Chapter Ten

Missing

September, Two Years Ago

“Come on, slow poke!” I hollered as I reached another impassable granite boulder. By boulder, I meant car-sized obstruction on our trail. Good grief, Katahdin was a relentless mountain. Most challenging one yet. Especially on our mid-thirty-something bodies.

Harrison huffed as he caught up to me on the trail. “I’m not the spry guy you traipsed all over New Zealand and Australia with, am I?”

I wiped sweat from my brow and then did the same to his high forehead as we both caught our breath. “Slow and steady wins the race.” He removed his ballcap and ran a hand through his thinning, ash-blond hair.

He managed a tight-lipped smile, but a lively twinkle sparkled at me. He planted a peck on my lips. “If we ever get there.” He slid his hat on his head.

I sipped from the water pouch tucked in my daypack and examined the large granite glacial rock before me. “The books said this trail was the easiest way. Ha. Longest. Definitely strenuous. Easiest? I beg to differ.”

Harrison equally surveyed the mounds of rocks before us. He rubbed his arthritic knee. “Yeah, hardly.”

“Okay, strong guy. I need help. No grips or ladders. Push me.”

He did. He gave my bottom a firm push. His hands purposely rested longer on my rear than was necessary. I chuckled and then heaved myself over the boulder. “How do short girls, with no knights at their side, do this? You can’t exactly push a strange woman up by her backside.”

Harrison laughed as he hoisted himself effortlessly, although with a painful wince, after me. I stuck my tongue out at him. “You suck.”

We scrambled over granite boulders the size of refrigerators and sofas. I shielded my eyes from the nearly midday-sun glare. An endless azure sky and craggy mountain dominated the scenery.

We drew closer to the peak. “Maybe this is it?”

“Two false peaks already.”

Nope, it wasn’t. Damn, this mountain was hard. Katahdin provoked us as we continued our trek over a third false peak. “I think we’re getting close,” I said.

“Well, the Gateway is the toughest stretch,” Harrison said.

“I’ll be doing the ouch-shuffle for days,” I added, rubbing my quads, allowing my heartrate to recover. I puffed my inhaler and paused. “Let’s rest,” I offered as Harrison caught his breath and grimaced, unsuccessfully hiding his knee pain. The doctor had said no more hikes. Did he listen? Well, part of it was me. You only had so much time in life to enjoy your passions.

Several other hikers found our cluster of carefully stacked rocks to be a worthy resting spot. We exchanged exhausted smiles with them.

Harrison opened his trusty old compass, which had joined us on our trips to New Zealand, Australia, Utah, California, and Scotland. Bulky, it’d triggered a frisk and closer examination by the TSA staff at an airport on our way to Utah. I smirked. “Why do you carry that clunky thing around? Doesn’t your smartphone have GPS?”

“It’s fun,” he said.

Old atlases and compasses…my husband who worked in a high-tech science career still loved the classic tools of explorers. He worked the compass, and then he pulled the map from his backpack. Well, even I thought trail maps were cool.

“You’re my North,” he said.

I smiled and leaned in for a kiss. “And you’re mine.”

I handed him a clementine and captured a few photos of the green valley carved by glaciers. Far below us, streams meandered and trickled through the tree line and waterfalls cascaded down the rocks we’d traversed hours before. A sudden wind gusted, and I clung to our precarious outcrop. Harrison embraced me, and I let my body rest into his, not bothered by his sweat.

“We’ve got this,” I said to him.

“Always the optimist, my darling,” Harrison said, rubbing and stretching his knees. I was impressed though. He was hanging in there.

“It’s how we roll. I’m your cheerleader, honey. I’ll get you there. Just don’t lose me on the way down.”

“Never, my HBA.”

Honey baby angel—my nickname he had given me in grad school. HBA. Not sure how we’d created that one.

We laughed. On all our mountain climbs, I was the one who cheered us up, up, up. He moaned and sighed and heaved. He was the one who suggested we turn around on many hikes. Not me. I had goals! The descent was a different story though. My legs vibrated, knees buckled, and feet ached as we scrambled down. He’d always lose me in the scree somewhere or in the maze of rocky boulders. We made a great team on all our climbs though: Mt. Washington and Franconia Ridge in New Hampshire, Mt. Mansfield in Vermont, and next, Mt. Marcy in New York. Our goal was to hit all the highest peaks in New England and beyond. We’d bagged our fair share of mountains in other places, too, like Beinn Eighe in Scotland, parts of Mt. Aspiring and Mt. Cook in New Zealand, and a few foothills in the Sierra Nevada range. I was his yin and he my yang.

Now Katahdin. The beast. Or at least that’s what I liked to call it.

I searched my pack for a chocolate chip granola bar.

“Katahdin means ‘greatest mountain.’ Named by the Penobscot Indians,” he said matter-of-factly.

I tore open the granola bar and bit into it, ignoring the calories. I’d burn five thousand today. “You’ve mentioned that before.”

He scratched his chin. “Ah.”

He had a habit of repeating the same stories, facts, and statistics as if it were the first time. Like father, like son. I loved that about him though.

I poked his shoulder. “You too tired from this morning?” We’d camped in Katahdin Stream campground the night before and had gotten a six a.m. start after an early morning tent dalliance, our nearest company the squawk of birds by the stream. What was with men and tents? Perhaps it was the intimacy. We shared a compact, two-person tent that lacked standing room, offering plenty of opportunity to get close.

He smirked back. “Never.”

We were pushing noon. I was going to hurt for days. Perhaps the hotel we’d presciently booked for tonight had a soaking tub. Daylight was going to be at our back by the time we completed the eleven-hour, ten-mile hike.

However, a sun-drenched September with a brilliant sky and ideal temperature gifted us. Pleasant company, too, although he continued to grumble.

Harrison stood and looked skyward. “We need to reach the summit soon.”

We scrambled, huffed, moaned, and stopped aplenty.

Harrison cursed as he slipped and scraped a knee. Angst wrinkled his high forehead.

“Stop it,” I said.

He glared at me. “Stop what?”

“Thinking about work.”

He compressed his lips in his usual passive-aggressive avoidance.

“They’re okay. They won’t die without you.”

I could use you, I wanted to say. I wasn’t going to start another argument today. I’d let the resentment about the laundry list of tedious tasks I did daily because my husband worked long hours continue to bubble and hiss. Another time. It’s not like he didn’t already know about my grievances. He wasn’t going anywhere. We’d get through this phase like we did with all the others.

The sulky quietness continued as we huffed along through car-sized sections of boulders stacked, wedged, and nestled in such a way that made climbing hard without the few handholds and simple metal rungs for gripping. I was sure I’d be seeing gray-speckled granite slabs in my sleep.

Harrison said, “Allen is such an ass. He was harping on me about delegating work. Delegate to whom? He won’t hire me any replacements for Rob or Chandra. The clients won’t let up. Allen says work harder. Harder? Yet also delegate? How do I do both? I can only put in so many hours a week.”

Try seventy. Yeah, I’d counted. “They’re okay. You can check your email when we get to the hotel tonight.”

Could we enjoy one day without them? I fumed internally, attacking the rocks.

Finally, the false peaks and miles of boulder scrambles were behind us, and we reached the alpine tablelands. I adjusted my backpack, chugged water, and turned to enjoy the 360-degree view. We had another mile to the actual summit, but I absorbed the eerie beauty. “It’s like another planet.”

“Ha, like Mars. I bet Will would say that, huh?” Harrison echoed my sentiments.

“Wow, yes.” Rusty red-brown vegetation and short alpine grasses carpeted the rocky and mostly flat mile of tableland. My feet, knees, hands, butt, and abs all sighed. I squinted at Katahdin’s summit, Baxter Peak, in the distance. One final five-hundred-foot ascent after the next mile and we’d be there. I paused to look around, and of all places, on the flat tableland, took a wrong step and nearly twisted my ankle.

“Damn!”

“Close one. You okay?” Harrison said, approaching.

Frazzled, I inhaled but breathed a sigh. “Yeah.” Ever since my tumble down the steps to feed our cat Snow, and the sickening cracks associated with that fall, my right ankle liked to give me a hard time.

“And to think the kids want another cat!” Harrison said too gleefully for my liking.

I shot him my best evil glare. He laughed. I rubbed my ankle.

I was grateful we’d taken this way instead of the Chimney Pond route. We’d hiked to the pond on a previous trip, and one glance up that steep side had me reconsidering the Knife’s Edge. Hell, no.

Quite opposite from the placid, gravelly, and peculiar tableland, party central welcomed us at the summit. Harrison pointed to a couple of twenty-somethings sharing beers, yes, beers at the top. One guy stood by the Katahdin signpost and held his tattered backpack over his head. He was definitely a through-hiker who had conquered the entire two thousand miles of the Appalachian Trail. People laughed, snapped photos, drank, and—

“God, is that champagne?” I asked.

Harrison sniggered. “Naturally!”

I snapped dozens of photos. I gawked over the other edge, and by edge I meant sheer drop, to Chimney Pond and the three trails leading to the summit from that side. Below seemingly tiny deep blue lakes winked at us. To our east teased the jagged Knife’s Edge. My fear of heights—okay, my fear of falling—would’ve halted me there. However, it was a breathtaking sight!

“Look at that!”

“You wouldn’t have made it,” Harrison said.

“Nope. Glad we took the Hunt Trail.”

We ate in silence, taking it all in. “Maybe one day, the boys would want to do this,” Harrison said.

I bit into my turkey sandwich. “Maybe.”

We were both aware that Will didn’t have it in him. Finn, maybe. “Let’s try smaller ones first. They do like camping.”

“Is he going to be okay, AJ?” Harrison said, his voice low as he tipped his head back to look at a cluster of puffy clouds.

I rested my hand on his knee. He interlaced his fingers with mine.

When Harrison’s melancholy about Will kicked in, my hopeful optimism evaporated.

A perfect metaphor straddled us. Rough-edged granite boulders. I was my family’s rock. Even rocks cracked and eroded, though. Doubts wormed their way in and joined the turkey sandwich in my stomach. And here I’d thought I had adjusted well to Will’s diagnosis. Maybe not so much. “Yeah. He will be.”

“It’s my fault,” Harrison said.

“Nonsense. He’s both of us.”

“Yeah, but…”

“Nonsense,” I said firmly. “You’ve done well in life. Look, you’ve got me!”

My attempt at humor didn’t work on him. He hunched forward, a frown creasing his face.

I thought about all the childhood tales that Patsy had regaled us with through the years. Harrison had been a tough kid. He’d been labeled with ADHD and autism, but Patsy scoffed at labels, and I never got a real answer from her about the “label.” The 1980s had been a nebulous decade…they had pushed the limited meds available at the time on her as a solution. Not for her son. Instead, she shuffled him to different schools, quit her job, and worked hard to see him and his younger brother, who now lived and worked in London, succeed.

Beside me sat a PhD scientist—with an awesome and understanding wife—who had prevailed. Sure, he was quirky, socially awkward, and not the best at reading me…but God, he was loyal, loving, smart, and we shared a great fondness for learning and nature. All couples had their flawed communication skills and longing to be understood by their partner. We tried. We tried damn hard. He was a doting father to the boys. We shared a lot of similar interests and sitting on this weathered granite intrusion was one of them.

And I loved him dearly.

Okay, Will was a lot like him. So what? Harrison turned out well. “He’ll be fine,” I repeated.

Despite my hiker’s appetite, I couldn’t finish my sandwich. “I think I should quit my job.”

“What? You love writing for the magazine.”

I tucked my sandwich away, turning from Harrison, because the real reason I needed to quit couldn’t be said. I didn’t want to stir up an argument of who did more. Nobody ever won that debate. Frankly, I couldn’t juggle it all anymore between Will’s needs, the household, my part-time work, and dreams to write. The list was long. I was the one who stayed home and rearranged around the quandary of snow or vacation days, summers, appointments, illnesses. Work at home with our two kids was impossible. Novels took a lot of time, too. It wasn’t a nooks and crannies kind of career. I was tired thinking about it all. All I said though was, “I need time to work on my novels.”

Harrison saw through my vagueness, but he didn’t say anything. He knew. I knew. Something had to go. Although I identified with and enjoyed my journalism job at the magazine, where I interviewed locals along the Maine coast and into the Massachusetts and New Hampshire regions, and highlighted the cultural and socio-economic hallmarks of New England, it wasn’t my passion. I loved writing fiction.

“Maybe in a year?” I offered in my usual indecisive fashion.

“Yeah, give it time, honey baby angel. You’ll get there,” he said. He took my hand in his and kissed it. I smiled at his baby blues.

We hiked quieter, Harrison grumbling less, both of us reflective. That’s the thing with hikes. Your brain pondered, daydreamed, worried, zoned out. You snapped at your spouse from exhaustion. It brought out the best and worst in you.

“Wouldn’t it be great to take the boys to see Yellowstone?” Harrison said on the descent.

“It would be.”

“Then let’s do it.”

I heaved a resigned sigh as I gauged the hike down. Well, it had been worth it. “Can you swing the time off?”

“Allen can suck it. Yes. I have so many vacation hours, and I get that bonus in January. Next summer?”

Elation eased my achy knees, shins, feet, and hands as we daydreamed about our first family trip via airplane to Yellowstone and the grand Northwest circle of a volcanic wonderland. Harrison mused, excited to explore an opportunity that the boys would adore.

We laughed about the boys’ latest escapades at home. We gloried in Will’s abilities to remember facts and draw kick-ass maps and charts. We fantasized about all the parks we’d visit on our trip. Harrison teased me about my fear of bears. I poked his slightly bulging gut, pointing out how many calories and pounds he’d shed today.

We held hands through the flatter tableland until we reached the drop off to start the steep descent into the rocky boulders and tree line. I slid on my hands and bottom more times than I could count, and my scraped palms would surely remember it come morning. Harrison soon lost me in the maze of boulders that were the Gateway.

We fell into our comfortable hiking rhythm as we let the day settle into our souls, as it warmed our hearts, and reconnected us in the way it always did.

****

Present Day

Usually a light sleeper, and probably half expecting our former travel companion to reappear, I was roused around five a.m. by heated whispers in our campsite.

“Clara, check the doors,” a voice growled.

I lay perfectly still and listened, stupefied with sleep and still clinging to the dream—well, a vivid memory, actually—I had about Harrison. I blinked as wakefulness shrouded the last threads of my dream.

I held my breath.

“They’re all locked, Denny.”

Heavy footsteps trotted toward my car. Somebody jiggled the door handles louder and cursed. “Come here. We’ll take the bikes at least.”

I felt around for the tire iron and realized it was still in my numb hand. Will stirred beside me. He had my morning alertness. Don’t wake, I willed him. No use. He spoke. “Mom?”

For f’s sake. Okay, there, I didn’t say that word as much as I wanted to. Perhaps Will’s reminders were working on me. But my God. Another robbery or attempt? This made three on my trip, and I was only in Missouri. What the hell was wrong with people? Did I wear a target on my shirt?

“Mom, what’s that noise?” his voice squeaked, not frightened, but curious.

I put my fingers on his lips to shush him.

“Bad people?” he whispered, getting the hint as I slowly removed my fingers. He hugged Douglas closer to his chest.

I nodded. I needed to pay better heed to my intuition. Should have slept in the car.

“Stay here, Will. Do not leave,” I ordered. I grabbed the whistle and put it around his neck. “Okay?”

“They’re not bears,” he said.

“Quiet, honey. Blow the whistle if-if-if…just stay, okay?”

“Mom…,” he said, his voice breaking.

“Shush,” I said. I gave him a brief squeeze. “Brave wizard, it’ll be okay. Stay. I will not leave you. I need to make these bullies go away, okay? Give them a stern talking-to.”

I then crept to the tent flap, the sleeping bag crinkling noisily. I had to surprise them. I opted for the tire iron instead of the kitchen knife. It seemed less dangerous, less lethal. Less…permanent. This was not a time to kill. It was a time to kick someone’s ass. Although I wished I had Harrison’s gun to wave in threat.

“Get away from my car!” I shouted, raising the tire iron with shaking arms as I emerged from the tent. My elbow gave with the quick, heavy movement. I fumbled, cursed, and regained my stance, hoping to look like the devil.

It was the old man from the beater station wagon. He jumped. He had one bike halfway off the rack. He turned and glared at me. “We need this more than you do, darlin’. We were gonna leave your bikes.”

I remembered their wheezing station wagon, and the truth clicked in my mind.

Clara retreated from her fiddling with a door lock and raised her hands. “Come on, sweet gal. You won’t be hurtin’ if we take a few things. We need to get to our son.”

“So do I, and I’m not getting there by bike,” I said, louder. I surprised myself by drawing closer. “Step away from my car, and leave my bikes the hell alone.”

“Look, darlin’, we don’t mean you no harm. You look like you’ll be okay. I’m sure you got money to get there,” Dennis said in a cool voice, but his face said otherwise as he evaluated me in the way a panhandler eyed a person in a designer coat. He approached me, hands outstretched. Seeing that Dennis had me under control, Clara returned to her lock picking. Could people actually pick car locks? What the hell?

I maintained strong eye contact and straightened my posture.

Dawn’s murky shadows stole across the campground. It all happened at once. I shifted my stance, clamped both hands around the tire iron and swung as Dennis lunged at me, a scowl twisting his unkempt bearded face. Clara unlocked my door and muttered a “sweet Jesus.” The heaviness of the tire iron as I wielded it surprised me, but I made like a baseball player aiming to hit one out of the park. The iron thudded into Dennis’s pudgy belly, the equivalent of a heavy gym bag. The impact recoiled in my arms. I dropped the iron.

I groaned.

“Oof!” he wheezed and staggered, but then continued toward me, shaking his head.

I cursed like a sailor and stumbled backward, my only weapon gone. I didn’t have the pocket knife. Where the hell had I left that? Oh, yeah, in the cup holder in the car. The kitchen knife was in the tent. I groped for my car key in my back pocket and hit the alarm button, sending a piercing shriek through the campground. Drawing attention and help was all I had now.

Clara stumbled back from the car like she’d been scalded. “Shit!” she cried.

Dennis was upon me, beefy hands pinching my upper arms. I shoved my key into my jeans pocket, thanking the stars that I hadn’t changed into pajamas last night. I would be damned if he got my car. He smacked the side of my face, not once, but twice.

I lost my footing and fell.

“Mom!” Will cried, emerging from the tent.

Blood trickled from my mouth. My teeth rattled. Oh, my God, they felt loose. No, his punch hadn’t been that hard. Pain radiated from my cheek to my temple. My ears rang. Instinct took precedence. “Run, baby, run!” I instantly regretted it, but the momma bear, echoing Geena’s words, couldn’t let them hurt him. Geena…did she and her family hear my car? Where was my help? Somebody? Anybody…

All the moves I’d learned in the women’s self-defense class I took at Will’s karate studio…emptied from my brain. Claw the face. Bite his ears. Make noise. Knee moves. Oh my God, what were those leg moves? Up, get up!

Will whimpered above me, near my head. “Mom!”

I felt Dennis’s hovering presence over me as he kicked me in my side. “Bitch!”

Will was there. He kicked Dennis in the shin. “Leave my mom alone, you bully!” He did one of his karate moves, I think his front jab, and got Dennis in the groin. Three years of tiring lessons had paid off, momentarily at least.

“You shit!” Dennis cried, reaching for Will.

I swiped my foot, caught his knee. Yes, that’s where. The burly man fell right beside me. “Will! Run, honey! Hide!” I screamed it now.

A crowd formed around us.

“Leave her alone!” a man said. Geena’s husband?

“Somebody stop him!” Geena’s voice shouted.

“Dennis, you ass! Get over here. Forget them. I got the door open!” Clara’s voice shrilled. “Find the keys! Or else I gotta hotwire it. Hurry!”

I blinked away darkness. No, no, no. I wouldn’t pass out!

His hands were on me again, searching for the keys. He grunted like a wild pig. A man grabbed him. He shrugged the guy off with a growl and punch.

“You bastard!” Geena cried.

My weaker fingers fought against his as he dug into my pockets. He slapped me around, muttering curses through heavy nasal breathing.

Clara moaned as somebody restrained her. “Let go of me, you ass!”

Jesus, he got the keys.

“No…,” I said weakly. “My keys…” I struggled to rise as a dark shape emerged from the crowd and moved past me, stealthy and crouching low. The tire iron scraped the dry ground as he picked it up. The heavy thud of iron met muscle. Dennis grunted in surprise.

“Wha—” Dennis barked.

Painful tears burned my vision. Oh, but I was able to hear, despite the ringing in my ears.

My rescuer didn’t hold back.

Crack. The tire iron hit bone.

Crack.

Splatter. Nauseating thuds.

“Oof!”

More screeching. “Denny!”

Crack.

I threw my hand in the air. “Please! Stop!” I breathed, teeth aching.

“Leave her the hell alone!” Reid said to my attackers. His booming voice rippled through me. Then I heard nothing. Muffled ear ringing replaced the car alarm blaring, Clara’s shrieking, and the nauseating cracks. Reid’s mouth moved with questions.

Soon, the others closed in the space. Geena knelt and helped steady me. Her husband was beside her with a bloody nose.

The ringing in my head lessened, but everything spun. I blinked and darkness lured me. No. No! I swallowed the blood that had pooled in my mouth.

Suddenly, I snapped back to the chaos around us. My hearing returned, sharpened.

“I’ve got you, love,” Geena said.

“I called the police,” an older man’s rough, croaky voice said. I caught a whiff of stale cigarettes as he hurried past me. “Sonny, get over there. Don’t let them leave!”

“Y’all get me some ice, okay?” Geena said to somebody.

I doubted Dennis was going anywhere, his gurgling gasps sickening. Top that with Clara’s howling and my car alarm, and I felt I might puke. Somebody grabbed the keys and silenced the alarm.

“Will,” I said hoarsely.

My knees swayed.

“Sit, AJ,” Geena soothed. “We’ll tend to ya.”

“No! Will…” I scanned the area. He was nowhere to be found. “Oh, my God. I told him to run. Oh, my God!” Hyperventilation gripped me.

Reid approached. “Breathe, AJ, breathe. We’ll find him. Put your head between your knees.”

I swatted him and Geena away but did as told. Still unsteady, I turned my head.

Geena said, “We’ll help find him. Jared?” She gestured to her husband. Sam approached, clutching her gray cat stuffed animal.

I collected myself. “He’s in blue and green jammies,” I began with an unsteady voice. “Oh, God.” I frantically ripped open the tent flap, futile as it was. Empty. “Will? Will!” I cried. He was nowhere. “Maybe he’s in the campground somewhere?”

“We’ll search around here,” Geena offered. “He couldn’t have gotten far.”

Yes, he could.

I nodded and clung to Geena’s empathetic eyes. “H-He likes water…lakes and rivers. He also likes to hide when he’s scared. He could be hiding anywhere. He’s quiet, skilled at blending in. He likes closets, corners, and tight spaces.”

“We’ll check tents,” she said. “Come, Sam. Jared, you check over there.” She waved to her husband and other daughter.

“My brother likes to hide, too,” another teen girl said, but it didn’t abate my racing fears.

“Yes, tents. Or-or-or, yeah, check behind cars. Under cars. Behind trees. Anywhere a kid could tuck away.” My heart almost broke. I’d become accustomed to his coping methods of hiding, but seeing him curled in a closet or under a chair never got easier. I almost added, “He has autism,” but I was tired of explaining him that way. Other kids ran and hid, too. Maybe not exactly the way Will did, or for the reasons he did, but all kids got scared. He wasn’t a growling lion an adult couldn’t approach for risk of him biting their fingers off.

“It’ll be okay, AJ,” Geena cooed, clasping my hand. She squeezed. “Want me to stay with you?”

“Th-Thank you, but no. I need to look, too,” I said through chattering teeth. Worried adrenaline coursed through me. I shook my head, hoping to dislodge my stupor, but instead it pitched me into another dizzy spell. Will was either hiding in a tent, taking flight to God knows where, or…

Visceral emotion told me exactly where he had gone—to that spring. “The woods, Reid. The woods! That damn spring.”

“Thank you, please, go,” Reid said to the helpers. “We’ll check the surrounding woods.”

I stared into Reid’s piercing dark expression, hypnotically drawn to the dirt and blood splattered across his cheek and brow. It wasn’t mine or his. Retching swelled in my throat. I bit it back.

The woods.

“Wait, AJ, wait!”

I was fast. Reid was faster. He grabbed my arm and stopped me in my tracks, my heels skidding across a patch of gravel on the edge of my campsite. I nearly tripped over an exposed tree root. “We need to approach this sensibly.”

He had just beaten Dennis to a bloody pulp and he was telling me to be sensible?

Reid continued in a cool even tone, “He may be close. He may be far. We need to bring stuff.”

“Stuff? What kind of stuff? I don’t need another checklist! My son’s out there because of those assholes, and I need get to him. If he’s not hiding in the campground, then he went to the spring. Geena and the others have the campground covered.”

I passed a look on the forest before us. Sweeping oaks and ancient evergreens encircled the campground like protective guards to a secret castle. The heyday of summer—dense shrubs, fanning ferns, leaf-covered trees, and burgeoning flowers—thickened the forest. Early dawn’s light had begun to penetrate the canopy as long shadows blanketed the campsite. I shivered.

“The longer we wait, the farther he gets,” I pleaded.

“We need to be prepared,” Reid countered, guiding me toward my car.

Although it wasn’t nearly as pine-dominated as the forests in New England, there was no lack of green. I recalled the trailhead post had mentioned this area was sparsely used and the land beyond the campground was privately owned. Normally, such an area would seduce me with its beauty and solitude. Now it was a vise grip. My baby was out there in a damn jungle. Day had barely broken. He didn’t even have a glow stick.

I hesitated only for a moment, waiting for the neurons to fire, and it was enough time for Reid to coerce me back to the car. “AJ.”

I shrugged from his grip. “Yes. Okay. Can we be quick about it? What the hell do we need?”

Reid already had my keys and handed them to me. I unlocked the car doors. I shifted on my feet, my pulse quickening as he opened the rear hatch door and riffled through bins. I inhaled, and a rasp gripped my lungs with its familiar rattling. Reid located our backpacks; one was Will’s backpack from school, covered in weather badges and logos Harrison had sewn on for him, and the other was mine. Well, Harrison’s. He’d loved that pack. It was made from recycled plastic water bottles or something silly. Reid tossed in a few waters, snacks, a rope, and the first aid kit.

“We won’t need all that,” I said.

He held up old bolt cutters, giving me a quizzical glance.

I took them from him and shoved them into a crevice between two totes. “Don’t ask.”

“Jeez, AJ, you’ve thought of everything.” Reid lifted the case that held the walkie-talkies Finn and Will had gotten for Christmas. They loved to play with them in our backyard and they had a long range. I even had a handheld emergency radio with crank flashlight. We had yet to use that on our trip. With any luck my usual over-packing was just that—I hoped to not need half of this stuff. And this was an already diminished supply thanks to the people who had robbed me in New York.

“Resourceful,” I mumbled.

Reid zipped the pack and handed me a flashlight.

“Please…we need to go.” I was already inching away as he grabbed my arm and shoved a walkie-talkie into my hand. He took the other. “We’re not going together?”

“We may need to split up at some point.”

“It won’t come to that.”

I unzipped the backpack and tossed the walkie-talkie in.

The campground manager and his wife approached. She handed me a wet towel. “I don’t have any ice. Sorry,” she said. I glanced quickly for Geena. Her family must’ve already been off in the farther areas of the campground canvasing.

“Huh?” I asked.

She pointed to my face.

“Oh.”

I dabbed my cheek with the damp towel, wincing with the touch. She handed me a water bottle, and I took a sip, sloshed, and spat. I repeated it a few times until my spit was no longer bloody. I returned the towel with a muffled thank-you.

“We’ll wait here for him if he returns. I’ve put a call into the police. We’ll keep an eye on your car and these sons of bitches. You can give a statement to the police later. There are enough witnesses to take care of this for now,” the manager said with a flick of his chin to a hunched Dennis and whimpering Clara. I restrained myself from punching them. Violence would do me no good now.

“Perhaps we should wait for the others who are searching the campground,” Reid said.

“No. He’s not here.”

I shifted away from Reid’s dubious look. He spoke to the manager in an unruffled whisper, shook his hand—why did men always do that?—and then we ran to the trailhead. I shouted Will’s name, my voice growing hoarse with each call. “Will, come back! It’s safe! Will!”

My head pounded from Dennis’s assault, but I did my best to ignore it. My son needed me. He couldn’t have gotten too far yet. I hoped.