for signs? I try to push my suspicions away, but I can’t. Ever since Andrew, my once-sharp instincts have gone haywire. Who knows why anybody does anything?
And speaking of Andrew, has someone called him? Did an officer bang on his door and haul him out of bed, too? The thought of seeing him again, of having our first face-to-face in months at the camp, makes my skin itchy with nerves.
I dig through the bag by my feet, fumbling for my cell phone. “I need to call Lucas.”
The detective reaches for the volume knob and silences his car speakers, which up until now have been bleating copspeak in intermittent spurts.
The first three tries shoot me to voice mail, just as I knew they would. Finally, on the fourth attempt, Lucas’s deep and dusty voice creeps down the line. “What’s wrong? Is it Andrew?”
“No, it’s Ethan.” I say his name, and my voice cracks. “He’s missing.”
“What do you mean he’s missing?” It was pretty much my first question, too. There’s a reason why I called Lucas first. “Missing from where?”
“From the cabin where he was staying with his class. He was on that field trip to Dahlonega, remember? His teacher did a head count and he wasn’t there.” A fresh wave of terror surges, hitting me like an anvil right between the ribs. “He’s been gone for over three hours now, Lucas.”
There’s a rustling, a squeaking of mattress springs, and I picture him sitting on the edge of his bed on the south side of Knoxville, in a house only slightly bigger than mine but minus the leak spots on the ceilings and the mold climbing the walls of the cellar. Lucas works in construction, which, ever since the housing crash, means he’ll do whatever it takes to make a buck. He’s a welder, a bricklayer, a craftsman, a roofer, a painter, an electrician, a landscaper, a plumber, a handyman and a jack-of-all-trades.
He’s also an ex-marine trained in search and rescue. He can track any animal through any forest. If he leaves now, he can be there in just over three hours.
A sleepy female voice floats up from the background, and he shushes her. Lucas is a good-looking guy with a tool belt and a Harley. There’s always a woman in his bed, though it’s rarely the same one. More rustling, the click of a door. “Okay. Tell me what happened. Start at the beginning.”
“That’s all I know. He was there—now he’s not. The cops are looking for him now.”
“How many?”
“I don’t know.”
“Have they called in the dogs? The volunteers and helicopters?”
“I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know.” The panic is building inside me like a scream, a tightening noose.
“Shit. Okay, I’m on my way. Where are you?”
I look for a road sign, trying to get my bearings. By now we’ve merged onto the highway, citywide and busy, filled with big, lumbering trucks that cling to the right lanes. Up ahead, a green sign points us north to Cumming.
“We’re about to get on 400, so that’s what, another hour or so?” The detective dips his chin. “Yeah, he says another hour.”
“Who’s ‘he’?”
“The detective who came to my house. He’s driving me.” I know he showed me his badge, said his name and credentials through my front door window, but none of it stuck. The panic and shock of finding a strange man on my doorstep washed it all away. I pull the phone away from my ear. “I’m so sorry, but I’ve forgotten your name.”
He glances over. “Detective Brent Macintosh, Atlanta PD.”
I repeat the words to Lucas, who says, “I’m walking out now.”
Relief hits me square in the chest, followed by a spark of something sharper. “Do you think he just... I don’t know, went to the bathroom or something and lost his way back?” This is the version I keep telling myself, that Ethan’s disappearance is as simple as an accidental turn, a mistaken path. I want so badly to believe that it’s only a matter of time before someone finds him hunkered down behind a tree. The alternative is too awful to contemplate.
“He’s too smart for that,” Lucas says, and I wince, even though I know he’s right. “Look, wherever he is, he couldn’t have gotten far.”
On the other side of the windshield, the wipers slap out a frenetic beat, but they can’t clear the glass fast enough. I think about the dangers that could come from a downpour in the mountains—freezing pools of swirling water and leaves; saturated ground, boggy as quicksand; mudslides, fast and heavy, taking down everything in their path.
“It’s still dark out, Lucas.”
“I know.”
“And it’s pouring. He’ll be drenched.”
“I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
“Okay.” I tell myself to breathe, trying to dampen down the panic. Lucas is a fixer, as evidenced by his choice of careers. He’ll fix this for me. He has to.
“Who else have you talked to?”
“Nobody. You’re the first.”
I know he’s really asking if I’ve called Andrew. The man who Lucas assumed was the reason for this call. Lucas has never been a fan.
I sigh. “I’ll call him in the morning, if they still haven’t—”
“They’ll find him,” Lucas says, cutting off that depressing sentiment with a voice that’s sure and determined. “And if they don’t, I will.”
My breath comes out in a whoosh, a hot sigh fueled by relief. They’re the words I’ve been waiting to hear, the reason, if I’m being completely honest, why I called. Lucas is on his way. He won’t rest until he finds Ethan.
A not-so-tiny voice inside of me prays Lucas is not too late.
* * *
I knew Ethan was special three days after his ten-month birthday, when he handed me his bottle of milk and said, “No, I want juice.” Four little words and not very special ones at that, but a full sentence. Subject, verb, direct object. Unheard of for a baby his age.
Andrew insisted we have him tested as soon as the psychologist said it was possible, when Ethan was two. I’ll never forget Andrew’s face when that woman, a straitlaced type in a pencil skirt and pearls, told us that Ethan’s score fell in genius territory. All of a sudden, Andrew didn’t care that his toddler was obsessed with the mating rituals of penguins, or that the only way to quieten a terrible-two meltdown was to dial the radio to Bach. Ethan’s weird quirks had an explanation—one worth showing off to the world.
“My son is brilliant,” Andrew would say to our friends, his tennis teammates, the strangers behind him at the checkout counter, and in a voice meant to carry. He’s always been loud, but he likes to notch things up a few decibels when he’s bragging. “No, like, seriously brilliant. Equivalent to an IQ of 158, which is only two points lower than Einstein’s. The psychologist says it’s genetic.”
Of
