“William?”
I started at a jog, not daring to take my eyes off the boy chasing the others. “William! William!”
He was giggling, holding his sides at whatever joke someone had said. I had heard that laughter a hundred times before, at SpongeBob on television, when Chris tossed him over his shoulder, as Tom pretended to gnaw off his fingers when ice cream dripped on his little hands.
“William! Baby, it’s Nanna! William!” I was sobbing as I reached him. I grabbed the sides of his face, seeing replicas of Anne’s eyes, my own freckles on his cheeks, his dimpled chin.
“Oh, thank you God, thank you,” I pulled him close. “Oh baby.…”
I felt his small hands push away as he stammered back. “Miss Cliff,” he said, looking around, his eyes wide with confusion.
I reached out and took off his hat, running my fingers through the hair that I had combed for two summers, when he would take a bath at my house before Anne came to take him home, knowing he would fall asleep on the two-minute drive. “Oh, baby. It’s me, it’s Nanna.”
“Miss Cliff!” William practically screamed.
The boys that had gathered around us began to part, making way for a slow-moving woman whose face was lined with wrinkles.
“What’s going on here?”
“This is my grandson.” I smiled through tears. “I’ve been looking for him. Oh William, I can’t believe it—”
“Miss, I think you have the wrong boy,” the woman said, placing a weathered but protective hand on William, who moved in closer to her.
“You don’t understand. William, it’s Nanna.”
“Miss Cliff,” he said anxiously.
“Your birthday is June 26.” I kneeled down, flinching as he stepped farther away. “You hate peas. You love dinosaurs. If you pull up your pants leg, you’ll see the birthmark you have on the back of your right thigh—”
“Miss, you’re scaring the children. Boys, take Alan and go to the bus.”
“No!” I cried out as William and the boys turned and ran.
Miss Cliff shuffled in front of me, her ancient voice lowering to a whisper. “You need to go. Right now. Whoever you are, get out of here now.”
“No.” I tried to step around her.
“I warned you,” Miss Cliff said, looking back to the bus. “Security! I mean, officer, can you please come here?”
“William!” I screamed, seeing him look back once more before hurrying on the bus.
I easily sidestepped the woman and ran, seeing a figure emerge from a car that I hadn’t noticed was parked behind the bus. A man, wearing a dark blue jacket and matching pants, put out his arms.
“What’s going on here?” he said.
“That’s my grandson!” I cried out, pointing to the bus. At the door, the hunched-over figure of Miss Cliff was herding the other children on, pointing one curved and bony finger to hasten their step.
“Please calm down, ma’am, and tell me what’s going on,” the man said, blocking me.
“My name is Lynn Roseworth, my husband is Senator Tom Roseworth. We’ve gone on television to say our grandson is missing. And he’s right there!”
“OK, OK, calm down.”
“Lynn!” Roxy waved as she hurried over. “Lynn, what’s happening?”
“He’s on the bus! He’s in there! William’s in there!”
The doors to the bus closed and the engine fired up.
“Lynn, are you sure?” Roxy was almost out of breath.
“Ma’am, just relax,” the officer said.
“It’s leaving!” I said as the wheels of the bus shuddered and turned. “No! Stop that bus!”
“Ma’am, that’s enough. You’re going to have to calm down—”
“And who the hell are you?” Roxy demanded.
“I’m police—”
“If my friend says her missing grandson is on that bus, then you better stop that bus.”
The man murmured into the speaker on his shoulder. “Five-ninety, please send a car to the north end of the park.”
“No!” I watched the bus drive way. “Roxy, no.…”
“What the hell is wrong with you?” Roxy squared off with the man. “Stop that bus!”
“You both have caused quite the scene out here. That bus is only going up to the day care, and once you’ve calmed down, we’ll see about going up there and checking this out. But I saw that little boy, ma’am, and he didn’t know you from Adam.”
A white car pulled up, its red light lazily spinning on the dashboard. I turned to Roxy with frantic eyes. “He didn’t recognize me, Roxy. He didn’t know it was me. He didn’t remember.”
Roxy’s hand went to her mouth. She reached into her purse and began to dig around for her phone.
“What’s going on?” another officer, also dressed in dark blue, asked as he approached, looking intently at Roxy as she tore into her purse.
“I’m going to call her husband right now, who happens to be a US senator.”
“What we’re all going to do is calm down,” the first officer said. “Let’s take a ride and go over all this.”
“Let’s go.” The second officer took Roxy gently by the arm.
“Get your hands off.” She tried to jerk away, until she looked closely at his face.
He sucked his teeth loudly. Even I could smell fried chicken from where I was standing.
“Jesus,” Roxy said softly.
“You have a good memory,” the man said, opening the door to the squad car.
* * *
The front hallway of the building the officers called their police station was sparsely decorated with historic photographs of Argentum in cheap frames, including one of an old barbershop in which a mural was painted with a waterfall spilling into a creek. Where the Water Falls was written in decorative letters in the stream.
That photograph melted into my blur of panic. I knew I’d been wild-eyed in my demands for my phone to call Tom, practically screaming at the officers as I kept looking out the back window of the squad car for any sign of the bus. Even when they ushered us into the building, I took another glance before the door shut, hoping to catch a glimpse, to even know the direction William was going.
I had him. And I let him go.
The men took us to a back room, telling Roxy to try and calm me down. She responded with a colorful tirade of curse words interspersed with idle threats. They shut the door and said through the glass that they were getting in touch with the FBI.
“Google her, you assholes!” Roxy shook the locked handle. “Lynn Roseworth! Wife of Senator Tom Roseworth! Her grandson’s disappearance has been announced all over the world! What kind of rock have you been living underneath?”
I paced the room, my fingers entangled in my hair. “What the hell is going on, Lynn? What is wrong with this place? That officer was the gas station creepo yesterday, now he’s a cop?”
“She didn’t call them officers at first,” I said, my eyes darting.
“What?”
“The woman with William and the other children. She told me I needed to leave, and then said she tried to warn me. She called ‘security,’ and then quickly referred to him as officer.”
“My God, now that I think about it, they weren’t wearing any badges.…”
“I shouldn’t have let that bus go. How can I ever tell Anne that I had him, and I let him go?”
“You could have hung on to the back of that bus and it wouldn’t have made a difference,” Roxy said, then she added quietly. “Are you sure, Lynn? Are you sure it was him?”
“It was him.”
“Dammit,” Roxy stood, wincing. She had run too fast from the other end of the park when she saw the commotion. “Why didn’t we call Tom, or Ed, or anyone for that matter, to tell them where we are?”
“Because I know what they would have said. I could blame the cell service, which doesn’t seem to exist here. But I could have called from the road. I knew the second I called, I would hear Anne plead for me to come to Champaign, or Tom would remind me how reckless this is and all the damage I’ve caused.”
“Speaking of Tom, and I know you hate to hear this, but you’re both public figures, and they can’t keep you locked up in here. One search online and they’ll see everything they need to know. We’re going to get William, Lynn.”
“He didn’t recognize me. Is that what’s happening here? People who are kidnapped are brought to this town? Joe at the general store woke up in the hospital in this town without his memory. Sarah at the inn doesn’t remember anything of her life, either. Roxy, is this is where Daddy found me? I didn’t have a memory either.”
“Well, we know two things: that Dr. Richards was both right and wrong about William being here. Your boy ended up in this town, but obviously wasn’t abducted by aliens and isn’t soaring around the cosmos in a spaceship.”
“So what, then? He was taken by someone, maybe some sort of group, and the people they abduct end up with memory loss?”
“And it doesn’t explain how Dr. Richards knew he would be here. If I had my phone…”
“They’re not going to give us our phones.”
“Well, my patience has officially run out. We’ve done nothing wrong, they can’t lock us up in here when we haven’t committed any crime—”
The door handle turned and a small man stepped in, quietly closing the door behind him. His thinning hair was parted to cover a sizable bald spot, his skin color an ashen gray. He fumbled in his suit coat to bring out a pack of cigarettes. Every bit of clothing on him, from his head to his shoes, was black.
“We have a pretty bad storm approaching, ladies. It’s best that you get out of here before it hits.”
“I don’t think so,” Roxy said. “I don’t know who you are, but we have come here to find my friend’s grandson, who she just saw at a park in this town. And I’m happy to remind you again who she is married to—”
“We will be pleased to arrange for transportation out of here.” The man fired up a cigarette. “We’ll make sure you get out safely.”
“I will not leave my grandson.”
“We want to return you to your family, Mrs. Roseworth,” the man said, taking a deep drag. “We understand you must be very desperate. In light of what’s on the news websites now, I know it must be hard to admit he’s gone. No one is sure, though, why you thought he would end up here—”
“Because she saw him,” Roxy interjected.
The man ignored her and kept looking at me. “Your family has gone through a great loss. Please don’t make them go through another.”
“I will not leave him—”
“Lynn, I want to go home.” Roxy reached out and touched my arm. “I can’t do this anymore. I need to get home to Ed. My back hurts, I can’t go through a storm like that without my pain meds, and I’m out. Let’s do this. Obviously you were wrong. If it were William, he would have recognized you. You must be delirious or something. We have to admit that now. Let’s take this ride out of town. I’m done.”
She squeezed a bit harder. “I’m too tired to do this anymore.”
I looked at her, and under her weepy eyes, Roxy flared her nostrils.
“Thank you, we’ll take that ride,” I said.
“Good,” the man said, already finishing off the cigarette. “I have a car pulled around. We’ll take you by the inn to get your things.”
“We’ll need our purses,” Roxy said.
“Of course. It’s all waiting for you in the car.”
“Thank you,” she said, wincing as she stepped. As the man walked out, Roxy mouthed words to me: “Act old.”
“What are we doing?” I mouthed back.
We walked out of the building as slowly as possible. The white unmarked car waited outside, with the red light still spinning beneath the windshield. “Is it OK if I sit in the front?” Roxy asked. “I can never get comfortable in the back.”
“Of course,” the man in the black suit said, nodding.
“Welcome, ladies,” said the teeth sucker as we got into the car.
Roxy slid into the front seat. “Lynnie, is my purse back there? I need to see if I have any of my OxyContin left. My hip is killing me.”
“It’s here.”
“I have a bum leg too,” Teeth Sucker said, pulling the gear into drive. “Tough living with the pain.”
I looked out the window, making eye contact briefly with the man in the black suit. He lit a cigarette and watched us drive away.
Roxy dug around in her purse. “Can’t barely move without my meds.”
“If you’re looking for your phone, it’s in there, but damn it all if the batteries aren’t dead. You must have left it on too long without charging it.”
“Oh, that’s fine.” Roxy gave a careless wave. “I just need my medicine. Don’t have anybody to call anyway.”
Teeth Sucker began to hum as we drove. “You must be busy, working the gas station and being a police officer,” Roxy commented.
He grinned. “We’re all called to serve.”
I looked out through the back window, seeing the downtown disappearing behind us. Soon the police building was gone over a hill. I couldn’t see any of Argentum. The panic was rising to my throat.
I could see Teeth Sucker looking at my reflection in the rearview mirror. “Don’t you worry. I have to make a quick stop at the hospital, it’s just around the bend from here. After that, we’ll head right back to the inn.”
“My ass,” Roxy said, pulling out the mace from her purse.
“Fuckin’ fuck!” he cried out as she sprayed his face.
The car veered wildly. Roxy kept spraying as he reached out to block her. “Fucking bitch!” When the chemicals truly sunk in, he started to scream.
“Roxy!” I cried out, watching the car weave across the road and then take a violent turn towards a telephone pole.
The impact threw me back, but not before I saw Roxy crash into the dashboard. As Teeth Sucker frantically wiped his face, I sat stunned for a moment, my head spinning. I could hear a hissing sound from the engine, and I closed my eyes to try and stop the vertigo.
“Roxy! Are you OK—?”
She moaned and then flinched away as Teeth Sucker reached out for her angrily, his sausage fingers grabbing the hood of her coat.
My wallet, stuffed with Target receipts, credit cards I’d closed but forgot to throw away, and volumes of my grandchildren’s photographs, was the first thing I threw at him. Maybe it was that I was so close behind him that my aim was so true. It struck him sharply on the back of his head. The metal clasp on the wallet must have hit him in a soft spot as the impact produced another yelp of pain as he continued to wail and wipe his eyes. I started throwing everything I could grasp in my purse: a compact, a small flashlight, pencils, mints. When an eyeliner pinged off his right temple, he reached back for me blindly.
I fell back into the backseat, smacking his hand with my purse. My eyes were starting to sting from the mace as well. I could hear Roxy fumble with the door handle and she practically fell out the door, her feet momentarily in the air.
Teeth Sucker lunged in the direction of the sound. He wrestled at his waist and pulled out a gun. Gunshots rang out in the car.
“Roxy!” I screamed, once again striking him with my purse. He pivoted the gun back towards me. As I bent down, I heard the gunfire and the back windshield shatter.
The door beside me jerked opened and Roxy outstretched her hand. She yanked me out as he fired again into the backseat. The cushions absorbed the zings of the flying bullets. “You fucking bitches!” he yelled.
“Sweet God,” Roxy whispered, wiping at her own eyes. “That mace works. Even the residual hurts like the devil.”
We hustled down the road, hearing Teeth Sucker curse among screams of pain as he realized he was out of bullets.
“Are you hurt? You’re limping—”
“Here I pretend to be old for a minute, and now I actually feel like it.”
I looked back at the crashed cruiser. Teeth Sucker had fallen out now, rubbing his eyes and screaming for us.
I took her arm as I hurried our pace. “We have to get away from here.”
“Mr. Black back there didn’t want to dirty his hands with actually having to kill a senator’s wife, so he sent numb nuts back there to do it. I guess the first security guard or whatever he is from the park couldn’t stomach it. Well, we aren’t so old, are we, assholes? Good thing I bought that mace at the airport. Never leave home without it. There, go down that back street.”
“Who are they? They clearly aren’t police. That teacher tried to warn me. I know why now.”
The street off the main road was lined with more vinyl-sided houses and empty driveways. “We have to keep heading towards town.”
“Our only chance now is that Fried Chicken couldn’t open his eyes enough to see where we went. But it’s not going to be hard to find two old women stumbling around. Damn, does my ass hurt.”
“We have to get to that hospital. If William has lost his memory, then maybe he’s in treatment there. Maybe Joe is at the store. He said he was cared for at the hospital. I guarantee Sarah was a patient too. I’m also sure our Suburban has been seized now. We’ll have to convince someone to take us there.”
“We can’t get far on foot, that’s for sure,” Roxy said, blinking in surprise at the wetness on her temple. “Jesus. Am I bleeding?”
I looked over, feeling the same on my face. “It’s starting to snow.”