Last Seen: A gripping edge-of-your-seat thriller that you won’t be able to put down

Nearby, Ripkowski, whose bodybuilder arms strained his uniform, was taking careful notes as Faith recounted to him what had taken place. At the same time the officers had requested that Vaughn King, who was watching from the distance, keep the Chambers of Dread closed and keep all staff on hand.

“We mean everybody.” Ripkowski pointed his pen. “Nobody leaves.”

After obtaining the Hudsons’ initial statements, details on Gage’s height, weight, hair and eye color, Berg and Ripkowski moved fast, making a number of transmissions on their shoulder microphones and calls on their phones, to their sergeant, and to the River Ridge Fairgrounds security and operations people.

“Do you have a recent photo of your son?” Ripkowski asked. “We need to get it circulated as soon as possible.”

Faith rummaged through her bag, seizing her phone. “Last Saturday—no, sorry, it was Sunday—Gage went to his friend Ethan Clark’s birthday party. I’ve got a picture.” She swiped through images, stopping at Gage smiling for the camera while behind him some joker, likely Marshall, was holding up two fingers bunny-ear-style above his head. “See, he’s wearing the same blue Cubs shirt. It’s got the mustard stain from his hot dog at the party. I told him to put it in the wash.” Faith was almost embarrassed. “I wanted to get the stain out but it’s his favorite shirt.”

“Okay, send it to me now.” Ripkowski held up his phone displaying his email. His phone chimed receipt of the picture after Faith, fingers shaking, typed it into her email app and sent the photo. Ripkowski then forwarded it to a number of addresses and made a call, speaking urgently to a fairgrounds person while nodding to the billboard-size TV screen suspended high above their section of the midway.

The sign was flashing with ads, selfies and images of people having fun at the fair, much like the giant screens at Times Square. There were four screens overlooking the grounds, one at pretty much every compass point.

“Here we go,” Ripkowski said.

Faith gasped when the screen suddenly went blank, then popped to life with Gage smiling down at her, the words Lost/Missing shouted above his head. Gage’s name and description appeared next to his face, in missing-person poster-style with a message urging anyone who’d seen him to call 911.

“That’s up now and will stay up on all the screens,” Ripkowski said. “I’ll send copies to you and your husband to spread the word, too.”

* * *

In the minutes that followed, Cal and Faith called the parents of Gage’s friends hoping that by some wild coincidence they were in fact also here, and maybe Gage had seen them and joined them.

“Hey, Pam, it’s Faith. This is going to sound weird, but are you guys at the fair today?”

“No, I’m home doing a wash. Dean’s with Colton at Walmart looking at fishing rods, or reels, or some man-thing. Why, what’s up?”

Faith stifled her tears, cupping her hand to her face as she spun around in the chaos, seeing Cal on his phone, hearing him speaking to their friends the Thompsons.

“Jack, any chance you, Michelle and Marshall are down here at the fair right now?” he was saying.

Those calls and the others they’d made didn’t yield Gage, but their friends, shocked by the gravity of Gage’s disappearance, began mobilizing to come to the fairgrounds to help. Cal and Faith, both ashen-faced, watched from a few yards away as the search for Gage continued widening with great speed. There was one thing that could help.

Cal called Stu Kroll, his editor at the Star-News.

“It’s Cal again—listen—”

“Hey, it’s okay, we caught it. Changed it to fifty. It’s all good.”

“No, Stu, listen. Our son’s missing down here at the River Ridge fair.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m going to send you his picture and information from the police—”

“The police?”

“Yeah, it’s looking serious. We need to get the word out now. Would you guys put it up on the site and tweet it out?”

“I—I’m not sure. I mean, you’re an employee—”

“Please, Stu! Please! I’m sending it now. I gotta go.”

Ripkowski and Berg had arranged for a River Ridge patrol car to park at the Hudsons’ house just in case Gage somehow made his way home. Cal and Faith contacted their nearest neighbors—Ethan’s parents, Sam and Rory Clark—who upon hearing the news immediately agreed to join the police at their house to watch for Gage.

Meanwhile, the fairgrounds chief, Herb Dulka, had trotted to the chutes, phone pressed to his ear, joining Ripkowski and Berg, who’d waved in Vaughn King, while more police officers and other security people arrived.

“We’ve circulated Gage’s picture force-wide,” Ripkowski said. “It’ll be up on social media any minute now, notifying everyone across Chicago, the state, the entire country. And I’ll talk to my supervisor to ensure we cover all our bases and look into possibly issuing an Amber Alert.”

Dulka said, “We’ve given the photo to all our people on the grounds at the gates and in the parking lots and we’re starting the shutdown process for the announcement.”

“Good.” Berg turned to King. “Our people and firefighters are going to search the attraction and we’re going to take statements from all of your people working it.”

“Not a problem.” Vaughn nodded.

“But first—” Ripkowski nodded to the Chambers “—what about your cameras in there? You got surveillance footage? It might show us something.”

“Yes, we have cameras and we’re working on getting the footage but there’s a problem.”

“What’s the problem?”

“The playback’s frozen. The Chambers took a lightning strike last week when we were in Milwaukee and the system’s been skittish ever since.”

“We need that footage,” Ripkowski said.

“We’re working on it.”

Near them the Polar Express emitted a hydraulic sigh as it slowed. Then the Zipper groaned to a halt as ride cycles ended and riders disembarked. People were kept off and the rides across the midway remained idle while everywhere the blaring rock music at each ride ceased.

“Almost ready.” Dulka was on his phone, then nodded. “Okay, go!”

A public address system awoke, screeching feedback, then a woman’s voice crackled through it with a message that came through loud and clear.

“Attention everyone. We have an emergency. We’re looking for a little boy, Gage Hudson. He’s nine and he got separated from his folks near the Chambers of Dread a little while ago. Gage’s picture is up on the big screens. Please take a look now, then look around you. Gage, if you’re seeing this, go to any ticket booth, police officer or security person, and they’ll find your folks for you. Everyone, please look around your area for Gage and let’s get him back to his folks. Please, do it now—it’ll only take a moment. Thank you.”

The chaos had been subdued and a somber air fell across the thousands of people at the River Ridge Fairgrounds. It was soon interrupted by the distant calling of people shouting, “Gage!” from various corners, as if engaged in a Marco Polo game. But it wasn’t long before the murmuring gave way to demands for the party to resume as some calls devolved into “Gage, you’re in deep shit!” and “Your mama’s gonna whip your ass, Gage!”

During the fifteen minutes the midway was halted, no walkie-talkies crackled and no phones rang to end Cal and Faith’s agony. No one had spotted Gage. With each terrible, surreal second that passed, Cal and Faith felt their horrible fear increasing and their panic rising.

It was all they could do to keep from falling off the earth.

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