Thirty-seven.
As Iris stepped out of the house, Anne pulled up in a taxi. Somehow she covered the ground to her husband without touching it. “Is he back?”
Charlie shook his head, reaching for Anne, pulling her close. “He was right there,” he said, his words clear even from where Frances and Ava stood. “He was right there and . . .”
“Mom?” Lally appeared next to Frances. “Mom?”
Frances turned and looked down at Lally. “I’m sorry, baby, I’m really busy right now. We can’t find Theo. Have you seen him? Is he maybe playing hide and seek?”
Lally shrugged. “I guess he’s with Milo.”
Frances frowned, and Michael started toward them, noticing the sudden concern on his wife’s face. “Where’s Milo, Lally? Isn’t he in the house?”
The little girl shook her head. “No. He must have gone with Theo.” She frowned suddenly. “He borrowed some of my birthday money. He has to give it back, right?”
“What birthday money, baby?” Michael picked her up and looked at her closely. “When was this?”
“A little while ago. I was watching My Little Pony and Milo came in and asked if he could borrow some of my birthday money and I said yes if he gave it back and he said he would and then Twilight Sparkle and Spike had a big fight and now they’re not talking.” She hugged her dad. “Do you want to come watch?”
He shook his head and watched his wife run into their house. Ten seconds later she was out again, her face white. He got to the cop just before she did.
Forty minutes later Paul Ramirez’s squad car pulled up on the corner of the street, and he looked over at the gaggle of middle-class white people and sighed. No cop liked a missing kid. It always caused that twist in the gut, that fear that this was going to be one where a stranger had plucked a kid from the street and was even now doing unspeakable things. However, those cases were so rare Paul had never encountered one in nearly twenty years of being a cop, but what he did encounter all the time was kids running from their own parents. After some of those cases he almost wished for a stranger, someone whose evil was less . . . personalized.
He looked at the people standing there, already talking to another set of cops from his precinct and wondered if any of them had pushed this particular kid into running away. He examined the faces of the men briefly, as men were usually the ones who raped or beat or yelled, but he knew even as he did it that it was pointless. Evil was so good at hiding. He unlatched his seat belt and opened the car door. Kids were good at hiding, too. Hopefully it would just be one of those.
As he got closer he realized he recognized one of the women, although he didn’t know her. He’d seen her at his daughter’s school. She looked the same as she always did, a little unkempt, a little scruffy, a little overweight. Her jeans and hoodie were like his own uniform, and as consistent. There were several other women there, but only one was crying, so presumably she was the mom. That one was good looking, wearing expensive clothes and boots that would cost a week of his salary. It wasn’t important, he was just used to gathering impressions. If the cops were there, it didn’t matter who you were—and it certainly didn’t matter what you wore. The shit had somehow hit the fan, and in those moments they were all the same.
His colleague turned and raised a hand. “This is Detective Ramirez. He’s going to help us find the boys.”
Boys, plural? He’d missed that detail. OK, that shifted things again.
“Shall we go inside?” he asked, after nodding all around. “I know right now you want to be out there hunting for your children, but we need to issue a more detailed alert and I’m going to ask you some questions.”
Frances and Michael led him inside their house, with Charlie and Anne just behind. Several cops were already there, methodically searching every room. The first cops on the scene had asked for permission to search Anne and Charlie’s house, and that search was long underway and nearly done. Then, when it turned out Milo was gone, too, a second set of cops had entered Frances and Michael’s house.
“We often find the kids curled up behind a sofa somewhere,” a cop had explained, trying to be reassuring.
“They’re a little big for hide and seek,” Michael had said, but inside he hoped against hope he was wrong, that they’d find them and he could yell at them and hug them and send everyone home and it would just be one of those days he and Frances could look back on and shudder. Rather than the day when everything ended.
“So,” began Detective Ramirez, his notepad open on his knee. “Tell me about Milo and Theo. What’s been going on with them lately?”
“Nothing,” said Frances, speaking for the first time. This policeman looked vaguely familiar. “We’ve been getting along pretty well, to be honest. Milo’s a good kid, an easy kid.”
“And he and Theo are close?”
Frances turned up her palms. “They’re in class together at school. We carpool together. We’re neighbors. They hang out a lot. They play soccer together, you know.” She paused, unsure of what to say and what not to. She looked over at Anne, who was sitting very close to Charlie, holding his hand.
Charlie cleared his throat. “Theo’s been having a little bit of a harder time.” He looked at Anne. “His mom and I have recently separated, and it’s hard for the kids to understand.”
Looking at them sitting closely together it was also somewhat hard for the detective to understand, but he took Charlie at his word. “Could he have gone to find you, Mrs. Porter?”
Anne looked lost. “He hasn’t ever been to my apartment. He’s not very . . . resourceful. I don’t know if he could even find it.”
“Where is it?”
“It’s in the Palazzo.”
“You said they play soccer. Are they in AYSO?” The detective smiled at the parents when they nodded. “Well, the Palazzo’s across the street from the park, right? Maybe they know more than you realize.”
Michael looked at the detective with increased hope. Clearly this guy was on top of it, maybe he’d find the boys in the park, maybe they were just fooling around. This wasn’t possible, he knew it wasn’t, because Milo wasn’t that kind of kid, but then again he’d thought Anne Porter wasn’t that kind of wife. Or, indeed, that Charlie Porter wasn’t that kind of husband.
“Wait, what about her guy?” As he blurted it out he felt terrible for even mentioning it, but he couldn’t have held it in. He turned to Charlie. “I’m sorry, Charlie. But what about the guy?”
Charlie knew what he meant, but he looked at the ground rather than at his wife. It was she who spoke to the detective.
“Michael means the man I was having an affair with.” She shook her head. “He doesn’t know the kids. I haven’t spoken to him in nearly a month.”
“This is why you are currently separated?” The detective might have been discussing the weather. All these were just facts to him; none of it had feelings.
All four of them nodded, answering the question.
“But the affair is over?”
Anne and Frances both nodded, and the detective looked at Frances for a moment before looking down at his pad again. “I’ll still need his information, just to eliminate him.”
“Of course.”
The detective looked sympathetic. “It’s very hard not to feel responsible when a child goes missing, but try not to panic just yet. Children sometimes wander off to the store, or to have an adventure. The fact that both boys are together is reassuring. It’s much, much less likely they’ve been abducted.” He paused. The next part could be delicate. “Having said that, is there anything in the relationship between them that causes you concern?”
Michael answered. “How do you mean? They are ten years old, they’ve known each other their whole lives.”
“Children can be cruel to each other, sadly. Is it possible one of them is bullying the other? Or anything else?” The whisper of sexual abuse entered the room, and every adult felt suddenly guilty, whether they’d done anything or not.
The four parents in front of him shook their heads. “They argue over stuff like which Star Wars character would win in a fight with Superman, but neither of them are particularly aggressive.” Charlie felt defensive. He added, “Theo’s mad at me right now, but I don’t think he’d pick a fight with anyone else.” Suddenly he remembered the kid at school, and felt less sure of himself.
The detective looked at him curiously. “He’s mad with you, but not with his mother?”
Charlie nodded his head, then put it in his hands and started to sob. Anne put her arm around him, pulling him closer.
Frances got up suddenly and went into the other room, returning to hand the detective a photo in a frame. In it the two boys were dressed for Halloween, one of them Iron Man, the other Thor. They had their arms around each other, laughing hard because she’d told them to act tough and in tensing for the photo one of them had farted. It was one of Frances’s favorite photos, and suddenly she felt it was really important for the detective to see it.
Twenty minutes later the all-cars bulletin had gone out, photos of the two boys shared with every police station, squad car, helicopter, and individual officer instantaneously. When they’d last been seen, what they’d been wearing, the places they liked to go. Michael, Charlie, Sara, Iris, Ava, and Bill had set off, wandering the neighborhood calling and hunting. Extra police officers were on the way to assist.
Frances and Anne stayed at Frances’s house, both clutching their cell phones, watching over Lally, Kate, Wyatt, and Lucas. The kids were on beanbags, watching TV and blessedly distracted. Kate knew what was going on, and had been very upset. Mostly she seemed upset her brother had left her behind, but now Mickey Mouse was taking care of it.
The two mothers sat at the kitchen table and drank tea, neither one of them saying anything because Frances wanted to scream at Anne that this was her fault, and Anne knew it. Outside it was dark. In another half hour it would be time to make dinner. Had to keep the children they still had alive.