Last Seen

“We don’t know what happened.”

“What do you think happened?”

“We just don’t know.”

“Could he have met someone online?”

“I’d say no, that’s not possible.”

“How can you be sure?”

“He goes on chat forums, but he only talks to people he knows. Gage is very responsible, and we’ve got controls on his computer games—we monitor things. He doesn’t even have his own phone.”

“Could he have wandered off?”

“It’s not like him. He’s a smart kid—he’s responsible.”

“Has he ever run off before?”

“No.”

“Could he have been threatened, or bullied?”

“Not that we know of.”

“Is there a reward?”

“We haven’t reached that stage yet.”

“Isn’t he a little young for that attraction? Maybe he got frightened and ran off?”

“Maybe, but not likely. Gage wanted to come to the fair. He wanted to go into the Chambers of Dread as part of a harmless dare with his friends, to prove he wasn’t afraid. And he wasn’t. In fact, he’d refused to let his mother hold his hand.”

Cal noticed Officers Berg and Ripkowski were among people at the periphery of the news pack to observe the conference. Ripkowski was on his phone feeding information to someone on the other end.

Standing with them was a black man, over six feet tall, wearing dark glasses, a jacket and matching slacks. Next to him was a white woman, in her late thirties, wearing a blazer and jeans. The woman’s arms were crossed but she held an open notebook and pen, paused from writing things down. Her dark hair was pulled back in a taut ponytail. Her eyes were like black pearls locked on Cal and Faith, examining them, as the press continued with questions.

“Cal, most of us know that you’re a reporter with the Chicago Star-News. Mrs. Hudson, do you work outside the home?”

Faith shot a glance to Cal, who nodded.

“I’m a public relations manager,” she responded.

“Who do you work for?”

“Parker Hayes and Robinson in downtown Chicago, the Sears—I mean, Willis—Tower.”

“Cal, back to you—given that you’re a crime reporter, could your son’s disappearance have any possible link to one of your stories?”

“What? Like someone out to get me?”

“Yes.”

“I think that’s a huge leap.”

“Thank you.” DeSanto held up his palms. “One more, then we’ll wrap it up.” He pointed to Lori Kowski, from Cal’s paper, the Chicago Star-News. “Go ahead, last question.”

Cal saw Franco Ginnetti clench his eye behind his camera, taking aim at him and Faith. Lori and Franco knew them. He’d worked with both of them, and Faith had met them at several Star-News social gatherings. Gage had played with their kids at the paper’s Christmas party. The moment was unreal as Cal braced for Lori’s question.

“Faith,” Lori started as Franco fired off a few frames. “As a mother I can’t imagine what you’re going through right now and my heart goes out to you. Is there anything you want to say to your son, or people who’ll be following this story?”

Faith brushed back the hair that had curtained in front of her face.

“We just want to find Gage. Please, if anyone has any information, no matter how seemingly trivial, please help us. Gage, always remember Mommy loves you. You have to be strong and remember that no matter what happens I love you, sweetheart, and we’re going to find you!”

Faith brushed back her hair again, scanning the media group and the people who’d gathered at the edges.

That’s when she saw him.

He was wearing a ball cap pulled down low, but Faith would recognize him anywhere. What was he doing here? What if Cal saw him?

Subtly she made brief, intense eye contact, giving him a nearly imperceptible shake of her head, as if to say, Leave—now.

8

Faith stared at a glass bead rosary on a silver chain.

Her friend, Pam Huppkey, had pressed it into her hand when the news conference ended. Pam was active at Saint Bartholomew’s where her son, Colton, went to school with Gage and their other friends.

“I called Phyllis with the school association at Saint Bart’s.” Pam blinked back tears. “They’re making up color fliers with Gage’s picture and putting a group together to go door-to-door around the park right now.” Pam hugged her with a tiny clinking sound. Pam was partial to hoop earrings and bracelets. “We’re going to find him. Okay?”

Faith nodded, still staring at the rosary’s Madonna and Child while running her fingertips over the crucifix. “Thank you, Pam.”

Michelle Thompson, Faith’s ever-poised Realtor friend and Marshall’s mom, hugged her. She gestured to her husband, Jack, the other half of “the Terrific Thompson Realty Team,” according to the ads on many of River Ridge’s bus stop benches. He was several yards away talking with Cal and making calls on his phone.

“Jack’s getting the community association and ball team parents involved in the search. We’re here for you, honey. We’ve got your back. We’re gonna find him.” Michelle glanced at the newspeople lingering near the exit chutes. “Come on, let’s talk over there.”

Faith’s friends took her away from the press to a quiet corner under the search center canopies where they continued comforting her.

“Tell us, what do you think happened?” Michelle asked.

“I don’t know, I swear I just don’t know. We were in the spinner part, the last section. Gage was with us. There was loud music, flashing lights. The floor spins in a circle and this guy with a chain saw is chasing you. It’s chaotic and confusing. I glimpsed Gage with Cal before I got on a slide to leave. Oh God, where is he?”

“He just can’t disappear like that.” Michelle threw a look toward the chutes, then to Cal in the distance. Faith and Pam followed it to see Cal with Michelle’s husband. Now the men were talking to police and security staff.

For her part, Pam looked long and hard at Cal, bit her bottom lip, then took quick inventory of their immediate area. She drew in close to the other women, dropped her voice.

“I thought I saw someone, but I’m—” Pam stopped, as if catching herself thinking out loud. “I’m sorry, I’m not sure.”

“What are you talking about?” Faith stared at her.

“I thought I saw someone in the crowd at the press conference.”

“Who?” Faith shot at her. “Someone from where? From what?”

Pam caught her breath and swallowed hard, shaking her head.

“I’m sorry, I’m not sure.”

“Who do you think you saw?”

“I’m confused.”

“For God’s sake, Pam!” Faith chastised her. “If you saw something important, it could be a lead! So march over there and tell the damn police who or what you think you saw right now.”

Pam waved her hands in front of her. “No, no, I’m sorry! I’m confused! I didn’t see anything!”

“So you didn’t see anyone?”

“I didn’t. I’m so sorry.”

“It was either real, or it wasn’t, Pam—one or the other.”

“It wasn’t!”

“You better be damn well certain.”

“I didn’t see anyone. I’m just upset for you!”

“You’re upset for me?” Faith’s condescending glare, her eyes scanning Pam head to toe in icy assessment, barely masked what she was thinking: that while Pam, a stay-at-home mom, was a loyal friend, Faith regarded her level of intelligence to be somewhat lower than hers and her other friends’.

“Christ, Pam,” Michelle said. “As if Faith isn’t facing enough pain now.”

“I’m sorry,” Pam continued. “It’s just that nothing adds up, nothing makes sense. How does a little boy just disappear?”

“There could be any number of explanations,” Michelle said. “We just don’t know.”

“Stop it,” Faith said. “It’s my fault. I should’ve been holding his hand. I’m his mother! Why wasn’t I holding his hand?”

“Don’t blame yourself. Cal was there, too. Anything could’ve—” Michelle stopped when she saw Cal approaching.

He quickly acknowledged Michelle and Pam, sensing his presence had abruptly ended a serious discussion. Then he took Faith into his arms and kissed the top of her head.

Faith made a display of rubbing his shoulders with affection, subtly glancing beyond him to the dispersed crowd to secretly confirm the man had left.

“We’re going to check the lot where we parked,” Cal said. “Gage might’ve tried to make his way to the car. You stay here, in case he returns.”

“You really think Gage went to the car?” she asked. “Would he even know how to find his way back to it?”

“I don’t know. Maybe. We have to check.”

Cal noticed that Faith, a lapsed Catholic, had a rosary in her hand.

“What’s this?”

“Pam gave it to me.”

“Oh, I see.” Cal glanced at Pam, then looked at the rosary briefly before closing his hands around Faith’s and the rosary. He squeezed encouragement, then she cupped her hands tenderly to his face before he left with a small group for the parking lot.

* * *

They didn’t find Gage at section B, space number 23, southwest of the fairgrounds where they’d parked their Ford Escape.

And as the afternoon passed, no sign of Gage had surfaced in the ongoing search of the fair and the surrounding neighborhoods, some of which had been canvassed four times by ardent volunteers. The periodic announcements appealing to fairgoers for help continued but to no avail. Alerts had gone to Amtrak and bus terminals, to O’Hare and Midway airports and to the Chicago Transit Authority, but nothing had emerged.

Gage’s disappearance had become Chicago’s top news story, drawing national interest. Some networks used footage recorded by fans across the country from inside the Chambers of Dread, noting that it was billed as America’s Biggest Traveling World of Horrors. Every news report also included footage of Cal and Faith, who, even in their heartbreak, were a photogenic couple.

Tips began flowing to River Ridge police from the Amber Alert but they were vague, nothing concrete. “I thought I saw that kid with a Slurpee at a 7-Eleven but I’m not sure which one.” Or, “I tell you I saw a boy like that running down the midway, that’s all I know.”

The sun sank and night fell over the River Ridge Fairgrounds. The midway continued bustling with flashing and pulsating lights while the rock music hammered. But by 11:30 p.m., the crowds had thinned, food stands began closing; the rides began shutting down and the music was silenced.

At midnight the gates were locked.

Near the Chambers of Dread, desperation was mounting.

While Faith and Cal waited at the search center with clusters of police, security staff, volunteers and media, a funereal stillness had gripped the grounds, bringing the Hudsons to the next stage of their anguish.

“Faith.” Cal took her hands in his, hearing the tremor in his voice. “It’s time to go home.”

“Go home?” She stared at him as if he’d just uttered the vilest words imaginable.

“Go home and rest, Faith. You can look again after some sleep.”

“Go home without my son?”

A surge of panic filled her eyes and she began shaking her head at the devastating weight of what had befallen them. The threads of her restraint unraveled and one by one they snapped as her facade of calm and reason exploded with volcanic might at the awful, terrible horror.

“No, no, no. I can’t go home without him. No, I can’t! No, I can’t! No, no!” Faith began chanting, pulling at her hair as if she’d lost her mind. “Gage!” She stood, screaming full bore in a gut-twisting pitch, as if barbed wire were scraping her vocal cords. “Gage!”

Cal moved to console her; she fought him off. Michelle and Pam, along with their husbands and police, rushed to help but she twisted and writhed, sobbing before crumpling to the ground in a heap.

They struggled to help her; one of the officers radioed for EMS and within two minutes a siren yelped. An ambulance, lights flashing, inched toward them. From a distance news cameras captured Faith’s breakdown as paramedics checked her signs.

“She needs to rest,” one of them said.

“Take her home,” Cal said, giving them the address. “I’ll sign whatever waiver you need. I’ll ride with you. Just take her home.”

She didn’t fight as they transferred her to a gurney, lifted her into the ambulance and drove off. Cal was at her feet. A paramedic watched over her while she continued calling softly for Gage.

Looking upon his wife, struggling to maintain control, Cal felt he had melted into a strange dreamlike river. As they rolled through the fairgrounds he was stabbed by the thought of how they’d come here together as a family and were now retreating like troops crushed by an overwhelming enemy.

The streets of River Ridge looked alien to him.

Nothing was real anymore.

More news crews were waiting on the lawn and sidewalk of the Hudsons’ house when they arrived, shouting questions at them. Cal waved them off. Samantha and Rory Clark, their neighbors who had a key, had hurried outside the Hudsons’ house to help. The paramedics brought Faith inside and suggested she take an over-the-counter sleeping pill.

They put her in bed; Cal sat alone with her, not knowing what to do as his exhausted brain throbbed with thoughts of Gage.

He couldn’t sleep, so after she drifted off he went back downstairs.

Officers Berg and Ripkowski were still in the house.

“We can ensure our people stay the night with you, to be prepared for anything. It’s your option,” the officers had told Cal.

“Yes, I’d like it if someone were here for now.”

Along with Officers Berg and Ripkowski, Michelle and Pam had arrived with their husbands and offered to stay in the room with Faith. Samantha—“Sam” to her friends—had made strong coffee. Cal needed to be alert. He drank two large cups, fighting to hang on to himself while sitting in his kitchen with his friends.

For a burning instant he envied and hated them.

They knew where their kids were. They hadn’t lost a child. He knew what they were likely thinking: I wouldn’t have let my kid out of my sight for one second—not like Cal and Faith, not me.

Cal then loathed himself as his friends expressed their genuine, heartfelt concerns, urging him to eat and rest.

How can I sleep not knowing where Gage is? Is he terrified? Is he hurt somewhere? Is he locked away? Oh God, please tell me where he is.

Cal knew what he had to do.

He hurried to the storage closet, next to the kitchen. He opened a big backpack, stuffed it with items from the kitchen and closet. He got a couple of flashlights, tapped them to test the batteries, grabbed Gage’s hockey stick and headed for the door.

“Where’re you going, Cal?” Officer Ripkowski asked.

Rory Clark glanced at the others, who were puzzled.

“Gage may have tried to walk home.”

“You think so? It’s about two miles and he’s only nine, Cal,” Ripkowski said.

“I know. I showed him once how to get to our place from Blossom Avenue and it leads to the fairgrounds. I’m going to track back to the car and search along the route he might’ve taken.”

“I got a flashlight in my car.” Rory nodded to the other men. “We’ll come with you, unless you officers think that’s a problem?”

“Go ahead,” Berg said, reaching for her radio. “We’ll advise our people and wait here.”

In the following hours, with two news crews in tow, Cal and his group of suburban fathers walked the route Gage might’ve taken. They searched front yards, backyards and driveways, raking their flashlights under cars. They looked in alleys and behind strip malls. Cal used the hockey stick to probe trash cans and poke hedges and shrubs.

All the while the men called out for Gage, they stopped late-night dog walkers, joggers and people on bicycles to ask for help, showing them Gage’s picture on their phones. And the group consulted with every River Ridge police car they encountered, patrolling and on alert in the hunt for Gage.

They arrived at the River Ridge Fairgrounds finding the Hudsons’ SUV was the only vehicle remaining in the southwest parking lot. A patrol car had been watching it from a distance and the men checked in with the officer before moving toward it.

A cold wind kicked up, tossing papers and sending empty Old Milwaukee cans tumbling across the desolate expanse where the Ford Escape stood fast, as if keeping a lone vigil for Gage.

Cal unlocked it, opened the tailgate and lowered the rear seats.

As his friends watched, trying to understand Cal’s actions, he unpacked Gage’s small sleeping bag and spread it carefully on the rear. Then he set out prepackaged cheese and crackers, peanut butter and crackers, three juice boxes, apples and bananas. Gage loved those snacks. Next to them, he set down Gage’s favorite handheld video game, the one he’d left on the kitchen table before they’d come to the fair.

Gage cherished the little game and Cal knew it would be the first thing he’d pick up if he returned to the car. Cal inserted fresh batteries, brushed the game tenderly with his fingertips before typing on the small keyboard. A couple of men watching over Cal’s shoulder saw his brief message.

Gage, we’re searching for you everywhere. You’re not in trouble son, just stay here and we’ll come and get you. We love you, Mom and Dad.

A few people sniffed and throats were cleared as the men turned away.

“Guys, let’s search along the edge of the lot by the fences and the alleys,” one of the men said, intending to give Cal privacy.

The other fathers moved away across the lot in different directions, leaving Cal alone sitting on the Ford’s tailgate.

As the wind kicked up, Cal remembered that Gage didn’t have a jacket or hoodie and wondered if he was cold, wherever he was right now. It may have been Cal’s exhaustion, his strained emotions, but at that instant Cal was hit, like a sledgehammer to his gut, with the probability that he would never see Gage again.

He sobbed into his hands as the wind carried his pain into the night and Gage stared down on him from one of the big screens that were still lit over the fairgrounds, with the words Lost/Missing and Last Seen Wearing calling out above his description and blazing in the darkness.

I’m so sorry, Gage. I’m so sorry for everything I’ve done, son.

9

“Mom, help me!”

Faith hears him first, crying out, then screaming for her.

“Mom, help me! Please come and help me, Mom!”

He’s still in the Chambers of Dread. It’s where he’s been all this time.

Faith gets in her car, flies to the fairgrounds, scales the fence, rushes into the horror house, passes through the jaws of the Demon King, plunges into the darkness, following Gage’s pleas.

“Mom, please, please, help me!”

“I’m coming, sweetheart! I’m coming!”

A cloaked figure points the way for her with a blood-dripping head. Faith blurs through the labyrinth, races by the flames of the burning witch queen.

“Hurry, Mom!”

Faith comes to the fanged clown thumping a malevolent tune on the keyboard of skulls at the organ and nodding the way for Faith over the river of snakes, through the cavern of bats and spiders. She weaves through the tombstones in the graveyard as the zombie points. “He’s in there!”

“Mommy, help me!”

Gage is lying on a cutting table and the insane butcher—surrounded by twitching limbs and bleeding torsos—raises his cleaver over Gage’s neck.

Faith screams at him, “Stop!”

She rushes to Gage, but hands clawing at her lower legs, wretched hands of the damned from the Dungeons of Dread, keep her back. She struggles, reaching toward Gage, his eyes ballooning as the cleaver begins its descent. She cries out to him—oh God—straining, almost reaching him—almost!

“Why didn’t you take my hand, Mommy?”

“Gage! No! I’m here! Mommy’s right here!”

Faith fights to break free—to save Gage—but the hands are holding her...pressing her down...voices are calling to her...

“Faith! Faith, honey, wake up!”

She gasped and startled awake. Michelle and Pam were with her, holding her down.

“You’re having a bad dream,” Michelle said.

Battling through her torpor Faith discovered she was at home in her bedroom.

“A dream?”

“Yes, it’s just a bad dream.” Pam nodded.

“Gage is home?”

Before they could stop her, Faith bolted from her bed and hurried to Gage’s room. She called for him but the deathly quiet of his empty room and his empty bed that was still made stopped her cold.

“Gage?”

She picked up his pillow, held it to her chest and pressed her face into it, smelling a trace of him.

That’s all she had now, that and her guilt.

Was this the price she’d have to pay for her sins?

“Faith, honey.” Michelle and Pam took her shoulders. “Let’s get you back to your bed. You need to rest.”

Racked with unrelenting agony, Faith slammed her back to the wall and slid to the floor. Through her sobs, as Michelle and Pam helped Faith to her bed, they heard her say, “I’m being punished! I’m being punished!”

Officer Angie Berg heard it, too, and made a note of it in her log.

The Second Day

10

Thirty minutes before dawn under a coral sky a man and woman stepped out of a blue Chevy Impala and walked to the front step of the Hudsons’ house.

The woman was in her early thirties, white, five foot four, slender, hair pulled in a tight ponytail. She was jacked up on Starbucks. The man, midthirties, was black, six foot two, with a bearlike physique, calm and confident. Both had clipboard folders.

They rang the doorbell.

When Cal, who’d had about forty-five minutes of sleep since returning from the fairgrounds, opened the door, the woman spoke.

“Mr. Hudson? I’m Detective Rachel Price and this is Detective Leon Lang, River Ridge Police.”

Both held up leather-cased wallets showing their badges and IDs. Cal remembered them. They’d been standing with Berg and Ripkowski at the press conference.

“May we come in?” Price asked.

A new wave of concern rolled over his face. “Did you find Gage?”

“No, sir, not yet,” Price said.

“What about the car? Did he come to our car in the parking lot?”

“I’m sorry, no. But we’ve got more people involved and there are things we need to do as soon as possible, so may we come in?”

Cal surrendered the door and walked them inside.

“There’s coffee in the kitchen,” he said.

Some of the Hudsons’ friends were in the living room; some were asleep and others were talking softly on phones. The TV was tuned to a breakfast news show. Sports highlights were on. The volume was low.

“I’m sorry. It must’ve been a rough night,” Price said.

Cal rubbed his face and messy hair and nodded.

“Excuse me.” Price noticed Officers Berg and Ripkowski drinking coffee in the kitchen, studying maps on the counter with two men. “I need a private word with our people before a fresh crew relieves them.”

Price went to the kitchen, and Lang spoke up. “Sir, can you show me your son’s room?”

Cal led him upstairs and down the hall to Gage’s room, which seemed to shrink when Lang stood in the middle of it, taking stock without touching anything. He noticed Gage’s posters—the Cubs, the White Sox, Bears, Bulls and Blackhawks—nodding to one that was a mosaic.

“Your son likes Pokémon?”

“Yes.”

“So does my daughter. She has the same poster. Not sure what generation that one is.” Lang had a soft, infectious smile that became all business when he shifted gears. “Mr. Hudson, we’re doing everything we can to find Gage.”

Cal nodded, then said, “Look, I’m going out to continue search—”

“Excuse me, Mr. Hudson.” Cal turned to see Price had come in behind him. “We’re going to need you and your wife to come to our offices so we can talk.”

“Talk?”

“We want to go over everything very carefully with both of you and we should go now.”