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She smiles reassuringly. “Lucie, they’ll be fine. I promise. Go back to work.”
I leave with Henry still unwilling to meet my eye. And why should he? I’m the one who let him count on someone who’d assured me he couldn’t be counted upon.
I get through planning the retreat for the marketing department, working fast, hoping to cut out by five and get home to Henry—fix things somehow, though I suspect only Caleb can heal this particular wound.
When Caleb texts to say he’s boarding his flight, I don’t reply. He has a company to run. He needed this meeting and he told me the deal from the start. But I have a son I didn’t want to see hurt. I’ll do my best to get over it before he lands, but right now...I’m still upset.
I send my last few emails and am just about to close my laptop when the phone rings.Caleb’s flight was cancelled. I reach for the phone with grim resignation, but it’s Abby’s name there, not his. I hit the speaker button and when I hear her crying, my stomach drops to the floor. “Abby? What’s wrong?”
“It’s Henry,” she says. “I can’t find him anywhere.”
My breath stops. “Did you ask Sophie? Maybe they’re playing a game.”
Abby wails harder. “She said she heard the back door close, but we don’t see him outside.”
For a half-second, I freeze, my body still, my hand grasping the phone. “Call the police,” I whisper. “I’m on the way.”
I grab my keys and my phone, and I run down the hall, past Kayleigh, past the small group of employees gathered out front. I call Jeremy, then Molly as I drive, running red lights, driving on the shoulder when necessary. I’m gripping the wheel so tight that my hands ache when I remove them, panicked but at the same time...numb.
This can’t be happening. It’s a mistake. I’m going to walk in and discover Henry’s hiding, that she didn’t look carefully. I’ll call his name and he’ll walk out with one of his wary smiles.
But then I pull into the driveway. The police are here. Abby’s crying.
This is happening. This is really happening.
I force myself out of the car and swing Sophie onto my hip. Her head presses to my chest, uncharacteristically silent and still. Her thumb goes into her mouth—a habit I thought she’d outgrown.
“I’m so sorry,” Abby says. “My boyfriend came over because we’d had a fight and I came outside to talk to him—”
“How long?” I demand. “How long were they out of your sight?”
“Like, maybe a half hour.”
She cries harder, and I turn away when what I want to do is scream, “I told you!I told you to keep an eye on him and you didn’t fucking listen.”
I blame her, but mostly I blame myself.This is what I get for trusting a kid with my kids. This is what I get for not being more careful.
Jeremy pulls up and reaches us just as the chief of police walks over.
“We’ve got a team combing the woods. Do you have any thoughts on where he might have tried to go? Is there a place he likes to play?”
I hang my head. “He likes to go to our neighbor’s house, but he’s out of town,” I say, pointing at Caleb’s. “If we go for walks, it’s on the path around the lake.”
My voice cracks on that last word.
The captain places a hand on my shoulder. “If he’s out there, we’ll find him. And the boat is on the way.”
I look between him and Jeremy, failing to understand this. “A boat?”
He can’t meet my eye. “So we can start dredging the lake.”
Dredging.
The second it’s out, it feels inevitable—of course he went to the lake; it’s where he would normally find Caleb—yet at the same time I refuse to accept it. I will comb every inch of this goddamn state by hand before I accept that he went into the lake without me.
“He wouldn’t,” I whisper. “He knows he’s not allowed to go in the lake without an adult.”
The chief winces. “Kids don’t always listen.”
