“Oh, stop beatin’ yourself up, buddy,” said Evan. “Things happen that are beyond our control and you can’t be second guessing your whole life. You just keep moving forward and do what you gotta do. No sense looking back. That’s a waste of your time. You two must be wiped out. It’s very late. Try to get some sleep and we’ll see if we have better luck with a new day.” Evan walked to the door with his dog following by his side and said, “Well get him tomorrow, champ.”
CHAPTER SIX
There was a phone call before the sun came up, and Carter recognized it as the ringtone of his cell phone. He quickly sat up and reached for the end table where the phone was sitting, but in his stupor, he hit the wrong button and hung up on the caller. He checked his phone and saw that it was the lead detective on the case. As he was checking the number, the detective was calling back.
“Norton,” said Carter. “What’s up? Why are you calling so early?” He looked over at his alarm clock and it was 4:35 a.m. and no light outside whatsoever, not even from the moon.
“Carter,” said Detective Norton. “We got him. We got your son, Adam, and he’s safe…alive and well.”
Carter heard the message through the phone as he was lying on his back in bed and looking up at the ceiling. He was so overwhelmed that he could only mutter sounds incoherently. He turned his head slowly and saw Brenda, who was asleep for the first time in 24 hours, but Carter wasn’t hesitant to wake her. He thought about how she was going to react. He wasn’t even sure that he would be able to speak to get the message out. He shook Brenda until she was roused from her sleep. “Carter…what the hell? What are you doing?” she snapped.
Carter had the phone in his right hand as he looked at Brenda’s agitated face. He wrapped his arms around Brenda and squeezed tight.
“Not now, Carter…I’m tired,” she said.
“It’s Norton,” he said. “They got Adam! He’s alive and well.” Tears slowly dropped from his eyes, and were absorbed by Brenda’s night shirt. Brenda opened her eyes, paused in thought, and then screamed. Unfortunately for Carter, it was directly into his ear.
“Oh my God! Oh my God! Oh my God!” She looked up at the ceiling. “Thank you! Thank you, God! Oh, thank you, God!”
Carter quickly returned to the phone. “Detective…what happened? Where was he? Was he with anyone?”
The detective chuckled softly, taking delight in this miracle that he was delivering. “We got yet another tip from an anonymous caller. They said that they saw a young boy sitting alone in the cemetery over on Hubbard Street. It was dark, of course, and we thought it was a strange call, but we decided to check it out anyway. After all, what young boy would be hanging around a cemetery…at dark, no less?”
“Adam? It was Adam at the cemetery?”
“Sure as it’s me talking to you now. It was Adam. I sent an officer over there to just drive by and check it out. To be honest with you, I thought it was just someone hopped up on drugs or alcohol, or both. He did sound a little funny…if you know what I mean. But when the officer drove in to the cemetery, well, he didn’t see him at first. He had to drive on one of those little roads that take you in and around the cemetery. Took a while, but he spotted a young boy sitting and leaning against a tombstone. Very odd, if you ask me, and I’ve been doing this a long, long time. The boy’s got guts!”
“Wow. That is bizarre,” said Carter.
“What?” asked Brenda. “What did he say?”
Carter motioned with his finger for Brenda to wait. “So he was just leaning against the tombstone? Did he try to run away or anything?”
“No,” said the officer. “He didn’t even see the responding officer until he was standing right in front of him. It was like he was possessed or something. Didn’t even see him…but when he did, he just got to his feet and followed the officer. Didn’t say anything. It was like a six year old turning himself in. My officer knew right away who it was, but asked for his name anyway. He said that his name was Adam Spence.”
“Where is he?” Carter asked.
“Oh, they’re checking him out at the hospital. It’s Boston General. You can go down there and see him now. But I warn you…you will not be the only one vying to see your son. The media should be all over this one. Just be prepared.”
“The Children’s Center?”
“Actually, no. We wanted to buy a little bit of time from the media circus, so we told them it was the Children’s Center, but we brought him into the regular ER so he could be whisked in undercover through the back entrance.”
“I’m heading over there now with Brenda,” said Carter through a cracking voice. “I’m so grateful. Thank you so much for all of your help getting our son back!”
“My pleasure, Carter. Just doing my job. You’re a lucky man, Carter. They all don’t end like this. Just keep closer tabs…if you know what I mean.”
“I promise, detective…and…are you pursuing a kidnapper? Do you think that he was taken?”
“The case is not closed, but we’ll be talking more with your boy at the hospital. In fact, I got a couple of my guys over there now. They are all over that, but at this point it seems as though he acted alone.”
“Really! But what about the…”
“Carter…the case is far from closed. We’re processsing the details now, so I have no other information for you.”
“I see. Thank you, detective. I’ll let you do that. See you soon. Oh, and detective?”
“Yes?”
“Brenda is crying like a baby right by my side, but she’s patting her heart and pointing to the phone.”
“Tell her what I told you. It’s my pleasure.”
. . .
Adam Spence was in a small emergency room, separated from the other rooms that were not as private. There was a windowless door instead of a curtain. The nurses and doctors took his vitals and determined that he had a clean bill of health, but he had to wait there with the nurses until the officers again questioned him about his disappearance. If there was any foul play involved, he was not giving it up, but they wanted to be sure that if he was taken that he was not brainwashed in that short amount of time. The kidnapper could have felt the pressure of the attention this story was producing and just surrendered him in the middle of the night.
“Adam,” said Officer Houghton. “How are you doing?”
“Fine.” Adam did not even look at the officer when he responded.
“Can you tell me a little bit about what happened? How did you get out of the house the other night?”
Adam sat on the medical bed, squirming and creating paper-crinkle sounds that the beds make.
“Adam…how did you get out of the house?”
Again, Adam did not reply to the officer, so he repeated the question yet again. This time the silence was interrupted by another officer entering the room.
“Hello Adam,” said Officer Russell. “It is so good to see you. I can’t tell you how many people were worried about you and looking for you. You scared us all, but we are thrilled that you’re back.” Officer Russell stood there before Adam, and through all of his years on the force could tell that he was not standing before a talker.
“He’s not talking…at all,” said Officer Houghton.
Officer Russell was the youth officer who had received many awards working with the Youth Services Department. He had created several programs currently in place today.
“Adam,” he said. “I know you didn’t climb out the window to get out of the house. I know that for sure based on our investigation. Did someone help you out the front door?”
The crinkle response was the only response received, so Officer Russell had to
step up his operation. “Adam, can you tell me what the person looked like? Was it a white man or woman? Was it a black man or woman? Was it a Hispan…”
“Why are you asking me this?” Adam glared at the officer as if he was falsely accusing him of a crime. He pushed his thin blonde hair out of his eyes to get a better view of the officer.
Officer Houghton stepped in. “We’re trying to find out if someone took you, and if they did, we need to find him so he doesn’t take other little boys. You wouldn’t want him to take other little boys, would you?”
Adam finally looked up at the officers standing before him. Back and forth his blue eyes moved before answering. “There was nobody that you can see.”
Houghton and Russell looked at each other and were completely flabbergasted by what the little boy just stated.
“What do you mean when you say…nobody that you can see?” asked Officer Russell.
Just as the question was asked, the door flew open and Carter and Brenda came whirling into the room as if a stiff breeze had helped them along. Brenda still had tears in her eyes, looking as if she still didn’t believe that her son, Adam, was back, even though she was seeing him for the first time since his disappearance. Carter’s reaction was different. He had a smile on his face which wrapped around the room.
Adam got up out of his chair and blazed a trail into the arms of his parents, saying “Mom, mom! Dad!”
Carter picked him up in his arms and lifted him into his hug, kissing him on the side of his head and whispering, “Thank God you’re okay!”
Brenda was part of the hug, and her kisses were planted on the other side of Adam’s face. The squeeze got tighter, and Adam yelled out, “You’re hugs are hurting me!” Then he giggled until his father put him down on the floor. Brenda crouched down and held his two little hands in hers, smiled at her son, and her face crinkled like the paper on the medical table as tears began to flow. She brought her right hand up and placed it on Adam’s left cheek. “I love you honey,” she said.
Officer Russell was happy that they were reunited, but he really needed to strike while the iron was hot, and it began to steam just before Adam’s parents arrived. “Mr. and Mrs. Spence,” he began, “I was just speaking to Adam about the night of his disappearance, and at first he was pretty stingy with words…in fact, he wasn’t saying a thing. I can understand that he’s scared. Most kids in his shoes are scared and clam up because they don’t know how to trust adults anymore. However, just before you two came into the room, he began to speak, so I’d really like to tap into that well while the going is good.”
“By all means,” said Carter.
“Oh yes,” Brenda added. “Did you need us to leave you alone? We can go into the waiting room.”
“Thank you, but that won’t be necessary. In fact, your presence could create more trust from Adam, and we could get better answers than the ones that we’ve been getting up to this point. I was just asking Adam if he could identify the man or woman who took him. He wouldn’t answer upon several requests for this information, but finally I was able to get something out of him, but it didn’t make a lot of sense.”
Carter and Brenda exchanged glances, and then looked back at the officer.
“What was it that he said?” asked Brenda quickly. She was both curious and concerned.
The two officers looked at each other and Russell was the one to tackle this one since he had asked the question that elicited the answer. “Ahh…when I asked him for a description of the person who took him, he said that it was nobody that we could see.”
The officers again exchanged glances, and then looked over to evaluate Carter and Brenda’s response. They did not seem as surprised as the officers by this response.
Officer Russell rose and knocked on the door, and a nurse opened it from the outside. “Hey Sarah,” he said. “Could you get us three more chairs please?”
“Certainly,” she said, and closed the door. When she returned, she and another nurse brought three more chairs into the room. They then left the room and closed the door behind them.
“Please,” said Officer Russell, “you two have a seat.”
Carter and Brenda sat down, as did the officers, and the conversation continued.
Officer Russell kicked off the talks with a question addressed to Carter and Brenda. He turned to them and said, “I noticed that you two were not too shocked by Adam’s response that it was not somebody we could see. Is there something about that statement that is the norm with Adam? Has he been known to make statements like that? Is there something going on with him…like…maybe an imaginary friend or something along those lines?”
Carter and Brenda silently looked at each other, and then Carter sheepishly turned back to the officers and prepared to take this one as if it was a confession. He softly cleared his throat, looked at Brenda, and then back at the officers before speaking. “I’d actually prefer not to talk about this in his presence, so if you don’t mind?”
“Absolutely,” said Officer Russell, who got up and banged twice on the door with his palm. When one of the nurses opened the door, the officer whispered something to her, and she replied, “Adam, would you mind coming with me for a bit?”
Once Adam left the room, Carter began his confession as Brenda held him down with her hand on his knee.
“We’ve been dealing with a lot of issues with our son,” he began. “Ever since he was a baby, it seems as if there is someone else in the room besides Brenda and myself. It’s his eye movements…it’s his facial twitches…it’s his…”
“…talking to someone that’s not there,” Brenda said, finishing his sentence like couples tend to do.
“Hmm,” said Officer Russell. Officer Houghton just looked on with an outlandish look on his face as if he just sipped sour milk. “Have you asked him about it? Does he say anything about who he’s talking to?”
“No,” said Brenda. “The best answer we get out of him is that it’s his imaginary friend.” She looked at Carter and her nose wrinkled and her cheeks rose up as she tried to cover up a sudden rush of emotion. Her voice took on a higher pitch as if she were on the verge of tears. “We’ve been concerned about this for…really…six years now. I really believe in my heart of hearts that there is more to this story. We feel like he’s hiding something from us.”
“Have you sought out professional help?” asked Officer Houghton.
“We took him to a child psychologist,” said Carter.
“Yeah,” said Brenda. “Lotta good that did. Seemed as though our six year old out-witted her. That was, at best, a waste of time.”
“Don’t say that,” said Officer Russell. “It’s a start, and you got the ball rolling.”
“Yeah,” agreed Officer Houghton. “And you can work off that. Don’t give up on the kid. He’s six years old. It could just simply be a kid doing what kids do with an imaginary friend. Could be all it is.”
Officer Russell stepped in and voiced his concern. “That’s true of most kids,” he said. “However…” He looked back and forth at the couple before him and finished his thought. “Adam…unfortunately…is not like most kids. He has taken it to a new level. In all of my years on the force and working with young kids, I’ve never, ever experienced such outrageously reckless behavior in a boy as young as Adam.”
The room turned silent. You could have heard a pin drop, and then bounce. The moment needed that quietude in order for the direness of the message to sink in. Carter and Brenda were not stupid. They knew what they were up against, and how it was a real problem and would continue to be a real problem until they brought that problem before another professional.
The problem was that they always had problems with professionals and can n
ever seem to get one worth more than the gas they use to get there. Now they were faced with not only the reality of the situation, but the gravity of it. The police officers were smacking them right upside the head with it. There would be no more sweeping it under the carpet or pretending it wasn’t really there, or thinking that it might go away if you ignore it long enough.
“Get him the help he needs,” said Officer Russell. He sternly looked at Carter and Brenda as if he was reprimanding them. He made it seem as if they were abusing their child, and Carter took offense to it, but said nothing. How dare him! Just shut up, Carter.
Officer Russell sat back down in his chair and stared his steely eyes at Carter and Brenda. He was not going to hear any response. He was only going to hear what he had to say in his closing arguments. “You two need to get that kid the proper treatment before you’re too late and have to instead…plan a funeral.”
With that, the officer got up and left the room, and Officer Houghton followed. The nurse returned with Adam, and Carter and Brenda hugged him tighter than they ever hugged him before.
“Help…help,” he yelled. “I can’t breathe.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
By the time Carter and Brenda obtained the release form for Adam, word had gotten out to the media, and if they thought they had a circus in their front yard the day he disappeared, they hadn’t seen anything yet. This time they had to make their way through about three times the number of reporters and cameramen as they had that day. Again, Carter was torn between not wanting to be ungrateful to all of those who helped bring their son home safely and protecting his family. He just needed to get home, while protecting his family from the hospital circus.
There was more going on here than they ever could have imagined. At stake was their reputation for accusations of not doing enough for their son. Now it was out, and it was becoming clearer that there was a mental health issue here, and it had to be addressed immediately, if not sooner. He wanted to protect his son from the stigma associated with mental health. Hell…his son was merely six years old. He wanted to protect Brenda and himself from the stigma of having a son with a mental health issue that they did nothing much about.
Desert Son Trilogy: Desert Son, Wayward Soul, Spiritual Intervention (Books 1-3) Page 51
