The Good Son by Carolyn Mills (free e reader txt) 📗

“I know,” I said, cutting her off. “That’s why I’m telling you. I’m pretty sure he was wearing a hat.”

“He? It was a man?” Mom was looking at me so intently I started to squirm.

“I — I don’t know. I think so, but I don’t know! I just — I just think I remember a hat. That’s all.”

Ricky was staring at me now, too. “So, like, every time she remembers something you have to call the police?”

Mom pulled a card off the fridge, stuck there under a magnet just above my now-forgotten paper turkey. “They left a number. We have to contact Detective Somebody. The one who talked to Zoe last night.” She peered at the slip of paper in her hand. “Detective Armstrong.”

I didn’t look at Ricky to see his reaction. But as soon as Mom picked up the phone, he stood up and walked out of the kitchen, leaving his half-empty bowl of cereal on the table.

MOM WASN’T THE ONLY ONE escorting a child to school that morning. Standing against the chain-link fence at the edge of the playground, a group of anxious-looking women huddled together.

Mom nudged me toward the schoolyard, where the principal was wandering between groups of students. It was strange to see him outside. The teachers, too, seemed more animated, striding across the tarmac, uncommonly alert. “The police will come by sometime this morning to talk to you,” Mom said. “But you don’t need to say anything to anyone else. Okay?”

I nodded. As I walked toward the brick wall where my class lined up, I looked back and noticed that Mom hadn’t joined the other women by the fence. She stood by herself, watching me, and as soon as I reached the wall safely, she turned away to walk home.

I hadn’t been in class for more than half an hour when I was called to the office. Detective Armstrong was waiting for me and my mother was standing nervously beside him. We were ushered into the vice-principal’s tiny office where the detective took out a notepad before sitting down at a low, round table designed for kids. Mom set her purse awkwardly on her lap, and I could see that her hands were trembling.

“So,” Detective Armstrong began, “your mom said you remembered some more details about yesterday. Can you tell me what you remember seeing?”

I swallowed. “I think maybe the driver was wearing a hat.”

“What kind of hat?”

“A baseball cap.”

He wrote something down. “Do you remember anything else about the driver? Height? Build?”

“Build?” I repeated.

“Do you remember if they seemed large to you, like a football player? Or were they smaller, like —”

“Like a teenager?”

Detective Armstrong set down his pen. “Did you see the driver, Zoe? Was it a teenager? Or someone who looked young to you?”

I shook my head. “I don’t even know for sure if they had a hat. But I feel like they did. I don’t know anymore. I really don’t know.” I put my head in my hands as tears stung my eyes.

Detective Armstrong’s voice was soft. “You’re doing good, Zoe,” he said. “You’ve been very helpful, but we need to know every little thing you remember. No matter how small or unimportant it may seem.”

“Why would someone take her?” I blurted out. “And why don’t they just bring her back now?”

No one said anything for a minute. And in that silence, I felt Amy’s disappearance suck something from my bones. I wasn’t sure I would be able to stand. “I want to go home,” I mumbled.

“Understandably, this is going to be very hard on your daughter,” Detective Armstrong said to Mom. Then to me, “If you remember anything else, don’t hesitate to call. Any detail that comes to you, no matter how small or silly you might think it is.”

“Okay,” I said quietly. And even though I really wanted Amy to come home, I still didn’t mention how I’d thought, just for a second, that the blue car belonged to Darius. Maybe I thought she would still be okay. Maybe saying it out loud would make it too real. But even though I didn’t say it, the thought snagged against my heart like a piece of barbed wire. As Mom led me out of the school, away from the playground, and back toward the safety of my bedroom, the small bead of worry that had been rolling around in my gut ever since last night made me want to throw up.

From my room, I could hear Mom talking on the phone on and off throughout the afternoon. The sound of her murmuring voice gave me no comfort. Instead, those subdued and indistinguishable conversations made me worry even more.

WHEN RICKY GOT HOME FROM school that day, all he said was, “Any news?”

“Not yet,” Mom replied, casting a quick glance in my direction. “I’m bringing Janet a shepherd’s pie. She’ll say if they’ve heard anything. I can’t imagine what that poor woman is going through.”

Mom left to deliver her shepherd’s pie and I went to the bathroom for what felt like the tenth time that day. When I came out, I could hear Ricky’s muffled voice talking to someone. I crept down the hall and stood just outside the kitchen, where I could see the phone cord stretching to the landing by the back door. Ricky himself was hidden from view, but I could hear what he was saying clearly enough.

“Listen Dare, we have to tell Jeremy to say he was in Leeville with us. I already told my mom we were at a movie. So that’s our story. We were in Leeville the whole time.”

There was a silence in which Darius must have been saying something. Then, “No, man, nothing. Nobody knows where she is. Everyone is freaking out.”

I tried to tiptoe back to my room, but my feet felt like they were tethered to bricks. I was terrified of what Ricky would do if he caught me eavesdropping. My brother, my big brother, had turned into