“Just what I said. Is everything all right?”
Elliot looked at him neutrally. “Yeah, everything is fine, Sarge, why?”
“You seem like you have something on your mind,” Thomson replied. “Anything you want to talk about? Anything bothering you?”
“No, Sarge,” Elliot said. “Just thinking about that murder in Gyles Point. And about what you just told me, about that crazy guy killing himself in the car in Toronto.”
Thomson sighed. “OK, McKitrick.” Clearly whatever was bothering him, Elliot would be keeping it to himself for the moment, which was fine. But the next time he disappeared for two hours, Thomson was going to hand him his head. Steering the conversation back to the business at hand, he said, “Have you been back up to the cliffs where you saw… well, whatever you saw? Did you check it out?”
“No, Sarge,” Elliot replied. “I haven’t. No reason to, I guess.”
“Well, now you have a reason. Why don’t you drive up there and take a look around? Check it out. Just to rule everything out. It’s probably nothing, but it never hurts to be sure.”
“No, sir. When do you want me to go?”
Thomson sighed again. As irritated as he had been by Elliot being AWOL this morning for two hours, the tension was coming off the younger man in waves, and it was irritating as hell. Maybe a hike up to Spirit Rock would help him realign his priorities, or at the very least adjust his attitude a bit. The murder at Gyles Point wasn’t officially Thomson’s headache-yet-so he could afford to focus on the stack of paperwork that had been building up on his desk.
“No time like the present, McKitrick. Shouldn’t take you more than an hour or so, I should think. Just check it out.” He briefly considered joining Elliot, thinking that it had been a while since he’d done that particular hike on a fall morning, before realizing that the prospect of traipsing through the bush this morning on what was likely a make-work mission was entirely without appeal. And it was getting colder outside, too. He was starting to feel the coming winter in his joints, though Thomson wouldn’t have confessed to that under torture. “This time,” he added pointedly. “Keep in touch.”
“Yes, sir, will do.” Elliot said.
To Thomson, he sounded relieved. Whatever the kid was going through-girls, or whatever-Thomson hoped he’d get it out of his system soon, because it would become a pain in the ass very quickly if he didn’t.
Still, as he watched Elliot leave, he was barely aware that, as the father of two daughters and no sons, he was far more fond of the kid than he’d ever admit, even to himself.
Well before the lunch bell rang, Finn had made his decision. He knew that there was an excellent chance that he’d catch holy hell, and very likely get suspended, but he didn’t care. Sadie was lost and no classroom could hold him this afternoon.
He’d barely heard anything that his teacher, Mrs. Marshall, had said all morning, though he’d kept a bright, pleasantly neutral expression on his face. Only his eyes, red from crying, would have given any indication that there was something wrong. Since he’d deftly avoided one-on-one contact with anyone else in his class (and because Mrs. Marshall tended not to look too hard at students unless she had to) no one had any idea that he was teetering on the verge of his own personal hell.
He needed to find his dog, and he needed to find her before something terrible happened to her. There was no one in his life he loved more than Sadie-not even his parents. No one. Sadie was his baby. She was his world.
When he’d woken his parents that morning, his father was initially irritated-hardly unusual for his father in the morning, especially before he’d had his coffee and locked himself in the upstairs bathroom with the newspaper-but that irritation had quickly turned to a level of concern that stunned and comforted Finn. His father had even driven around the neighbourhood looking for Sadie. Finn had waited by the picture window in the living room for any sign of his father’s car, praying that he’d see Sadie, grinning foolishly in the back seat when he came back. When his father had returned alone, looking frustrated, Finn had burst into fresh tears.
His mother was almost as frantic as Finn, calling the neighbours on either side to see if, by some miracle, Sadie had wandered into their yards. But even as she did, in between calls, his mother kept muttering,
“There’s no
“Do you think she… do you think some sort of animal might have…” Finn couldn’t bring himself to finish the thought.
“Don’t be silly, Finnegan,” his mother said, dialling the next number in her book. “Sadie is too big for an owl or a hawk to have carried her off. And any other animal would have had to get in-and out-with her. She probably found some way to jump the fence.”
“There was a lot of barking last night,” Finn said hopefully. “Maybe she wanted to join in with the other dogs?”
“Was there? I slept right through… Laura?” his mother said brightly. “Hi, it’s Anne Miller. Good morning! Yes, fine, thank you! Listen, Laura, I’m sorry to bother you, but Sadie’s missing. Yes, I know. I don’t know. Would you mind taking a look in your back yard and see if she’s there?”
His mother looked up at the ceiling, tapping her fingers along the counter by the wall as she waited for Mrs. Smythe to come back on the line. The finger tapping was something Finn knew she did when she was more upset about something then she wanted to let on. When she spoke again, Finn heard the disappointment in her voice and his heart sank. “No? Isn’t that strange. No, we have no idea. Thanks for looking, though, Laura. Oh, would you? That would be so nice. Yes, I hope she turns up, too. Finn is a little upset. All right, give my best to Al. Yes, goodbye, Laura.”
“Mom,” Finn said. His bottom lip had begun to quiver. “I want to stay home from school today. I want to look for Sadie.”
“Finn, there’s nothing you can do. Go get dressed for school. You can look for her when you get home. I’ll call around. I’ll even call the police station and let them know to keep an eye out for her.”
“Mom, I don’t
“Finn, please.” His mother sighed. “I know you’re upset, but you being upset isn’t going to bring Sadie home any sooner. It’ll all be fine, you’ll see. I’m sure she hasn’t gone far. We’ll find her. I’ll take you out in the car after school and we’ll look together.”
Finn wanted to shout that his mother didn’t care about Sadie, and if she cared, she’d let him stay home, but he knew that wasn’t true. She did care. He also knew that he was already as upset as he could stand to be, and that a fight with his mother over whether or not he could stay home was a fight he was bound to lose.
He’d gotten dressed and left for school, Sadie’s red rubber ball tucked into the pocket of his jacket, thinking he could keep it together. By noon, he realized he wasn’t going to be able to do it, because Sadie was all he could think of.
All morning he’d mentally explored the horror show of possibilities of what might have happened to Sadie-some more realistic than others, but all equally awful.
He was haunted by one particular image-Sadie wandering, injured, lost in the cliff area around Bradley Lake, perhaps with a broken leg, or worse. Somehow the mechanics of how this might have occurred was less important than the absolute
He could see her, as though he were gazing into the Wicked Witch of the West’s crystal ball in
He pictured Sadie in the crystal ball instead of Auntie Em-lost, hurt, terrified, and looking for Finn to protect her and bring her home. The scene repeated itself in his mind all morning at school until the possibility of sitting in his seat and listening to Mrs. Marshall drone on about the geography of countries he knew he’d never visit made him want to scream.
When the lunch bell rang, he waited till no one was looking, then climbed the chain-link fence behind the schoolyard and ran like hell along the streets behind the school, heading for Bradley Lake. He’d considered meeting Morgan in their usual spot and telling her that he wouldn’t be able to stay and eat lunch with her today because