What Follows After

by Dan Walsh

  A few minutes later, the phone rang. Scott picked it up.

  “Hello, Scott? This is Vic Hammond. Sorry I’m late calling you, but a few things came up.”

  “Anything about Timmy?”

  “We’ve talked a lot about him, but there aren’t any new leads, if that’s what you’re wondering.”

  “It is. So, you calling about the decision to start treating this as an abduction?”

  “Yeah, we made that call over an hour ago. I was going to call you then, but a reporter was standing right here, so we worked on putting together a press release, which I just authorized to be wired to all news outlets and other law enforcement agencies. Things should start getting a lot more active very soon.”

  Scott sat in the chair next to the telephone. “Is there anything we can do? Anything at all?”

  “For now,” Vic said, “just be prepared to take any phone calls from reporters. Most of them are following up on stories related to this whole Cuba situation, but I’m pretty sure some will see this as a big story and try to get an interview with you and Gina.”

  “Gina and I talked about it, and we are willing to do things like that. We want to do anything that’ll help get Timmy back.”

  “Good, we appreciate that. We’re going to try to get coverage on the radio and local television news too, not just the newspapers.”

  “The radio and TV?” Scott repeated. Mike heard this and took a step closer.

  “Yes,” Vic said, “lots of people are listening to their radios all day, trying to get the latest on this crisis with Cuba and the Russians. And they’ll be watching the TV news every time it’s on. In the next day or so, our plan is that everyone in Florida, maybe even in parts of Alabama and Georgia, will hear about Timmy.”

  “You think there’s a chance Timmy’s in Georgia or Alabama?”

  “Could be. Nate pointed out that once that bus hit Jacksonville, it could have turned west toward the panhandle.”

  Scott hoped not. The whole state of Florida already seemed way too big a haystack to search through.

  “Nate and I will have our hands full shortly, running down every lead that comes in, as well as recruiting more help, so it might be a little hard to reach us. You still have my card?”

  “I do.”

  “Well, just call that number. They’ll be able to reach us, and I’ll get right back to you.”

  “Will do,” Scott said. “And thanks, Vic, for everything you’re doing. You and Nate.”

  “We’ll do all we can,” Vic said.

  They hung up, and Scott filled Mike in on the details. Just as he finished, the phone rang again. Who could it be? he thought. He picked it up on the third ring.

  “Hello, is Scott Harrison there?”

  It sounded like Scott’s boss from GE. “Is that you, Mr. Finch?”

  “It’s me. Scott?”

  “Yes, sir, I’m here.” Finch had never called him at home. Scott wasn’t even sure how he got the number.

  “Hey, I’m glad I got you. Just wanted to call and tell you how sorry we are about your boy being missing.”

  Wow, Scott thought, this was unexpected. “Thank you, Mr. Finch.”

  “But one of them came home, right?”

  “Yes, last night.”

  “Haven’t heard anything about it on the news yet. Maybe it’s getting drowned out by all this news about Cuba. That was really something, what the president said last night. Mark Mitchell was the one told me about your boys, down at the Castaway Motel.”

  Mark was Scott’s assistant, the one filling in for him today. “I just got off the phone with the FBI, as a matter of fact. You should start reading and hearing about the kidnapping later today. They wanted to wait a little while to make sure this wasn’t a ransom-type kidnapping. They didn’t think it was, but they had to be sure. That’s why I had to stay by the phone, just in case.”

  Finch didn’t reply immediately, then he said, “Things have really started hopping down at the Castaway this afternoon. The Expo’s just a few days away.”

  Well, now this phone call was starting to make more sense. Scott didn’t reply.

  “Talking with Mark there—just got off the phone with him—he seems a bit overwhelmed by it all. Know what I mean?”

  Scott did. He wished he didn’t. He wanted the illusion that Mr. Finch actually cared about him to last at least a few moments longer.

  “This project is really your baby, Scott. I can see Mark handling all the behind-the-scenes aspects, but he doesn’t really have your gift of gab. Not even close. I think if he tries to give some of those talks you were planning to give, he’d bore people to tears. And he really only knows about half of what’s going on, so I don’t see all the Q&A sessions working out too well, either.”

  Scott couldn’t believe this. This was the kind of pressure you applied when a worker was home milking a sore throat or a cold, not when their child was kidnapped. Was he kidding? Of course, Scott knew the answer. He glanced at Mike, who was standing by the coffeepot, pouring another cup. He was pretty sure Mike couldn’t hear what his boss was saying, but he had to be careful with his own replies. “I’m really sorry about that, Mr. Finch. But I don’t see how I can help. Nobody knows how important this Expo is more than me. I’ve been working on it nonstop for weeks. But sir, my son was kidnapped yesterday.”

  “Oh, I know,” Finch said. “You need to be available for your family at a time like this.”

  “With all respect, sir, I don’t need to be available for them, I need to be here with them.”

  “But I thought you said the FBI cleared up that this wasn’t a standard kidnapping, so you don’t really have to stay chained to the telephone anymore, right?”

  “Mr. Finch, I need to be here.”

  “I see.”

  Scott doubted that.

  “You don’t think there’s a chance you could split your time between the two places? The Castaway’s only, what, ten minutes from where you live?”

  “I really don’t, Mr. Finch. At least not the rest of the day, and probably not tomorrow. If the press stops calling after that for a while, then maybe . . .”

  “No, I understand, Scott. You do what you gotta do. We’re all pulling for you over here. Look, I’ve gotta go. Got a meeting to attend before I call it a day.”

  They said their good-byes and hung up. When Scott looked up, Mike was standing there.

  “Was that your boss?”

  Scott nodded and released a chestful of frustration.

  31

  Gina couldn’t believe the atmosphere at the grocery store or the prices. “Look at that, Rose, hamburger forty-five cents a pound. It was thirty-five cents when I went shopping here three days ago.”

  “And did you see the pork chops?” Rose said. “Seventy-five cents a pound. That’s up over a nickel since the weekend.”

  “I have half a mind to put all this stuff in my cart back and go to another store,” Gina said. “I think they’ve marked all the prices up because of this Cuba thing.”

  “Probably gonna be the same everywhere else,” Rose said.

  “Look at all the people. You’d think the food was gonna run out by tomorrow.” Gina walked beside Rose as they made their way down the meat aisle.

  “I wonder if it is,” Rose said. “You think they announced something new over the radio this morning? Maybe we missed it.”

  “I don’t think so.” Just then a middle-aged woman pushed her cart past them. “Excuse me, ma’am,” Gina said. “Why are there so many people in the store shopping now?”

  The woman slowed but didn’t stop. “Didn’t you hear the president last night? Or read the papers this morning? We could be at war with the Russians in a few days. My husband says they could be firing nuclear missiles at us at any moment.”

  “But they wouldn’t bomb here,” Rose said. “Not Daytona Beach.”

  “Maybe not. But they could bomb the Cape, and the fallout could certainly reach here. And what do you think will
happen if they bomb all the major cities on the East Coast? People are saying the economy could shut down completely . . . for weeks, or even months.” The woman started pushing her cat faster. “Excuse me, I’ve got to keep going.”

  Rose and Gina stopped and looked at each other. “You think we should buy some more things?” Rose said.

  “I don’t know,” Gina said. “I can’t imagine that really happening. Did you listen to what the president said last night? We had the TV on, but I was so distracted I don’t remember most of it.”

  “We did listen to it, on the radio in the car. It sounded pretty serious, but I didn’t think he was saying we were going to war. Mike said he was saying it could happen, not that it will.”

  “Maybe people are just panicking and overreacting like they always do. They did it two years ago when Hurricane Donna came through. The grocery shelves were bare.”

  “You’re probably right,” Rose said. “But still, maybe just to be safe, we should buy some extra things. You know, just the necessary stuff. Even if they’re wrong, all this panic buying could cause a food shortage by itself.”

  Then Gina remembered. “I can’t, I didn’t bring any extra money. Just enough for a few things.”

  “Well, we did, Mike and I. Let me help out.”

  “I can’t let you do that. You’re our guests.”

  “Don’t be silly, Gina. This isn’t like some planned vacation. You and Scott weren’t expecting us. C’mon, I insist.”

  They stood there looking at each other. “Okay,” Gina said. “I guess that would be all right. For now. But I’ll pay you back when we get to the house.”

  Rose started moving the cart forward. “You’ll do no such thing.”

  “Do you want to split up, so we can get done faster?” Gina didn’t like being gone from the house that long.

  “We could, but then we couldn’t talk. And you know what will happen when we get home. The guys will be there, including Colt. And then we’ll have to start fixing dinner.”

  Gina walked back and picked up another pound of ground beef and put it into the cart. “Is there something specific you wanted to talk about?” She hoped it wasn’t about Scott’s cheating. She couldn’t talk about that without breaking down or getting angry.

  “Kind of,” Rose said. She hesitated. “I told Mike about . . . you know, what Scott did . . . at the party. What you saw.”

  Gina stiffened up but kept walking.

  “I hope you don’t mind, but I felt he needed to know. I mean, it sounds like it’s the main reason you two aren’t together anymore. Which sounds like the main reason the boys ran away.”

  “Do you two talk about everything?” Gina tried to keep the annoyance out of her voice, but she couldn’t help feeling a little betrayed. She had assumed what she shared was just something between them. She walked over and picked up a package of chicken breasts.

  “Pretty much,” Rose said. “Certainly about important things. I’m guessing you and Scott don’t? I don’t mean just since he moved out. I’m talking about when you were together. You guys didn’t talk about things? You know, how you’re feeling, the things that bother you . . . or bother him.”

  Gina could hardly believe the question. She and Scott never talked like that, and she didn’t know any other wives who talked with their husbands about things like that, either. Everyone knew men didn’t share their feelings, even with each other. “Let’s head down this aisle. I want to pick up some cans of tuna.”

  Rose waited for a woman to pass then turned the cart to the right. “I guess you didn’t like that question?”

  “It’s not that, Rose. Scott and I didn’t have that kind of relationship. We never have. For one thing, we hardly ever got to see each other. For most of our first two years together, he was off in Korea. You knew that. Then when he got home, he wanted to finish college. He got this idea that he had to do it himself. He wouldn’t take his father’s money and go full-time. His dad even offered to help us with room and board, not just tuition. But Scott said no. Instead he worked full-time and went to night school for seven years on the GI Bill, while I sat home alone trying to be the good little housewife and mother.” Look what that got me, she thought. Now they were separated, she was working full-time, and her little boy was—

  “Why wouldn’t Scott let his father help him?” Rose said.

  “He said, for one thing, the help came with strings. His father would only pay if he went into business and finance, like Scott’s brothers. Scott wanted to pursue engineering.”

  “Okay, but didn’t he graduate three years ago?” Rose said.

  “Yes,” Gina said, reaching for the cans of tuna. She waited a moment to continue until a woman with a toddler in her cart got far enough away. “Nothing changed after he graduated. I thought it would. The whole time he was going to night school he promised me it would. But right after he graduated, he started working at GE. Then it was all about climbing up the ladder as quickly as he could. He hated being the low man on the totem pole, having to listen to all these younger guys who went to college right out of high school and graduated several years ahead of him. So once again, he’s leaving me alone night after night, getting home late, so he can impress all his bosses and get promotions.” Gina pointed to a jar of mayonnaise. “Of course, now I don’t even know if that was true.”

  “If what was true?” Rose put the mayonnaise jar in the cart.

  “Why he got home late each night, once he started working at GE. It was probably just a lie, to cover up his affair with that redhead.” She looked down the aisle. “We should probably get another loaf of bread, or maybe two. Of course, it’ll probably just go stale before we can eat the second one.”

  “I’m sorry, Gina. I didn’t mean to bring all this up. Mike and I just want to help you while we’re here, if we can. I kind of knew all the things you just told me, not about the part about Scott cheating but about him being too busy all the time and you being so lonely. I could tell something was wrong every time we’d visit from Savannah. I even talked to Mike about it.”

  Of course you did, Gina thought. You and Mike talk about everything.

  “The only reason I’m bringing it up is, Mike thinks he can help Scott with this. And since it seems to be at the core of your troubles as a couple, we thought—”

  “Help Scott with what, Rose?”

  “Help Scott see how wrong it is, how wrong it’s been to keep neglecting you, neglecting your relationship all this time. A few years ago, our pastor back home helped Mike understand some things about a husband’s role in the home. He went to a men’s breakfast and completely changed after that. Mike’s even helped some husbands in our church get to a better place in their marriages. And I thought, maybe—”

  “Rose, I appreciate what you’re saying and what Mike wants to do. But there’s really no point to it.”

  “No point?” Rose said. “It could change everything in your relationship.”

  Gina sighed. “No, it can’t,” she said as tears welled up in her eyes. “Can it take the picture out of my mind of my husband in the arms of that redhead? Or hearing her tell me how much they’re in love? Can it bring my little boy home?”

  32

  “Are there more bags in the trunk?” Scott asked.

  Gina and Rose carried their shopping bags past Scott and Mike standing in the living room. “Quite a few,” Gina said. “Make sure you carry them from the bottom so they don’t rip. The kid who bagged them was in a hurry. He filled some of them too much.”

  Scott and Mike headed out the door. “I thought you were just gonna get enough for dinner,” Scott said.

  “We were,” Rose yelled. “This is Plan B.”

  “What’s Plan B?” Mike said, stopping at the doorway.

  “It’s what you do when the world is about to be annihilated,” Rose said, “and you’re afraid you might run out of groceries.”

  Mike laughed and so did Scott as he unlocked the trunk. It felt good to laugh, but the
feeling didn’t last long.

  “Colt?” he heard Gina yell from inside the house. “Colt, where are you?”

  He’d better get in there, quick.

  “Colt!” She sounded more frantic.

  “He’s okay, Gina,” Scott said, running toward the front door. “He’s across the street, at Murph’s house.”

  She met him at the doorway. “Are you sure?”

  “I’m sure. I walked him over there myself a little while after you left for the store. Thought it would do him some good to get his mind off things.”

  All the panic left her face. “I wish you had told me.”

  “I was going to, but you just got home.”

  She went back toward the kitchen, and Scott headed back for the grocery bags. He and Mike made several trips back and forth, carrying the overloaded brown bags. When they were done, Mike said, “Are you two going to be fixing dinner for a little while?”

  “Yes, we are,” Rose said. “Why, what do you have in mind?”

  “Something Scott just said gave me an idea. I think he could use a little fresh air. Thought maybe he and I could take a little walk on the beach. You up for that, Scott?”

  Scott walked into the dining area and faced the two women. “I am if it’s okay with Gina.”

  Gina looked up from a bag she was unloading. “Sure, go ahead. It’s going to take us at least thirty to forty minutes to fix dinner. Would you mind checking on Colt first, make sure he’s still all right?”

  “Sure, I can do that. By the way, the FBI called.” Over the next few minutes, Scott updated Gina. As he did, Rose led Mike out to the driveway, saying she needed to talk to him for a moment. When Scott finished filling Gina in, he joined them out front.

  Mike pulled out his car keys. “I’ll drive, if that’s okay with you. I love driving on your beach. I’ve never seen a beach like the one you’ve got here.”

  “I thought you were going to take a walk,” Rose said.

  “We are,” Mike said, “after we drive a little bit. I just want to get down to that section of sand dunes a few blocks north of here.”