Last Seen

“What’s going on?” Faith had emerged from their bedroom clutching a robe around her. “Who are these people?”

“They’re detectives and they want us to go with them to help with the search for Gage.”

“Cal, Faith.” Price made sure she had their attention. “Has anyone contacted you claiming to know your son’s whereabouts, or to demand ransom? Maybe they contacted you in some way we’re not aware of?”

“No,” Cal said. “We would have alerted your people here.”

“Good, okay. Now, we’d also like to request your consent to allow us to search your home and conduct other aspects of our investigation—on your phones, computers, vehicles, bank records, credit cards, that sort of thing. We’ll have the paperwork at our office.” They all watched Lang close Gage’s bedroom door by hooking his pen behind the knob. “Right now we’d like to seal your son’s bedroom, along with the rest of the house, so our techs can process it. I’ve got a log here—” Price tapped her folder “—from Officer Berg. We’ll also collect DNA, and fingerprints from you and everyone who’s been in the house since Gage’s disappearance to create an elimination set. We’ll get details on where your volunteers have searched and who was involved. Mr. Hudson, being a crime reporter, I’m sure you understand these steps?”

“Wait! I don’t understand. Why do this?” Faith’s bloodshot eyes searched their faces for the answer. “Why search our private lives, our home? Why take our fingerprints? Gage isn’t here. You had two cops sitting in our kitchen all night. Get out there and search the city. Search the freakin’ fairgrounds, talk to those tattooed lowlifes working on the midway!”

“Faith.” Cal grabbed her shoulders. “Honey, this is what they have to do. It’s procedure.”

“That’s right, Mrs. Hudson,” Lang said. “We’re sorry if it’s upsetting but we need to do this. Believe me, we’ve got a lot of people working to locate your son.”

“I don’t understand.” Faith pulled at the cuffs of her robe to wipe at her tears. “I don’t understand any of this.”

Cal hugged her, then turned to the detectives.

“Do we have time to take a shower?”

“A quick one,” Price said. “I’m sorry, but time is crucial.”

Half an hour later, as Cal and Faith accompanied the detectives to their sedan, Faith froze, having trouble catching her breath.

Gage’s bicycle was in the front yard beside the walk.

For a burning instant she thought he’d come home from riding through the neighborhood, leaving his bike on the lawn like he always did, and her heart soared with the relief that he’d returned to her.

She reached out to touch Gage’s bike but was stabbed with the cold, hard truth: he’d neglected to put it the garage before they’d gone to the carnival because he was so excited.

Cal put his arm around her, calming her, moving her along as they were caught in the glare of TV cameras and the staccato flash of newspaper photographers.

Mary Kitterly, a Chicago TV news reporter, turned to her camera, which had tracked the Hudsons’ walk to the car live for its morning news broadcast. She was reporting to her anchor in what the station was calling a “Breaking Exclusive.”

“That’s right, Bob.” Mary gripped her microphone with one hand and steadied her earpiece with the other. “Sources tell me that River Ridge detectives are taking the couple, Cal and Faith Hudson, in for what they call ‘interviews.’ Now, this comes less than twenty-four hours after the mysterious disappearance of their nine-year-old son, Gage Hudson, from the River Ridge midway.”

“Mary, that’s an interesting turn of events in what is a very troubling case. Is there anything more you can tell us regarding the parents being escorted from their home by police?”

The camera and Mary turned to see the perfect middle-class couple seated in the Chevy sedan before the doors closed and it whisked down the sleepy neighborhood street.

“Bob, experts we’ve talked to have assured us that this is routine in cases involving missing children and does not imply any suspicion or role in the boy’s disappearance. It should be noted that it’s our understanding that the parents were the last to see the boy before he vanished...”

11

The River Ridge Police Department was headquartered downtown, across from city hall, in the Lewis D. Boatellick Building, a restored five-story glass-and-stone example of Midwestern civic architecture, named for the first officer killed on duty.

Most cops called it “the Boat.”

Price and Lang avoided the news crews huddled out front, driving through the secured entrance to the building’s underground parking garage. It smelled of exhaust, engine oil and cement when the detectives led the Hudsons to the elevator.

They stepped off at the fourth floor and went down a corridor coming to a fluorescent-lit squad room. The walls were lined with maps, file cabinets, case-status boards, shift schedules and glass-walled offices. A large flat-screen TV suspended from the ceiling was tuned to an all-news channel. The middle of the room was open with an assortment of large desks cojoined in pairs.

“Please have a seat.” Lang rolled out two chairs beside their desks. “First, we need you to sign the consent-to-search authorizations.”

“They’re ready. I’ll get them,” Price said, going to another office, returning with a file folder and placing a legal-looking document on the desk before Cal and Faith, who tried to read the several stapled pages.

“This allows us to immediately begin collecting material from your home—fingerprints, DNA—and search your computers and phones for anything connected to Gage.” Price extended a ballpoint pen to Faith, who stared at it without accepting it.

Lang said, “Gage’s disappearance could be tied to someone who was in your home, contacted you or hacked your computer or phone. Unless we investigate, we won’t know.”

Cal and Faith hesitated while Price kept the pen extended.

“We could get warrants,” Lang said. “This is faster, lets us send an evidence team to your house right away. And our IT people can clone your phones right here right now in a very short time. That way we’ll monitor all the calls here, so if someone contacts you for a ransom, or finds Gage, or he tries to call you, we’re on it. No time is lost.”

Cal was nodding but Faith remained hesitant as the detectives looked at them.

“But you’ll also go through all of our private information?” she asked.

“With your consent,” Price said.

“I don’t have a problem with that,” Cal said. “Whatever it takes to help find Gage, right, Faith?”

“Yes,” she said, “of course.”

Cal and Faith signed, then handed their phones to the detectives. “Thank you,” Lang said. “We’ll take these to IT.”

“What about the police officers at our home?” Faith asked.

“What about them?” Price said.

“How long will they be living with us?”

Price and Lang exchanged a glance.

“Are you uncomfortable having them there?” Price asked.

“A little,” Faith said.

“We’ve posted officers there for support and for your safety during this time,” Price said. “But after we clone your phones, they can be available at your discretion. Any time you’d prefer they not be inside, you tell us. We can post them outside, okay?”

“Thank you,” Faith said.

“Good. We’re going to get some coffee, fuel for the job,” Price said. “Can we get you coffee, juice, water?”

The Hudsons declined.

“We’ll be back in a few minutes.” Price offered a small smile. “And once we’re done the interviews we’ll take you down to processing for your prints and swab for DNA, then get you home.”

Price and Lang left, leaving Cal and Faith alone.

“I didn’t understand the consent we just signed.” Faith blinked back her tears. “I almost feel like we need a lawyer. I can’t think at all.”

“This is all procedure. One way or another they’ll get what they want and we have to cooperate so they can focus on Gage.”

“I’ll do whatever it takes to find him but I’m so afraid, Cal, I can’t think.” Faith cupped her hands to her face.

Cal’s impulse was to put his arm around her but he abandoned the idea. Taking stock of the squad room, he pointed his chin to one of the outlying offices. Two men in sports shirts, wearing shoulder holsters, were questioning an overweight tattooed man.

“Look, that’s the ticket taker. The guy who was in front of the horror house when we went in,” Cal said. “I didn’t like the way he eyed you.”

“You noticed that, did you?”

Cal studied her for a moment.

“Yes, I noticed,” Cal said. “He gave off a bad vibe.”

Faith let a few tense seconds pass before she nodded to another office where two other detectives were talking to a man. “That’s the chain-saw guy. At least they’re talking to the carny people. That’s a good thing.”

As the minutes swept by, Cal and Faith looked at the desks. Their sides were pushed against a wall under a corkboard of notes, calendars, phone lists and personal items. To one side there was a framed degree from Elmhurst College for Rachel Price and a photo of her beaming in formal blues, with two men to her left and two men to her right. Congrats, little sis! The fifth cop in the family! Doug, Spence, Danny and Deke was penned below it.

On the right side, there was a framed degree in Criminal Justice for Leon Wesley Lang from the University of Illinois. There was a snapshot of him with a woman and a little girl, about Gage’s age, by a mountain lake. The girl bore a resemblance to Lang.

Each desk had a computer monitor and keyboard. File folders were fanned over the work area and notebooks were bound with elastic and neatly stacked. On one of the desks were splayed copies of the morning editions of the Chicago Tribune and the Chicago Star-News. The headline in the Star-News said Star-News Reporter’s Son Vanishes in River Ridge Fair Horror House. It ran atop photos of Gage in his blue Cubs shirt and Cal and Faith at the press conference.

Faith’s hand flew to her mouth. “Cal,” she said, her voice quavering. “I don’t like this. What’re we really here for?”

“They need to know exactly what happened and we have to help.”

“It’s making me nervous. Will they need to know everything about us?”

Cal looked at her.

“They’re going to ask us whatever they feel they need to ask us, Faith. That could be anything. Are you ready for that?”

She stared back at him. He was unable to read what was behind her eyes but her tone cooled when she finally said, “Are you, Cal?”

For a moment, neither of them breathed.

Suddenly she took his hand, squeezing it with both of hers, as if she’d been cued by Price and Lang’s return.

“All set?” Price smiled briefly, taking note of the handholding. The detectives had returned with ceramic mugs of coffee, their clipboard folders and the Hudsons’ phones. “Thanks for those. Now, Cal, if you’d come with me, and Faith, if you’d go with Leon.”

They led them to the far end of the floor, down a hall with several closed rooms. Price indicated Interview Room 402 on the left side for Cal, while Leon did the same for Interview Room 403 on the opposite side for Faith.

“We don’t want to be interrupted,” Price said, “so we’ll talk in these interview rooms.”

Before they entered, Faith threw her arms around Cal, surprising him with a kiss on his cheek and a tight hug, her body trembling against his.

Again, she searched Cal’s face.

Then she turned and joined Lang.

12

Still feeling Faith’s kiss, Cal stepped into Interview Room 402.

He took a quick look at the small room, barren of furniture but for the hard-back chairs on either side of a table with a wood veneer finish.

As a reporter, Cal had been inside enough police stations, precincts and districts to know how investigators truly regarded these rooms. All of them were like this one, bright and sparse with white cinder-block walls that seemed to be closing in on you.

Interview room? No, these were battlefields where truth waged war against deception.

“Have a seat, Cal.”

The chairs scraped on the vinyl floor and Price took her place across from him, set her mug on the table, then her folder, which she opened. She tapped her pen against the pad while scanning her notes.

She was pumped for this.

Cal swallowed. Most of the saliva in his throat had dried.

Hang on to yourself and keep it together.

Price pulled a small recorder from her jacket, switched it on and set it down between them. “This little one’s for me. I want to take down everything accurately.” She gave him a smile, nodding to the camera pointing at him from the ceiling in the corner of the room. “We record all interviews, a precaution for you and for us. Do you have a problem with that?”

“None.”

“Okay, good,” she said. “We’ve gone over your statements but I want to begin with you telling me everything that occurred yesterday when Gage disappeared, from the time you got up, to the time you went to sleep—or tried to. Include everything you did, everyone you interacted with, whether by phone, email, in person, tell me everything.”

Cal took a slow, deep breath, then for the next twenty minutes he recounted the day—how it was a day off for both him and Faith, how they’d taken Gage to the fair, to the Chambers of Dread, and the nightmare that had happened after that.

“So, Gage wanted to go into the Chambers because his friends Marshall and Colton had dared him?” Price made notes. “Is that correct?”

“Yes.”

“Tell me more about Gage. Has he ever wandered off?”

“No.”

“Does he have any learning disabilities?”

“No, he’s a bright child, takes after his mother.”

“Any attention disorders?”

“No.”

“Would you say he’s shy, quiet, bold, talkative, a leader or a follower?”

“He’s quiet, a follower. He’s social—he’s got his friends.”

“Is he mostly happy? Unhappy?”

“Happy. He’s happy.”

“Does he take risks?”

“No, he’s cautious.”

“Would you say he’s a fearful, anxious child, pessimistic?”

“No, he’s positive, easygoing.”

“Any behavioral problems at all?”

“No. And he does well in school.”

“Has he tried drugs that you know of?”

“He’s nine.”

“We both know age doesn’t seem to matter these days.”

“No, he hasn’t touched drugs.”

“How does he interact with strangers?”

“You mean when he meets new people, or creeps?”

“Any way you want to answer.”

“He knows to stay away from strangers, but he’s respectful when he meets new people with us, that sort of thing.”

“Does he have access to the internet?”

“Yes, at school and at home.”

“Has he ever met or communicated with a stranger online?”

“No, there are guards on what he can access at school and at home. These things are monitored.”

“What does he do online?”

“He plays games and he chats on a site called ELZ, the earLoadzone. It’s for younger kids and he only talks to people he knows, like his buddies Marshall, Colton, Ethan and their friends.”

“What sort of things do they talk about?”

“Movies, video games. They talked about the Chambers of Dread—that’s mostly where they dared each other to go on it.”

“You sure he only talks to his friends? People can lurk on these sites.”

“We monitor it closely. We can see who he talks to. So can the parents of the other kids.”

“All right, but we’re going to want to look into his history and who chatted with him. Does he have a cell phone?”

“No.”

“Have you noticed any strange activity in your lives within the last few months? Say, strangers asking for directions, wrong numbers, strange vehicles, anything that struck you as odd or out of the ordinary?”

“No, nothing like that.”

“Has Gage ever expressed or displayed any fear, unease or discomfort about anyone in particular?”

“No.”

“Who would you say he is closest to?”

“Besides us?”

“Any way you want to answer.”

“Well, after us, I’d say his pals Marshall, Colton and Ethan.”

“Has Gage ever stayed away from home?”

“Sure, camp and sleepovers with his friends.”

“Has he ever snuck out without permission?”

“No.”

“Run away from home?”

“No.”

Price paged back through her notes.

“Okay, let’s go back. Take me through the attraction again. Everything you can remember—who was ahead of you, who was behind you. No detail is too small. And with respect to you, Faith and Gage, who was with who right up until you realized Gage was missing.”

Cal related everything he could recall, noting how the fog, the darkness, the loud noises and flashing lights often made things chaotic, confusing and hard to distinguish details.

“But at no point did Gage allow either you or your wife to hold his hand?”

“That’s correct.”

“What was his demeanor?”

“He seemed nervous but in a fun way, like he was scared but having fun. Excited.”

“Did you notice anyone talking to him, hanging around him?”

“No, well, outside he had a short conversation with the ticket taker. That heavy guy you got out there.”

“What was the nature of that conversation?”

“The guy was trying to jazz him up about the ride. It was short, but he seemed to enjoy an extralong look at Faith.”

“What about inside? Did you see that guy or notice anyone hanging around Gage?”

“No to both, but again it was hard to make out details inside.”

Price made notes and tapped her pen.

“Let’s go back a bit to the spinner before you exited,” she said. “You say you thought Faith had Gage, that you thought you saw her with him at the exit?”

“Yes.”

Price blinked a few times and made a note, then Cal asked a question.

“I thought you guys were trying to retrieve footage from the video recordings inside the ride.”

Price shook her head. “We’ve got nothing helpful so far. The techs are still working on that.”

“Did you talk to other people who were in the Chambers and those chutes at the same time we were there?”

“We’ve been trying to locate them—it’s difficult. But with the media coverage a few are beginning to step forward. We’re talking to them.”

“What about that canine unit?”

“Nothing so far.”

“What about tips?”

“Nothing concrete has come in but we’re following up all possible leads.”

“The neighborhoods surrounding the fairgrounds?”

“We’re still working them but nothing yet.”

“Nothing?” Cal’s jaw muscle twitched and he indicated the squad room. “What about the people working the attraction? The carnies...what did they tell you?”

“Like I said, we’re still talking to everybody and we’re still searching and canvassing. Look, being a Chicago crime reporter, Cal, I’m sure you have an understanding of the anatomy of these types of investigations.”

Cal understood very well.

Price let a moment pass, then said, “There are only a few explanations for what happened. Gage wandered off, was perhaps disoriented, or he was lured or enticed, or he was abducted.”

Abducted.

Here it comes.

Up to now Cal had been hanging on by his fingertips, struggling not to break, fighting to work around the keening in his head. He shut his eyes tight because what he’d feared, what he’d been denying, what he knew in his gut, had swallowed him. Gage was likely abducted and Cal knew from his own reporting experience that if an abductor intended to kill their victim, stats showed they’d do it in the first four hours. And if a kidnapper was seeking ransom, they make contact within twenty-four to forty-eight hours. The likelihood that Gage was dead, or that they’d never see him again, increased with each passing second.

“Cal?”

He opened his eyes, not having realized he’d closed them.

“Until we have a clear picture of what happened,” Price said, “no one is above suspicion. You understand that, don’t you, Cal?”

He swallowed and nodded.

“And you know we have to clear you and your wife so we can cross you off our list?”

Cal nodded.

“Now.” Price sipped some coffee. “Are you okay to keep going?”

Cal thought of Faith across the hall, wondering how she was enduring.

“Cal?”

“Yes.”

Price looked at her notes. “Are you involved in, or do you have knowledge of who may be responsible for, your son’s disappearance?”

Cal shook his head. “No, I’m not involved and I don’t know who took him.”

“Do you or your wife use illegal drugs?”

“No.”

“Has Gage ever been exposed to any form of physical, sexual or emotional abuse in your home?”

Cal shook his head.

“Do you have a gambling addiction?”

“We went to Las Vegas for fun and gambled a little, that’s it.”

“Do you have any debts?”

“Just the mortgage, car payments, credit cards, like most people.”

“Who handles the finances in your household?”

“Faith. We each have separate accounts, but we have joint accounts, too, and Faith uses those to handle household finances.”

“And these separate accounts...they’re private from each other?”

“That’s right. We agreed to do things that way when we got married.”

“All right.” Price made notes, then moved on. “You’re a crime reporter with the Chicago Star-News.”

Cal nodded.

“You don’t really cover much crime here in River Ridge, or the other ‘safe’ suburbs. You cover the big stuff downtown and across the country?”

“Yes, I work near the Tribune building, and if the story’s big enough, the paper sends me wherever we need to go. Although we don’t travel as much these days—they’ve tightened budgets.”

“In your line of work, you report on a lot of dangerous people, correct?”

“Yes.”

“Your stories helped put a lot of people in prison?”

“I just report the facts.”

“This came up at the news conference, so I want to ask—can you think of anyone in your past who may have threatened you? Anyone who might want to settle a score with you? Or anything you may have done to anger someone to the point that they’d want revenge against you?”

Cal exhaled slowly as his mind raced back over his years and the stories blurred.

“People get pissed off and have said things to me.”

“What sort of things, what people?”

“Usually relatives and friends of suspects, or criminals.”

“And what did they say?”

“‘I’m going to kick your ass, you write bullshit.’ ‘Why didn’t you write the truth about such and such?’ But that’s pretty common. I mean, not everyone’s happy with what you report. But I never took any of it seriously.”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s just people blowing steam—people say things. No one’s ever acted on anything.”

“So far.”

“No one so far.”

Price nodded and made notes. “You ever cross the line on your job, Cal?”

“What do you mean?”

“Break the rules, get your story wrong, really piss off a subject or burn a source, that sort of thing?”

“What’re you suggesting?”

“Not suggesting anything. Just want to know if you think there’s anyone out to get you.”

Cal steepled his fingers and touched them to his chin. “We covered this, Detective. Yes, I’ve pissed people off with my work.”

“Who, how?”

“I already told you, some people don’t like it when you write the truth about their situation. But that’s part of my job. If I thought for one second that Gage’s disappearance had any connection to my work, to anything I’d done, I’d be screaming that fact to you.”

Price took a moment to process his response.

“Okay, let’s move on. Your newspaper, the Chicago Star-News, has been bleeding staff in recent years and there’s talk online and in the business pages that more layoffs are coming—that’s got to put a lot of stress on you.”