Page 106 of Check the Halls
My stomach drops at her panic-filled voice.
“No,” I say quickly, keeping my tone steady even though alarm is already unfurling in my chest. “He’s not. Why? What’s going on?”
“He wasn’t home when I got in from work,” she says, her voice tight with panic. “I checked with one of the neighbour kids—he didn’t get off the bus.”
“He didn’t have chess club today?”
“No,” she sniffs. “Fridays are always free. I thought maybe I’d just forgotten...that you two made plans or something, but—oh my God, Ben. Where is he?”
Where is he?
“Are you sure he went to school this morning?” I ask, already thinking ahead.
“Yes. I dropped him off myself.”
I grip the wheel tighter, knuckles whitening.Okay, okay. Think.
“Alright,” I say, calm on the outside, ice-cold panic just under the surface. “Here’s what we’re going to do. You’re going to call the school. Do you have the number for his teacher? If not, I can get it from Maddy.”
“I have it.”
I flick my signal and pull off at the next exit, heart pounding. I’m only twenty minutes from the school. I can double back. There’s a bookstore with an excellent Fantasy section just down the street that Sam likes.
“Good. Call her. Make sure he was in class and that he stayed all day. I’m heading back toward the school now. I’ll check the bookstore and a few spots nearby. He couldn’t have gone far on foot.”
“What should I do after I call?” she asks, and there’s something small and cracked in her voice that nearly undoes me.
I take a breath, trying to find the gentlest way to say what needs to be said. “Sam mentioned you’ve got a close friend who’s a police officer?”
A soft whimper filters through the line. “Yes.”
“I think you should call her,” I say gently. “Just in case. She’ll know what to do.”
“Okay.”
“I’m going to hang up so you can make those calls, alright?”
“Okay…Ben?”
“Yeah?”
“Thank you for…thank you for being Sam’s friend.”
My throat tightens instantly, sealing off words I can’t afford to say. I force them through anyway. “Sam’s a great kid. He’s going to be okay. I know he is.”
We agree to keep each other updated, then I end the call. I press down a little harder on the gas pedal, eyes locked on the road ahead. The snow’s falling heavier now, gusting sideways in thick, icy flurries that smear across the windshield. Visibility’s dropping fast.
School. Bookstore. Mall.I run through the plan over and over in my head, trying not to get ahead of myself.
He’s somewhere nearby. He has to be.
I reach the school parking lot in record time, despite the worsening road conditions. I drive around the property, finding it deserted with the exception of a few cars left in the staff parking lot.
Next, I drive up the street to the bookstore. I put the car in park and am about to climb out when I spot a flyer for some kind of fundraiser in the store window.
Fuck. In my panic to look for Sam, I completely forgot about the Gala dress rehearsal I was on my way to. I grab my phone to call Maddy but find it has once again gone from mostly charged to completely dead.
“Motherfucker,” I grunt, digging through the gloveboxtrying to find a charge cord. I come up empty-handed and slam the drawer shut. “Okay,” I tell myself, trying to calm down. “Find Sam, then call Maddy.”
