Lover's Lane (29 page)

40

JAKE LET GO A SILENT CURSE AS HE WALKED AWAY FROM ABBIGAIL Klasa and her damn cameraman and headed for his car.

He was still pissed at the officer in charge of the search who had introduced him to the reporter just to get her off his own back. When Jake heard that the L.A. network affiliate was picking up the story, he knew chances were good that Anna Saunders would find out that Christopher was missing.

As soon as he had left Carly’s, he checked in with the officer in charge of the search, demanding to know why in the hell they hadn’t brought in search dogs. He was told all available animals in the area had been transported to the Los Padres National Forest where three teenage hikers had been missing for two days.

The man thought there would be more dogs flown in by morning. Jake refused to give in to a fear of statistics. This wasn’t L.A. The kids had run off, and as yet there was no reason to believe they’d been kidnapped. But out here there were an infinite number of places where they could be hiding and just as many ways they could get hurt.

Climbing back into his SUV, he scanned the dark hillside directly above the town where the volunteer search-and-rescue team had fanned out, trying to cover too much open ground without enough manpower.

Flashlight streams bobbed along, briefly illuminating the grassy slope as well as rocks, crevices, and low-growing brush.

You’d be a real good dad, Jake.

I’m learning to write stuff at school.

Maybe I’ll draw a picture of you playing ball with me.

We rund awaee.

Jake leaned against the car window, watching search lights crawl over the hillside. Once darkness had settled in, rescue helicopters no longer swept the open terrain. Now it was up to exhausted, cold volunteers. Geoff Wilson was heading up a group combing the beaches. Glenn Potter had organized neighborhood watch captains into door-to-door searches.

Restless, frustrated, Jake thought of all the people he’d been hired to locate, and it made him sick at heart to think he couldn’t find two little boys.

He started the car, headed back toward Cabrillo Road. While crossing a two-lane bridge that spanned the dry creek bed, he remembered the day Chris had gotten turned around in the arroyo behind the rental house.

What happened, Sport?

I got mixed up, Jake.

If you ever get lost again, just remember to stay calm and
think about whether you want to go up or down.

My house is up, away from the beach.

My house.

The one place they hadn’t thought to look. If Chris happened on the right stream bed, they just might have made it.

Jake whipped the car into a U-turn, sped along Twilight’s deserted main thoroughfare. The area around his house hadn’t been thoroughly searched because it was farther from town and expert consensus was that two little boys couldn’t make it that far, especially in the dark. But if they followed the stream bed . . .

He reached for his cell phone and started to hit the automatic dial for Carly’s number, then stopped. He wasn’t about to get her hopes up for no reason, so he snapped the phone off and tossed it on the seat beside him.

When he reached the gravel driveway, he slowed down, parked, grabbed his phone before he got out, jogged up the front steps and across the porch.

The house was dark and empty, just the way he’d left it. His footsteps echoed off the hollow walls as he walked past the cans of paint, rollers and pans stacked off to one side of the dining room. He turned on the overhead light in the living room and searched the first floor.

There was no sign of the boys anywhere, so he went upstairs. His bedroom door was still closed. After taking a deep breath, he pushed it open, but the room was empty.

He paced to the window, stared out at the night. Damn, but he’d wanted them to be there.

Where in the hell are you?

With a ragged sigh, he turned, shoved his fingers through his hair, and started out of the room, then stopped just short of the door when he realized the comforter on the inflatable mattress was missing.

“Chris?” He walked over to the closet, opened the door, pulled the light chain. Empty.

He pounded down the stairs, trying to think like a kid.

“Chris? Matt?” Rounding the corner between the hall and the kitchen, he checked the pantry near the service porch again, then flipped on the light over the back door and stepped outside onto the deck.

There, snuggled together close to the wall, hugging the comforter, Chris and Matt lay sound asleep. A crumpled Doritos bag and two empty Snapple bottles had been abandoned nearby.

Jake knew he was smiling from ear to ear in the dark but didn’t care. He hunkered down beside the boys.

Matt had fallen asleep with his thumb in his mouth. Muddy tear streaks stained his cheeks. Chris lay on his stomach, his head resting on his backpack, the comforter pulled up around his ears. Jake watched his own hand shake as he reached out to stroke the boy’s blond hair.

Getting to his feet, Jake walked to the edge of the deck, leaned one hip against the railing, punched 911, and gave the local dispatcher his name, address, and the news that he’d found the boys.

Then he called Carly.

When he heard her voice, he imagined her in her living room surrounded by Selma, Joe, and Etta.

“Jake? What, Jake?” She sounded too terrified to hope.

“I found them, Carly. They’re fine.”

There was silence on the other end, hollow, endless silence until he heard her sobbing. The next voice he heard was Joe Caron’s.

“Where are they, Jake? We’ll bring Carly over.”

“They’re asleep on the deck behind my house. I just called the police to let them know I’ve got them. They’re coming to pick up the boys and take them to the station. Bring Carly and meet us there.”

“Want me to call the Potters?”

“I imagine the police are on that right now, but double check. No one can ever have too much good news. I’ll see you at the station.”

He hung up and pocketed his phone, then crossed the deck and sat down beside the sleeping boys. Gently, he laid his hand on Christopher’s shoulder and slowly shook him awake.

Chris pushed up off the deck, rubbed his eyes and looked around.

“Hey, Jake.”

“Hi, Chris. You gave us all a pretty big scare.”

The sound of their voices woke up Matt, who took one look at Jake and started bawling.

“I didn’t want to do it. It was all his fau . . . fault.” Matt pointed at Chris as he continued to wail.

“Baby.” Chris mumbled and rolled his eyes. “We were okay the whole time, Jake. I remembered what you said about following the creek.” Then he whispered, “Am I in trouble?”

“I’m just glad you’re all right.”

“What about Mom?”

“She’s going to meet us at the police station.”

“Police station?” Matt started howling.

“She’s mad, huh?” Chris ducked his head sheepishly.

“I think sad is a better word for it. You scared her, Chris. You two scared everybody in town.”

Chris’ lower lip began to tremble, but he stubbornly threw back his shoulders. His chin jutted in defiance, reminding Jake of Carly.

“Well, she scared me, too. I don’t want to move, Jake. I heard you and her talking about moving.”

“You didn’t stick around to hear the part where she said that she would never make you move if you didn’t want to. Running away doesn’t solve anything.” Jake thought of how Carly had been running half her life. “It only makes things worse. I’m sure she’ll explain when you get home. Right now, let’s get you cleaned up and see if we can’t get Matt to stop crying.”

He carried the comforter and backpack as he followed the runaways into the kitchen. It took half a roll of paper towels to make them somewhat presentable again. Matt didn’t stop crying until Jake promised to tell his parents not to put him on restriction forever.

Jake was about to pour them both a glass of milk when the whine of sirens split the air. Matt started sniffing. Chris took Jake’s hand and pressed close to his leg.

“You’re going to get to ride in a police car.” As he shouldered the small backpack Jake wished he could take Chris straight home to Carly’s arms.

Then he reached down for Matt’s hand, and leading both boys through the house, he met the officers waiting on his front porch.

41

CHRIS SAT BELTED IN THE BACKSEAT OF THE POLICE CAR wishing he could enjoy the ride, but he was too worried about what his mom and the Potters were going to do when they saw him.

Scared as he was, he was going to tell everybody this was all his idea. He snuck a peek at Matt, who hadn’t said a word to him since Jake woke them up, and he wondered what he would do if Matt never, ever spoke to him again.

“You boys know what kind of trouble you caused around here?”

Chris jumped when the officer riding on the passenger’s side turned around and started talking to them.

“Well?”

“Yes, sir,” he mumbled.

“Want to tell me why you took off and worried your folks like that?” The man was watching him closely. Chris promised himself he would never, ever do anything that would mean having to ride in a police car again.

“I was scared my mom was gonna make me move away.” He was too frightened not to tell the whole truth. “She talked about going on a vacation, and I didn’t want to miss hot dog day.”

The officer looked over at the man driving the car. “Makes perfect sense to me.”

Chris thought he saw the first officer’s mouth twitch, but it wasn’t light enough to tell for sure.

“What about your friend there. How come he went with you?”

Chris looked at Matt again. His friend was wiping his snot on the sleeve of the borrowed parka.

“We’re blood brothers.”

The officer who did all the talking asked the one driving, “Think we need to call in Child Protective Services?”

Chris listened intently, not sure what Child Protective Services was, but he thought maybe it had to do with kids going to military academy. He held his breath.

The taller of the two men turned the wheel and shook his head. “No cause. They aren’t habitual runaways, not yet anyway. Besides being a little dirty, they don’t fit the profile for being abused. Let’s just turn Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn here over to their parents, and maybe we can all go home and get some sleep.”

Chris elbowed Matt who turned sorry eyes in his direction. “They’re takin’ us to our moms,” he whispered.

Matt threw up.

Carly and the others were at the station by the time the cruiser pulled up. Christopher’s head was barely visible above the window. Jake’s SUV was right behind.

He parked, jumped out of the car, and rushed over to where she was standing beside Etta, who was sobbing into the hem of her sequined sweatshirt. Selma and Joe were there, too.

Tracy and Glenn Potter and their friends and neighbors were all gathered on the curb as well, all of them highlighted in the glare from the lights on the mobile television van.

All Carly saw was her boy when the patrolman opened the back door of the car and Chris stepped out.

His face lit up with relief when he spotted her. She could barely see through her tears as he came barreling toward her yelling, “Mom! Mom!”

She fell to her knees on the asphalt, wrapped Christopher in her arms and held him tight, desperately fighting to hold herself together. He felt so small, so vulnerable—and never as precious.

“Mom.” Chris tried to wriggle away. “You’re crush-in’ me.”

She pulled back slowly, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. Running her hands up and down his arms, she finally took hold of his hands and looked him over.

“Are you all right?” She still couldn’t believe he could be fine. It seemed he’d been gone a lifetime.

“Yeah.” He glanced around suddenly aware of all the others. “Hey! There’s Joe and Selma. Hi, Joe! Hey, Selma. And there’s Mrs. Schwartz, too.” Then he whispered to Carly, “What’s everybody doing here?”

“Everyone’s been so scared. They waited at home with me while the police looked for you.”

He threw his arms around her neck and hugged her again. Her heart nearly broke when she heard him whisper, “It’s okay, Mom. I’m okay now.”

When she could finally let him go, Joe gave him a bear hug and passed him to Selma, then he went to Etta, and finally Geoff, who had just arrived and was still soaked from sea spray and covered in sand from the knees down.

“Are you sure you’re all right?” Carly asked when he was at her side again.

Chris fell sober and took her hand. “Yeah. I’m okay. Kinda hungry, though.” He looked around at the reporters and cameramen, the police, and rescue workers gathered around.

“Can we go home?” he whispered.

Glenn and Tracy, with Matt sandwiched between them, walked over to Carly.

“I told you that they’d be just fine.” Tracy was beaming her perpetual smile again, but her mascara had smeared into a distinct racoon mask, and her pageboy cut was a disaster. Beside her, Glenn was whey faced and looked ready to drop.

Glenn reached over to ruffle Chris’ hair and told Carly, “We’ll call you in the morning. Right now, we’re going to get Matt home to bed.” He glanced over his shoulder at the officer standing close by and then told her, “If you need anything, Carly, just call us, all right? I’m sure everything will be fine.”

Before she had time to wonder why everything
wouldn’t
be fine now, the officer stepped up to her and smiled down at Chris before he said, “We’re going to have to detain you all for a few minutes, Ms. Nolan. Just a routine interview, nothing that will take very long.”

“But . . . he’s worn out. I’d like to take him home and get him cleaned up and fed and into bed.”

She was aware of Jake moving in close beside her. So did the infernal minicam.

“Ms. Nolan? Ms. Nolan! Do you have any comment regarding the petition for guardianship that’s been filed by your son’s grandmother?” Abbigail Klasa stepped up to Jake and made the mistake of trying to elbow her way in next to Carly and Chris.

When Carly looked back, the young woman was on the ground searching for her microphone.

“Sorry,” Jake mumbled. “I must have slipped.”

Carly quickly hugged Selma, Joe, and Geoff and thanked them all before she and Jake hurried Christopher inside the station.

She hadn’t asked Jake to stay, but she was thankful that he was there as they were all led into a small private office. He appeared to be cool, calm, and in control.

He had found Christopher. She would never be able to thank him enough.

“Sit down, please, Ms. Nolan. Mr. Montgomery. Christopher, would you come with me for a minute? There’s a lady down the hall who wants to ask you some questions.”

“Is she from the military school?”

The man shot Carly a quizzical glance.

“I have no idea what he’s talking about.” She looked to Jake, who crouched in front of Chris.

“She just wants to make sure you’re all right.”

The young officer held out his hand. Chris looked so small and frightened, yet he put up such a brave front that Carly was seconds from falling completely apart. Once he was out of earshot, she turned to Jake.

“What’s going on?” Panicked, she refused to sit when he gestured to a chair. “Matt got to leave with his parents. Why can’t I take Chris home?”

“It’s probably just routine, like the man said.”

She wished he sounded more reassuring.

“How could that reporter have known about the petition for guardianship? Who would give her that kind of information?”

“I have a feeling I know,” he said softly.

“Anna.”

“Or her lawyer.”

As the world folded in on her, Carly sank into an empty institutional-green vinyl chair and stared at the door Chris had just walked through. In no more than two minutes, the police officer came back in.

“Ms. Nolan, this should just take a couple of minutes. My partner and I were going to turn both boys over directly to you, but we had directives to hold your son until he could be interviewed.”

The sterile office was more like a hospital waiting room. It reminded her of the day her dad died, the day Miss DeCoudres had walked her down the hall to the counselor’s office, and social services had come to take her away.

If the interview didn’t go well, Chris might fall into Child Protective Services’ hands on the spot, and she wouldn’t be able to see him again without supervision until the guardianship petition was heard.

“Carly?”

“What?” She jumped and turned to Jake, suddenly aware that he’d been talking to her. He was still holding her hand. She looked down at their entwined fingers, aware of what was going on, yet not quite willing to believe this was really happening to her.

Jake’s calm did more to unnerve her than if he’d been ranting and raving. He was angry. Angrier than she’d ever seen him. His fury showed in the ice-blue depths of his eyes.

Suddenly his cell phone went off, the low ring barely audible, shrilly cutting the silence. He pulled it out of his back pocket, glanced at the screen, frowned and powered off.

“Do you need to answer that?”

“I’ll take care of it tomorrow.”

Exactly eight minutes later—Carly knew because she hadn’t taken her eyes off the big black industrial clock on the wall—Chris was escorted back into the room by a female officer. A shiny replica of the official police badge had been pinned to his sweatshirt. He ran across the room and threw himself into Carly’s arms.

The officer thanked Carly and added, “You can go home now, ma’am.”

Carly didn’t let go of Chris until Jake took her gently by the elbow and said, “Come on, you two. I think Beauty is probably at home wondering what happened to everybody.”

Jake pulled his car around to the back door so that they could avoid the relentless television crew. Within minutes Carly and Chris were home again.

“Mom?” Chris tugged on her arm the minute they were out of the car, as if it weren’t three in the morning. As if she hadn’t spent the last twelve hours in hell. “Mom, I’m hungry.”

She started for the kitchen, running on automatic pilot, her mind blissfully numb to everything except Chris. While he hugged Beauty and rolled on the floor with the dog, Carly warmed up a bowl of chili. She knew Chris was starved when he didn’t even complain about the beans.

After pouring Chris a second glass of milk, she finally turned to Jake.

“Thank you.” She shivered. Cold had been seeping through her for hours, the bone-chilling cold of fear.

Chris was home. Everything was still uncertain, but at least he was safe.

Jake was watching her from across the living room where he’d remained by the front door. As always, he looked too big for the small space, too rugged for the small love seat, the worn-out wicker chair.

He didn’t fit here. Not since he’d lost her trust. She shouldn’t have ever let him into their circle of two, and yet her body still ached for him to hold her. She needed his strength, his calm, his smiles and touches.

But as she watched him watch her, she reminded herself that even though Jake was the one who had found Chris tonight, none of this would have happened if he hadn’t come dragging the past to town with him, upsetting their lives, showing Anna Saunders the way.

He finally took a step away from the door.

She started to wrap her arms protectively around herself but then stopped. “Thank you for your help and for finding the boys.” She looked down at her hands, then back up at him. “Thank you for being there when I needed someone earlier.”

“I want to be there for you all the time, Carly. For both of you.”

“I think you should go home now, Jake. I need to get Chris cleaned up and into bed.”

“I don’t mind sleeping on the sofa, just to make sure the reporters don’t bother you again.”

Tempted to give in, she quickly shook her head. It wouldn’t do to have him so close, not while she was still so raw, so vulnerable.

“We’ll be fine.” She glanced over her shoulder at Chris, shoved her hands into the back pockets of her jeans.

“Just the two of you. Just like before.”

“We were fine on our own.”

“Were you, Carly?”

She thought of the years before Jake. She’d been going through the motions, reading homemaking magazines, trying to make life picture perfect without having to feel anything except her love for Christopher. Before Jake had turned their lives upside down, she never knew how much she and Chris had been loved by so many, or how very lucky she was to live in Twilight.

Without a word, Jake stepped around her and headed for the table. He stood behind Christopher, put his hand on her son’s head for a second, just until Chris looked up at him.

“Hey, pal. I gotta take off. You be good, all right? Listen to your Mom, and don’t even think of pulling a stunt like that again, all right?”

Chris ducked his head again and stared down into the empty chili bowl. “Okay, I won’t.”

When Jake started to walk away, Chris reached for his arm.

“Are you comin’ over tomorrow?”

Jake looked at Carly for the answer, but she forced herself to turn away from the question in his eyes.

“I don’t know,” Jake said. “I’ve still got a lot of work to do up at the house.”

“Oh.” Chris sounded as forlorn as Carly felt.

“But I’ll give you a call tomorrow,” Jake promised him, “no matter what.”

“Okay. Night, Jake.”

“Night, buddy.”

Carly heard Jake’s steps as he crossed the room, felt him when he moved up behind her. She didn’t dare face him, not while she was fighting so hard to hang on to every shred of self-respect.

“Good night, Carly.” He was so close that she could feel the warmth of his breath on the back of her neck.

She took a deep breath.

“Good-bye, Jake.”

He stepped around her and let himself out.

Christopher struggled to keep his eyes open while he waited for Mom to tuck him in. It wasn’t long before she walked back into his room and tossed his dirty clothes into the hamper in his closet and then sat down beside him.

She looked sad and tired and he knew that was because of what he’d done.

“Mom? I’m really sorry.” He slipped his arms out from under the comforter and reached for her hand.

“I know you are.”

When she looked down at him her eyes were all sparkly like she was going to cry again, and his stomach started to hurt.

“I won’t run away ever again.”