Даниэла Стил - Neighbors

“Will called me. He thought you were going there, so I called the hotline. Was Andrew there?”

Tyla looked embarrassed and remorseful as she nodded. “I agreed to meet him to give him some photographs. He looks terrible.” The police had taken Andrew to jail.

“They won’t let him out on bail now,” Charles told her. “They’ll send him for a psych evaluation, at some mental hospital with a locked ward, where he belongs. They may not let him out until trial.” Which would be a relief for all of them.

They walked into Meredith’s house together, and Tyla went upstairs to Will’s room to tell him they were okay. She came out a minute later, holding a scrap of paper, with Will’s writing on it in pencil.

“Oh my God,” she said. She held it out for them to read as tears filled her eyes. It said, “Don’t let him kill my mom.” And there was no sign of Will in the room. “I think he ran away,” Tyla said, panicked.

“He’s afraid you’re going to go back to his father and he’ll kill you. He told me the other day,” Meredith said. “I think he’s overheard some of your conversations with Andrew.”

Tyla sank into a chair, feeling faint. “What do we do now?” She was frightened for Will.

“We drive around looking for him,” Charles said, which was sensible. Charles never panicked in a crisis. They went back to the courtyard to his SUV. He got in quickly and started the car. “He can’t have gone far. We’ll find him,” he reassured her. She had started another tidal wave by meeting up with Andrew.

“I’ll come with you,” Tyla said, and got into the passenger seat next to Charles.

“I’ll look around too,” Meredith said, and got out the key to her car sitting in the courtyard. They followed each other out, drove around the neighborhood separately and came back to the house. They returned within minutes of each other, two hours later. There was no sign of Will. And a few minutes later, Meredith went to pick up Daphne, after school, and brought her home.

“Should we call the police?” Tyla asked Charles.

“I think we’d better. I don’t want him hitchhiking or out alone at night.” He was eleven years old and had led a sheltered life, other than his father’s violence. He knew nothing of life on the streets and would stick out as someone who didn’t belong there. He’d be easy prey for predators of all kinds.

“What’s he wearing?” Charles said, surprised that they hadn’t found him, as he reached for his phone to call the police.

“He was wearing his school uniform. Gray pants, navy blazer, white shirt, navy tie,” Meredith said. Her heart was beating faster. What if they didn’t find him? Or something happened to him? She had been stupid to meet Andrew, and Will was so upset by it, he’d run away. Or maybe he’d been planning to anyway. So much had happened in a short time and he had no control over any of it.

The police arrived at the house half an hour later, took down the information, and put out an all-points bulletin in the Bay Area. Many areas of the city were still closed with no power. But most of the city was functioning again, and all bridges were open, so if someone abducted him, it would be easy to leave the city. The police put out an Amber Alert for him, just in case, warning motorists of a possible abducted child. It would be up in lights on every freeway in the state.

“Now what?” Meredith looked at Charles after the police left.

“We wait.” And pray, he didn’t say out loud.

Chapter 12

The wait for news from the police about Will seemed interminable. Tyla racked her brain, but couldn’t imagine where he’d gone. She got out the school roster, and called the mothers of all the boys he was close to, but no one had seen him. He hadn’t shown up at their homes after school. The other parents had heard rumors that there were problems at the Johnsons, and that Tyla and the children were staying at a friend’s. Will had said it was because there was damage to their home from the earthquake, but there had been whispers that Will’s parents were separated. No one knew the full details of the story, and miraculously it hadn’t hit the press.

By seven o’clock, Tyla had called everyone she could think of, no one had heard a word from him. He had a cellphone Tyla let him use occasionally, but he had left it in his room. Meredith and Charles had helped her comb the room for clues and they found none.

He had been through so much, the constant tension in their home for years, in fear of Andrew’s explosions, the physical abuse their mother had endured and he and Daphne were aware of. The secrets they had to keep. The terrible beating Tyla had had recently, and he couldn’t protect her. Will’s fear that she’d go back to him and the nightmare would start all over again. And worst of all, the fear that his father would kill his mother, which was a real possibility.

Charles and Meredith talked about it quietly in her study, while Tyla waited for news in her bedroom, with Daphne, and tried to reassure her.

“There’s a terrible contradiction in these situations,” Charles said seriously. “The women who are being abused stay for the sake of the children, to not break up the family, and what the children go through as a result is worse than any divorce, and damages them far more than if they’d gotten out of the marriage. The statistics on it are terrible, sometimes even including child suicide. The children feel helpless to protect their mothers and don’t know how to handle it. It’s hard enough for the adults involved, but kids are overwhelmed by circumstances they have no control over.”

“You don’t think Will would hurt himself, do you?” Meredith looked devastated.

“I don’t know him well enough to judge it,” Charles said honestly. “I hope not. I think he’s more likely to get hurt on the streets, dealing with situations he’s not familiar with, tough older kids, street gangs, drug addicts, dealers. He’s a little innocent out there, and if he’s wearing his private school uniform, he’s going to stick out like a sore thumb.” He looked young for his age. And worse, he might have the misfortune to cross paths with a pedophile who would abduct him. It was a dangerous world out there, almost as bad as the one he grew up in, where the person he should have been able to count on, his father, was the most lethal and toxic of all. “If Will seriously thought that Tyla went to meet Andrew, or maybe even heard her say it, he might have figured that Andrew would kill her this time, and since he couldn’t stop her, or protect her, he ran, feeling guilty or frightened. Tyla said he might have had ten dollars on him. That won’t get him far. He’ll be cold, tired, and hungry by now. If he turns up at a homeless shelter, or a free kitchen, like Glide, they’ll call Child Protective Services to pick him up. They don’t leave kids his age on the streets. At thirteen and fourteen they turn a blind eye to runaways, but not with a child of eleven.” Meredith was grateful that Charles was there with them. He had done nothing but improve their lives, and hers especially, since she had met him. He was a solid, responsible, intuitive, resourceful person, the kind you needed in a crisis. And he made everything go more smoothly in normal times.

It seemed as though very little had gone smoothly since the earthquake. It had been almost two months now. Ava and Joel had broken up, Peter’s life had turned upside down in a good way, and Arthur now had two young people in his home instead of one. Andrew had lost all control and was facing prison for attempted murder, Tyla had nearly lost her life, Meredith had had a steady stream of houseguests since the night of the earthquake, and had discovered that her most trusted employees whom she relied on and considered dear friends were thieves who had preyed on her for fifteen years. Even the children had been profoundly affected, and now Will had run away, and God knew what would happen to him on the streets. It was a lot for any of them to weather. For all of them, and the rest of the population who had lost loved ones and homes in the earthquake, it was a time of turmoil and change. In some ways, for Meredith, it was a good change, but a lot of baggage had come with it. Charles had been there to share in all of it, and had passed every test and met every challenge head-on. In many ways, Meredith felt very lucky, but she was also deeply worried for her friends. With Andrew’s upcoming trial, Tyla and her children would have hard times ahead.