A Son's Tale

CHAPTER THIRTY

WITH HIS MEETING canceled, Cal locked up his office and went home. He’d had a dozen women break up with him. He’d never left work for them.

“What’s wrong?” Frank asked, the second he walked in the door. His father appeared to be waiting for him.

“Nothing.”

Frank studied Cal, leaving him feeling as though he was a little kid again, answering to a man who could read his mind. “I heard the Durango pull in.”

“End of the semester, no meetings.” Cal shrugged. “I’ve got papers to grade and no interruptions here.” His gaze bounced off his father’s and he opened the refrigerator, grabbing a bottle of water he didn’t want.

“Tell me what’s going on.” Frank stood in the way of Cal leaving the kitchen.

Stepping to the side, Cal made to move around his father. The older man blocked him.

“I pissed Morgan off, okay?” he said, irritation covering for the cold fear piercing through him. He’d deal with this. He always did.

“Pissed her off, how? Seems to take an awful lot to rattle that girl. But that might have something to do with the call I had from her saying she didn’t need me to take Sammie to tryouts. She said she had the day off. What did you do?”

He glared at the man, surprised to see that they were at eye level again. Frank was standing taller these days. “I don’t know how, okay?” he lied. “She didn’t give me a lot to go on.”

“Then you need to go to her, son. Don’t just let her walk out of your life. Not this time. She’s the one.”

“No, Dad, she’s not.”

“You can’t just walk away every single time you get hurt.”

“Oh, no? Isn’t that we’ve always done, Dad? Run away?” He didn’t mean the words, didn’t mean to lash out.

But loving his father had cost him so much.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry I told the cops I saw Claire Sanderson in your car. And I’m sorry I snapped at you.”

He was seven again. And hurting. In twenty-five years the pain hadn’t lessened in the least. It had just been pushed far back inside of him, waiting to explode.

“It’s okay, son,” Frank said, putting his hand on Cal’s shoulder and giving him a squeeze. “It’s me who needs to apologize. These past several years, I’d given up. You didn’t deserve that. We’ll work this out. I’ll talk to Morgan… .”

They both heard the car pull into the driveway at the same time.

“Maybe that’s her now.” Frank went to peer out the kitchen window.

Cal tensed. Had she come to see him? Did he have a chance to make this right?

And just how was he going to do that?

Frank turned, face white, eyes wide. Looked at Cal. “It’s the cops.”

* * *

“MR. AND MRS. LOWEN. Hi.”

Morgan’s parents, seated on the sofa opposite her, nodded a stilted greeting at Detective Martin as she entered the small family room at the police station where they’d been told to wait. There were three couches in the room. Morgan occupied one. Her parents another. Elaine Martin, in a light gray pantsuit, took the third.

“Are you sure that Sammie didn’t run away again?” Grace asked the detective what she’d just asked Morgan and George. In her maroon skirt and jacket, Morgan’s mother looked like she’d just stepped from a boardroom.

“We aren’t certain, of course, and we have a team of officers and a dog out searching your property,” Detective Martin said. “But under the circumstances, we’re treating this as an abduction just to be safe. We’re set to issue another Amber Alert and have sent bulletins to all of our precincts and cruisers.”

She glanced at Morgan.