Lance stood at the kitchen counter, looking at the peanut butter and jelly sandwich he had made for himself. He had eaten half of it but hadn’t tasted a single bite. Would the police be calling him with updates? What was he going to do about Caitlin?
He had convinced her to lie down, but she needed more help than he could give her. Did you call 911 for that sort of thing, or could you just call a psychiatric hospital directly? Maybe she could just talk to someone, a therapist. He thought of her in Adam’s bedroom, tearing the place apart as she went through all of Adam’s drawings and babbled away, spewing nonsense. He feared her affliction may have been more than a therapist could handle. Plus, she would never go see one anyway.
She had been adamant that they weren’t going to take Adam to any sort of psychiatrist or therapist for his nightmares, so he didn’t see how he was going to convince her to seek professional help for herself. He slipped his phone out of his pocket and Googled “involuntary mental health treatment,” watching as a page of links loaded. Before he could click on any of them, he heard a car door close outside and went to the window. His mother stepped out of the passenger seat of the Mercedes, brushing invisible lint off her cardigan and smoothing out her unwrinkled pants. His stepfather climbed out from the driver’s seat, looking for all the world like he was about to play eighteen holes of golf. Lance went out to meet them.
“Have you heard anything?” his mother said.
Tucker had gone around to the trunk and was carrying out two overnight bags. Apparently, they were planning on staying here. Lance wondered what sort of state the guest bedroom was in and then decided that was the least of his worries.
“Nothing,” he said, answering his mother. He gave her a perfunctory cheek kiss. They weren’t huggers. “Let me help you with those,” he said to Tucker, but his stepfather waved him off.
The three of them settled in the living room. Well, as settled as any of them could be. Lance found he was too restless to sit. He had asked them to keep their voices down since Caitlin was resting upstairs, which had earned him a sour look from his mother.
“I’ve already called Garvey,” Tucker said. “Left a message for him. He’s a top-notch criminal attorney. One of the best.”
“Thank you,” Lance said.
“He was kidnapped from your car?” Raquel asked. Lance had done his best to catch her up to speed, but maybe he hadn’t been too clear about things.
“Caitlin’s car,” Lance said.
“You were with her?” Raquel asked.
“I was at work,” Lance said. “She was out running errands, stopped at the store, forgot Adam was in the backseat.”
Raquel nodded as she took this information in. He waited for some dig to come, but surprisingly his mother kept her mouth shut.
“Well, do the police have suspects? Do they have any idea where he might be?” Raquel asked.
“They issued an Amber Alert,” Lance said. “I got it on my phone.”
“The police are incompetent,” Tucker said. “I’m going to hire a private investigator.”
“Thanks, but—” Lance began, but his stepfather cut him off.
“There’s this fellow out in California who did a bang-up job with a kidnapping case out there. Got the kid returned safe and sound without a scratch on her and kept the whole ugly thing out of the papers. They’re family friends. I’ve got a call in to them to get this guy’s number.”
Lance sighed. His stepfather just wanted to help, but it was bad enough he had the police breathing down his neck, he didn’t look forward to some ace private investigator sticking his nose into things. Well, with any luck they would have this all sorted before Sherlock Holmes even stepped onto a plane. How far could Adam be? Even the incompetent local police must have picked up some sort of trail by now.
“Can I get you anything to eat or drink?” Lance asked.
“Who can think about food at a time like this,” Raquel asked. Then she stood up and went into the kitchen.
Lance followed her and heard his stepfather making a phone call as soon as they left the room.
He went for the refrigerator, but his mother waved him away. She pulled out milk and eggs. She grabbed a frying pan from the cabinet and set it on the stove. Within minutes she was chopping a pepper and then a block of cheese.
“Mom, you don’t have to,” Lance said.
“Well, I have to do something,” she said.
He remembered her obsessive cleaning after Lily’s murder.
“You know, I’m mad at you,” she said as she whisked the eggs and milk together.
“Join the club.” He was angry at himself for not getting Caitlin the help she needed. He couldn’t imagine what his mother was mad at him about. But maybe she knew Caitlin had been spiraling out of control and he had dropped the ball. His mother always seemed to know more than he realized.
“You were all the way out there last week, and you didn’t come see us.” Raquel tossed a pat of butter into the hot frying pan, and it sizzled and spat. Satisfied, she poured the egg mixture into the pan. “Pamela Duke said she saw you and Adam at the miniature golf course. She said she waved to you, but you didn’t see her.”
“I, uh,” Lance stammered. She had caught him off guard. He didn’t have any sort of explanation ready. “It’s a long story,” he finally said.
His mother pursed her lips as she poked at the eggs with a spatula.
“I don’t know why you would go to that seedy old place,” Raquel said. “You can play anytime you want with Tucker at the club. Anyway, I felt like a big old fool when Pamela told me that story.”
“Yeah, Mom, maybe don’t mention that to Caitlin, okay?” Lance said.
She turned to give him a look, then shrugged and returned her attention to the omelet.
“You really don’t know what happened to Adam?” she asked quietly as she folded the chopped peppers and cheese into the eggs.
“What the hell kind of question is that?” Lance asked. Did his own mother suspect him? Jesus! She turned to look at him, expectant. “No, of course I don’t know what happened to him.”
Raquel pulled some dishes out of the cabinet and set them on the counter.
“Come on,” she said. “You need to eat something.”
“I need to check on my wife,” Lance said, and on cue Caitlin stepped into the kitchen. Though it didn’t seem possible, she looked more crazed and frazzled than she had before.
Raquel thrust a dish at each of them. The sunny yellow omelet steamed.
“You need to eat something,” Raquel said. “Both of you.”
They carried the plates over to the table, and Lance shoved forkfuls of the eggs into his mouth without tasting them. Caitlin sat beside him, but she looked like she was a million miles away.
“Uh, Lance,” Tucker called from the living room. “There’s an airport shuttle in your driveway.”
“My mom!” Caitlin jumped up, and her fork fell onto the dish with a clatter. “I forgot!”
Lance followed her outside in time to see Luanne step out of the van dressed in cheetah-print leggings and an oversized T-shirt that read “Gambling Grandma” and featured an illustration of a slot machine. She was followed out of the vehicle by a gray-haired man in an equally loud shirt, though his was of a Hawaiian style.
Luanne ran up the driveway to Caitlin and enveloped her daughter in a smothering hug.
“Oh, baby,” Luanne said. “How are you holding up?”
If Caitlin replied, it was lost in the folds of Luanne’s T-shirt.
“Hey,” the guy in the Hawaiian shirt said to Lance.
“Oh, I almost forgot,” Luanne said, releasing Caitlin from her embrace. “This is Stu.” She waved a hand at the man with her, then waved toward Caitlin and Lance. “Stu, this is my daughter Caitlin and my son-in-law Lance.”
Stu nodded at Caitlin, then shook Lance’s hand as he muttered something about wishing it was under better circumstances. They went into the house, where more introductions followed, and Lance was surprised he didn’t catch his mother roll her eyes even a single time.
When Tucker’s phone rang, everyone turned to stare at it expectantly. Tucker slipped into the kitchen to take the call in private, but Lance strained to listen, hoping he could hear at least half the conversation. That proved fruitless. His mother-in-law decided histrionics were in order and began a loud, melodramatic tirade about the insanity and the injustice of the whole situation.
“I can’t believe you didn’t see this coming,” she said to Caitlin, which seemed like a weird and completely insensitive thing to Lance, but that was Luanne for you.
When Tucker returned to the living room a few minutes later, he waved Lance over and in low tones explained that he had gotten ahold of the attorney, Garvey, and he was on his way.
“I’m famished,” Luanne announced. “They didn’t feed us anything but pretzels on the flight, and we missed lunch.”
Lance followed his wife and mother-in-law into the kitchen, while Stu stayed behind in the living room, promising to show a video on his phone that would make Raquel and Tucker bust a gut laughing.
Since he had last seen her, Luanne had switched to a gluten-free diet, and after a quick survey of the kitchen pantry, half a bag of certified gluten-free tortilla chips was located. Luanne dragged one of the counter stools over to the too-low table and sat sideways on the stool while she ate the chips straight from the bag, crunching loudly.
“What happened?” she demanded as Caitlin stirred the now cold omelet around on her plate without really eating.
“I forgot he was in the car,” Caitlin said. “I went into the store, and when I came out, he was gone.”
Caitlin’s voice was flat and expressionless as she spoke the words. It was like she was reading from a script. He hated how vulnerable she sounded. He hated himself for bringing this on her.
“But, I mean, how?” Luanne demanded, spraying tortilla chip crumbs on the table. “How could you not have seen this coming?”
It was the second time Luanne had asked that question, and Lance squirmed as he stood at the counter watching the two of them. He didn’t think it was at all helpful that Luanne and Stu had shown up. Raquel at least had cooked them food, and Tucker had been busy working the phone, hiring an attorney. In what way were Luanne and Stu contributing?
“Do you think you could stop picking on her?” Lance asked.
Luanne gave him a surprised look. The slot machine graphic on the front of her shirt was littered with crumbs.
“I just don’t understand how—” Luanne began.
“It’s okay,” Caitlin said. She offered Lance a weak smile as she shoved the unfinished omelet away from her.
“What you should do is go to sleep,” Luanne said.
“I just took a nap,” Caitlin said.
“No, a nap’s not good enough. You need to go to sleep for the night, really get the old REM going.”
Lance was surprised to see that the comment upset Caitlin more than her mother’s how-could-you-not-have-seen-this-coming question. Well, maybe it was because of the reference to dreams. Didn’t Luanne know her daughter didn’t dream?
It made him think of Adam and his nightmares, and that stupid trip he made out to Culver Creek. What were the chances that one of his mother’s friends would see him out there? It didn’t matter. At least he didn’t think it mattered, but what if Raquel let something slip to Caitlin. Well, that, like everything else, would be all his fault.
What had he been thinking? He never should have taken Adam to that dream whisperer, but at the very least he should have told Caitlin about it. If he had told her ahead of time, she would have stopped him from going and that would have been the best thing all around. But at the very least, he should have told her after the fact. She deserved that much. It didn’t affect anything. Still, after all he had put her through, he needed to be completely honest with her. And he would start right now, this second. It came with the added benefit of getting Luanne out of Caitlin’s hair.
“If you don’t mind, I’d like to talk to Caitlin alone,” Lance said. He approached the kitchen table.
“What, now?” Luanne had abandoned the tortilla chips on the table.
“Yes,” Lance said. “We’ll just be a few minutes.” Lance stopped short of pointing toward the living room, but he sort of nodded in that direction, and Luanne got the message.
She clambered off the stool and started toward the living room, but she stopped in the doorway.
“Don’t you think it would make sense to get some sleep?” Luanne said to Caitlin. “You know what they say, the first twenty-four hours of a missing persons case are crucial.”
Lance waited until he was sure Luanne was out of earshot before he asked, “What was that all about?”
“She’s really into those police shows,” Caitlin said. That hadn’t been what he meant. He meant about Luanne’s weird insistence that Caitlin get some sleep, but he wasn’t going to get into that now.
Lance sat down at the kitchen table across from Caitlin. Despite the harrowing day, despite her frazzled state, she was still beautiful, and he was so completely in love with her. It was that love that gave him the courage to go on.
“Remember Saturday when Adam and I had our boys’ day out?” he asked.
“There’s something I need to tell you,” Caitlin said.
“Okay,” he said, “but me first.”
She smiled at this, and his heart just about broke with how beautiful she was. How had he failed so horribly to protect her?
“The thing is,” Lance began. He heard the chime noise from the living room, and even though it was familiar, he first thought it must be coming from somebody’s phone. Maybe that private investigator was texting Tucker back. Maybe someone had commented on Luanne’s latest Facebook post. He heard the movement and commotion in the living room, but it was a world away. In fact, he was grateful for it. It would make it that much more difficult for anyone to listen in on their private conversation. “I was worried about Adam and his nightmares,” Lance said. “I only wanted to help. I didn’t know what else to do.”
He saw the stricken look that passed over his wife’s face at the same time he heard Tucker call his name. He looked between Caitlin and the living room, which was when he realized the chime he heard hadn’t been a phone alert at all. He knew the sound because it was their doorbell.
Raquel poked her head in the kitchen. “Lance, honey, the police are here. They’ve asked to speak with you.”
A wounded animal sort of cry burst forth from Caitlin’s mouth.
“It’s probably nothing,” he reassured her, and he gave her hand a little squeeze before standing up and walking to the door, his heart hammering away in his chest.