The tears came hard and fast now, and Pete brought a shaking hand up to his mouth. My Mark… my Mark… Jesus Christ, where is he???
“Please, God,” he whispered. “Please let him be all right. I’ll do anything you want. Anything. Mark, I promise I won’t be mad. Please… please call us and let us know where you are. I’m so sorry I yelled at you this morning. I’m so sorry…”
The phone tumbled away and bounced on the carpet as he covered his face and sobbed. He tried to keep as quiet as possible, but the sorrow seemed to have become a living thing all its own, too powerful to contain.
At the touch of a hand on his shoulder, he almost yelled. He turned and found Kate there, the lightest of smiles on a face that was otherwise placid and untroubled. She reached up and delicately brushed a stray hair from his forehead. He barely noticed, just pulled her close, wrapping his arms around her as he hitched and sniffled.
“Jesus, Kate, it’s my fault he left in the first place.” Tears kept rolling out, leaving shiny tracks on his cheeks. “If I’d just kept my mouth shut, he’d still be here.”
“Don’t start blaming yourself,” she said softly. “He’s a teenager and he’s hard-headed. If he hadn’t gotten into it with you, he probably would’ve had an argument with me instead. It’s just the way he is right now.”
“I still should’ve tried harder. I’ve been trying to be better with him. Trying to hold my temper and be more flexible.”
“I know you have. And he knows it, too, believe me.”
She pulled back and held out a tissue, seeming to produce it out of thin air. It was a reminder of one of the qualities he admired most about her—she always seems to know what you need before you do.
He thanked her and wiped his face. Then he pulled her close again, kissing the top of her head. “I can’t imagine what on earth I’d do without you.”
“Let’s not find out,” she said.
He smiled. “Good idea.”
They were still embracing when Cary came running into the room, waving Kate’s cellphone in the air and screaming.
“Brett McDonald says he knows where Mark is!”
Pete never moved so fast in his life. He took the phone in hand and switched it to speaker.
“Hello? Hello?”
“Mr. Soames?”
“Yes, hi, Brett.” Pete liked Brett McDonald. He wasn’t exactly among the academic elite of Silver Lake High, but for as long as he and Mark had been friends, he always held down a job of one sort or another. Didn’t like to sit idle and waste his time, and knew the importance of earning your own way and having a few bucks in your pocket.
“You know where Mark is?” Pete asked.
“I think so,” the boy said nervously.
“Where?” Pete demanded.
“He’s went to Sharon Blake’s apartment.”
“Her apartment? Not her house?”
“No, she moved out a few months ago.”
Pete and Kate exchanged puzzled glances. They knew Sharon had serious issues with her parents. More than once, they’d discovered Mark and his other friends in the basement playroom, trying to comfort Sharon while she bawled like a toddler. One time she walked into their home sporting a black eye, and when Pete found out her stepfather du jour had given it to her, Kate had to restrain him from going over to the Blakes’ and giving the sonofabitch a little taste of his own. Kate had talked with Sharon a few times alone, offering support, advice, and whatever else she might need to get through another day.
“Is she still living in town?”
“Yeah, she’s on Emerson, number thirty-six, second floor.”
“How do you know Mark went there?”
“He called me when he was on the way. He said you guys had… uh… that you…”
“We had another fight, yeah,” Pete said. It wouldn’t be a normal day if we didn’t, right? Kate rubbed his back, probably in response to the guilt he could feel on his face.
Brett laughed uneasily but diplomatically said nothing.
“You’re sure he went there? Absolutely sure?”
“When he called me, he said, ‘I’m going to see Sharon for a little bit’ and told me I could come over if I wanted. But I had to work, and then this whole thing with the nuke plant happened and—”
Pete handed the phone back to Kate and headed for the basement.
The utility room was partitioned from the rest of the basement by a thin run of cheap paneling from the seventies. Half the space was used as a pantry for dry goods, cookbooks, paper plates and plasticware, a colorful variety of party items, and the kind of pots and pans that were called to duty only once or twice a year. The other half housed the furnace and the water heater, plus a small knotty pine dresser that had once been in Pete and Kate’s bedroom but now stored Pete’s work-around-the-house clothes.
He dropped into the folding chair next to the dresser and flipped off his loafers. Kate entered as he was pulling open the bottom drawer, where a pair of heavy work boots lay on their sides next to a plastic tub of rolled-up socks.
“Hon,” she said, “you’re not seriously thinking of going out there, are you?”
“No, not thinking about it — I’m doing it.” He unrolled a black pair of woolies and pulled them onto his feet.
“Pete, that’s crazy.”
He didn’t respond.
“The rain is—”
“I know, sweetheart, I know.” He stepped into the boots, cinched them tight, and stood up.
“We’ll call the police,” she said. “They’re already out, with their protective suits and oxygen masks.”
“We tried calling them,” Pete said bitterly. “They’re too busy.”
The first 911 call, about an hour and a half ago, resulted in a busy signal. The second had not connected at all. At that point, Pete had called the station directly. The phone rang eleven times before someone answered. The person on the other end told Pete that Mark’s description would be passed to the officers on patrol. The Soameses had no idea if that had been done; they hadn’t heard anything since.
“Then I’ll call Sarah,” Kate said.
She was on very friendly terms with Sarah Redmond. They had worked together on PTA fund-raisers, food drives, holiday decorations on the big fir tree that stood in front of the library, and numerous other functions. Several times Sarah had asked Kate to consider running for town council, with her election all but guaranteed because of Sarah’s endorsement. Pete had encouraged Kate, too, but his wife loathed politics and refused.
“No,” Pete said, shaking his head. Her suggestion smacked of the kind of favoritism he saw in every other quarter of society and couldn’t stand. “Please, Kate, don’t do that. She’s got enough on her plate right now. I can handle this.”
“I’m just talking about one phone call. Surely she can get one officer to—”
Pete took her by the shoulders. “I’m the reason this happened, and I’m going to be the reason it gets resolved.”