things like light switches.
A moment later his prayer was answered: he found a switch, flipped it, and a dim yellow bulb illuminated a small storeroom filled with slumping cardboard boxes.
But no sign of Kip Adamson.
He stood in the doorway to the storeroom, looking both ways into the endless darkness of the tunnel. Though his heart was no longer pounding as it had been a moment ago, Brother Francis was still loath to turn off the light. He had no real idea of where he was, and just the thought of trying to find his way out in pitch darkness made him shudder.
Yet what choice was there? If he left the single dim bulb in the storeroom burning, its light would carry no farther than the end of the corridor in which he stood, and that was no more than twenty feet — thirty at the most.
Then, from somewhere off to the right, he heard a sound.
Voices.
Distinct voices.
The tendrils of panic falling away from him like leaves from a tree in the last days of fall, he reminded himself to tell Sister Margaret to have every burned-out bulb in the basements replaced, then called out into the darkness. “Hello? Who is that?”
“Brother Francis?” a familiar voice replied. “What are you doing down here?”
A moment later Clay Matthews and Darren Bender emerged out of the darkness into the faint glow spilling from the open storeroom door.
“I might ask you the same question,” Brother Francis replied, hoping they couldn’t read the relief in his voice.
“We’re looking for Kip,” Clay said.
“Shouldn’t you be studying?” Brother Francis countered, glancing at his watch. “It’s still an hour until dinner.”
“We couldn’t study,” Clay told him. “We kept thinking about Kip, and I remembered him saying he’d come down here to make his confession in some kind of chapel I’d never heard of before and…”
As his voice trailed off, Darren Bender shook his head. “I keep telling Clay he’s gone, but he wants to keep looking.”
“How many of the basements have you searched?”
Darren shrugged. “Most of them. We started under the library, and went around the long way under the gym and the rectory. We figured we’d go under the auditorium on our way back to the dorm and check the rest on the way to dinner.”
“He’s not under the dining room,” Brother Francis sighed. “I already looked there. We might as well head back to the dorm.”
Fifteen minutes later, Brother Francis brushed dust and cobwebs from the shoulders of his cassock, then rapped quietly on Father Laughlin’s door.
The old priest looked up from the book he was reading, and when he saw Brother Francis, a smile spread across his soft, wrinkled face. “Come in, Francis,” he said. “Sit down.”
Brother Francis entered the office and closed the door behind him. “Bad news, I’m afraid,” he said, then perched nervously on the edge of one of a pair of carved wooden chairs with a worn velvet seat.
The old headmaster’s brows rose. “Oh?”
“One of our boys — Kip Adamson — is missing. He doesn’t seem to be anywhere in the school at all, and I’m afraid—” He hesitated, then decided there was no easy way of putting it. “I’m afraid he’s run away.”
“Kip Adamson,” Father Laughlin repeated.
Brother Francis nodded. “He’s one of our at-risk students. Nothing too bad — a little shoplifting — that sort of thing. But the odd thing is that he’s been here two and a half years, and according to the records he’s been one of our best successes. No disciplinary problems, and better than average grades. Far better, actually.”
“And he’s missing, you say?” Father Laughlin asked, taking off his wire-rimmed glasses and rubbing the bridge of his nose.
Something in the old priest’s tone made Brother Francis wonder if Laughlin was truly grasping what he was saying, and he found himself wondering, not for the first time, if perhaps Father Laughlin was a little too old and a little too out of touch with today’s youth to be running a school like St. Isaac’s. The old priest seemed like a relic from a kinder and far gentler era. “He’s the second one this year,” Brother Francis sighed. “And I have to say, I’m feeling like I must be responsible. I feel like I must have failed these boys in some way.” He paused, then finished his thought. “I’m wondering if you made a mistake bringing me here. Perhaps I’m just not cut out for this kind of school.”
Father Laughlin shook his head. “This isn’t your fault, Francis. It’s just—”
“No child has gone missing from this school in the last five years,” Brother Francis cut in. “Then I arrive, and lose two in my first year.”
Brother Francis sighed heavily again. “And I’m having a very hard time trying to figure out what I’m going to say to Kip’s parents.”
Father Laughlin didn’t respond right away, but finally put his glasses back on and looked up at the young cleric. “There’s more than one reason the Cardinal sent us Father Sebastian Sloane at the same time he sent you,” Laughlin said. “And one of those reasons is that Father Sebastian not only has a great deal of experience with troubled students, but with their parents as well. Let’s wait until after dinner, and if the Adamson boy still hasn’t turned up, you can explain the situation to Father Sebastian. Then — if it becomes necessary to talk to the boy’s family, he can do it. I’m sure Father Sebastian will know exactly what to say.” Laughlin reached out and gave Brother Francis’s arm a reassuring squeeze. “And in the meantime, we’ll all pray for Kip’s safe return.”
As he left the headmaster’s office a few moments later, Brother Francis tried to tell himself that everything was going to turn out all right, that Kip Adamson was going to turn up. But no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t make himself believe his own words.
No, something was wrong.
Something was very wrong.
CHAPTER 5
TERI MCINTYRE ADJUSTED the belt on her skirt and checked her watch again. 5:50. She’d been annoyed when Ryan hadn’t shown up as promised by 5:30, but already annoyance was dissolving into worry. Ryan, even when he was small, had been the kind of boy every mother dreams of. When he said he’d do something, he did it, even if he didn’t want to, and Teri knew that even though Ryan didn’t particularly want to go to dinner tonight, he had said he would. And according to his message, he’d left the school around four. So what had happened?
Why wasn’t he home?
She picked up the phone and dialed Ryan’s cell one more time, but clicked off when she heard his voice mail; she’d already left him two messages to call home, and a third wasn’t going to accomplish a thing. She went downstairs to wait for him.
Beyond the front window the street was empty, and a bus was just pulling away from the stop at the corner. Teri perched on the arm of the sofa where she had a view of the driveway and front walk, and gnawed at a cuticle as she thought about what to do.
And what might have happened.
As if to escape her own thoughts, she left the sofa and went to the kitchen, where she dug the address book out of the catch-all drawer. Less than a minute later she dialed the school, but everyone in the office had gone home for the day, and all she got was a recorded message. She clicked off, then dialed Josh Singer’s house. Maybe Ryan had stopped over there on his way home, got involved in a video game or something, and simply lost track of time.
