A Son's Tale

“I don’t know him… .” Her voice was onl

y a thread—a thin thread—a testimony to the fragile hold she had on her composure. And as she turned and looked directly at her father, tears filled her eyes.

“I swear, Daddy, I don’t know him. I wish to God I did.”

Morgan glanced back at the freehand drawing. If that man…that fiend…had her son…

If he touched him…

Sammie could already have been—

No, he’d run away. He was fine. Just hiding from her. And they’d find him. Sammie wasn’t as grown up as he thought.

“What about an Amber Alert? Can you issue one of those now?” Did they have reasonable belief that Sammie had been abducted? If they issued an Amber Alert anyone who saw him would know that he was missing.

“We issued it half an hour ago.”

Which meant they no longer thought Sammie had just run away.

The words struck a new chord of fear that Morgan couldn’t ignore.

CHAPTER FIVE

CALEB KNEW LONG nights. He’d lived with them for most of his life. Which stood him in good stead over the next several hours as he stayed with the Lowens and Julie Warren and waited for news of Sammie’s whereabouts.

He’d offered to stay. Morgan had accepted his offer immediately, with none of her usual assurances that she would be fine. He made coffee and small conversation when fatigue and panic threatened to get the best of the women. He sat quietly, a steady breath in the storm when detectives reported in or the phone rang.

And he studied Mr. Lowen with the outside eye of a scholar. Or so he told himself.

“I didn’t realize George Lowen was your father,” he said softly, sometime after ten that evening as Morgan accepted his invitation to step outside for some fresh air.

He’d thought the man heartless when, two years before, Lowen had bought up a block of real estate that included the city’s oldest library and the complex that held the young artists’ league studios and small gallery and tore it all down to replace it with a gated community of luxury condominiums. His perusal of George Lowen over the past few hours hadn’t softened his opinion of the business mogul much.

With her hands hugging her upper arms, Morgan shrugged. “We don’t associate much.”

He hadn’t realized she had parents in the area until a few hours before.

“He’s here tonight.”

“Yeah.”

Her expression blank, she gazed out into the darkness.

“You have to keep hoping, Morgan. Hope gives you the strength you need to take the next breath.”

They were walking on the sidewalk in front of her place. While the curb was lined with cars—his, Julie’s, her parents’, and the detective’s who’d replaced Elaine Martin and was going to sit with them through the night to monitor any possible contacts from kidnappers—the street was quiet. Searchers would resume looking for signs of the young boy at daylight.

And every hour that passed made it less likely that they’d be able to return Sammie safe and sound.

“It’s so dark out.”

“Is Sammie afraid of the dark?”

“No. It’s just…I know that the first hours are critical… .”

The first three hours were the most critical if Sammie had been kidnapped. Most child murders happened within three hours after abduction. Not that he was going to tell her that.

“You hear about children being taken, you know to keep your kids safe, and you do everything you can. But still, it’s one of those things—you just don’t ever think it’ll happen to you.”