David Silva - The Disappeared

“We moved around a lot when I was a kid; I ever tell you that?”

She shook her head.

“That was because we were running most of the time.” He sat back on his haunches, then raised his eyes to the sky, which was still overcast, though you could catch a patch or two of blue trying to battle its way through in the distance. “Oh, Christ, what we do with our lives.”

Teri placed a hand on his shoulder.

He covered it with his own.

“Ever wish you could go back and start all over?”

“Sometimes,” she said.

“Me, too. I’d live in a small town, in an old Victorian. Maybe go to the same school all my life. Come home to mom baking cookies, the smell in the house warm and delicious. I’d play catch with dad when he got home, talk about the Giants, oil up my mitt, make plans to go down to the creek and do a little fishing. So many things would have been different.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Guess I’m making an idiot of myself, huh?”

“We all wish things could be different, Walt.”

He nodded and made a face. It was something he already knew, and something she imagined he had already tried to deal with on numerous other occasions. The way a childhood could follow you around the rest of your life, though – that was frightening. There was no escaping the little boy, was there? He was your conscience, your memory, your teacher, your student.

Walt finished a silent prayer, crossed himself, then moved to the adjacent plot and kneeled again. The marble headstone marked the grave as follows:

Walt’s son.

He climbed back to his feet. He brushed off the knees of his slacks where they were grimed with gravel and loose blades of grass. He looked at her, almost apologetically, then leaned over and picked up the bouquet of daffodils. A bright yellow ribbon formed a bow around the middle. Beneath the bow was a card. He opened the card and read it twice before handing it to her.

She accepted it reflexively. The card said: There’s nothing quite like family, is there? Sorry to hear of your daddy’s death. It was signed: Richard Boyle .

Walt shook his head. “Bastard’s sure enjoying himself.”

Teri fell silent.

If she hadn’t felt the voyeur before, she felt the voyeur now.

Michael pulled into a McDonald’s off Cypress and found himself in a drive-through line of five or six cars. He rolled down the window and hung his arm over the door. The sky was clear, the sun bright, the outside temperature nearing ninety. He had been running the air conditioner most of the morning and realized now that he had lost sight of how hot the day had actually become.

He had lost sight of quite a few things lately, he supposed. Not the least of which was how far he had drifted from most of his old college friends. After Peggy’s purported overdose, Michael had started calling as many of the old crowd as he could track down. He didn’t really know what he was looking for, only that it was too much of a coincidence that Peggy’s death had come when it had. So he did some calling and was surprised to find that Teri had spoken to many of these same people only a few days before.

She had made some small talk and had asked about their children and somehow the conversation had always seemed to work its way around to Dr. Childs. Listening to them talk about her calls, Michael had slowly begun to piece together a little of what Teri was after and what she had apparently discovered. There were other children in this group that had disappeared around the time that Gabe had disappeared. And in one way or another, all of the children had been in contact with Dr. Childs.

That was as much as he knew at the moment.

No one had heard back from her.

The line of cars moved forward and it became Michael’s turn to order, which he did: a Quarter Pounder with cheese, the meal, Super Sized with a Diet Coke. He wasn’t as hungry as he was thirsty, but it there was no telling how long it would be before he might get a chance to eat again.

He finished placing his order, and glanced in his rearview mirror at the car behind him. A Chevy minivan. A woman was driving; the back seats were loaded with half-a-dozen kids. She moved up behind him and rolled down her window, her face drawn and haggard. There was another car behind the minivan, a Honda Civic it appeared to be, from this angle it was hard to be sure.

Michael was getting fairly adept at knowing who and what was in the vicinity.

They were no longer following him (whoever they had been). That had stopped the night he had walked out the back door of the police station after his interview with Lieutenant Sterns. Michael was staying at a run-down motel off Market Street now, with all the amenities that such accommodations afforded: lumpy bed, rust-stained toilet, broken television, and a smell that he didn’t even want to venture a guess as to its origin.

But he could look out his window at night without seeing that dark-colored Ford sitting across the lot like a vulture waiting for the last throes of death to kick in. And that was all the peace he needed to sleep through the entire night. A comfortable bed and a clean bathroom weren’t necessities at this point. They could wait their turn. With a little luck, it wouldn’t be that long.

He listened to the idle of the engine, thought about the last time he had talked to Teri over the phone, and wondered for the thousandth time how they had come to find themselves in this bizarre situation. It’s what happens when you learn not to trust anyone, he supposed. First you quit trusting strangers, because any one of them could be the one who has walked off with your son. Then you begin to lose trust in the police, who either seem indifferent or incompetent. And finally you begin to lose trust in each other. That’s what got you here. You lost trust in Teri and she lost trust in you,

and…

He finally arrived at the pick-up window. Michael paid a young high school girl with braces that looked terribly uncomfortable, then accepted his burger, fries and drink, and drove out of the lot.

He knew exactly where he was going. And he knew exactly what he was going to do when he got there. What he didn’t know was if it would lead him to Teri.

Tilly apparently wasn’t after another sample after all.

She stepped through the door and asked Gabe how he was doing today. All right, he told her, having learned never to offer anything more than absolutely necessary. You never knew what the crazy woman was going to do. She could be your grandmother when she wanted. Or she could be Nurse Ratched, depending on the kind of mood she was in or if you happened to say the wrong thing.

She did not move all the way into the room as was her usual routine. Instead, she stood by the door, her hands clasped behind her. “Got a surprise for you,” she said.

Gabe didn’t say a word.

“How’d you like to have a roommate?”

“Depends.”

“On what?”

“On who it is.”

“Well, to tell you the truth, it really isn’t up for debate. Like it or not, you’ve got yourself a little playmate now.”

She wheeled in a boy who looked as if he might be nine or ten years old. He was pale and on the thin side, had blond hair and a spattering of light freckles across the bridge of his nose. His eyes darted from one side of the room to the other, taking it all in, making no secret of his fear and confusion. Tilley wheeled him over to the first bed on Gabe’s left, and helped him out of the chair and into the bed.