“Mmm hmm.”
“She invited us to go with the bunch of kids from the Halloween party up into the mountains in a couple of weeks.”
“So why we gotta go shopping now?”
“Because I’ve got the time.” She coaxed him with a bribe. “If you behave, we’ll go for ice cream afterward.”
“Ice cream? Mmm.” He sat up and rubbed his eyes. “Can I have chocolate? Two scoops?”
Cassidy stifled her laugh. Bribery works. “We’ll see, after we go shopping.”
“Okay.” He scrambled off the bed, stood there in his sock-covered feet, and declared, “I’m ready to go. Come on!”
“Put on your shoes. I’ll be right out.” She stepped into her bathroom, ran a quick brush through her hair, and slipped her feet into a pair of sandals. Stepping back out, she asked, “All right, ready?”
Ryan looked up from the floor where he was tying his shoes and nodded.
“Come on.” On the way to the front door, she snapped up her purse from the side table. She buckled him into his booster seat in the back before getting behind the wheel. After allowing a jogger to pass behind the car, she pulled out of the driveway.
Chapter 9
Grand opening banners were displayed all around the large store. The aisles were crowded. Cassidy grasped Ryan’s hand firmly in her own. Most of the county must be here. Her son was captivated by the displays. She repeatedly had to tug him back against her side while reading the aisle listings to find their particular objecŹtives.
Buffeted as she moved into the appropriate aisle, Cassidy searched the shelves until she found the lanterns. She found battery-operated, gas, and candle lanterns, all rated by lumen output and designed for different conditions. Checking that Ryan remained at her side, she pulled down a boxed gas powered light to read the labeling more closely. She scooted closer to the shelving and grasped her son’s shoulder as a family with a cart tried to maneuver past.
“Excuse us,” the man said, shifting the front end of the cart away from her feet.
His gaze stopped on her briefly, and Cassidy watched a puzzled half-recogniŹtion flash in his brown eyes. She smiled faintly, and he nodded, taking his family past without any further exchange. Cassidy lifted the box back to eye level and conŹtinued reading. The lantern’s bowl was open at the top without a guard screen. She shook her head and replaced it on the shelf. She wasn’t going to risk Ryan sticking his hand inside out of curiosity. She liked the idea of the gas over the batteries though, for longevity, and continued searching for another model.
“Mommy?”
She felt a tug on her jeans and looked down into Ryan’s upturned smile. “Yes?”
“Can I see the animals?”
“Animals? Where?” She looked around. He tugged her pant leg again, and she followed his outstretched arm. At the end of the aisle, just visible through the throngs of people, was a display of woodland animals. Cassidy suspected it was the entrance to the hunting section and shook her head. “No, Ryan.”
“Mommy, please?”
She crouched and rubbed his shoulder. “They’re not real, honey.”
His eyes gleamed with excitement. “Toys!” Tugging on the hand holding his, he pleaded, “I’ll just look. I promise.”
Cassidy shook her head and stood. “No, now wait.” She fished behind the front row of the display and withdrew an unbattered box containing the lantern she had selected. “All right. Now let’s go find you a sleeping bag.”
She tucked the box under her left arm and reached down to take Ryan’s hand in her right. They navigated the aisle and emerged near the display that had caught his attention.
Pausing for a moment, Cassidy studied the animals and realized the animal carcasses were real, preserved, and posed. Glass eyes seemed to follow her as she looked away. “Come on,” she said to Ryan, who was transfixed. She scanned the aisle labels and moved two down against the wall of the warehouse building, which proŹclaimed “sleeping bags”.
The crowd was thinner there, and Cassidy breathed a little easier, scanning the labels of the bags for something warm enough for a mountain winter night. Ryan pointed out a sleeping bag covered in Rugrats figures. The fleece was too thin, though, more suited for a summer than a winter trip, and she shook her head. Ryan
pouted. She pointed out one which advertised a thicker woolen lining covered in Barney renderings. He turned up hls nose at the purple dinosaur, and Cassidy conŹtinued looking. A plain blue one received the same disdain.
Ryan sat down on the bottom shelf as she moved away a little to look at others. At least he isn’t throwing a tantrum, she thought, counting her blessings and continuŹing to look along the shelves for something that would suit her requirements and his. She tried very hard to compromise where it was reasonable to do so. Her mother had always told her to pick her fights carefully. So far the advice had proven sound. Ryan was well-mannered and generally aware of the feelings of others and did not cry out for every trendy thing.
She found a Disney Dalmatians bag with enough lining and turned to suggest it to him, figuring he would like it because it looked like their dog, Ranger.
Ryan was no longer seated on the shelf.
The aisle was nearly empty. One bearded man in fatigues was looking at the tarps, and a pair of teenaged boys checked out the waterproofing sprays, but no Ryan.
“Ryan?” Calling out as she went, she hurried down the aisle to one end and looked among the throngs for her son’s three-foot-tall form. There were children everywhere, but each was attached to a parent or seated in a cart. Quickly she moved toward the other end of the aisle. “Ryan!” Stumbling into another patron, she dropped her lantern.
“Oh, I’m sorry.” The speaker, a woman, leaned over to pick up the fallen box. “Let me help you get that.”
The voice? Cassidy stopped and focused on the person in front of her. “Brenna?” She met curious blue eyes as delicately strong hands closed around her forearms.
“Cassidy?”
“I’m…Excuse me. I have to find Ryan.” Cassidy looked past her castmate and scanned the aisle, dimly noting Brenna’s sons straightening up behind their mother.
“Ryan is missing?” Brenna questioned sharply. Cassidy’s gaze jerked back to hers. “How long ago?”
“A few minutes, maybe. I don’t know,” Cassidy admitted.
“Thomas, James, fan out. You both know what he looks like.”
“No problem, Mom.” Cassidy caught a nod from the lankier Thomas. “We’ll find him,” he assured her. She nodded back.
The teens spread out, each taking an aisle and calling out the boy’s name. Brenna drew Cassidy back into the quieter aisle. “Cass? Where did you last see him?”
Her heart was pounding, and she fisted her hands together to focus. “We were here looking at sleeping bags.” She took a deep breath. “He didn’t like what I’d choŹsen, so he sat down to sulk.”
Brenna nodded. “Okay, was there something that caught his attention?” Cassidy shook her head. “Anywhere in the store?”
Cassidy paused. “The animals.”
“The what?”
“The animals displayed in the hunting section.” Cassidy strode away quickly; Brenna kept up. “The taxidermy display,” Cassidy clarified.
“Oh.” Cassidy had stopped in front of it. Brenna was confronted by a ten-point buck and, on faux wood set at various levels, raccoons, and birds, even a rabbit. “Oh,” she said again in a faint voice. She swallowed against her suddenly queasy stomach. “Let’s take a look through here,” she went on quickly.
Their search turned up no sign of Cassldy’s son,
Meeting back at the animal display, Brenna asked, “Okay, do you have a picŹture?”
“What?” Events were eroding Cassidy’s control. The blonde’s voice was curl and distracted as she continued scanning their immediate area.
Brenna spoke with quiet, calm direction. “You need a picture of Ryan. We’re going to the management.”
As Brenna’s hand rubbed lightly on her back, Cassidy took a deep breath and let it out slowly. She searched through her purse for her wallet and Ryan’s birthday picture. Shaking fingers pulled it out of the plastic, and Brenna’s hand closed over hers.
“All right. Let’s find the office.”
Cassidy looked up hopefully as Thomas jogged toward them. He shook his head, admitting defeat. She stopped. “Do you think…”
Brenna met her gaze with determination. “No, it’s just a big place. We need more people to help look.” Looking around, she spotted the office sign behind the Customer Service desk. “Over there. Let’s go.”
“All right.” Cassidy admitted to herself that she felt infinitely calmer with Brenna beside her.
Brenna tugged Cassidy forward through the service line. “We have a missing child to report.”
The clerk, whose name tag identified her as “Jessie”, looked over from the cusŹtomer she was helping with a catalog and brushed her braided bangs out of her face. “We don’t have any kids here.”
“My son’s missing,” Cassidy supplied.
“We need to see the manager,” Brenna insisted. “Now.”
“Okay. Just hold on.” Jessie went into the back. Brenna watched her enter a doorway down the short corridor.
Brenna’s hand closed over Cassidy’s again as the blonde patted the counter surŹface impatiently. “Relax. You’re going to have to remember what he was wearing.”
Cassidy blanched. Had it been a red shirt or tan? Was he in his blue jeans or black ones? She looked away from Brenna’s face to see a thick-waisted man in short shirtsleeves and a red tie step out of the office and walk out behind Jessie.
“Here’s the manager, Mr. Dunwald.”
“Mr. Dunwald, my friend’s son is missing. If we give you a picture, could you ask your staff to help us look for him?”
He held out his hand. Brenna placed the picture in it. While looking it over, he asked, “How long has he been missing?”
Cassidy looked to Brenna, finding her encouragement calming. “About…urn, a…half hour I think.”
“What’s his name?”
“Ryan Hyland.”
“How old?”
“He just turned five.”
“How tall?”
She breathed slowly. “Thirty-nine inches at his last checkup.” She hesitated. “I think.”
“All right. We’ll go call for him over the intercom. Does he know enough to report to a clerk?”
“We’ve never been here before.”
He shook his head, The clerks, Brenna noted, were all wearing green vests. She squeezed Cassidy’s hand again, drawing her attention. “What if he tells Ryan to go to someone in a green vest,” she whispered.
Cassidy nodded. “That’ll work.”
The manager asked one more thing before turning around to catch up the intercom microphone. “How long do you want to wait before we call the police and report a kidnapping?”
Cassidy’s face went pale at the blunt question. Supportively, Brenna wrapped her arm around the taller woman’s lower back. “Make the announcement,” she ordered him sharply. The manager shrugged and turned around.
“Attention, customers. Would Ryan Hyland report to a clerk in a green vest please?”
He turned back to the two women. “Why don’t you sit in my office until we have word?”
Brenna nodded to Thomas, who disappeared back into the aisles to continue looking. “Come on,” she said to Cassidy. “Thomas will go and keep looking. We’ll sit down for just a couple minutes. That’s all it will take.” The manager opened the counter door and gestured them back to his office.
Thomas skidded to a stop in another aisle and pushed his hair from his face. “Hey.” He drew the attention of a skinny man in overalls balancing two oars in each hand. “Have you seen a kid about this tall?” He held out his hand waist high. “Blond hair? Looking a little lost?”
The man shook his head. “Nope.”
“If you do, would you please take him to the front desk?”
“Sure thing. What’s the kid’s name?”
“Ryan.”
“Okay.”
“Thanks.” Thomas dodged around another patron and found himself near the back of the store. A layaway area was there, along with the restrooms. There was not much else there, and the area was empty of people. He turned around, starting back, when he looked left, then right, and spotted his brother, hands on his hips and lookŹing up a ladder laid against a set of shelves, leading to the top. “James!”
His brother brushed a hand across his freckled cheeks and then waved Thomas over. “Any luck?”
“Nothing. You?”
“Do you remember that time I was, oh heck, I must’ve been about Ryan’s age? I followed Dad up onto the roof when he was cleaning the gutters?”
“Shit. Yes. You think he went up there?”
“We won’t know until we get up there and look around. He could be stuck on top of one of these things.”
“So why isn’t he hollering?”
“Come on. I had the idea. Lets give it a shot first, then think about the logic. This is a five-year-old we’re talking about.”
Thomas sighed, pushing his fingers through his hair. He was tired, but his mother clearly wanted them to do as much as possible to help. Looking for Mrs. Hyland’s son was the least they could do. Certainly she wasn’t in any shape to do it herself, he thought, remembering the fear he’d read in her face at the manager’s sugŹgestion that they place a kidnapping report. “All right. Let’s go.” He grabbed the base
of the ladder, steadying it as his brother climbed up quickly,
“Hey! You kids get down from there!”
Thomas turned around to see a freckle-faced clerk who looked about his age jogging toward them. “We need to get up there and take a look around.”
“You could get hurt. And it’d be my neck in a sling.”
“Well, listen. We’re looking for a little boy. Maybe you’ve seen him?”
“That the ‘Ryan Hyland’ they called for over the intercom?”
“Yes.”
“We’ve got a policy not to let on that the person being sought is underage. Predators, y’know?”
Thomas nodded quickly, waving off the protocol talk. “Yeah. Sure. Fine. Have you seen him or not?”
“He wasn’t around when the announcement came in, or I’d have called in. He was climbing the ladder earlier. I shooed him away. Told him to go back to his parŹents. He looked at me, cried and ran off.”
“Which way did he go?”
The clerk pointed back over his shoulder. “That way.”
Thomas and James exchanged hopeful looks and dashed away. “Do you think it could be that simple? We’re just a few steps behind a five-year-old wandering the store?” James asked.
“We’d better hope so.”
“I wonder how Mrs. Hyland’s doing,” James said, as they rounded the nearest corner and drew up short on the rear loading dock. “Whoa!”
Thomas grabbed his brother’s arm and prevented him from falling off the edge. They looked down. No Ryan on the outside asphalt. Looking around, they tried to figure out where to go next. Thomas spotted a dark opening to the side of the dock. “Look, over there!”
James scrambled over to the hole first and looked inside. There was a notice on the wall, which he read aloud. “‘Stand clear compactor.’ Where the heck’s the safety stuff they always have around?”
“I don’t know.” Thomas leaned against the side and looked down. “Ryan!” he called into the opening. “Ryan, can you hear me?”
There was no answer. James grabbed his brother’s shoulder and tugged him backward. “I think we’d better report to Mom,” he said worriedly.
Thomas considered. Whether Ryan was down that shaft or not, they needed help to look. Big help. “Yeah, let’s go.”
Chapter 10
In the manager’s office, Cassidy fretted. “What’s taking
so long?”
Brenna laid her right hand over Cassidy’s. “They’re looking for him. Thomas and James are, too. We will find him.”
“It’s been over an hour. Maybe the manager’s right. He didn’t run off; someone kidnapped him.”
Aware of the tension in the taller woman, Brenna sympathetically rubbed her shoulder. “I won’t lie to you. The longer he’s missing, yes, the more likely it is that someone coaxed him away. But you have to have faith.”
“Ryan knows not to go off with strangers,” Cassidy reasoned, finding some measure of calm. In the next moment, though, she recalled, “We haven’t practiced his safe word in a while. What if he doesn’t remember it?”
Brenna’s expression told Cassidy that she wanted to give the reassurances she sought. The door of the manager’s office started inward. She pushed abruptly to her feet, Brenna immediately doing the same in front of her, standing between her and the doorway. The manager’s head appeared around the door frame. “Ms. Hyland?”
She answered quickly. “Yes.”
Dunwald stepped all the way inside and closed the door. Something in the careful way he shut the door and the way the latch resounded in the silence made Cassidy bite her bottom lip nervously.
“I am sorry. We haven’t located your son. I just called the police. We will have to file a missing child report.” He moved around and sat down behind his desk. “Since your son disappeared from our store, I’m going to ask you to fill out an inciŹdent report here before the police arrive.”
“Why?” Brenna asked sharply. “She’s going to have to tell the police the exact same thing.”
“You can use it to write your statement for the police. Our headquarters requires their own on file.” He fished a form from the low filing cabinet drawer behind his desk and slid it across the table along with a pen. “Here you are.”
Cassidy reached for the pen; Brenna snapped up the paper and scanned it. “We’ll just fill them both out at the same time, all right? Show the police in when they get here.”
The manager looked from Brenna to Cassidy and then frowned. “Of course,” he agreed stiffly before withdrawing.
Turning Point Page 9
