the front office renovations and Promethean boards in every classroom, I have no idea. What kind of mother doesn’t know the people responsible for watching her child?
The detective is the first to jump in. “Was the fire intentional?”
“Yes. Whoever set it used an accelerant. An arson investigator is already on the way, but she’s coming from Chattanooga so we’ve got another hour before she gets here.”
“And the teacher remembers seeing Ethan at the first head count?”
“Negative,” the sheriff says, and I force myself to focus on his words, and not the way his eyes are tight and strained. “She remembers counting eighteen bodies, but according to her last statement, she can’t one hundred percent guarantee that one of those belonged to Ethan.”
I shake my head, trying to clear the cobwebs, but I still don’t understand. “Who else could it have belonged to? Surely she wouldn’t have counted another kid twice. And what about the other kids? Doesn’t anybody remember seeing him?”
“Some do, some don’t. It was dark and the kids were in a tizzy. The chaperones, too. We’re still in the process of questioning everybody, but most of our witnesses are children operating on a few hours’ sleep. That all goes to say this is taking more time than I’d like it to.”
“What about tracks?” the detective asks. “Any indication which way they went?”
The sheriff grimaces. “The rain started coming down shortly after the fire, which is part of what helped put it out. Any tracks were washed out.”
“But he has a compass.” I slap my palms to the table and lean in. “If he has his backpack, it’ll be in it and he knows how to use it. He’ll be able to navigate his way to safety.”
For the longest time, no one speaks. No one quite looks at me, either.
The sheriff shifts on the bench, restless and uncomfortable. “Ms. Jenkins, I know it’s not what you want to hear, but in all likelihood, the compass is not going to help your son. Now, it’s still possible that Ethan wandered off in the confusion of the fire, but it’s not looking that way. Every indication points to his having some help.”
The sheriff’s words fall into the room like a bomb, and the ugly fear that’s been creeping through my veins grows and pulses with heat, clawing at my consciousness. I think about the helicopters swooping over the trees, searching between the branches for one, maybe two glowing bodies, and I feel unsettled, panicky.
“Has somebody called Andrew?”
This gets everybody’s attention. The sheriff cocks a brow, and he grows an inch or two on the bench. “I assume you’re referring to your husband.”
“Ex-husband. Has somebody talked to him?”
The sheriff shakes his head. “So far, we’ve been unable to reach him.”
“Well, send somebody by,” I yell. “Tell them to pound on his door until he opens it.”
“We’ve done that, just like we did with you. So far, nobody’s answered.”
I flip through the logical explanations in my mind. It’s still early. Andrew is not a morning person. He’ll have his phone ringers off and his noise machine on. There’s no waking him once he’s out.
But still. The suspicions sneak in like smoke, silent and deadly.
“But why?” The question is as much for me as for anyone here. “Andrew loves Ethan.”
The sheriff hikes a shoulder. “When people are desperate enough, they’ll do all sorts of things they wouldn’t do otherwise.”
“How is Andrew desperate? He’s paying me bare-bones alimony and stretching out the divorce just long enough to hide all his assets.” I turn to the detective. “You saw where I live. If anybody is desperate here, it’s me. And before you start accusing me of having something to do with Ethan’s disappearance again, I was at home asleep.”
“I wasn’t accusing you. I was questioning you, and I’m not going to apologize for it. Like I told you in the car, we’re looking at every possible scenario. That includes close family, starting with the parents.”
Of course, they are looking at Andrew. If I’m a scenario, then so is a soon-to-be ex-husband with an arrest record.
I shake my head, speechless. No matter what Andrew thinks of me, he adores his son. He’d never do anything to hurt him... Would he?
The sheriff reads my expression. “Parental kidnappings aren’t all that uncommon, unfortunately, especially when the parents are estranged, which I understand you and Andrew are.”
“We’re estranged, but he and Ethan aren’t. Andrew can see Ethan anytime he wants.”
“According to a court order filed with the DeKalb County clerk, Andrew’s visitation is every other weekend.”
“Yes, but that was what the judge decided. Not me. When I told him I wanted a divorce, I promised Andrew we would share custody fifty-fifty. This arrangement is only temporary. And why go to all the trouble to kidnap him here? Why wouldn’t he just... I don’t know, not bring Ethan home one Sunday night? I mean, it’s not like he doesn’t have plenty of other opportunity.”
“I don’t know, but like the detective said, we’re looking at every scenario. Including the possibility your son might be lost out there in the woods, or that he’s with someone unrelated. We also have to consider that it might have been a stranger.”
“What kind of stranger kidnaps an eight-year-old little boy?”
The sheriff doesn’t respond, but I hear the answer in his silence.
A predator.
A psychopath.
A monster.
I dig my phone from my pocket with shaking hands, pull up Andrew’s number on the screen. Screw the restraining order. No, screw him if he’s done what I think he has. The phone rings once, twice, three times. It flips me to a recording, Andrew’s slightly nasal voice asking me to leave a message. I call him four more times, each time with no response. The same happens with his home line.
The sheriff reads the answer on my face. “Keep trying. We will, too. In the meantime—”
The walkie-talkie on the sheriff’s hip crackles to life, a deep voice spouting something in fits and starts. I squeeze my eyes and strain to make out the words, but I don’t catch them all. The dogs caught a trail. They tracked it a mile and a half to the northwest. Something about a mountain.
“Goddammit.” The sheriff slams a fist to the table, rattling my frayed nerves and toppling one of the cups. A brown liquid, the remnants of someone’s forgotten coffee, creeps across the papers like sludge.
He heaves himself to his full height and hustles off.
“What?” I call out, but he doesn’t slow. Two seconds later, he’s out the door.
“The dogs are confused,” the detective says.
