Page 3 of Want to Know a Secret?

The gate door is wide open.

With a shaking hand, I pull my phone out of my pocket. I bring up the text message one more time:

Your son isn’t where you think he is.

My hands are shaking so much, it’s an effort to respond: Who are you? Where is he?

I stand there, watching the screen. Waiting.

But there’s no reply.

Chapter 2

I rush back into the house, just in time to run into Elliot, who is coming down the stairs. “Was he up there?” I ask.

For a moment, I have a sliver of hope, but then he shakes his head.

“Did you check all the rooms?” I press him.

He nods. “Yes. I didn’t see him.”

That stab of panic is starting to escalate. My legs have turned to jello. “He’s not in the backyard. And the gate is open…”

My heart is doing jumping jacks in my chest, but Elliot still doesn’t seem overly concerned. How does he do that? Is he really not worried or is he just so much better at faking it? He is a lawyer, after all. He’s good at faking it.

“Don’t freak out, April,” he says. “You know Bobby. He probably went over to play with Leo.”

Leo is Bobby’s best friend, and conveniently Julie’s son.

“Without asking me?” My voice sounds high and squeaky. “He wouldn’t do that.”

“Hmm. It sounds exactly like something he would do.”

That’s not true.

At least, I don’t think it’s true. Admittedly, Bobby has been testing some of the boundaries of what we will allow him to do lately. Maybe Elliot is right. Maybe he’s playing at Leo’s house right now. Although if he were with Julie, wouldn’t she have mentioned it when she texted me about the PTA meeting?

“But what about that text message I got?” I say. I was willing to shrug it off as a prank before, but now that I can’t locate Bobby, I realize it may be much more than that.

He just shakes his head. “I… I don’t know…”

“I’m calling Julie,” I announce. Before he can say anything, I reach for my phone and call Julie’s number on speed dial. It rings five times, then goes to voicemail. “She’s not picking up.”

“She never picks up.”

My heart is racing as I push past my husband. “I’m going over there.”

Elliot is watching me, his eyebrows bunched together. “I’m sure he’s fine. I bet anything he’s at Leo’s house.”

“Yeah,” I mumble.

“I mean,” he goes on, “kids don’t just get taken from the backyard. That’s the kind of thing that happens in fiction. In real life, that never happens. It’s really rare.”

I stop in my tracks to glare at him. “I just got a text message asking me where he is, and now I can’t find him. You really think I’m overreacting?”

Elliot opens his mouth, but no words come out.

Bobby has taped one of his drawings to our front door. It looks like a turtle, which is his favorite kind of animal (this month). He’s written his name in the lower right-hand corner, and in the upper right-hand corner, he’s scribbled, “For Mom.” Whenever he draws anything, he always writes that in the corner. Every drawing is for me.