“I know. That’s what confuses me. He’s mature most of the time. I wish I understood what was going on.”
The front door flew open, and Kent Hendrix stormed in. “Where is he? Where’s my son?”
Felicia’s stomach churned harder and faster. “He’s not at home?”
“He left me a note that he was staying here tonight. Reese’s been over here a couple of times, so I didn’t think anything of it. Until I got your message.”
Ford crossed to his brother. “Reese is missing, too?”
Police Chief Barns groaned. “All right, people,” she said to her team. “We’re looking for two boys and they could be anywhere.”
* * *
“THEY’RE ON THE move,” Carter said, watching the screen on his laptop. It had taken him some doing, but he’d managed to tap into the GPS on Felicia’s cell phone a few days before and could now track her.
They were stretched out in sleeping bags in the caves on the Castle Ranch. They had lanterns, a cooler, an extra battery for the laptop and a portable Wi-Fi hot spot. The challenge was staying close enough to the front of the caves to get a signal, but far enough back so they weren’t detected.
Fortunately, the only person who came into the caves was Heidi Stryker. She used the caves to age her goat cheese. But according to Reese, she only checked every couple of days, and the space she used was on the other side of the opening. To avoid her, they’d gone north instead of south at the fork.
Reese rolled onto his back and grabbed a fruit snack. He opened the package and tore off a strip. “How much trouble are we going to be in, you think?”
“Tons,” Carter said, watching the small red dot moving on the screen. “You heard the police scanner. Half the town has turned out to look for us.”
“Wicked!”
“You didn’t have to do this,” Carter reminded his friend. “You could have stayed home.”
“And let you have all the fun? No way. Plus, once you get Gideon and Felicia married, I’ll know you’re staying around permanently. High school in two years, my friend. Then we get all the girls.”
They bumped fists, then wiggled their fingers.
* * *
THE SEARCH PARTIES all started from Pyrite Park. A member of CDS was part of every team. Consuelo had joined them, giving them one more professional to help the townspeople. Gideon didn’t know what to think about the sheer number of people who had turned out to aid in the search. Even Eddie and Gladys had come along to find the boys.
People he didn’t know kept coming up to him and patting him on the back as they promised they would find the missing kids. He felt numb—almost disconnected. The attention was uncomfortable but necessary, he reminded himself. They had to get Carter back.
He couldn’t figure out why the kid had done it. Sure, there’d been some adjustments, but he would have sworn things had been going okay. Carter knew Gideon was his father and that he wasn’t going anywhere. Felicia made everything feel like a family event. What more did Carter want?
“We’re going to walk a grid,” Police Chief Barns said through a megaphone. “There are a few outlying areas we want to check, as well. Up the road by Gideon’s house. Justice, you take your team there. Also, the summer camp. Consuelo, can you go there? Make sure a parent with a kid in the camp is on the team.”
Gideon paced, waiting for them to be assigned. He kept having the nagging sense of missing something. That the why of it all was right in front of him, if only he could see it.
“You should go check out the caves by the Castle Ranch,” Mayor Marsha told Felicia. “If I were a boy, that’s where I’d go.”
“Caves?” Felicia’s voice rose in pitch. “That sounds dangerous.”
“These are shallow. Heidi uses them to age her cheese, but only a few. They’re safe enough—we had lots of people in them last year for...” She pressed her lips together. “That’s not important. You two go ahead. I’ll tell Alice.”
“I’ll come, too,” Kent said grimly.
Gideon grabbed Felicia’s hand and pulled her to his truck. “That’s as good a place to start as any.” He needed to be moving, doing. Standing around accomplished nothing.
“I don’t want a random search,” Felicia said. “It’s late and I want to find him.”
While it wasn’t exactly cold in late August, there was still a slight chill in the air. What if Carter was scared? What if something had happened to him? What if he was hurt?
Gideon shook off the questions. He hadn’t been in the field in years, but he knew the drill. Stay focused. Felicia might have the brains in the operation but he had the experience.
“How can anyone survive this?” she asked, sliding into the passenger side and closing the door. “The not knowing. It’s horrible.”
“I’m telling you, a shed is the answer.”
Kent slammed the rear door. “I can tell you Reese isn’t going to see the light of day until he’s thirty-five.”
They drove out to the ranch.
When they got there, several people were waiting for them. Rafe Stryker had already collected flashlights. Heidi, his wife, showed them some rudimentary maps of the caves, done years ago.
“This is where I store my cheese,” she said, pointing. “I was just there this morning.”
“Carter hadn’t run away then,” Gideon told her. “He was at the festival.”
“See how the path splits,” Rafe told them. He traced the line on the map. “Heidi only goes south. There’s a whole maze of trails heading north. If the boys are in the caves, that’s where we’ll find them.”
Shane, Rafe’s brother, joined them. They walked past a barn and what Heidi identified as the goat house, then headed toward the opening to the caves. Everyone turned on their lights. Three minutes later, they reached the divide in the path. Heidi and Rafe went first.
“This way,” Heidi said. “I spent some time in these caves last summer. There were cave paintings.” She paused. “That doesn’t matter. This way.”
Felicia moved next to Gideon. He took her hand. She squeezed his fingers, and they walked forward.
After a few hundred feet, he heard something.
“Quiet,” he instructed.
“I heard it, too,” Felicia murmured.
Their group went silent. In the distance was faint music.
“That way,” he said, pointing to a path that veered to the left.
“Carter!” Felicia called as she started to run.
Gideon kept up with her easily. His right hand kept reaching for a nonexistent weapon. The result of training, he thought grimly. No guns today, and no enemies.
“Carter!” Felicia screamed, running ahead.
Gideon kept pace with her. They rounded a bend and stumbled into a large open cave with high ceilings. Carter and Reese were sitting on sleeping bags, playing a game on a laptop, music blasting from speakers. There were lanterns and a cooler.
The teens scrambled to their feet as the adults rushed in. Felicia pulled Carter hard against her.
“What were you thinking?” she demanded as she touched his face, then his shoulders. “Running away? It was horrible. When I read that note—”
Kent muttered something under his breath as he reached for Reese. Father and son embraced.
The rest of the team gathered around. Felicia kept touching Carter, as if reassuring herself. Then she started to cry.
Carter immediately stepped back and looked horrified. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Don’t cry.”
“I was so scared,” she admitted, her voice shaking.
“I didn’t mean to frighten you.”
“Too bad, because you would have achieved your goal. Oh, Carter.” She hugged him again. “You know you have to be punished, right?”
He nodded.
“Okay, and you have to swear you’ll never do this again.” She cupped his face in her hands. “I love you. You need to get that.”
Tears filled his eyes. “I love you, too, and I’m sorry.”
“Me, too, Dad,” Reese told his father. “It was a stupid trick.”
“More than a trick. You’re grounded, for starters. We’ll take it from there.”
Rafe headed toward the path. “I’ll alert the others that the boys are found.”
Gideon watched it all, physically there, but separate from what was happening. He could see Felicia’s emotion but wasn’t a part of it. Sure, he was glad the boys were fine, but he didn’t have the same connection as the others. It was like being underwater and hearing sound. He knew it was there but couldn’t recognize it.
And then he knew. Whatever had been done to him, whatever had been beaten from him, whatever had allowed him to survive when the others didn’t, wasn’t because he was stronger than them. It was because there was something wrong with him. He wasn’t like other people. They had loved once, and losing all they loved had destroyed them. He’d thought them weak, but he was wrong. They were completely human.
And he wasn’t.
He didn’t have the same emotions, the same needs. Perhaps the flaw had always been there, and the torture had brought it to the surface. Maybe he’d been more whole before, but what had happened to him had caused breaks. He didn’t know, and it didn’t matter. Except he had a child now.
What was he supposed to do about Carter?
It didn’t take them long to get back to the park. Nearly everyone who had turned out to help them with the search wanted to see the boys, as if to be reassured that they really were okay. Carter stayed close to Felicia, and she did the same, as if they both needed reassurance.
Finally the mayor started telling people to head home.
“It’s late,” she reminded them. “Tomorrow’s a workday, everyone.” Then she looked at Carter. “Did you get what you wanted?”
Gideon frowned and Felicia looked confused, but Carter flushed.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he began, then shrugged. “I don’t know.” He smiled. “Felicia loves me.”
“Was there any doubt?” the mayor asked.
“Not for a while now.” Unexpectedly, he turned to Gideon. “Dad, were you scared about me being gone?”
Gideon sensed the trap and didn’t know how to avoid it.
“I don’t understand,” Felicia said. “What are you talking about? Of course he was terrified. We all were.”
“That’s not what he means,” Gideon said stiffly, as all the puzzle pieces came together. It shouldn’t have taken him this long, he told himself. It’s not as if the kid was subtle.
“He wants us to get together,” he told Felicia. “He wants us married so he can have a family. That’s what tonight was about. Scaring us into realizing our feelings.”
* * *
FELICIA WOULDN’T HAVE thought she had any emotions left. The ups and downs of the past few hours, not to mention the long weekend of the festival, had drained her. But apparently there was also room for surprise.
“He’s right,” Mayor Marsha said quietly. “That’s exactly what Carter wants. We’ve been talking about it a little. The one thing every child needs is stability.” She smiled. “All right. Two things, because love matters, too. What’s happening now is confusing. Carter needs to know where things stand.”
Get married or split up, Felicia thought, barely able to process the information.
“We’ll talk about it,” she said.
Gideon didn’t say anything.
They walked to the truck. Carter slid into the rear seat. Felicia climbed into the passenger seat as Gideon took the wheel. None of them spoke.
The drive up the mountain passed in a blur, but as they pulled into the driveway, she realized that she didn’t need to go looking for an answer, that it had been there all along.
Telling Carter she loved him had been a spontaneous moment. A burst of emotion, followed by a complete sense of rightness. She might not be the best mother around, but she was willing to do all she could, to learn, to be supportive and to establish boundaries. She would give her life for him if necessary and pray it was all enough.
Now, as she searched her heart, she discovered she’d also fallen for another person, but in a completely different way.
Gideon. Always Gideon.
From the first moment she’d spoken to him in that bar in Thailand, he’d been a part of her life. He’d made her feel good about herself, had laughed with her, cared for her, taught her and made her feel safe. When she wasn’t sure if she could fit in or where she belonged, she was comfortable with him. Loving him was so easy, she hadn’t recognized the symptoms.
He pulled to a stop in front of the house. She turned to tell him, only to remember they weren’t alone. A quick glance over her shoulder showed her a very sleepy teen who could barely crawl out of the truck.
“Can you punish me in the morning?” Carter asked with a big yawn.
“Sure.”
“Thanks.”
He hugged her, handed over his cell phone and walked inside. She and Gideon followed.
“What’s the cell phone for?” Gideon asked.
“I’m not sure. I guess he’s assuming he’s going to lose it while he’s grounded.” She frowned. “I don’t know what it means to be grounded. I’ll have to do some research.”
Gideon closed the front door behind them. They stood in the living room, not looking at each other. Tension filled the space, making her feel awkward and unsure.