued as Morgan followed her to the dining table. Cal was beside her in an instant, and Morgan’s heart pounded as she and her college professor exchanged glances.
“Do they like his story?” Cal asked.
“Yeah. The guy’s alibi checks out. He’s got no record. He plays basketball for UT,” Elaine Martin said, naming the well-known state university. “He said that Sammie recognized him.”
Morgan’s eyes filled with tears yet again, and she blinked them away impatiently. “That sounds like Sammie,” she said, pulling out a chair and placing herself in it. She had to stay calm. Focused now.
“We’ve got people at every bus stop in town and down at the station, too,” Detective Martin continued. “We’ve also pulled surveillance tapes. They’ve been on red alert down there since yesterday morning. We’ve passed around Sammie’s photo to every shift and posted it on the walls, too, but it’s possible that he slipped by unnoticed.”
“A ten-year-old kid boarding a bus alone would go unnoticed?” she asked, incredulous.
“It’s summer. The sad truth is that a lot more kids than you know are put on buses alone to travel between parents over the school break.”
“You think Sammie might have gone alone, then?” Cal asked. “He might have run away?”
“It’s possible.”
She’d ground him for life, Morgan thought. Right after she hugged him to death and slept for twenty-four hours. “Where would he get the money for a bus ticket?”
“Apparently your mother told Detective Warner this morning that she’d given Sammie money for new basketball shoes a few weeks ago. He’d been so excited about the shoes, it had never occurred to her that he’d use the money for something else. I guess she didn’t realize he was still wearing the shoes with the hole in the toe until she heard the description of him read at the press conference this morning.”
Thank God. Oh, thank God. Relief was heady. Making her dizzy. She’d be angry with her mother later. And Sammie, too. Right now she was just so thankful to have hope that she didn’t care about expensive shoes and gifts behind her back.
“She told Detective Warner, but no one else because she didn’t want your father to know,” Elaine Martin continued.
Morgan nodded, her lips trembling.
“You think Sammie would get on a bus by himself? And stay out all night?” the detective asked.
Morgan nodded again, fighting a fresh flood of tears. And Cal helped her out.
“Sammie’s been rebellious lately,” he said. “He thinks that Morgan babies him too much, that he’s the man of the family and that she should listen to him more. He’s completely wrong. She’s a great mom. But he’s a kid pushing his boundaries.”
Morgan listened, so thankful that Cal was there, sharing the burden of parenthood with her, even for the moment. She was giddy with relief. And sick with worry, too. Sammie might think he was a man but the little boy was only ten years old and had taken himself on a bus to God knew where. Had he been there all night long?
Had he arrived safely? Had he been left alone once he got there?
Or had he met with ill fate on the other end of his journey?
There were so many creeps out there, sickos who did horrible things to young boys. And Sammie was small for his age… .
* * *
AN HOUR LATER Morgan was climbing the walls and Cal was pretty much scaling them right beside her. Even having only seen pictures of Sammie Lowen, after months of hearing about the boy, going to bat for him regarding a male point of view, Cal felt like he knew the boy. He certainly cared what happened to him.
“It’s not good, is it?” Morgan asked from her perch on the front step. “The fact that we haven’t heard anything yet?”
“You can second-guess this all day long,” Cal said, fatigue slowing his mental processes, but not his desire to be there for her. To find a way to make things turn out right this time. “Try to envision Sammie safe. And coming home to you.”
Like it was that easy. Just picture it and it will be.
Not.
Or Claire Sanderson and Cal Whittier would have grown up as brother and sister.
“He’s really a good kid,” Morgan said now. “I know it sounds like I’m always talking about him fighting me, but Sammie isn’t a troublemaker. He isn’t belligerent. He’s always in the kitchen when I’m making dinner, helping out. He stays around for cleanup, too, unless he has homework to do. He puts his clothes in the hamper and makes his bed. He gets good grades. He’s the type of kid who befriends a boy with Down syndrome the other kids were making fun of. He’s just not real fond of his mother watching out for him.”
“Morgan, it’s okay. I know what a good kid he is. Whether you’re aware of it or not, you talk far more about the good times than you do about the struggles.”
“I do?”
“Yeah. It’s gotten to the point where I look forward to Mondays because I’m going to hear about what you and Sammie did over the weekend. You’re a great mother—you don’t just take care of your son, you share your life with him.”
“I love having Sammie in my life.”
“What about his dad?” He hadn’t ever asked. And while it had been obvious that the boy’s father wasn’t around, Morgan had never talked about the guy.
Strange that in the past twenty-four hours no one had even mentioned the guy’s existence.
“Todd Williams was the worst case of bad judgment I ever had,” Morgan said now, staring out at the street.
“Your worst case?” An odd turn of phrase from a woman who was so levelheaded and insightful.
“According to my father, I’m good at misjudging people,” she said. “I take people at face value. I give them the benefit of the doubt.”
“All good qualities. We should all be more like that.”
She shook her head. “My father thinks I don’t discern well. My choice of husband didn’t help my case any.”
She’d been married to Sammie’s father.
A strange feeling swamped him for a second. Only briefly. An unfamiliar and most unpleasant sensation. It took Cal another moment to realize he was jealous of the unknown Todd, which was absolutely ludicrous. Must be the lack of sleep.
“What happened?” he asked, telling himself that he was just helping her pass the time
while they waited for Sammie to be found.
“I met him in high school. Was certain that he was the love of my life. Looking back I see that he was just the opposite of my father. He relied on me. He let me call the shots. He listened to me. The complete antithesis of the life I had at home. The life that was driving me crazy. By the time I met Todd my father and I couldn’t be in the same room for five minutes without having horrible fights.”
“Todd treated you like the smart and savvy woman that you are.”
She looked at him, almost with curiosity, and then she shook her head.
“He was after my father’s money, but I didn’t get that at all. Not even a hint. My father saw through Todd the first night he met him. He tried to tell me. When I wouldn’t listen, he forbade me from marrying him. I defied my father and ran away with Todd to get married, as anyone would do for the love of their life. I was promptly disowned by my father, and then, as soon as Todd realized that I wasn’t good for my father’s money, he was gone, too.”
“He turned his back on Sammie, too?”
“He didn’t know about Sammie then. Neither did I, actually. I didn’t find out I was pregnant until after Todd was in jail.”
“In jail?” If the guy had hit Morgan, hurt her, jail was too good for him.
“He borrowed my car to have access to my key ring and promptly made a duplicate key to my folks’ place. He went through my private papers, found where I’d written the new code to my folks’ security system, and the next night when he was supposed to be at work, he broke into their home, stole everything of value he could find and trashed the place. Ostensibly he did it all to get what he believed was coming to him, owed to him, for having taken on a life sentence with me. Unlucky for him, he was caught. Daddy pressed charges and I saw the light.”
She showed very little emotion. A bit of self-deprecation was all. As though the bastard’s shortcomings were somehow her fault.
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