A Son's Tale

A kid was missing from Tyler—which wasn’t lucky. He’d seen the Amber Alert go out because he was on the internet looking at Tyler news. He’d called Lucy Hayes immediately. He and the detective from Aurora, Indiana, were long-distance compatriots—they’d both, for different reasons, dedicated their lives to missing children.

And then a live video feed flashed on his screen. Pursuant to the missing child. It was a press conference that was taking place. Ramsey clicked.

The kid hadn’t been found. Damn.

And more bad news—the kid was the grandson of some local millionaire who was offering half a mil in reward money.

If Sammie Lowen had been kidnapped for ransom, chances were his family wouldn’t see him alive again. Of course, there were other reasons kids were snatched that weren’t any better. He’d hoped the kid had just run away. He was ten, after all.

And Ramsey had his right-place-right-time moment.

There on the screen. The guy standing behind the mother of the missing boy—his image was also on the file on top of the stack waiting for him at work. Granted, the photo on Ramsey’s desk had been gleaned from the department of motor vehicles, a driver’s license shot, but he was certain that he was looking at Dr. Caleb Whittier. A grown-up version of the seven-year-old boy whose photo was also in the file.

Sitting up straight, Ramsey held the portable computer with both hands and stared. He still had questions. Just different ones.

Like, why was a man who, as a boy, had been involved in a missing-child case, involved in another missing-child case as an adult?

Whittier had only been seven when the two-year-old daughter of his father’s fiancée had gone missing. The boy could hardly have been a mastermind child abductor at that point.

He watched the rest of the video. The kid’s mother never spoke. She just stood behind the grandfather and Captain Dennison, who was representing Tyler law enforcement, with an older woman Ramsey assumed was her mother. Caleb Whittier was farther back than they were, probably unaware that he was on camera. Others were with him. Neighbors, maybe.

And maybe that’s all he was. Maybe there was no connection to him and the missing boy at all. Maybe he’d never even met the kid.

But there was definitely a coincidence here.

And to Ramsey Miller a coincidence was like a toothache. It bugged him until he did something about it.

* * *

“YOUREALLYDON’T have to stay.” Morgan found herself alone in her living room with Cal Whittier after the press conference Saturday morning. “You haven’t slept at all.”

“Neither have you.”

“He’s my son. My mind isn’t going to relax enough to allow me to sleep.” Detectives Warner and Martin and Captain Dennison were in the kitchen conferring. Her father and mother had left to shower and change and would be back within the half hour. Detective Martin had suggested that Morgan call her doctor and request a sleep aid, but she wasn’t planning to heed that particular piece of advice. At least not for the next twenty-four hours.

“I’ll go if it will make it easier on you.”

They were sitting on opposite ends of her couch. “No!” The volume of her emission embarrassed her. “You’ve…helped. I just don’t want you to think you have to stay. I’ll be fine.”

She didn’t want him to leave. Ever.

And that wasn’t fair to him. Or right.

Cal Whittier owed her nothing. And had no idea she’d had a crush on him for years.

“You aren’t fine,” he said, his gaze so understanding Morgan almost broke down again. “But I’d like to stay. At least until you’ve seen the fallout from the press conference.”

“You’ve been on the phone several times. I figured you had something going on and…”

“My dad asked me to keep him up to date.”

Hearing that a perfect stranger cared threatened her composure all over again. Strangers came to your aid when things were really bad.

And the world really did have good in it because strangers came to your aid.

Her thoughts rolled around one another, presenting themselves and then rolling off again. She couldn’t focus. She could only feel.

And other than an inexplicable sense of comfort from having her college professor sitting with her, Morgan felt nothing but out-of-control bad.

* * *

HALFANHOUR LATER Morgan was thirty minutes closer to flying out of her skin. Her parents were back. Grace was frying bacon in the kitchen. The smell nauseated Morgan. George sat at the dining room table with a phone to his ear, whether on one conversation or many, she had no idea. Every man he had out looking for Sammie was to report to him directly. He had charts and maps and was keeping a detailed account of every move everyone made.

Her phone hadn’t rung since the press conference an hour and a half before.

Was this the fallout, then? Nothing? This man who had Sammie really didn’t want money? He only wanted to make them suffer as he had? To hurt as he had?

His wife was dead.

What did that mean for Sammie?

Her stomach swarmed, her joints felt too weak to support her, and Morgan had to fight not to give in to the thick cottony fog encasing her mind. She had to stay coherent. To believe in Sammie. For Sammie.

“You said your dad lives with you.”

Caleb Whittier stood at the living room window, watching the street. He was looking out for her and she knew she was never, ever going to forget this man.

The crush she’d had on him in class seemed so menial now. The man had become her angel, holding her suspended just slightly above a hell that would burn her to ashes in seconds were she to fall.

“That’s right, he does.” Cal turned around, his face darkened with stubble, his eyes slightly puffy from lack of sleep, and still his smile was warm and nurturing and filled with a peculiar understanding—as though he not only saw her but felt her, too.

“Does he work?”

“Yes, but he’s on vacation this week.”

For years she’d wanted to know more about this private man who was so generous with his time and advice. And right now, she could hardly focus on his words.

“On vacation? So he’s not at home?” She’d thought his father was at home. That Cal had called to tell his father he wouldn’t be home. But maybe she was wrong. The night before was a bit of a haze to her right now.

“He’s at home. His fishing trip was…canceled.”

Something about the way he said the word was a little different. Morgan couldn’t bring forth the effort to be curious. She nodded. “Where does he work?”

“Green Pastures.”

“The nursing home?”

“Yes.”