Page 16 of Stabby Little

“Don't lie to me.” Michael turns to me. “Your mind's orbiting another planet. You barely heard a word I said.”

“I just…” A breath escapes me. “I have a lot going on.”

“Elaborate.”

“Miles graduates high school soon. I need to make sure I have enough saved up to pay for his college.”

Michael gnashes his teeth. “Tell me he's not still selling dope. I'll be disappointed in him.”

I shake my head. “He moved on from his one incident. He made the honor roll and intends to go to an Ivy League school.”

“It'd be a shame if he started selling drugs again.”

“Yes, it would.”

“You know what they say.” Michael's dark eyes lock on mine. “Once you enter that lifestyle, there are only two ways out. Prison or death.”

“He knows that.”

After the school administrators busted Miles with pills and coke, Michael took him under his wing. He guided Miles down the right path and taught him to stay away from criminal activity.

It's ironic because Michael's a drug lord himself. Yet he prevented my son from venturing further down the wrong path. His kindness was his saving grace.

“I'm grateful for what you did.” I place my hand on Michael's shoulder. “Without you, Miles would've wound up in prison.”

“It's the least I could do. Your son was in trouble. His friend disappeared and his parents divorced.”

“Linda left me.”

“He didn't have stability in his home life.” Michael shakes my hand off. “He needed a male role model. I had the resources to help.”

I focus on the oak trees in the backyard. A gust of wind snares a dying leaf and thrusts it to the ground.

Michael takes another sip of his drink. “It's been seven years, huh?”

“You asked why I'm distracted.” I turn to face my boss. In moments like this, he's my confidant as well as my friend. “That's why.”

“You're still looking for Ollie.” This is a statement of fact more so than a question.

I nod. “He vanished without a trace. No matter how much I search, I come up empty-handed. The FBI and NYPD couldn't find him, either.”

Michael stares into his backyard. “When I was a boy, a girl on my block ran errands for her mother. Four men leapt out of a white van and took her. None of us ever heard from her again. That's life.”

“There must be an answer.” My voice is deadly. “Ollie didn't vanish without a trace.”

“You have your son. That's enough.”

“Milesisenough.” I grit my teeth. “But I must find out what happened to Ollie. It's not fair that every adult in his life gave up on him.”

Ollie's parents quit looking for him after the second year. When the FBI said he was gone, they accepted it as fact.

They had a funeral that Linda, Miles, and I attended, and then washed their hands of him.

I wasn't sure if they ever loved him. I also wasn't sure they didn't have anything to do with his disappearance—how did they get over it so easily?

Yet after speaking to them ten times and hiring three private investigators, I concluded they didn't assist in his abduction.

They just didn't give a fuck he vanished.

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