Boy, 9, Missing

by Nic Joseph

  “We’ll spread out and cover every inch of this place,” Delroy said, locking eyes with me. He’d arrived in plain clothes alongside a team of police officers a few minutes earlier.

  Cam was also there. An editor working overnight had heard the report on the police scanner and called to fill her in. She’d driven straight over. As she walked up to me, my breath caught in my throat.

  “Hey,” I said, “where’s—”

  I stopped when I saw a slight figure emerge from behind her.

  “Amy,” I said as she walked up. I turned to Cam and mouthed, “Thanks.”

  She nodded.

  “I’m just here to help with the search,” Amy said, not making eye contact with me and turning to scan the grounds. “Where should we get started?”

  “Amy, wait,” I said. She spun back around and stared at me, and I couldn’t read her expression. She didn’t seem angry, but she wasn’t giving in, either. “I’m so sorry.” She didn’t say anything, and then, the words were falling out of me. “I didn’t have any right to lie to you. And that’s what I did. I lied. I told myself that by not telling you, it wasn’t really lying, but it’s all the same. I should have told you. I was ashamed of my parents, disappointed in them, but it’s still no excuse. I shouldn’t have tried to hide it.”

  She still didn’t speak, but her expression had softened, just a little. I stepped closer and lowered my voice so only she could hear me. “I talked to your mother.” Her eyes widened. “I understand why you don’t want to be here right now, but I want you to know that having you here has changed my life. I’ve been waiting for it for a year and a half. If there’s anything I can do to make it better, let me know. Okay?”

  She blinked rapidly and bit her bottom lip before moving back. She stared at me, and for that one moment, she was that six-year-old girl, the one who needed me, and I wanted to reach for her, to pull her close. Finally, she nodded. “We should go look for him,” she said.

  “Yeah, of course.”

  She looked at me meaningfully before walking off to follow a group of volunteers. I watched her retreating back for a moment and then turned to Cam.

  “Thank you so much,” I said. “I’m glad she called you. Yours was the only number I could think to give her in case of an emergency. Didn’t know I was going to be the emergency.”

  She nodded. “I’m glad she called me too.”

  “And I’m sorry I lied to you,” I said. “I shouldn’t have—”

  “It’s okay,” she said. “I get why you did it, and she will too. Soon enough.” She reached out and grabbed my hand. “Hey, we’re gonna find him,” she said, and she was so convincing that, for just a moment, I had hope.

  The search team that had assembled in front of Younger’s home was nothing short of amazing, and yet, it still didn’t seem like enough. We needed more.

  Matthew could be anywhere, in any condition.

  Younger had woken up again, moments after I’d attacked him, a fact that I knew I should be thankful for, in the grand scheme of things. He was handcuffed in a police car out front. The last time I saw him, he was giggling softly to himself, calling out to anyone who walked by, “You won’t find him!”

  I’d taken just one step toward the car when Delroy appeared suddenly at my side and put a hand on my chest.

  “What do you think you’re going to do, Francis?” he asked, his eyes sad, tired but knowing. “Kill him? He’s not going to give you what you need.”

  “I’ll make him.”

  “Let the professionals handle that. What you need to do is keep looking.”

  I stared at Younger for a moment and finally stepped away.

  I’d been wandering the surrounding lot alone for the past ten minutes, bundling my jacket around my face, feeling the weight of everything that had happened that night on my entire body.

  Nothing.

  No signs of Matthew.

  Dead or alive.

  The simple truth was we had no evidence he’d ever actually been at the house.

  We’d searched the upstairs bedrooms—all four of them—plus the garage, the expansive lawn out back. We’d looked in every closet, around every corner. He could be anywhere. I could barely breathe, the weight of what happened crushing my chest. I wandered alone, my gaze coasting over the same places that had already been searched, with no plan and no direction. I passed a cellar door near the base of the patio and paused.

  Again?

  A team of cops had already searched it. I’d searched it. Like everything else. Still, if I gave up now, it would all be over. By the time the cops were able to get anything out of Younger, any small chance of hope would be gone.

  I stepped onto the wooden stairwell, making my way into the musty cellar beneath Younger’s home.

  You’ll never find him.

  My eyes adjusted to the dim light, and my heart was pounding as I crept forward. I walked slowly into the room, which was illuminated by a single lightbulb.

  “Matthew!” I screamed. I listened for any sounds. Kicking, screaming, calls for help, anything. But I was greeted with silence, nothing to let me know we were searching in the right place, or anywhere near it.

  You’ll never find him!

  He had been so sure, so confident. He’d given up, but he would win in the end if we never found Matthew Farr, never returned him to his family.

  I walked around the small cellar, looking in every corner for something else: an addition, another room, a hiding spot. Something they’d missed. But the cops had combed it already, and there didn’t seem to be anywhere else to look. I replayed his words over and over in my mind.

  You’ll never find him. Especially not you.

  I stopped in my tracks.

  When he’d first said it, I’d thought he was just zeroing in on me because I was responsible for him getting caught. Because I was the one leaning over him at that moment.

  But the way he’d said those words: especially not you.

  Younger knew something about me, in particular, something my father must have told him. He was taunting me, preying on my weakness, which meant…

  Matthew was being held somewhere he thought I’d never be able to get to. I spun back around, examining the cellar with fresh eyes. I needed to find the tightest, smallest space possible.

  Come on…

  I spotted a small air duct in the wall that was about three feet wide and four feet tall, and I gasped out loud, sucking in a sharp breath. I leaned forward and put my mouth against the grate, calling out into the darkness.

  “Matthew!”

  Nothing.

  “Can you hear me? If you’re in there, let us know so we can come find you!”

  Still nothing.

  I was turning to head back upstairs when I heard the smallest, tiniest noise.

  “Help…”

  It was a breath, a whisper, a hoarse cry for help from a distance, and I turned back to the vent. Leaning closer, my throat dry, I yelled again.

  “Matthew?”

  Silence.

  “Can you hear me?”

  “Yes,” the quiet voice called out, and my heart broke. “Help me.”

  At that moment, my body wasn’t my own. I launched toward the vent, testing the screws that held the cover. They moved easily. I unscrewed them with my fingers, wincing as the metal pinched my skin, and I removed the grate from the duct.

  Especially not you.

  Somehow, Younger knew about my fear, and he’d laughed in my face.

  I leaned forward and was overwhelmed by the warm, suffocating air that entered my nostrils. Taking a deep breath, I lifted myself up and crawled into the vent headfirst.

  Immediately, the breath got sucked out of me, and I paused, my feet still hanging outside in the cellar. My chest seemed to swell, and I opened my mouth, gasping for air.


  I put my head down and pushed on, ignoring the fear that consumed my mind and body. Taking the deepest breath I could muster, I directed my hands and knees to move forward.

  I had to keep going.

  The duct was about fifteen feet long, and when I reached the other side, I dropped into a dark space. I landed on my side on what felt like a dusty, cold floor. I was thankful to be out of the duct, even though I was still struggling to breathe and felt horribly trapped, buried in the underbelly of Younger’s house. I rolled over and stood, blinking in the darkness.

  “Matthew?”

  There was no light at all, and then suddenly, I heard a match being lit, and I saw a figure.

  A small boy, quivering a few feet from me, holding a match in front of his face.

  The room began to spin around me, and I knew something wasn’t quite right.

  The boy standing in front of me wasn’t Matthew Farr.

  His gaze was angry, accusatory, and I cowered back against the wall.

  The expression on his face.

  His colorful T-shirt.

  Dripping wet.

  “Lucas?” I said. My throat was dry, and I thought I would pass out from lack of air. I tried to take a breath through my mouth, but it wasn’t working.

  I needed to stay conscious.

  He was right there.

  I could save him.

  I could save him, if only I could stand up.

  A loud bang sounded, and then there were voices behind me. I moved toward my brother, who stood there shaking. The flame slithered toward his fingers, and he shook it out.

  “It’s okay, Lucas,” I said as I walked toward him in the dark room.

  He was so close, but I couldn’t reach him.

  “It’s okay, I’ll get you out of here.”

  As I stepped closer, a flashlight illuminated the space. An officer arrived, lowering himself carefully into the room. Another officer followed him.

  One of the cops moved forward, reaching for the boy.

  “Lucas!” I called out, and then the other officer was close to my face, speaking calmly, quietly.

  “Shh,” he said. “Sir, we need to get out of here.”

  “I found Lucas,” I said. “He’s okay.”

  He peered at me in the soft glow of the flashlight. “Yes, you did. Now come on. We have to go.”

  Chapter Forty-One

  It didn’t take long for me to come back to reality.

  As we emerged into the fresh air, I watched the cops moving away with Matthew Farr. He walked by me, frail and terrified, and I knew my visions of Lucas hadn’t helped the situation much.

  But he was safe.

  Delroy, Christine, Cam, and Amy walked up. “I can take Amy home,” Cam said.

  I nodded my thanks. “I’ll see you back at the apartment,” I said to Amy. “I have to finish up some stuff here.”

  We hugged, and she walked away with Cam, who gave me a knowing, reassuring nod as they left.

  As Delroy and I went around to the front of the house, I was surprised to see that the car with Younger hadn’t left yet.

  Before anyone could react, I raced over to the car.

  “Hey!” Delroy yelled, but I reached it before anyone else did and yanked on the handle, opening the door. I reached inside and grabbed Younger by his shirt, dragging him out of the car.

  “Where’s my father?” I asked.

  “Is that all that matters to you?” he asked angrily, looking around him. “You really think Sam Farr deserves to live a picture-perfect life after what he did? You of all people should understand. Sam Farr killed that little boy. Your brother, Francis! And you just moved on!”

  “Where’s my father?” I asked again before the cops grabbed my shoulders and pulled me off Younger.

  “I don’t know,” he said, not breaking eye contact with me, even as they dragged me away. “He told me about what they planned to do, how they planned to take Sam. And I thought it was a great idea. I went to the park that day and saw him there. Alex was just sitting there, watching his team as they got into place, and you know what he was doing? He was on his second bottle, Francis. Sitting in his car, drunk as a skunk, just watching it all happen. Letting his plan fall to pieces. I wasn’t going to let that happen.

  “But then I saw the way Sam Farr was looking at his son. And I knew right then that the boy was the only thing that’s ever meant anything to him. Sam has always been untouchable—never seemed like he really cared what happened to him. But if you saw the way he looked at Matthew—I knew that was our only chance of getting him to admit what he did.”

  “So you took him instead,” Christine said from behind me. “How could you?”

  “How could I not? That’s the real question, isn’t it?” he yelled as the cops lowered him back into the car. “How could I not?”

  As they took him away, Christine turned back to me.

  “Are you all right?”

  “Yes,” I said, struggling to hold myself together. “I’m fine.”

  “You saved that boy’s life.”

  “We did,” I said.

  She gave me her address, and then we drove in complete silence. I pulled up in front of her house, and she turned to me.

  “Thank you,” she said, “for everything. I know you’re worried, but we’ll find your father soon. There’s no reason for him to continue hiding.”

  “Except for what he did to Sam Farr. What we all did.”

  She hesitated and then nodded.

  “You really are in love with him, aren’t you?” I asked.

  She smiled softly and shrugged. “Your father is a very complicated man to try to love,” she said with a slight smile. “We’re very close, and I care about him a lot. But he has never been open to any sort of future, not when there’s so much holding him back in the past. I just want him to be okay.”

  “You never told me how you met. Really.”

  She smiled outright this time. “I knew your father way before he knew me.”

  “Because of the trial.”

  “Yes, though I wasn’t that concerned with him as a man, but instead, as a father.”

  “You were a supporter.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Everyone wanted to make it a supporter vs. nonsupporter story. But it wasn’t so black and white. I was as invested in the case as anyone else in Lansing,” she said. “But if you’re asking me if I sympathized with your father, with your mother, with your family, then yes.”

  “You contacted him first?”

  “I did,” she said. “I was part of the original support team. And he told me one day that he needed a psychologist, and I told him I was trained. I was taking a hiatus at that time, but I’d always planned on going back. When I did, your father started coming to see me, first as a friend, but soon, I recognized his need to talk to someone, to unload the years of weight he’d been carrying. That he hadn’t been able to talk about with…” She shrugged. “With anyone else.”

  “You mean with my mother,” I said, and I didn’t feel as angry as I should have.

  She straightened her shoulders and looked away.

  “What about you?” she asked, changing the subject. “Nobody special in your life?”

  “Just my daughter, Amy.”

  “Her mother?”

  “She’s on the other side of the world.”

  “I see,” Christine said. “And are you better or broken?”

  “Sorry?”

  “You’re only two things after a divorce. You’re better, or you’re broken. And if you’re broken, you just haven’t gotten better yet.”

  “Oh,” I said. “I don’t know. I guess better, but that doesn’t take much, given where we were.”

  She nodded. “Anyone else?”

  I hesitated, and she
leaned forward to let me know she wasn’t going to drop it. “I guess there’s someone,” I said. “Sort of. She’s… We work together.”

  “What do you mean ‘sort of’?” she asked. “That usually means no more than it means yes. If it’s a yes, it should be unequivocal.”

  “Should be,” I said. “But in this case, it’s not.”

  She frowned. “Why not?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Cam’s not really a romance person. And she’s my boss. I don’t think she’s comfortable with us, you know, crossing that line.”

  “But you have already?”

  My eyes widened.

  She smiled. “I’ve been around the block a few times, you know,” she said. “And aside from what I do professionally, I’m really good at reading people. If you feel the way you look, you shouldn’t let her get away. Trust me. Life’s way too short.”

  I couldn’t think of anything else to say, so I just nodded.

  “Are you going to call your captain friend?”

  “Not tonight,” I said.

  “Okay. I’m not going anywhere.” She got out and headed up her porch.

  As I drove to my apartment, I could think of nothing else besides checking on Amy, taking a few painkillers, and falling straight into bed. When I walked into the apartment, Cam was coming out of Amy’s room. She smiled softly. “Hey,” she said. “She just dozed off.”

  I walked up to the door and stood beside her, watching Amy’s sleeping figure. “Thanks,” I whispered to Cam as we moved back into the living room. We stopped a few feet apart from each other. “Thanks for everything today.”

  “You’re welcome,” she said. “Any word from Alex? I mean, he can come out of hiding now, if that’s what he’s doing. Right?”

  “Yeah,” I said with a shrug. “That’s what I thought too. But I haven’t heard anything from him. I’m not sure I will.”

  “Well, the point is, Matthew’s okay. And that’s thanks to you.”

  “I don’t know what I would’ve done if something—”

  “And you don’t have to know,” she said. “Because he’s okay. Don’t let your mind go there, Francis. It’s only going to drive you crazy.”

  “Crazier.”