No. Danielle wanted to make the word push past her lips, but it hovered there. Reid, her baby. Her baby who she’d let play with his friends, running between the fields while she and Garrett watched the game. Garrett couldn’t hold her gaze, straining, frantic, searching. Searching for their son.
“Reid?” Danielle asked, her voice thin, high, frightened. Not her voice. Perhaps the same one her mother used as she called for Jonathan.
“A man. I think he grabbed him,” Garrett said, his voice raw and his eyes wild. “I didn’t see. I didn’t. Reid’s missing.”
“Reid?” she cried again, her voice stronger. Instinct directed her to the left, caused her to crane her neck and run . . . search for her baby.
“Reid,” she screamed, louder than she’d ever yelled.
“What’s going on here?” A man caught her arms at her biceps, swung her around to face him.
“M-my son,” Danielle huffed, sobbed. “M-my son is missing.”
Oh, God. The pain. Her heart, her head, filled with images of Jonathan’s death—what it could be.
No.
NO.
“Reid?” she called again, straining to look around the man, look toward the parking lot. They’d have to go there—more cars were parked beyond. It was Friday night—cars pulled in and doors slammed. People laughed.
Laughed.
Her son was missing.
Danielle tried to dart around the man; she needed to find her son. Garrett was in the parking lot now, running between the rows, calling.
The man in front of her placed his hands on her shoulders. He wore blue. Had a badge. An officer. She focused on him.
No, he wouldn’t help. Not as fast as Chief Hardesty. She fumbled in her pocket as the police officer tried to talk to her, tried to gather information. She found Chief Hardesty’s number.
“My son,” she cried into the phone as soon as Arlen rumbled out a polite hello. “Reid is missing. From the baseball field. My father was here . . . my father,” she moaned.
The officer shook her, speaking but Danielle couldn’t focus on him.
“Jesus H. Christ. You sure?” Hardesty barked.
“He was playing on the field next to us. I went to talk to my father, to ask him to leave. Now Reid is gone. Garrett said . . . we can’t find him.”
“Son of a bitch,” Chief Hardesty mumbled.
The idea of history repeating itself was something Danielle furiously disavowed, even in her head. By not letting the past touch her, grip at more than the edges of her consciousness, Danielle tried to pretend it had never happened, that nothing would happen to her child. Jonathan’s murder had been a random, violent act.
That’s what she’d told herself.
She’d lived in a bubble of false security for years. Only Danielle knew it was false, which made it that much more tenuous and precious.
“He’s gone.”
“We need to talk to Hank. Pronto. Faster we get information, better chance of finding Reid.”
“What do I do?” Danielle cried.
“Get them to shut down those games. Code Adam. Tell the police there it’s a Code Adam.”
The police officer stopped shaking her when Arlen’s words floated through the airwaves, reaching him.
“Code Adam?” he asked. “Who are you talking to, miss?”
“Who’s that?” Hardesty asked.
“A p-police officer.” Her teeth chattered.
“Put the man on the phone, Danielle. Now.” Hardesty used his bossiest voice and Danielle complied, too dazed and scared to do anything but obey.
The officer asked a few questions, listened intently. He spoke into his walkie-talkie attached to his shoulder. It crackled. Voices rose from it. In the distance, sirens wailed.
Code Adam.
Danielle’s knees gave out. Garrett caught her, wrapped her in his arms. She clutched at him, using him as a lifeline.
“He’s not in the parking lot. He’s not there, Dani.”
Oh, God. Reid.