Neighbors

by Danielle Steel

  “Oh my God,” she said. She held it out for them to read as tears filled her eyes. It said, “Don’t let him kill my mom.” And there was no sign of Will in the room. “I think he ran away,” Tyla said, panicked.

  “He’s afraid you’re going to go back to his father and he’ll kill you. He told me the other day,” Meredith said. “I think he’s overheard some of your conversations with Andrew.”

  Tyla sank into a chair, feeling faint. “What do we do now?” She was frightened for Will.

  “We drive around looking for him,” Charles said, which was sensible. Charles never panicked in a crisis. They went back to the courtyard to his SUV. He got in quickly and started the car. “He can’t have gone far. We’ll find him,” he reassured her. She had started another tidal wave by meeting up with Andrew.

  “I’ll come with you,” Tyla said, and got into the passenger seat next to Charles.

  “I’ll look around too,” Meredith said, and got out the key to her car sitting in the courtyard. They followed each other out, drove around the neighborhood separately and came back to the house. They returned within minutes of each other, two hours later. There was no sign of Will. And a few minutes later, Meredith went to pick up Daphne, after school, and brought her home.

  “Should we call the police?” Tyla asked Charles.

  “I think we’d better. I don’t want him hitchhiking or out alone at night.” He was eleven years old and had led a sheltered life, other than his father’s violence. He knew nothing of life on the streets and would stick out as someone who didn’t belong there. He’d be easy prey for predators of all kinds.

  “What’s he wearing?” Charles said, surprised that they hadn’t found him, as he reached for his phone to call the police.

  “He was wearing his school uniform. Gray pants, navy blazer, white shirt, navy tie,” Meredith said. Her heart was beating faster. What if they didn’t find him? Or something happened to him? She had been stupid to meet Andrew, and Will was so upset by it, he’d run away. Or maybe he’d been planning to anyway. So much had happened in a short time and he had no control over any of it.

  The police arrived at the house half an hour later, took down the information, and put out an all-points bulletin in the Bay Area. Many areas of the city were still closed with no power. But most of the city was functioning again, and all bridges were open, so if someone abducted him, it would be easy to leave the city. The police put out an Amber Alert for him, just in case, warning motorists of a possible abducted child. It would be up in lights on every freeway in the state.

  “Now what?” Meredith looked at Charles after the police left.

  “We wait.” And pray, he didn’t say out loud.

  Chapter 12

  The wait for news from the police about Will seemed interminable. Tyla racked her brain, but couldn’t imagine where he’d gone. She got out the school roster, and called the mothers of all the boys he was close to, but no one had seen him. He hadn’t shown up at their homes after school. The other parents had heard rumors that there were problems at the Johnsons, and that Tyla and the children were staying at a friend’s. Will had said it was because there was damage to their home from the earthquake, but there had been whispers that Will’s parents were separated. No one knew the full details of the story, and miraculously it hadn’t hit the press.

  By seven o’clock, Tyla had called everyone she could think of, no one had heard a word from him. He had a cellphone Tyla let him use occasionally, but he had left it in his room. Meredith and Charles had helped her comb the room for clues and they found none.

  He had been through so much, the constant tension in their home for years, in fear of Andrew’s explosions, the physical abuse their mother had endured and he and Daphne were aware of. The secrets they had to keep. The terrible beating Tyla had had recently, and he couldn’t protect her. Will’s fear that she’d go back to him and the nightmare would start all over again. And worst of all, the fear that his father would kill his mother, which was a real possibility.

  Charles and Meredith talked about it quietly in her study, while Tyla waited for news in her bedroom, with Daphne, and tried to reassure her.

  “There’s a terrible contradiction in these situations,” Charles said seriously. “The women who are being abused stay for the sake of the children, to not break up the family, and what the children go through as a result is worse than any divorce, and damages them far more than if they’d gotten out of the marriage. The statistics on it are terrible, sometimes even including child suicide. The children feel helpless to protect their mothers and don’t know how to handle it. It’s hard enough for the adults involved, but kids are overwhelmed by circumstances they have no control over.”

  “You don’t think Will would hurt himself, do you?” Meredith looked devastated.

  “I don’t know him well enough to judge it,” Charles said honestly. “I hope not. I think he’s more likely to get hurt on the streets, dealing with situations he’s not familiar with, tough older kids, street gangs, drug addicts, dealers. He’s a little innocent out there, and if he’s wearing his private school uniform, he’s going to stick out like a sore thumb.” He looked young for his age. And worse, he might have the misfortune to cross paths with a pedophile who would abduct him. It was a dangerous world out there, almost as bad as the one he grew up in, where the person he should have been able to count on, his father, was the most lethal and toxic of all. “If Will seriously thought that Tyla went to meet Andrew, or maybe even heard her say it, he might have figured that Andrew would kill her this time, and since he couldn’t stop her, or protect her, he ran, feeling guilty or frightened. Tyla said he might have had ten dollars on him. That won’t get him far. He’ll be cold, tired, and hungry by now. If he turns up at a homeless shelter, or a free kitchen, like Glide, they’ll call Child Protective Services to pick him up. They don’t leave kids his age on the streets. At thirteen and fourteen they turn a blind eye to runaways, but not with a child of eleven.” Meredith was grateful that Charles was there with them. He had done nothing but improve their lives, and hers especially, since she had met him. He was a solid, responsible, intuitive, resourceful person, the kind you needed in a crisis. And he made everything go more smoothly in normal times.

  It seemed as though very little had gone smoothly since the earthquake. It had been almost two months now. Ava and Joel had broken up, Peter’s life had turned upside down in a good way, and Arthur now had two young people in his home instead of one. Andrew had lost all control and was facing prison for attempted murder, Tyla had nearly lost her life, Meredith had had a steady stream of houseguests since the night of the earthquake, and had discovered that her most trusted employees whom she relied on and considered dear friends were thieves who had preyed on her for fifteen years. Even the children had been profoundly affected, and now Will had run away, and God knew what would happen to him on the streets. It was a lot for any of them to weather. For all of them, and the rest of the population who had lost loved ones and homes in the earthquake, it was a time of turmoil and change. In some ways, for Meredith, it was a good change, but a lot of baggage had come with it. Charles had been there to share in all of it, and had passed every test and met every challenge head-on. In many ways, Meredith felt very lucky, but she was also deeply worried for her friends. With Andrew’s upcoming trial, Tyla and her children would have hard times ahead.

  By eight o’clock, Meredith couldn’t stand it any longer. Her head was throbbing from where she had banged it earlier in the day, when she went to rescue Tyla, but she didn’t care. “Can’t we do something?” she asked Charles. Anything would have been better than just sitting there, imagining all the terrible things that could happen to Will. Charles had called his police contacts several times, but so far there was nothing. The squad cars on the streets and patrolmen on foot were on the lookout for him, but no one had seen him. They had checked the h
omeless shelters and free kitchens, and had combed the homeless camps South of Market.

  “We can drive around ourselves if you want,” Charles offered, “but we’re no smarter than the cops. Sooner or later, someone will see him. He can’t just disappear into thin air.” But they both knew that children did every day, never to be seen again, if they’d fallen into the wrong hands. If he had gotten into a car with someone, he could be anywhere by now, even in grave danger, or dead.

  The news stations were going to mention him at eleven, and show his school picture, which Tyla had given the police, but at six o’clock, they thought it was too soon. There was still the possibility that he had gone to a friend’s house, someone Tyla hadn’t thought to call, and he would come home on his own eventually. It was Charles’s fondest hope, that this was all a misunderstanding, but in his heart of hearts, he didn’t believe that, and his thoughts were running along the same anxious lines as Meredith’s and Tyla’s. But he didn’t want to make the situation worse by admitting it to them. “Why don’t we look around South of Market,” he suggested to Meredith. “Maybe we’ll get lucky. He may be hanging around a fast-food place, hoping someone will give him something to eat.” The thought of Will hungry and pawing through the garbage at McDonald’s made Meredith feel sick. And one of the dangers in San Francisco was that ordinary neighborhoods drifted into bad ones with no boundaries and no warning. The high-end downtown shopping district at Union Square, with all the most expensive shops, was only a block away from the Tenderloin, where most of the drug deals went down, and it was full of addicts and flophouses. The shopping complexes and malls of Market Street were two blocks from one of the most dangerous streets in the city, where people got shot almost every day. Benign neighborhoods and newly trendy areas were cheek by jowl with projects, where juvenile delinquents roamed, looking for trouble. And it was all in a small, compact area. If Will wandered into any of it, he was visibly an innocent, and could get very badly hurt or even killed.

  Meredith went to put on jeans and a heavy sweater, and sneakers, and Charles went to change too. Meredith told Tyla what they were doing. Daphne was fast asleep on the bed next to her, and Tyla was staring at the TV, without seeing it. She realized even more acutely now how stupid she had been to go and meet Andrew alone at their house, and if Will suspected it, or overheard her agreeing to it, how terrifying that was for him. Thank God he had called Charles before he ran away, or she might be dead by now. And Will probably feared she was, and was afraid to know.

  Meredith whispered to her that they were going to drive around for a while, and Tyla whispered back “Thank you,” while she stroked Daphne’s hair. She’d been thinking about Andrew’s hearing the next day, and second arraignment, and what Charles had said about their not letting him out on bail this time, and she realized it was just as well. He was too dangerous to be loose on the streets, or hiding his violent nature under a thin veneer and seeing patients. She understood more than ever now that he was a very sick man.

  Until his recent attack on her, Tyla had always felt guilty for making him angry and part of her believed him that it was her fault. She no longer did. She understood now that he would have beaten her whatever she did, or no matter how perfect she was. He had a pathological need to punish her for crimes she didn’t commit, maybe for his own mother’s sins against him when she abandoned him as a child. Whatever it was, Tyla knew the problem and the danger were bigger than all of them, and even bigger than Andrew himself. He had a demon in him that nothing could stop. Maybe Will had understood that sooner than she did, even though he was a child.

  Meredith and Charles left the courtyard, with Charles at the wheel of her car. It was an unassuming, ordinary SUV that wouldn’t draw attention in the area South of Market, where drug deals went down, homeless people roamed, people slept in doorways, and the worst element preyed on one another, and had lost all hope. It pained Meredith to think of Will there.

  “Do you carry a gun?” Meredith suddenly wondered, as they drove south across town. It had never occurred to her before, but in his line of work, providing high-powered security, it wouldn’t have surprised her. He smiled when she asked.

  “This isn’t Texas and I’m not a cowboy,” he teased her. “Some of the men I employ do, if that’s what a client wants, but I prefer not to. I’ve been armed at times, but I’d rather rely on my wits than a weapon. Why? Do you want me to?” He was surprised. She was such a peaceful person.

  “No, I’m glad you don’t. I just wondered.” But they both knew that many of the people in the underworld and desperate element of the city did, even children Will’s age. A twelve- or thirteen-year-old could buy a stolen handgun for twenty-five dollars, if he had the money, and many did. Will would have no idea how to deal with kids like that, and he looked ripe for the picking, with his neat haircut and clean clothes.

  They crossed Market Street a few minutes later, with crowds of late night shoppers and bums on the streets. The Tenderloin ran parallel to it, with drug deals happening in every dingy doorway and on every corner. They crossed Mission Street, and Charles followed a zigzag pattern on a grid, going up one street and down another, up one avenue for a while and then down the next. There were heaps of garbage in the gutter that looked like lifeless forms, and humans crumpled in doorways who looked like refuse, until they moved, and drunks and drug addicts unconscious on the sidewalks. The police used to pick them up and send them to a hospital, or to jail for the night, but there were so many of them now, that for the most part they stayed on the streets. A few looked like they’d set up house with shopping carts and cardboard boxes, a mangy dog, or a couple of cats. It made Meredith’s heart ache to see them. It was hard to even determine age or gender on the streets, with people filthy, bundled up, with matted hair and dressed in whatever they had found to wear.

  “God, it’s depressing down here,” she said, and he nodded. “I hope he’s somewhere else.” She couldn’t imagine Will surviving for a night there.

  “We can drive out to the Panhandle in Golden Gate Park later, if you want. That’s where all the teenage drug addicts and runaways are, but he won’t fit in there either.” It was at the edge of the Haight-Ashbury, the home of the flower children in the sixties, and it had degenerated severely over time. It was mostly just filth and drugs now, and ravaged people who had fallen on hard times, and runaways whose lives at home were even worse than risking their fate on the streets. Charles said that the young ones tended to band together, and could be violent if they felt threatened. The police tended to leave them alone, as long as they didn’t bother passersby or hurt one another. Many of them were on hard drugs.

  Charles made a point of stopping at every food place, and Meredith ran inside, and even checked the bathrooms, and asked if anyone had seen him. She had a photograph of Will with her to show them, but no one had seen him.

  A police car pulled them over after their fifth stop, and asked what they were doing. Charles showed the officer his credentials, including his OES identification, and his Pentagon pass with his security clearance on it. The policeman handed it all back to him respectfully. “What brings you down here?”

  He explained the situation, and made it sound more like a misguided adventure or a misunderstanding, and Meredith showed him Will’s picture.

  “We call CPS as soon as we see kids that age,” the policeman reassured them. “They don’t do well down here. Most of these guys in this area are all long-term homeless. They’re all pros, a lot of them are high, and they don’t want kids around either. Sometimes they tell us when they see a fresh runaway or a kid that doesn’t belong. This is the jungle. The boy will go running home if he winds up down here,” he said with a smile, handing Meredith back Will’s picture. “I have a boy that age myself. I’ve given him a little tour, so he realizes that things aren’t as bad at home as he thinks. You just want to be sure he doesn’t fall into the wrong hands, sex trade, or drugs, o
r whatever.” The idea of Will being drugged and kidnapped into the sex trade gave Meredith shivers. Charles handed the officer his card with his cellphone number on it, and asked him to call if any leads turned up. He promised to do so.

  Two blocks later, he was checking a drunk for a pulse, lying facedown on the sidewalk when a young guy on a battered bicycle stopped to talk to him. On a hunch, he asked the boy on the bicycle if he’d seen any kids that age. The cyclist and the patrolman knew each other by sight, but had never talked before.

  “There’s a kid in a doorway on Mission somewhere, someone said he looks fresh out of Pac Heights. They were going to call CPS before he gets hurt, but they don’t want the cops on their necks either. They’ve settled down for the night.” They huddled in front of shops and banks and office buildings, and left in the morning before they opened for business.

  “Thanks. I’ll check it out.” The young man on the bicycle sped away, while the patrolman waited for a van to pick up the unconscious drunk. He was still breathing. They came for him a few minutes later, and the officer got in his squad car and headed toward Mission Street, which was at least brightly lit and slightly less dangerous than the side streets, or the broad streets farther south, which were rougher. He was planning to cruise both sides of the street, and walk it if necessary. There were groups of homeless under blankets and in sleeping bags in every doorway. He called Charles on the off chance that he wanted to have a look too. They used to patrol the area in pairs, but with cutbacks, most of the squad cars went out now with only one man, which was more dangerous for them. If they needed backup, they had to call for it, and hope another car showed up in time.

  “What was that?” Meredith looked at Charles after the call from the officer.

  “The officer we just talked to. He got a tip that there’s a boy on Mission Street in a doorway, and he doesn’t fit. They don’t want the police bothering them or chasing them off, because there’s a boy who doesn’t belong there. He’s on his way to take a look. I’ll head over there too.” Charles drove toward the most populated part of Mission, and cruised slowly while Meredith strained her eyes to check every doorway, and suddenly called out to Charles and raised a hand.