“Hi, Melinda,” she said when Josh’s mother answered. “It’s Teri McIntyre. Is Ryan there by any chance?”
“Hey, Teri. No, I haven’t seen him. Hold on a minute. I’ll get Josh.”
Teri unconsciously tapped her fingernails on the Formica counter-top while she waited.
“Mrs. McIntyre?”
“Hi, Josh. I’m looking for Ryan.”
“He was going to make up a history test after school. He—”
“I know about the test,” Teri cut in. “I thought he’d be home by now. If you see him, have him call me right away, okay?”
“Sure.”
Teri hung up just as she heard a car door slam outside. Phone in hand, she hurried to the front door, thinking maybe someone had given Ryan a lift, but instead of Ryan, it was Tom Kelly coming up the walk. She glanced at the clock even though she already knew exactly what time it was. Sure enough: 6:00 on the dot.
Tom Kelly was nothing if not punctual.
She opened the door to be greeted with a smile and a kiss, but instead of returning his hug, she pulled away, her eyes going to the bus stop at the corner where two people were getting off the last bus of the afternoon.
Neither of them was Ryan.
Tom, feeling the tension in Teri’s body, dropped his arms to his sides. “Something’s wrong,” he said.
Teri nodded. “Ryan promised to be home a half hour ago and he’s not here yet.”
Tom visibly relaxed and pulled her close again. “So he’s late — he’s sixteen. He’ll get here.”
“But he was going to go to dinner with us, and we’ll be late for the reservation.”
“Then leave him a note and some money for a pizza. He’ll go with us another time.” He was already reaching for his wallet.
Teri shook her head and moved back into the house. “This isn’t like him. Call the restaurant and see if you can push the reservation back fifteen minutes. I’m going to call some more of his friends.”
Tom smiled wryly. “Why don’t you call the police department and all the hospitals while you’re at it?” When Teri glared at him, he took her hand, sat on the sofa, and pulled her down next to him. “He’s sixteen, Teri,” he repeated. “Almost seventeen. He’s allowed to assert his independence.”
“No, you don’t understand—”
Tom put a gentle finger to her lips, silencing her objections. “His father died barely two years ago, and you’ve been seeing me for almost six months. He’s got to be thinking I’m trying to replace his father. You’ve got to give him some slack.”
Suddenly this morning’s fight came flooding back to her, and she realized Tom was right. Ryan had tried to act like an adult when he agreed to go to dinner, but he hadn’t really wanted to.
“You’ve got to give him some time, Teri. He has to deal with things on his own timetable, not yours.”
Teri looked beseechingly into his eyes. “Then where could he be?”
Tom shrugged. “It’s Friday night. He and a couple of friends could have gone out for pizza and a movie.”
“He promised he’d be home,” she insisted, shaking her head. “He left school a few minutes after four — he should be here by now.”
Tom squeezed her hand reassuringly. “You can’t make him be what you want him to be. Somewhere along the line he just decided he didn’t want to go out to dinner with me. And that’s okay. You can’t freak out every time he’s an hour late, or you’ll go insane by the time he’s off to college.” He kissed her cheek, then stood up, drawing her to her feet. “C’mon. Let’s go have a nice dinner, and you can have a chat with him when we get home. And just a chat,” he added with mock severity. “Not a tirade. Okay?”
Teri shook her head. “I just don’t think I can go. I’ll be worried every minute and—”
“Sorry, not going is not an option,” Tom interrupted. “If you stay home, you’d miss a terrific meal, and you’ll just sit here ruining your manicure.”
Teri tried to scowl, but couldn’t quite pull it off. “But I won’t be able to enjoy the meal, or you, or anything else,” she sighed.
“You’ll enjoy it more than you’ll enjoy just sitting here. So maybe you won’t be scintillating. Who cares? Just leave him a note and have him call you on your cell when he gets home. And I promise if he’s not home by the time we get back, I’ll not only help you track him down, but do half the worrying, too. Okay?”
He was right — of course he was right. And if it hadn’t been for the dinner date — a date Ryan hadn’t really wanted to go on at all — she wouldn’t even be worried. Probably all that had happened was that he’d changed his mind about having dinner with them, and hadn’t called because he didn’t want to let himself get talked back into it. She took the phone back to the kitchen and scribbled a note to Ryan, leaving it on the refrigerator where he couldn’t miss it. Then she checked her cell phone for messages one last time, made sure it had enough charge and dropped it into her purse.
“Okay,” she sighed as she returned to the living room. “I guess I’m ready.” But as she slid into the car a minute later, she knew she wasn’t ready at all. Despite Tom’s words about enjoying the evening, she was certain that all she would do would be to worry about Ryan.
Something, she just knew, had happened to him.
She couldn’t explain it, but she knew.
She knew, the way a mother always knows.
† † †
Caleb Stark filled his mop bucket with hot, soapy water from the big sink in the custodial closet, then pulled the rolling bucket behind him down the long hallway that ran the entire length of the second floor of Dickinson High.
There was new graffiti on some of the lockers in the west wing, and someone had spilled something slimy down the stairs from the second-floor landing. The goo was important — Caleb remembered that clearly — anything on the floor had to be cleaned up, especially if someone could slip and fall on it. Then, if he had time, he could work on cleaning the graffiti off the lockers.
But even before going after the slimy stuff, he had to tend to all the things he was supposed to do every day, because if he didn’t tend to them in the same order every day, he’d lose track, and some things might not get done. And if
And then his mother would be disappointed, and she might cry, and Caleb hated it when his mother cried.
Telling himself not to forget about the slimy stuff, Caleb pushed his cart down the corridor, found the big, wooden doorstop, and opened the boys’ bathroom door. It was while he was sticking the doorstop under the heavy door to prop it open that he saw the dark red footprint on the linoleum. At first Caleb thought it might be some kind of mud, or maybe even paint from the art classroom down the hall, but as he followed the tracks farther into the restroom, he saw that the stuff wasn’t mud or paint at all.
It was blood.
And a boy was lying in the middle of the bathroom floor, with a big puddle of blood around his head, which had oozed along the grout joints between the tiles.
“Holy Jesus,” he whispered softly, his mind suddenly spinning as he tried to remember what he was supposed to do if something like this ever happened.
He stepped a little closer, trying to get a better look at the boy’s face, but he was pretty sure he wouldn’t recognize him even if it was someone he knew because his face was all covered with blood.
And he looked dead, too.
But as Caleb stood staring at the boy, still trying to remember what he was supposed to do, the boy suddenly took a ragged breath and moaned.
Either the slight movement or the sound made something click in Caleb’s mind, and he suddenly knew what to do. “If you’re ever hurt, or really sick, find a phone,” his counselor had explained to him when he was moving into his own little apartment. “Then dial 911, and tell them where you are. And someone will come to help you.” The counselor’s words echoing in the depths of his memory, Caleb dropped his mop and hurried from the bathroom to
