Where the Road Ends

Looking around frantically, trying to calm her frenzied heart, telling herself Charles had to be there, that panic was ridiculous, Amelia panicked.

“Charles?” she called, her heart pumping so fast she could hardly breathe.

He had to be there.

“Charles?” she called again, more loudly, weaving through the masses of kids exiting the ride, searching for a glimpse of that bright-green shirt. He’d just gone around the other way. She was sure of it.

He knew the rules. She’d tested him just a minute or two before he’d boarded Lady Bugz.

“Don’t ever be alone,” he’d recited. “Always hold hands when we’re walking. Don’t talk to anyone but the exact ones I came with today and if I have to throw up, tell you…”

Charles Wainscoat Dunn was worth a lot of money.

The rules were what kept him safe.

“Charles!” she shrieked, consumed by terror as she reached her original vantage point and her son was nowhere to be seen.

“God, no.” Tears sprang to her eyes and she angrily blinked them away. She had to find him. This wasn’t happening.

“Charles!” She hollered again and again, running around the entire ride, which was now being invaded by a new mass of children who’d been waiting for their turn.

A couple of little girls looked scared as she ran past. People were starting to stare.

“Can I help you, ma’am?” A ride attendant appeared. “You really can’t be in here.”

“My son,” Amelia panted, half-hysterical with fright. “He was just on this ride and now he’s gone.”

“The exit’s that way,” the young man said, pointing in the direction Amelia had just come from.

“I know that!” she snapped. “He’s not there!”

“Have you looked outside the fence? He probably just wandered out with the rest of the kids.”

“Charles wouldn’t do that. He knows the rules.” Amelia continued to scour the area, certain her son had to be there someplace.

Oh. God.

She choked back blinding tears. Johnny. I need you.

The skinny young man looked around at the restless kids now buckled in and waiting impatiently for the Lady Bugz to start moving.

“Sometimes kids get excited and take off for the next ride,” he said, his tone reassuring. “Don’t worry, he’ll turn up. If he’s not right here or in the vicinity, then head over to Lost Parents in Hometown Park. It’s across from The Orbit. That’s where whoever finds him will take him.”

“You don’t understand…” Amelia started to explain, and then stopped.

If Charles wasn’t here, he was someplace else. And she was wasting precious time.

Stumbling in her haste, Amelia tore around the outside of the ride, hardly seeing anything, searching only for that bright-green shirt.

Her worst nightmare was coming true and she was helpless. Helpless!

“Charles!” she screamed, desperate, her entire body shaking.

“Amelia!” Cara’s familiar voice, her touch on Amelia’s shoulder, slowed her panic, but only for a moment. “What’s wrong?” Cara was asking urgently. “Where’s Charles?”

“I don’t know!” Amelia cried, the last of her composure disappearing. “When the ride stopped, he was gone!”

“He’s got to be here, honey,” Cara said, her calm voice belying the worried look in her eyes as she twisted her head. “He knows the rules. He’d never let someone haul him off without a helluva lot of hollering, and you were standing right here. You would’ve heard him.”

Cara was right, of course. Amelia straightened. Shoulders back, she looked over the heads of the people passing in front of her. “Where is he?” she demanded, autocratic, commanding, in an odd parody of leadership. “Where is he, dammit?” The bravado ended abruptly with a gulping sob.

Cara’s arm slid around Amelia just as she might have fallen to her knees. “Come on, sweetie, we’ll take one more walk around the immediate vicinity and then go to Lost Parents. Charles knows where it is, and even if he doesn’t, anyone who finds him will take him there.”

Amelia nodded, allowing herself to be led as they walked around the ride one more time, checked behind trees, under benches and behind a vendor’s cart.

“He’s gone,” she whispered, desperation making her light-headed even while something inside her was pushing her to be strong.

“Let’s go to Lost Parents,” Cara said, right beside her. “He’ll get scared if he has to wait there too long.”

Adrenaline propelled Amelia through the park faster than she’d ever traveled it before, guiding her as she ducked around and through people. Her straw hat was knocked off and she hardly noticed, leaving it to be trampled. She could feel Cara right behind her, but wouldn’t have slowed if the other woman got held up.

Charles needed her.

And she needed him. More than anyone knew.

She and Cara burst through the entrance to Lost Parents together. And somehow were standing there hand in hand when an attendant told Amelia that Charles wasn’t there.

“He has to be here!” She heard herself screaming as if she was somewhere outside, watching the whole horrible incident from a safe place.

“What’s our next move?”

She heard Cara ask the question, grateful on some level for her friend’s strength, her ability to think when Amelia couldn’t.

“We’ll search the park, put everyone on immediate alert. I’m sure he’ll turn up. They always do…”

Sometime over the next grueling hours, while park security, the police and eventually—as dusk and then darkness fell—the FBI conducted searches, Amelia slipped into shock.

Cara was holding her when the park finally closed, was cleared out, thoroughly searched a final time—and the official word came in.

Charles was not in the park. He might have wandered away. Might be in the vicinity. But no one seemed to think that. They were going under the assumption that the Wainscoat heir had been abducted.

Cara was holding Amelia when the wrenching sobs wracked her friend’s body.

And was still holding her when, so lost in her fear and grief Amelia didn’t even know where she was, they were escorted out of the park.

1

Five months later…