by Lisa Preston
“What gives? What am I missing?”
“I was supposed to pick him up. He was supposed to be with me.”
Caroline raised her eyebrows, waiting for more.
Maddie rubbed her hands together then wrapped her arms around herself. “After school, he was supposed to wait for me at Emma’s bakery. I was going to pick him up and bring him here. I was supposed to be taking care of him this afternoon.”
“Oh, Maddie.” Caroline took her daughter’s hands in hers, covered them fully, blew on the icy fingertips. “It’s not your fault. You do think he’s okay, right? He has to be okay.”
“I’m worried.” Maddie hastened to add, “But I’m going to strangle the kid first chance I get.”
“Everybody’s been here and left again. Ardy went out on the horse that came back without Greer. Malcolm is out walking the powerline from Bella’s car to where all those trails go off. Emma took Greer’s pony—”
“I saw her out there.”
“Ben and Ryan are out there on the neighbors’ four-wheelers. Clara and Wes were late getting out of the city and are driving to check other trailheads, figuring Greer might have headed for the nearest house instead of trying for home. Bella asked me to stay by the phone, so that’s what I’m doing.”
“He was supposed to wait for me at the bakery.” Maddie shoved her hands into her jeans pockets. Her fingers had been painfully cold for the last hour. She’d need better gloves to go back out into the night. And she had to go. The silence in Bella and Ardy’s house hollowed those left behind.
Caroline stood in the kitchen, opening the fridge, cupboards, knowing her way around Bella’s kitchen. “When all the Donners come in, the room fills. I’ll make these roasts and veggies into a stew that can simmer, let people warm up.”
Maddie nodded. Doug hadn’t had much of a coat on when he’d ridden out. Emma and her father had more time to prepare, had been better bundled because of Maddie’s calls warning everyone to wear outdoor clothes for what might turn into an all-night backcountry search party for Greer.
“The neighbors offered to go out. What else can we do?” Caroline asked.
“We’ll light the place up,” Maddie decided, flipping on every light switch as she walked down the hall to the closet where Bella and Ardy kept spare flashlights and candles.
They turned on every outside light, the shop lights that hung in the carport, and every light in the barn. Maddie thought of the lights and warmers she’d arranged for the wedding and wished she had them here right now to make the Donner house a beacon in the darkness to Greer and all those searching for him. She pulled Bella’s rain shell from a peg by the front door, happy to find gloves and a beanie in one pocket.
A knock at the door made her exchange glances with her mom before turning the knob.
“Good evening, ma’am,” said the man in a brown uniform on the doorstep. “I’m Deputy Osten. Mrs. Donner said Caroline Sommers was here.”
“I’m Caroline.”
“What’s happened?” Maddie asked. “Anything? Any news?”
“This is my daughter, Maddie,” Caroline said.
“I’m just about to go back out there,” Maddie added.
“Well, there’s not much news, really,” he said. “Midshift is coming on early and will be briefed about the lost boy. Swing shift is staying on until he’s found. We’re at the point of activating our search and rescue volunteers. Doug Donner—”
“That’s my husband,” Maddie said.
He nodded. “All right. He believes he found the horse’s tracks, and a hilltop southwest of here where the boy’s footprints are continuous and different in direction, using different trails than the horse’s. It’s slow tracking out there in the dark now. We’re calling out search dogs, but it will be some time before they can make a rendezvous. That’s all I have, just wanted to give you an update. Mrs. Donner is at the end of the road and is aware.”
They thanked the deputy, and Maddie followed him out after a quick, fierce hug with her mom.
As the patrol car pulled away, she refilled the Honda Trail 90’s gas tank. She wasn’t going out there on a low tank, and she double-checked the headlight. Maddie told herself that Greer wouldn’t be scared of the dark. The moon had risen fully in the time she’d been at her in-laws’ house. It was a half-moon, ghosting a yellow cast through high mist. As time passed, the night would offer enough light to make shadows behind trees, colder as the fog lifted. A few frogs called out and the trees rustled in their upper reaches.
A big, black SUV cruised past the house. Maybe the first of the volunteer searchers, Maddie hoped. She snapped the raincoat shut in anticipation of the increased cold she’d feel zipping to the trailhead at thirty miles per hour. The temperature would get colder until just before daybreak, but surely they wouldn’t be searching ’til dawn. Anyway, Greer knew what to do about being cold. He could keep moving, jogging at intervals to stay warm.
Maddie bit her lip. Keep moving? The kid knew that if he were lost, he should just stay put, hole up under a tree, and wait. She’d heard Doug say this in so many words right to the kid.
She considered the trails to try next. Doug found tracks southwest, but what direction was his tracking taking him now? In her earlier searching, she’d ridden at a painstaking pace over a lot of the little winding tracks. Now she wanted to go faster, to do the forest roads, most of which ran closer to town, dotted with dead ends. Some of those spurs connected to private property and other main roads. Shaking her head, Maddie pushed the bike to a wider spot to climb aboard and looked back at the house, a mirage firming out of the shadows. The porch lights would dissolve to pricks of light when she made the trailhead, but for now they cast a great glow in the yard. Inside, her mother paced past the window.
Turning away from the house, she saw only blackness. The exterior lights had just ruined her night vision, she realized.
Someone tackled her and she gasped, dropping the bike, staggering, grabbing at the wailing body that seized her.
“Greer.” Maddie hit her knees in the grass, pulling him into a hug, then jumped to her feet, half-dragging him to the old Jeep parked on the gravel.
Her hug loosened to a one-armed hold, but he kept wrapping his arms around her waist and thighs, snuggling under her arms, bawling. She shushed him and again managed to free one arm to open the Jeep’s driver’s door and pump the horn.
Greer stared at the house. Maddie saw her mother hurrying off the porch.
“I want my momma! I want Papa!”
“I’ll get them,” Maddie said.
“Don’t leave me.” He clawed at her, then buried his face under her arms and screamed, “I want Momma.”
She was ready for a temporary lie. “She’s coming. They’re both coming.” Maddie locked eyes with her mom and gave an overwhelmed expression.
“Just keep doing what you’re doing,” Caroline murmured, nodding at Maddie’s arms wrapped around the wriggling boy. “I’ll stay on the horn. Bella will come right home.”
She did. They all did, but not fast enough for Maddie, who was unable to console Greer. The kid was incoherent, seeming to have regressed with the stress of being lost in the dark and overtired. In minutes, Bella pulled up in the station wagon with Malcolm beside her.
“Oh, Greer, my baby,” Bella whispered, holding him, gently squeezing his every limb. “Are you all right? You’re not hurt? Oh, it’s all right, honey. You’re home now. It’s all right.”
Maddie watched Bella close her eyes and caress his cheek with hers. She was pretty sure she saw Bella actually sniff Greer, and she knew she’d think about that half moment later, consider the mothering, the nurturing, the worry. Someday, she’d have a child who would probably put her through this kind of agony. The baby would be a Donner. The stories of their childhoods were freaky funny, hair-raising horrible. Illicit rafting, tumbling in rapids, losing their clothes, decorating the neighborhood, joyriding on tractors, galloping bareback, playing hooky, wrestling, and b
rawling.
Anxiety at the prospect of all the misadventures a child could get into filled her. Fear stank. She thought she could smell fear reeking and dripping from the boy’s body.
“My precious son,” Bella said, leading him to the comfort of the house with Maddie in their wake.
Caroline pumped the Jeep’s horn a few more times, Malcolm at her side. From the porch, Maddie saw the cavalry return. Beside her, Bella and the boy paused on the first step. Greer closed his eyes.
“Dang it,” Maddie told him, knowing her voice sounded a bit cross. “Your note said you were going fishing with Doug.”
He opened his eyes and studied her. “Are you mad at me?”
“No, I’m just so glad you’re okay.”
He told her right back, “I’m really, really glad you’re okay. And Momma.”
She laughed. Then frowned as the kid peered at his mother and asked, “Is Papa okay?”
“Of course, honey. Papa’s fine. He’s fine.”
He turned to Maddie again as his mother pulled him up another step. “Where’s Doug?”
“Out with your papa, looking for you. Emma’s out there, too. So are Ben and Ryan. Heck, Clara and Wes are checking other trailheads. I was just going out to look for you again.”
He rolled his lips in. “But no one f-f-found me.”
Maddie laughed again. Bella shushed his coming cry and began guiding him up the last steps one by one.
“I’m so tired, Momma.”
She kept his hand in hers, wrangled him across the porch. A horse pulled up. A four-wheeler. Another. A dirt bike carrying a sheriff’s deputy. Adults rushed up the stairs and mobbed the kid in shouts.
Maddie stood on the lawn, holding the little horse Emma rode in on. So many bodies surrounded the boy, so many people clutched at him, traded him around for hard hugs in a dizzying swirl.
She peered into the crowd. Whose legs were those in slacks? Oh, it was Wes, Clara’s husband. Clara was here, too. She saw Greer wince as though afraid to look up when her father-in-law put a hand on his shoulder. She’d never seen the kid wince about his father touching him.
Emma left the crowd and took the pony from Maddie. Ardy Donner’s voice boomed and he hugged anyone within arm’s length, grabbing Maddie, Bella, then Greer. “What happened, son?”
Another four-wheeler shut off. “Clipper came home without you, buddy.” Ben. It was Ben’s voice. He gave Greer a thumbs up and ran a hand through his hair, which was so short, the helmet hadn’t messed it up. “Glad you’re okay.”
Greer went to tears as he repeated his brother’s words. “I’m glad you’re okay.”
The adults roared and slapped each other on the back and picked him up, passing him around for more rounds of hugs.
“Of course we’re all fine,” Maddie said in a voice that dripped regret and guilt. “It’s fine now. Don’t cry, Greer. We’re here for you.” She kissed her little brother-in-law.
“It’s behind us, son,” Ardy said, wiping a hand through his graying crew cut. “There’s nothing to be upset about now.”
Whoops and yells, the roar of dirt bikes, vehicles, and hoofbeats heralded each returning searcher. Maddie faded back as the family thundered home and up the porch steps. She conferred with the deputy, calling off the search. She phoned her husband’s grandmother and watched the crush of bodies this big family brought to bear, watched them settle with the return of the last man when Doug finally cantered home and they all pushed into the living and dining room.
When Ardy hugged her again, Maddie felt something heavy and hard in the right-hand cargo pocket, under the flap. Then Doug pulled her close and she sank into his kiss, absorbing his smile.
Greer spoke, eyeing them all in turn. “Who would take care of me if everybody died?”
“Greer!” Bella’s shock at the odd question sounded stunned enough to be a reprimand, but it was overwhelmed by rumbles from the crowd, rushed assurances and explanations, guffaws and snorts.
Maddie’s spine tingled. She saw the boy’s eyes fill, saw him chew his lips, stemming a spluttering bawl.
Her father-in-law’s voice rose above the din, not yelling, but measured and calm. “Did you get scared, son?”
Greer nodded and managed not to cry. “Yessir.”
“Well, that’s all right.” Ardy Donner shucked off his coat and spread it like a cape over his small son’s shoulders.
Engulfed, Greer pulled the coat hard around himself, poncho-style.
Maddie heard the boy ask everyone in the room if he could keep his papa’s coat for a while, heard Ardy agree with a laugh and an affectionate rub on his son’s head. A thrumming rushed in her ears and an unwelcome coldness invaded her body. She remembered the hard weight and bulk in Ardy’s coat pocket when he hugged her. Having grown up in Canada, she found the familiarity her husband and his family had with handguns bizarre. A realization dawned—that coat pocket held a gun.
CHAPTER 3
THE SOUND
Gillian Trett luxuriated in the studio’s three hundred square feet of spanking-new bliss. One corner wall offered a few feet of countertop with a single basin sink. A compact three-burner stove nestled against a round-edged fridge-freezer that barely rose to the height of her shoulders. A beautiful shelf above the counter held a short stack of ceramic plates and bowls, and a few cobalt water tumblers, with the last glass offering a fistful of plain tableware. Behind the screen panels in the room’s opposite corner sat the smallest stacked washer and dryer unit available. Four shelves and a short rod stocked with two dozen padded clothes hangers hid there as well. On this open side of the screen, the Murphy bed waited to be dropped in an instant. The thick Berber rugs she’d chosen broke up the day’s last light on the slate floor. As a new second story over their garage, the studio afforded a unique view. The fore and aft windows overlooked the street and their little backyard.
She wanted to pretend the neighborhoods in view were in another city, a grander location. Instead of Seattle, what if that were London or Paris? Instead of the Space Needle, what if the city’s landmark were Big Ben or the Eiffel Tower?
The one small, walled-off room within the studio space held a private bathroom with a dainty pedestal sink below a cedar cabinet, but now she tried to imagine the studio wasn’t plumbed—it was a cabin in the Andes, a stone bothy shelter in Scotland, a yurt in Mongolia.
Before she married Paul, Gillian lived in a series of horrid, tiny apartments, usually shared with a stranger or her sister or both. A minimalist home would suit her. Suppose it were a third world micro-shelter, maybe a grass shack in Indonesia, Peru, or Tanzania?
This spare, beautiful home with sponge-painted walls in muted earth tones had never been lived in. The virginity was exciting, but also daunting and panic-inducing, like the feeling of being over thirty and having failed to truly live her own life. Tears threatened and she blinked until her contact lenses slid out of place then back again.
She heard a faint bleat from her cell phone inside the house, probably on her desk. She cursed her excellent hearing and crossed the studio, circling down the narrow wooden stairs into the garage. The concrete floor sucked warmth from her feet, right through the thin soles of her espadrilles. Her fingers grazed Paul’s BMW station wagon, unused all day. The metal was frigid. The phone stopped and restarted immediately as someone demanded her attention.
Inside, her cell’s ring quit. Gillian suspected the battery died. She plunked into her desk chair and cursed the photographs, Post-its, and folders sliding about in utter disarray, then shoved the chair backward to allow enough room to peer under the mess, swinging her head to flip her long, dark hair out of her face and onto her back. The hard motions earned a look of sulking reproach from Rima.
“Sorry, mutt,” Gillian said. She’d ignored an hour’s worth of hints about a walk and left the dog shut inside the house while she’d retreated to admire the studio. But didn’t everybody get distracted by a major household renovation and ignore a more importa
nt task to bask in the wonderful completion?
The coffee-colored mongrel chuffed and flumped to the floor, but wagged his tail, ever hopeful.
“Aha.” Gillian found the cell—its screen now black—between a sheaf of proofs and a fat folder of portraits.
She shoved the phone’s charging cord into the socket. Repowered, the phone flashed a message that she had missed texts and a voicemail from her sister, Becky, and a voicemail from Tilda Largent, her friend, mentor, and sometimes photo editor.
Becky’s face, displayed as Gillian swept a finger over the phone’s screen, radiated anxiety. Gillian’s eyebrows pinched together as she recalled, felt, and hated their past. She always answered Becky’s many texts, calls, and emails immediately. She was there for Becky, every time, and couldn’t imagine why she froze now.
The sisters’ bond had grown from adolescence, steeped in mutual desperation as their parents split a case of cheap beer every night on their way to opening the vodka. As the elder by four-and-a-half years, Gillian hung in there for Becky when they were teenagers. Now their lives had gone in different directions, and Gillian swallowed the guilt of not wanting to spend much time with Becky these days, although she refused filial guilt. After she got Becky moved out of their childhood apartment, the girls never looked back, never again saw or spoke to their perpetually inebriated parents. Even now, if either mentioned their upbringing, they referred to their parents as the people they didn’t talk about. The stain of their childhood, however, did not lift. Even though Gillian pretended things were fine and held her head high, there was something more than crippling about early and total neglect.
Sucking in her cheeks, holding her breath, Gillian deleted the unread texts and voicemail from Becky. A bizarre, foreign feeling washed over her, like she’d boarded a flight for Katmandu with no return ticket, like she’d sealed herself in a rocket for the moon. She checked the next voicemail, wishing Tilda had texted, and cocked her head to listen, shushing Rima’s whimpers.
