A strange calmness descended over me, even as my mother’s eyes widened and Cole continued to bellow Declan’s name. He would appear at any moment, I just knew it; he’d step out from around the corner, he’d have a big grin on his face, we’d chastise him for not staying within our line of vision... I just knew this was going to happen.
Except it didn’t.
Cole went down to one end of the block and disappeared around the corner, then came back, rushing toward me, shaking his head. My mother had gone the other way, and I looked behind us, asked the people coming out if they had seen a little boy who looked like Declan, wearing...wearing... what the hell had he been wearing? I couldn’t remember, and I didn’t want to give them the wrong information.
I went back inside to see if maybe Declan had wandered back in, past my mother without her noticing. There was no sign of him. I did see a security guard though, so I went over to him and told him that we couldn’t find Declan.
“How long has he been missing for?” he asked, his face very serious.
“I don’t know,” I said. “Not that long. Less than a minute, really.”
And then Cole was pushing his way back inside, his eyes wide, frantic, even though I could tell he was trying to keep himself under control. The security officer was speaking into his walkie talkie.
“You’re his parents?” he said to us.
“Yes, well, I’m his father,” Cole said. “His name’s Declan. He’s 4. He’s about this tall, he’s got light brown hair, blue eyes...he was wearing... I think he was wearing a gray T-shirt with a fire truck on it and blue cargo shorts. Navy blue. I’m going back out there to look for him; I don’t think he came back in here.”
Before the security officer could say anything else, Cole dashed off, this time running the other direction down the block.
Another security officer had arrived, and the two were talking together, so I went back outside, too. There were so many people. So many cars. All going in different directions, and where would a little 4-year-old boy have gone off to by himself?
My mother hurried over to me, put her hand on my arm.
“Did you find him?” she asked hopefully, even though I could tell she knew that I hadn’t.
“No,” I said.
She set her mouth into a determined line. “He couldn’t have gotten far,” she said. “He’s got to be nearby. We’ll find him. Come on.”
We walked down the street, calling his name, but I was now overcome with the fear that something bad had happened and there was nothing I could do about it.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Cole
He was gone.
Literally gone.
I’d pulled away from the kiss with Allie and looked down for him, and where he was supposed to be was just a blank space, empty air.
I didn’t know if the security guard was going to be able to help, so after I told him what Declan looked like, I took off. No way in hell was I just going to stand around there waiting for someone else to find him.
I went all the way around the block, calling his name. I ran into Allie and her mother, and they looked startled to see me.
“I don’t see him anywhere,” I said. “I don’t know if he managed to cross the street or something. I’ve got to keep looking...” I looked at Allie’s mom. “Would you stick around here, in case the security guards find him?”
“Of course,” she said. “And I just know he’ll turn up, I just know it—”
I didn’t stick around to hear the rest of what she had to say. Of course it was going to be something hopeful, something reassuring, but those words rang hollow to me right now. Most people go through life thinking this sort of thing would never happen to them, that the stories they see on the news or read about online happen to other people, but never them.
But what happens when one day you are that person?
I’d already been that person once, with everything that happened with my sister, and now here I was, potentially that person again. My feet thudded against the concrete. Sweat trickled down my brow. Where the fuck was he? How could someone his size have gotten so far?
There was an easy answer to that, of course, one that I was trying valiantly not to let enter my consciousness. It muscled its way in, though.
He got that far because someone took him.