Samantha frowned. She hadn’t seen the big black dog for a while. She lifted her hands palms up to indicate she didn’t know, and prayed that he was with Mikey.
Because if he was...she got a brief sense of relief. The dog would be a comfort to a child who wasn’t all that secure. Cheryl had tried, but she hadn’t been consistent in creating a routine for Mikey. When she’d gotten into partying, she’d left Mikey with various caregivers, some reliable and kind, but some not so much. And then she had given him to Corbin.
Mikey needed to feel safe all the time, for an extended period of time, to get past the things he’d gone through.
Being lost and alone would be a terrible setback. Boomer’s presence, though, might make it a little better.
People were starting to regather in the backyard and she walked up there to see if anyone had any information or a new idea of where Mikey might be. There was the smell of chicken burning on the grill, and someone turned it off. Corbin and Reese stood together talking, serious, urgent. “They’ll figure out the next steps,” Sheniqua said, gesturing toward the two men and then patting Samantha’s arm.
Gabby’s grandmother sat at the picnic table, holding Izzy in her lap. “Can we say a quick prayer?”
So Samantha and Gabby and Sheniqua circled around her. “Father, please keep Mikey safe from harm,” Sheniqua said.
“Give us wisdom to think like a little boy and figure out where he is,” Gabby added.
“And please,” Samantha said, “help us find him fast, so he doesn’t get too scared.”
“Father, we know Your eye is on every sparrow,” Gabby’s grandmother said, her voice strong and confident. “Keep watch on Mikey and bring him home safely.”
The words brought Samantha a little bit of comfort. The four of them squeezed hands and then Reese and Corbin came back into their midst. “Everybody, listen up.”
Reese’s military background showed as he gave out assignments to everyone, calm and organized. Hannah arrived, was updated on the situation, and eagerly agreed to check with neighbors up one side of the street while Sheniqua took the other side. “Any neighbors who offer to help us search, send them back here. Nana, you’re the command center since you’re staying here with Izzy.”
“I can call the police as well,” she offered.
That silenced everyone. After a moment’s hesitation, Reese nodded. “Probably not a bad idea.”
The police? What did they all think had happened to Mikey? Dread settled around Samantha’s heart.
“I’m still thinking the woods are the spot we need extra help, so—”
“I’ll send any additional helpers back there,” Nana agreed quickly. “You all go. I’ve got this part covered.”
“Thanks,” Reese said. “Gabby and I will take the section to the left. Samantha and Corbin, you take the section to the right.”
Samantha glanced at Corbin to find him looking at her. At the same moment, they both nodded and then headed back there immediately, half running.
In that nod had been the silent mutual agreement: Any personal differences we have, we’re leaving them behind until Mikey is safe.
They reached the back edge of the yard, where several rough paths converged.
“He likes the mud,” Corbin said, gesturing at the path that led toward the creek.
“I searched the creek behind our house and the two yards next door,” Samantha said. Sometime, in her mind, this house had become her house, too.
“Then let’s walk down the main path together and each take a side to search. I don’t think he would’ve gone too far off the path. I always tell him not to.”
“Good idea. I tell him that, too.” They both headed down the path that was slightly wider and less overgrown than the others. Definitely the one that looked most appealing to a kid; unfortunately, it was also the one that led directly into the deepest, darkest part of the woods. Samantha’s heart thudded hard as she walked zigzags on her side of the path, calling to Mikey periodically, listening for any sound that would indicate where he was.
“Do you think Cheryl could have taken him?” Corbin threw the question her way as he did his own zigzag walking pattern on his side.
That notion brought Samantha to a halt. She knew that Cheryl wanted to see Mikey, had tried to see him in church that one day. Could she have taken him somewhere with her?
If so, that was really the best case scenario. No one would be less likely to hurt and scare Mikey than his own mother. “I don’t know,” she said slowly, conscious that Corbin didn’t know how well she knew the older woman. “If she did, do you think she would hurt him?”
Corbin threw up his hands. “I have no idea. I don’t understand her.”
Samantha was pretty sure that Cheryl wouldn’t mean any harm to Mikey, but she couldn’t say that, because Corbin didn’t know she knew Cheryl.
She should tell him the whole story. Maybe there was some kind of a clue in it that would help them find Mikey.
Then again, the knowledge of Samantha’s deception would just add to Corbin’s worries and distract him from the search. She couldn’t go into it now. But she would, she promised God, if only Mikey would be found safe.
“Over here!” Corbin was kneeling by a fallen log, shoving aside pine needles and old dead leaves. He extracted a red sneaker.
A very familiar red sneaker. Samantha sank down to the ground beside him and they searched on hands and knees, digging through the debris of the forest, both of them moving frantically. If Mikey had somehow found a hiding place here, if he had gotten hurt or stuck, time would be of the essence.
But he wasn’t anywhere in the area where the sneaker had been. “Let’s move on,” Corbin said, his voice impatient. He tossed the shoe onto the ground and strode on down the path.
Samantha scooped up the shoe before following. “If—when—we find him, he’ll need this,” she said. “He’ll hurt his feet. Tears rose to her eyes at the thought of Mikey limping around, getting hurt and having no one to help him. “Corbin, I’m so sorry I didn’t keep a closer eye on him.” She dashed tears from her cheeks. There wasn’t time for her to have an emotional meltdown.
“I’m at least as much at fault as you are,” he said, laying his hand on her shoulder for the briefest of reassuring touches. “But come on. We can’t spend time overthinking things. We have to find him.”
They hurried on down the path, side by side now, with new purpose. The shoe indicated that Mikey had come this way. And losing a shoe, going half-barefoot, would have slowed him down. He had to be nearby; he just had to be.
“What’s that?” Samantha jogged ahead toward something else red. She could hear Corbin behind her.
“His trike!” Corbin said. And indeed, lying there on its side, was the plastic trike he loved to ride, the one that was made to look like a motorcycle.
Corbin bent down and righted the tricycle, a move that nearly broke Samantha’s heart. “When I got him this, I was happy about how it would go over rough terrain,” he said, his voice bleak. “Now, I realize it’s what helped him get so far away. I should never have bought it for him.”
“Don’t go there.” She took his arm and tugged him along the path. “He’s off the trike now. Maybe he’s close by.”
So they continued on down the path. The sun was sinking lower by the moment. The sky had clouded over, and the woods were getting dark. Samantha’s stomach knotted. Mikey didn’t love the dark, and the woods were full of strange shapes and noises. He would be so frightened.
There was a rustling in the groundcover beside them that made Samantha jump and cling to Corbin’s arm more tightly than before. “What was that?”
“A squirrel, I think.”
Of course, a squirrel. She shouldn’t be such a wimp. All the same, she didn’t let go of Corbin’s arm.
They walked forward at a slower pace no
w, scanning the woods more closely and weaving from one side of the path to the other in a methodical pattern. “Of all the days to put him in a camo shirt,” Samantha fretted. “He could be anywhere and it would be so hard to find him.” She didn’t say what they both knew: if he were unconscious somewhere, finding him would be that much harder.
“Mikey!” Corbin had a deep voice and it carried far. “Mikey, if you’re out here, stay still. We’ll come find you.”
In a small clearing, big birds were visible overhead. They let out an ominous, cawing sound that made Samantha think of scary things, Halloween movies, nightmares.
When they reached the woods on the other side of the clearing, Corbin stopped and shook his head, turning slowly to look in all directions, his shoulders slumped. “I don’t think he could have gotten this far.”
“You’re right.” Samantha felt her breath go out like air from a half-empty balloon, and despair pushed hard at her heart and mind. They’d been walking about fifteen minutes since they’d found the trike. A young child like Mikey couldn’t stay focused enough to travel steadily in one direction. How could they not have found him yet? Where could he be?
Every moment that ticked away made it more likely that they wouldn’t find him, that something terrible had happened. The very thought of that made it hard to breathe.
They turned and headed back toward the direction from which they’d come, passing through the clearing and heading back into the woods on the path.
There was more rustling in the leaves. Something alive, and big. Samantha clung on to Corbin’s arm. What if there was a bear out here? What if it had attacked Mikey?
Loud, deep barking rang out, and then a giant creature burst out of the trees and ran headfirst into Samantha, knocking her into Corbin so hard that they both crashed to the ground.
It did look like a bear. But bears didn’t bark.
Hope rose up in Samantha’s heart. It was Boomer.
* * *
Corbin scrambled out from beneath Samantha—thankfully, he’d been able to break her fall—and quickly helped her to her feet as Boomer ran in circles around them, barking.
“Boomer!” Samantha tried to get hold of the big dog’s collar without success. “Where’s Mikey, boy, huh? Where is he?”
“Man, I was hoping Boomer and Mikey were together,” Corbin said. In fact, he’d been clinging to that, because he knew that Boomer would be a comfort to Mikey. But now, here was Boomer, alone.
Which meant Mikey was alone, too. Cold air chilled the sweat on his back, making him shiver.
“Boomer! Where’s Mikey? Mikey!” Samantha was talking to the dog as if it were a person. How would that help anything? Didn’t she remember that Boomer was deaf?
Boomer barked and started running into the woods, and Corbin called to him, himself forgetting for a moment that Boomer couldn’t hear.
“He must have caught our scent and come to find us. Maybe he’s leading us to Mikey!” Samantha started tromping into the woods after Boomer, who of course had completely disregarded Corbin’s command.
“That only happens in the movies,” Corbin argued.
“Do you have a better idea?” she snapped over her shoulder as she struggled through the thick vegetation after the barking dog.
He didn’t. So since he didn’t know what else to do, he followed Samantha into the woods and then took the lead, walking in front of her, lifting his feet high to stamp down the heavy underbrush. Boomer was weaving a zigzag trail in front of them, still barking, and Corbin was pretty sure that he was after a squirrel or rabbit.
“He’s going down into the gully,” Samantha cried. The gully was a deep crevice, cut by a larger stream than the creek by Corbin’s house, dark and chilly and way too scary for a kid as young as Mikey. Corbin had never even been down there himself. Surely the boy wouldn’t have...
“Come on!” Samantha started to scramble down after the dog. But the ground was wet and rocky, and her feet slipped almost immediately. She fell, hard, and although she grasped fruitlessly at tree roots and stones, she couldn’t stop her rapid slide down the steep slope.
Corbin rushed forward, made a leap, and with his greater body weight, slid down past her. He braced himself on a rocky outcropping and reached for her, steering her into his arms.
She landed against his chest, safely, making his heart pound with relief. But there wasn’t time for a prayer of gratitude. He let her go, and she spun away from him. “Where’d Boomer go?”
“I think that way,” Corbin said, pointing upstream. “Mikey! Mikey, where are you?”
Boomer had disappeared, but now, they could hear him barking.
Samantha started to scramble the rest of the way down the gully toward the sound of the barking dog. Corbin took her arm to help her balance on the unsteady ground, and they made their way forward as fast as possible, clinging on to each other. The sound of Boomer’s bark was getting closer, and so was the creek, if its rushing sound and the refrigerator-cold air was any indication.
The bottom of the ravine was dark. Down here, the sun had already set.
“I can’t see him.” Samantha broke away from Corbin and started parting bushes with her hands to look beneath them. “Either of them.”
Corbin jumped the creek and started hunting that side. It was nearly impossible to pick out any shapes in the dimness, let alone a black dog, but Boomer was still barking and yelping.
And then Corbin heard it, beneath Boomer’s noise: a child’s cry.
Corbin’s heart leapt. “Did you hear that?” he called to Samantha. He found a narrow spot in the stream and jumped back over.
“Hear what?” She went still, listening, and he did, too.
There it was again: a little boy’s cry.
“Mikey!” Samantha rushed toward the sound with Corbin right behind her. They pushed through brambles and kicked aside ferns.
And there, beside a couple of big rocks, was Mikey. Rubbing his eyes and crying as Boomer stood over him, barking.
“Oh honey, we found you!” Samantha sank to her knees and tugged Mikey into her arms, and Corbin sat down beside her, using the light on his cell phone to examine Mikey’s arms and legs.
“Boomer go ’way.” Mikey sobbed out the words and clung to Samantha.
She cuddled him close, shifting to allow Corbin to continue his gentle examination of Mikey’s limbs. “Boomer came to find us,” she explained. “How did you get this far?”
“Lost trike.” Mikey’s sobs were quieting now. “Boomer run.”
Boomer had run, and Mikey had followed the dog.
There was a long scrape on one side of his leg, and when Corbin touched it, Mikey winced. He pointed toward the rocky bank. “Fall down,” he said, his face screwing up to cry again.
“It’s okay.” Samantha gently rocked him back and forth. “Sssh. You’re okay now.”
The thought of the others, still searching and scared, sent Corbin grabbing his phone again. “I need to call everyone. Let them know he’s safe.” His hands shook too much to text, so he scrolled to Reese’s number and put through a call, asked him to let everyone know.
Samantha rose to her knees, still holding Mikey, and looked up the side of the gully. “How are we going to get him back up the hill and home?”
That wouldn’t be a problem. Corbin had so much adrenaline racing through his veins that he felt like he could lift a car and carry it across a football field. “I’ll hold him,” he said, reaching out.
He was gratified when Mikey settled against his chest just as readily as he’d done with Samantha. “You scared us, buddy,” he said.
Mikey rubbed his face against Corbin’s shoulder, sliming him with mud and tears. It was a welcome mess.
Samantha rubbed Boomer’s sides and scratched behind his ears. “You’re such a good boy, aren’t you?”
Boom
er panted up at her, and it looked like he was smiling agreement.
As well he should, because the big rescue mutt had led them to Mikey. Corbin reached down and rubbed Boomer’s head. “Ready?” he asked Samantha.
“I feel like I just ran a couple of marathons, but yeah.” Her relieved smile and the happy way she rubbed Mikey’s leg touched his heart.
He needed to talk with her, hash things out. Nearly losing Mikey had changed his perspective. “When everything gets settled, let’s have a talk,” he suggested.
Her eyebrows shot up. “Am I in trouble?” she joked, the concern in her eyes letting him know that she meant the question at least a little seriously.
“Not at all. The opposite.” He hoisted Mikey onto his hip, held out a hand to Samantha, and started the climb up the steep hill toward home.
Chapter Twelve
Samantha could barely believe that only a couple of hours had passed since they’d realized Mikey was missing, found him and got him safely back to the house. Now he was sleepy, fed and warm, cuddled up in a blanket in Corbin’s arms.
By mutual agreement, everyone had stuck around; the fear they’d shared seemed to bond them, making them want to stay close.
The chicken was ruined, of course, but Gabby and Samantha rummaged in the fridge and threw together a meal of hot dogs, veggie burgers and canned baked beans. Put together with Sheniqua’s fruit salad and the side dishes Gabby and her grandmother had brought, it felt like a feast.
Reese and Corbin built a bonfire, and they pulled up chairs and blankets around it, roasting their hot dogs and then marshmallows. Soon, both Izzy and Mikey were asleep, Izzy in Gabby’s arms and Mikey in Corbin’s.
Maybe it was the intense emotion she’d experienced, but Samantha couldn’t take her eyes off Corbin. Normally a bit aloof, he’d let his walls down and was talking and laughing, checking often to make sure Mikey was resting peacefully. He didn’t seem to want to let the boy out of his lap, which was totally understandable.
“I’m going to take a guess that the two of you are blaming yourselves,” Gabby said, looking from Samantha to Corbin and back again. “But it truly was nobody’s fault.”
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