Then he stood. “Thank you for coming, Mrs. Mondello.”
“Have a good evening,” she said stiffly. Then she turned and left the room. Pushing through the party, she made her way back to the car. She climbed inside and locked the door. Her foot trembled as she slammed down on the accelerator, spun out of the driveway, and raced home.
Chapter Fourteen
Kiersten
Kiersten pulled into her driveway at a little after 7:00 p.m. The rain had let up as they crossed the Woodrow Wilson Bridge and entered Old Town, where Mother Nature decided to atone for the harrowing drive through a downpour by treating them to a brilliant sunset, complete with a rainbow over the Potomac, as they drove south on the George Washington Memorial Parkway toward home.
“Guys,” she ordered as she pulled into the driveway, “you must help carry things into the house.”
She’d seen this movie before. Her children would bolt from the car and run upstairs to their bedrooms, leaving her to make nine trips back and forth to the house, carrying blankets, pillows, snacks, and gear inside.
As she opened the rear hatch, an almost paralyzing wave of anxiety washed over her.
Something isn’t right.
This feeling of unease had dogged her for miles. Ever since that pit stop at Big Jim’s Travel Plaza.
Something isn’t right.
Her mind had repeated these words over and over again as she’d dodged eighteen-wheelers in the sheeting rain.
Something isn’t right.
The boys emerged from the car like slugs and stood stretching in the driveway.
She looked at the boys.
One boy. Two boys. Three boys.
Three. Boys.
When she had four sons.
“Guys, where is Johnny?”
The boys all looked at each other.
“I dunno.” Luke gave a sullen shrug. “I’m not my brother’s keeper.” Years of Lutheran church and Sunday school, and this was the only Bible verse that had made an impression.
“Stand still.” She felt all the blood drain from her face. “No one move.”
She ran into the backyard, calling Johnny’s name. She ran into the garage, filled with empty packing boxes. “Johnny? Johnny, are youhere?”
Her voice rose an octave each time she shouted his name as panic shot up her spine.
He couldn’t be in the house. Because the house was locked. But she unlocked the front door anyway, threw it open, and ran through each room, shouting his name.
“Johnny? Where are you?”
Silence.
She flung herself back down the stairs, through the mudroom, and into the driveway, where the boys stood, their faces pale and horrified. She hurled the minivan door wide open and plunged inside, ripping apart the blankets and pillows.
Corn chips. Water bottles. iPads.
But no Johnny.
