Set You Free

by Jeff Ross

  “We can’t discount it. The window doesn’t appear to be damaged. But the Carters’ house doesn’t have screens. Benjamin’s window just had to be unlocked and someone could step right in.”

  “That can’t be. There has to be a fourth option.”

  “If so, I don’t know what it is,” she says, beginning to walk again.

  “There has to be something,” I say.

  “Such as?” Detective Evans says.

  “He’s hiding in a closet.”

  “Checked. The house has been swept.”

  “The attic?”

  “We went through every inch.”

  “The tree house they have out back? It’s totally enclosed. We play there sometimes.” I can picture the tree house with its little fake shutters and Ben inside, eating Oreos until he’s sick.

  “It and the surrounding area as well. A canine unit is there now.”

  I imagine Benjamin being led by the hand across his moonlit lawn by some creep.

  “Have you noticed anyone around?” Detective Evans asks.

  “No,” I say. Though I wouldn’t necessarily know. Ben brings you into his own little world, and everything else disappears.

  “Watching him from afar maybe? At the park or the Dairy Queen.”

  We’ve reached the school. The shaded windows are like mirrors. “I can’t think of anyone anywhere,” I say. “I honestly can’t. It always seems to be the same people in the same places, you know?”

  “Maybe you were sitting on a bench and he was playing? Someone came and talked to him?”

  “I don’t do that.” I shake my head. “We always play together. Hide-and-seek or tag or Sandman.”

  “No one else is ever with you while you’re babysitting?” Detective Evans asks, looking in a window.

  “I used to go to this school,” I say.

  “Shouldn’t Benjamin be in school? Mine started school when they were five.”

  “Erin wanted him home for the extra year. He’ll go straight into first grade. A lot of kids do that. Did Erin mention anyone suspicious? Or maybe JJ or Steph have seen something?”

  Detective Evans looks away from the window. She leans against the wall and looks out at the baseball diamond. “What I hear from Jack and Erin is that JJ and Stephanie aren’t around their place much. Maybe every couple of weekends? Jack says it’s because they’re teenagers and have their own lives.”

  “Yeah?” I say, going up on tiptoes to look down the dark interior hallway. There’s a wash of memories here. My old friends. The teachers. The ridiculousness of being herded into such a place five days a week. The single most important lesson is how to make teachers happy with the right attitude. Looking back, it seems absurd. There is no right attitude.

  “What do you think?”

  “About what?” I say. I look away from the window.

  “Why JJ and Stephanie aren’t around the Carter place much.”

  “I don’t know. They live with their mom, right?”

  “You ever see them over at the mayor’s place?” Detective Evans asks.

  “Sometimes. You don’t think they have anything to do with Ben’s disappearance, do you?”

  “I’m trying to understand the family, that’s all. Did you get a feel for how they are with Benjamin?”

  “No. They talk with him, and Steph calls him cute, but that’s about it. I saw JJ throwing a football with him one day, but football’s not really Ben’s thing.”

  “What do you think of them?”

  “I don’t know,” I say, because I don’t feel like getting into it with Detective Evans. Then she takes her sunglasses off and examines me, and I feel like I’ve been placed on the stand again.

  “Everyone knows everyone in high school,” she says. “What kind of reputation do they have?”

  “JJ plays water polo and basketball,” I say. “He works out a lot. Steph is…Steph spends a lot of time making certain she looks perfect. I don’t mean that in a really negative way. She’s a year younger than me and super popular.”

  “What about their friends?”

  “I don’t know,” I say again. “Our school is weird. People go in their own groups, which pretty much leave one another alone. There’s none of that jocks-beating-up-on-nerds stuff.”

  “JJ’s in your grade, right? Do you two run in the same circles?” Detective Evans says.

  Conversations with her are like building blocks. She has the end result in mind but needs to lead you there first. “Sometimes,” I say. “But only if there’s a larger group around. It’s never a one-on-one thing. We’re in the same History class, and earlier in the semester we did a group presentation together.”

  “Okay,” she says. She sounds disappointed. I’m not certain where it was she wanted to lead me.

  We stop at the end of the asphalt. The yard has a gentle slope to the playground and some tennis courts farther along. The rest of the view is residential. Duplexes, single-family homes, a block of row houses.

  “So, where now?” I say.

  Detective Evans is about to respond when a patrol car pulls into the parking lot and everything changes.

  FIVE

  A quick glance at her cell-phone screen, a slightly raised eyebrow, then, “I’ll be right back.” Detective Evans crosses the lawn to the opened window of the cruiser. I can’t see who she’s speaking with. Eventually she points toward the park, and the cruiser pulls away.

  “Where’s your brother?” Detective Evans asks as she nears me.

  “Tom?”

  “Yes,” she says. “Where is Tom?”

  “At home, I guess. Why?”

  She holds her phone before her. “Call him.”

  “What’s going on?”

  “We need to know where he is.”

  “He doesn’t have a cell,” I say. “Why do you need to know where he is?”

  “Call your house.” Her sunglasses come off, revealing her penetrating stare. As if she’s trying to read my mind. I open my mouth but am cut off before I can speak. “Call. Then I’ll explain.”

  My mom answers on the first ring.

  “Is Tom there?”

  “Lauren?” A hazy, sleepy voice. It had seemed as though she was about to be hit by a migraine before I left the house. Everything she did was slow and delicate.

  “Are you okay, Mom?”

  “I was just about to lie down,” she says.

  “Mom, is Tom there?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Can you check his room?” I hear her moving through the house, then knocking on Tom’s door, calling his name.

  “He’s not here.”

  “Okay,” I say. I shake my head no at Detective Evans.

  “Why are you looking for Tom? What’s going on?” my mother asks.

  “Tell your mom to sit tight,” Detective Evans says. “We’ll be right there.”

  “We’ll be right back, Mom,” I say.

  “What’s going on?” she asks. “What does Tom have to do with anything?”

  “I don’t know. We’ll be right there.” I hang up and hand the phone to Detective Evans.

  She starts right back in on me. “Did Tom ever babysit Benjamin with you?” She’s texting someone as she speaks.

  “No,” I say, then, “Well, not really. Sometimes he’d walk with us to the park or have ice cream. But he was never, like, officially there.”

  “Where does yo
ur brother hang out? Who are his friends?”

  I stop.

  Detective Evans takes another couple of steps, then turns back.

  “What is going on?” I ask.

  She pockets the phone. “Maybe nothing, Lauren.”

  “Then why all the questions about Tom?”

  She puts her sunglasses back on so I can see myself again. “He was seen in the vicinity of the Carters’ house last night.”

  “We do only live two blocks away.”

  “It’s more than that, Lauren. A neighbor saw him out in front of the Carters’ house around midnight.”

  “He could’ve been walking home,” I say.

  “He was across the street for more than twenty minutes. When the neighbor approached, your brother took off.”

  “How can you be sure it was Tom?”

  “The man took a picture with his cell phone. He just now showed the photo to Erin and Jack, and they identified Tom.”

  “But you said that Tom took off, right?”

  “He did. But we don’t know where he went afterward.”

  “He probably came home,” I say.

  “Did you see him last night?” she asks.

  I think of the hallway in my house and try to remember what it looked like when I stumbled in. Was Tom’s door open or closed? Were his shoes on the mat? I can’t remember. I don’t even know how I got home.

  “Maybe,” I say.

  “Let’s go to your place and take a look, okay?”

  And suddenly I have a hand on my back, pushing me forward. “What are you even saying? What could Tom possibly have to do with any of this? You can’t think Tom took Ben. Can you?”

  Her cell rings, and the hand disappears from my back. “Okay,” she says. “I’m en route to the suspect’s house. Can we keep the police presence down for the time being?” Listens again. “Thanks. Yes, I’ll report in as soon as we’re there.” She pockets her phone as we pass the Dairy Queen.

  “Suspect?” I say. “Do you mean Tom?”

  “Have you ever heard of the seventy-two-hour rule, Lauren?”

  “What?” I say. My head is pounding. My skin feels moist and electric. I’m getting really tired of the way Detective Evans feels the need to end all her sentences with Lauren.

  “If a missing child isn’t found within seventy-two hours, the likelihood he or she ever will be drops dramatically.”

  “You said suspect,” I say. “You were talking about my brother and you used the word suspect.”

  “I did.”

  We move quickly and silently. I have a million questions I want to ask her, but I feel so ill and dazed that I simply follow along.

  “Tell me about your brother,” Detective Evans says as I slam the car door shut. She’s reading something on the in-car computer.

  “He would never hurt anyone.”

  “Okay. But what is he like?”

  My coffee has gone cold. The car smells of grease and sweat. When I got in, I had to grab my cell phone off the seat before sitting down. “He’s a guy,” I say.

  “He’s a grade ahead of you, right? But he goes to Mitchell Mayer High?”

  “He was living with my dad downtown for a while. When my dad moved to California, Tom decided to keep going there. He’ll graduate this year.”

  “So he’s eighteen?”

  “Seventeen. His birthday is Thursday. For one week a year we’re the same age. Like, the same number age.” I’ve always found this interesting, but it sounds really stupid when I actually say it.

  Detective Evans presses the touchpad on the computer, and her eyes dance from side to side as she reads. “He’s a big guy.” She looks at me.

  “Kind of.”

  “But you’re…well, you’re not, and your mother isn’t…”

  “And my dad isn’t fat either. Back in grade school, when my parents were going through their divorce and everything, Tom started eating. Like, whenever he was upset or worried, he’d eat.”

  “Divorce is tough on kids.” Detective Evans starts the car and backs out of the parking lot.

  I press the button to lower the window but nothing happens. My hangover has shifted into high gear, and I’m overheating and shaky and would rather be curled up in bed feeling sorry for myself.

  “Do you two get along?” she asks.

  “We don’t have a lot of the same friends or anything, if that’s what you mean.”

  “So you don’t spend much time together?”

  “Pretty much none.”

  “Who are his friends?”

  “I don’t know,” I say. Which sounds better than He doesn’t have any.

  “What can you tell me, Lauren?”

  “Like I said before, the divorce was really tough on Tom. Our dad decided that Tom should live with him. Tom agreed to go, I think only because he didn’t want it to be a giant battle. We saw what the divorce was doing to our mom, and I guess Tom figured he could save her from the worst of it if he just went. So we’d still see one another on weekends, but it started getting awkward right away. Like, he started changing. Closing in on himself.” I look at her. “But none of that matters. I know he would never do anything to Benny.”

  “So he knows Benjamin?” Detective Evans says.

  “I already told you he does.”

  “When was the last time he saw Benjamin?”

  We’re almost at my house, stopped at a crosswalk where once, long ago, I’d stepped into the street in front of a car and Tom had pulled me back at the last second. The streets are stained with a million of these memories.

  “Yesterday,” I admit. “He saw Ben yesterday.”

  SIX

  “I was in bed early,” Mom says. The living room is settled in darkness. I go about opening the curtains as she speaks. “I had to take something for my migraine, and it knocked me right out.”

  Detective Evans has already pawed through Tom’s room. “He doesn’t have a computer?”

  “He’s never wanted one,” Mom replies.

  “No cell phone either, I understand. That’s a bit different for a kid his age.”

  “Tom has never gone in for electronics. I don’t know what to say.” She wrings her hands. “He’s only been living here for half a year.”

  I crank open a window. “Mom,” I say, “I’ll talk to Detective Evans about Tom, okay?”

  “He moved in with his father all those years ago and…” She covers her face.

  I want to tell her it was Tom’s choice. A decision had to be made. Sure, it was an easy out for everyone, but no one knew at the time that it would be so hard on Tom.

  Detective Evans is leveling that penetrating stare at my mother now. A new target. A new file to draw information from. “And that was a difficult situation?”

  Mom nods to this. “Maybe we should have tried to work things out,” she offers.

  “That’s not always the best plan.”

  “No, you’re right. Things could have been worse,” Mom says.

  “Sometimes it helps to simply see our kids as people,” Detective Evans says. “Everyone has a flaw or two.”

  “That is certainly true,” Mom says.

  “But do you believe he could have taken this child?” Detective Evans says.

  “No. Absolutely not. Tom has had his difficulties, but he…No.” She’s holding her head as though it might explode.

  “Mom,” I say. “Go lie down, okay? I’ll talk wit
h Detective Evans.” I help her to her bed, close the curtains and turn off the light.

  “It’ll be okay, Mom,” I say before leaving the room.

  “How do we find him, Lauren?” Detective Evans asks when I return.

  “I told you before, I don’t know,” I say.

  Detective Evans looks at her phone. “Could you turn the TV on to channel four?”

  “Why?” I say, already looking for the remote.

  “There’s something you should see.”

  I turn the TV on to find pictures of Ben and Tom on the screen. “What is this all about?” I say.

  “Watch.”

  “If you have any information regarding the whereabouts of Benjamin Dale Carter or Thomas Evan Saunders,” the announcer says, “please call the local authorities. Both are missing and may possibly be traveling together.”

  I stare at the pictures. Ben’s photo is one I took at the park a week ago. Tom’s is his yearbook photo. I start to speak, but Detective Evans interrupts me.

  “We’re not saying Tom has anything to do with Benjamin’s disappearance, Lauren. Just that we would like to talk with him.” She sits on the couch and flips the TV remote from one hand to the other, back and forth, watching me. “It’s the best I could do under the circumstances.”

  “Why?” I say. “Because he was walking in our neighborhood last night and someone got freaked out? This is insane.”

  “You know why we need to speak with him, Lauren.”

  I look at the picture of Tom again before it disappears. It seems as though it’s been cropped from the yearbook. I wonder how they managed to get it so quickly.

  “I don’t think I want to talk to you anymore,” I say. “Please just go.” The Amber Alert has disappeared and been replaced by a talk show.

  “You could help us find him, Lauren.”

  “Find who? Ben or my brother?”

  “Lauren. You must know some of the places he goes. The people he connects with. We just need one lead. Someplace to start.”

  “I don’t know anything,” I say. “Please go.”

  “Lauren,” Detective Evans says, “JJ told us about that day in the park.”