Fear of the world, her husband, Stephen, calls it, but it’s more like fear of all the bad things waiting to ruin the lives of good people. Sensible fears, if you read the papers or listen to the news. Toilets falling from airplanes, crushing the innocent. Drive-by shootings. Mysterious diseases. Planes full of madmen crashing into skyscrapers. Fear is the reasonable reaction, is it not?
“Jesse? Hide-and-seek is over, honey. Olly-olly-entry!”
Silence in all the five rooms of her home. Silence from the basement, too.
Where is that boy? Must be in his room, hiding under the bed with all that dangerous dust and mold. Bad for his respiratory system, so they say, and Lyla believes it, as she believes every warning of impending disaster. Inhale too much dust and your child will develop asthma. Eat too much peanut butter, he’ll develop allergies. She tries to warn him about such things, but he’s just a boy and believes he’ll live forever.
“Jesse? Come out, dear. Supper’s almost ready. Your favorite, hamburger casserole.”
Her son’s bed is neatly made. Did she do that? Must have, he’d never fit the sheets like that, or smooth the blanket and pillow. Lyla gets down on her hands and knees, lifts the skirt of the bed. There he is, in the far corner!
No, no, only a shadow. A shadow shaped like a boy.
Closet! Yes, of course, why didn’t she think of that first? He must be in the closet, watching her through the vents in the door. Naughty boy.
Lyla opens the closet door, sweeps back the clothes hangers. She has the distinct impression that Jesse was in the closet very recently. She can smell the scent of his skin, his hair. Must have slipped out while she was looking under the bed.
What Lyla wants to do is lie down in the closet and sleep with the smell of him on her hands, her hair. Dreaming that her son is close by, just out of sight, and that soon all will be well, and Jesse will be safe again. But she can’t sleep, not until she’s found him.
Lyla searches all five rooms again, and then ventures into the basement. Down the sturdy steps, clutching the handrail. Pulls the string on the bare lightbulb. A basket of laundry perches on the washing machine. More of his clothes, including his grass-stained uniform. The Mystic Pirates. Not for the first time, Lyla carefully takes the soiled uniform from the basket and holds it up, as if looking for clues to her son’s whereabouts. The grass stains, of course, and the usual dirt on the knees, but is that splotch under the letters a bloodstain?
Anxiety thrums through her body like a jolt of electricity. Heart fluttering, she races up the basement steps with Jesse’s uniform top in her hands. Wanting to show her husband this new evidence that something is wrong, terribly wrong. Something has happened to Jesse, something that made him bleed on his Little League uniform.
At the top of the stairs Lyla trips and falls to her knees, sliding on the slick linoleum.
“Steve!” she cries out. “Steve, come look! Blood!”
But the house is empty. In the oppressive silence, Lyla gets shakily to her feet. Clutching the stained uniform, she heads into the living room.
“Oh, God,” she whispers. “Bring him home. Make him safe.”
There on the mantel above the fireplace is a framed photograph that brings her a little peace, in the brief interval before she must begin searching again. In the photograph, Jesse’s Little League uniform is clean. No grass stains, no bloodstains. He’s just made fun of her for ironing the uniform—They’re supposed to be wrinkled, Mom, don’t you get it?—but he’s obviously pleased by all the attention. Look at the grin on his face as he poses with a bat, taking the stance, eyes bright and fearless. Her perfect, flawless son.
Lyla collapses onto the couch, clutching the framed photograph and the soiled uniform. She will allow herself to weep, but only for a few minutes. She has much work to do, and weeping exhausts her. First she must search the house again. Five rooms and the basement. And then if Jesse still isn’t there, she’s going to do a thing that has been forbidden to her. She’s going to use the cell phone and make the call and demand to know where her son is, and when he will be returned.
Never call, she has been told in no uncertain terms.
But no one can stop a mother from trying to contact her own son, can they?
The decision to use the forbidden number gives her strength. She gets up from the couch, still holding the photo and uniform to her breast, and begins the endless circuit. Room to room, searching for her missing child.
4 the man in the mask
“Sit down, Mrs. Bickford. May I call you Kate?”
I’m frozen. Can’t seem to move. The gun terrifies me but I can’t stop looking at it. Easier staring at the dark and shiny gun, rather than into the glittering eyes of the man in the black ski mask.
“Obviously you’re frightened.” The voice coming out of the mask is low and smooth, with a tone of preening confidence that makes me hate him. How dare he break into our house? “It’s okay to be scared,” he continues amiably. “But if you don’t sit down in that chair I’m going to have to shoot you in the kneecap or something, and that will make things complicated. So sit down. NOW.”
I find myself in the chair, unable to breathe, unable to stop staring at the gun, which seems to be pointing right into my eyes, or beyond my eyes, into my brain.
“Better,” says the man in the mask.
“Who are you?” I manage to say. “What do you want?”
“Better and better. Take a few more deep breaths, would you, Kate? Feel better? Good. Put your hands on the arms of the chair, where I can see them. Excellent. Now, stop looking at the gun and look at me.”
I force myself to look at the mask. I’ve seen pictures of guys dressed like this, snipers or SWAT guys or whatever. Never expected to see one of them in my own house, a living nightmare perched on my favorite chair. The mask has a big hole for the mouth, so he’s speaking clearly, unmuffled. Very white teeth. Capped or bleached, hard to say. The mouth is neither old nor young. My age, more or less.
“Good. Better. Just try to relax and we’ll get on with business.”
“Where’s my son?” It bursts out of me, much higher-pitched than my normal voice. As if some other, younger me is crying out.
“Tomas? Not to worry, Mom. Tomas is in a safe place.” A sneer on the lips. Very pleased with himself. But the gun never wavers. Very steady hands. Hands that scare me almost as much as the gun. Hands that must have touched my son.
“Where?” I demand. “Where is he?”
“That’s enough,” he says. “No more questions.”
“If you hurt him…! If he’s been harmed in any way…!”
The man in the mask leans forward, bringing the gun closer. “Shut up, Kate. You want to be a good mommy? You want the kid back in one piece? Then shut up and listen.”
I start to reply, then stop. Part of me, the small, unpanicked part, understands that I must do what he says.
“Fine,” he says. “Very good. Must be a terrible shock, huh? Coming in and finding a stranger in your house. Hate to tell you this, but your security system sucks.” He takes a deep, satisfied breath and settles back into my chair. “Okay, you want to know what this is about? Go on, ask away.”