They are the perfect family.

But perfection is fragile.

Cal Hudson knows the world can be an ugly place. As a reporter for a big Chicago newspaper, Cal has journeyed into society’s darkest corners to expose the vilest crimes. But the world he and his devoted wife, Faith, share with their son is much nicer. They have made sure of it, creating a tranquil haven in suburban River Ridge to protect the person most precious to them.

Until the unthinkable happens, and nine-year-old Gage vanishes.

In a split second at a local carnival, the Hudson’s storybook world begins unraveling. A frantic search starts to uncover splinters in their carefully crafted facade, revealing buried secrets that cast just as much suspicion on Cal and Faith as any ill-meaning stranger, and proving that the line between love and violence can disappear as suddenly as a child on a chaotic midway.

Also by Rick Mofina

FREE FALL

FULL TILT

EVERY SECOND

WHIRLWIND

INTO THE DARK

THEY DISAPPEARED

THE BURNING EDGE

IN DESPERATION

THE PANIC ZONE

VENGEANCE ROAD

SIX SECONDS

Other books by Rick Mofina

A PERFECT GRAVE

EVERY FEAR

THE DYING HOUR

BE MINE

NO WAY BACK

BLOOD OF OTHERS

COLD FEAR

IF ANGELS FALL

BEFORE SUNRISE

THE ONLY HUMAN

For more information, please visit www.rickmofina.com.

Last Seen

Rick Mofina

Copyright

An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2018

Copyright © Highway Nine Inc 2018

Rick Mofina asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Ebook Edition © February 2018 ISBN: 9781474074780

Version: 2018-01-22

This book is for my hero, my father

Praise for the novels of Rick Mofina

“Rick Mofina’s books are edge-of-your seat thrilling. Page turners that don’t let up.”

—Louise Penny, #1 New York Times bestselling author

“Six Seconds should be Rick Mofina’s breakout thriller. It moves like a tornado.”

—James Patterson, #1 New York Times bestselling author

“Six Seconds is a great read. Echoing Ludlum and Forsythe, author Mofina has penned a big, solid international thriller that grabs your gut—and your heart—in the opening scenes and never lets go.”

—Jeffery Deaver, New York Times bestselling author

“The Panic Zone is a headlong rush toward Armageddon. Its brisk pace and tight focus remind me of early Michael Crichton.”

—Dean Koontz, #1 New York Times bestselling author

“Rick Mofina’s tense, taut writing makes every thriller he writes an adrenaline-packed ride.”

—Tess Gerritsen, New York Times bestselling author

“Mofina’s clipped prose reads like short bursts of gunfire.”

—Publishers Weekly on No Way Back

“Mofina is one of the best thriller writers in the business.”

—Library Journal (starred review) on They Disappeared

“Vengeance Road is a thriller with no speed limit! It’s a great read!”

—Michael Connelly, #1 New York Times bestselling author

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Booklist

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Praise

Epigraph

The First Day

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

The Second Day

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

The Third Day

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Chapter 48

Chapter 49

Chapter 50

Chapter 51

Chapter 52

The Fourth Day

Chapter 53

Chapter 54

Chapter 55

Chapter 56

Chapter 57

Chapter 58

Chapter 59

Chapter 60

Chapter 61

Chapter 62

Chapter 63

Chapter 64

Chapter 65

Chapter 66

Chapter 67

Chapter 68

Chapter 69

Chapter 70

Chapter 71

Chapter 72

The Fifth Day

Chapter 73

Chapter 74

Chapter 75

Chapter 76

Chapter 77

Chapter 78

Chapter 79

Chapter 80

Chapter 81

Chapter 82

Chapter 83

Chapter 84

Chapter 85

Chapter 86

Chapter 87

Epilogue

Acknowledgments & Author’s Note

Suspicion always haunts the guilty mind...

—William Shakespeare, Henry VI, Part III, act 5, scene 6

The First Day

1

River Ridge, Illinois

“You’re doomed!” the fat man on the stool said.

He was missing two lower front teeth. Peppered stubble whorled on his cheeks; vines of long hair framed his face. His eyes locked on Gage as he extended his hand, raising his voice over the chaos of the midway.

“Give me your ticket, kid.”

Smiling, Gage placed his ticket in the man’s red-stained palm, then raised his voice. “Hey, is that real blood?”

“You tell me, kid. Look where fate has brought you.” The fat man cast his tattooed arm back to the huge arching sign bearing blood-dripping words that proclaimed the attraction.

The Chambers of Dread: America’s Biggest Traveling World of Horrors!

“This is so cool!” Gage said.

“Cool? How old is your young soul?”

“What?”

“How old are you?”

“Nine!”

The man’s eyes narrowed into reptilian slits as he assessed Gage, then his dad, then his mom. They stayed on Mom long enough to border on being unsavory before coming back to Gage. Then the man knocked on the wooden advisory bolted to the metal barricade next to him.

Warning! This attraction may be too intense for pregnant women and people with heart conditions. It is not recommended for children under the age of 12 unless they are accompanied by an adult.

A fat finger, tipped with a long, yellowed and chipped fingernail, pointed at Gage. “Mark my words, kid. These Chambers is cursed. No one who enters is ever the same when, and if, they leave. Now’s the time to run home with your mama. Otherwise, move ahead. Next! You, there! You’re doomed!”

“Whoa!” Gage’s laugh betrayed excited nervousness as he and his parents inched forward in the crowded line that snaked between barricades to the entrance. The aroma of deep-fried food, grilled meat and cotton candy wafted from the food stands. He felt his mother’s hands on his shoulders before she leaned into his ear.

“You’re sure you’re okay to do this, sweetie? You’re not too scared?”

“Mom, I’m not scared!”

“We could skip this and get something to eat over there.”

“He’s fine, Faith. You’re always babying him,” Gage’s dad said, while checking messages on his phone and texting responses.

Always working, Faith Hudson thought, irritated. It was as if his phone was part of his anatomy. Now he was dialing.

“Seriously, you’re calling someone?”

Phone pressed to his ear, Cal flashed his free palm to Faith, signaling her to quiet down. She bit her bottom lip, hesitating, then said what she was thinking. “And I was going to thank you for making time for us today.”

Cal never heard her, focused on his call. “Yeah, it’s Hudson,” he said into the receiver. “You gotta tell Stu the number’s wrong in the story—it’s fifty thousand, not five... Right. Good. Bye.”

He turned to his wife. “I’m sorry, what’d you say?”

“Nothing.”

Cal looked at her for a long moment while across from them the Polar Rocket erupted with a diesel roar, frenzied squeals and Led Zeppelin’s Immigrant Song. After absorbing everything that Faith’s silence screamed at him, Cal leaned into her ear.

“I had to make that call—it was important.”

“They’re always important calls.”

“I had to correct an editing error. What were you trying to tell me?”

She stared at him. “I was going to thank you for making time to be with us, but you’re not with us. You’re working.”

“Cripes. I’m here, Faith.”

“Are you?”

“Please, don’t start.”

“No, no, I’m not.” Faith glimpsed the family behind them, the mother and father awkwardly pretending not to be watching them. Immediately Faith rubbed Cal’s shoulder lovingly and smiled for all to see. “Everything’s fine. Really.”

Sure, everything’s perfect, Calvin Hudson told himself, turning from Faith and scanning the top of the Mega-Roller Ferris wheel. She’d never truly understood his work, he thought. He was a journalist; it was in his DNA. The demands were 24/7. She never really grasped how deeply involved he was with his stories. He couldn’t just switch it off, like she insisted; or like she could at the PR firm. Now there were rumors of layoffs at his paper, the Chicago Star-News, making him uneasy. He had to work that much harder to prove he was still valuable to his editors. Jobs in the business were scarce. But the way Faith had said, “Don’t worry, we’ll get by on my salary and you’ll find something else,” had wounded him. How could she be so dismissive, as if his position in life didn’t matter, as if she wanted him to lose his job. She had no clue how much he’d given to it—his blood, sweat and tears along with much of his soul. She had no idea the things he’d done.

And if Cal’s uncertainty about his job at the paper wasn’t bad enough, the situation at home was worse. He and Faith were no longer as intimate as they used to be. She had grown colder over the past few years. Their lovemaking was infrequent. Her displays of affection—spontaneous handholding, touching or even kissing, which used to be common—were now rare.

She’d become more impatient, more demanding. And the way she babied Gage... “Is your pizza too hot for you? Want me to cut it for you? Maybe that movie’s too scary for you?” The boy was nine. And he clearly hated when his mother treated him this way. It was no wonder Gage lived for any free time with his dad—with Faith, it was as if he was drowning and desperate to come up for air.

But no one knew that Cal and Faith were grappling with these problems—not their relatives, not their friends. “We don’t need everyone to know our business,” Faith had decreed.

In keeping with a job as a public relations manager, appearances were important to Faith.

Given her personality and her professional skills, she was good at hiding the truth when it counted. Maybe that’s why buried in a corner of Cal’s heart was the fear that Faith would take Gage and leave. Cal would never see it coming.

He forced himself to shift away from all these thoughts and stay positive. He found comfort in the line he had on a potential reporting job overseas. The chances that he’d get it were slim, but if he did it would mean a big change in their lives.

Still, no matter what he and Faith felt, Gage came first.

Cal looked at his son, thinking that he must sense his parents were having problems.

Like powerful telescopes scouring space for signs of life, kids like Gage could pick up infinitesimal traces of parental discord. They’d internalize it without voicing a word, while alone at night in their beds they’d hope and pray that everything between Mom and Dad would be okay.

Looking at Gage in his beloved Cubs cap and T-shirt, the one with the faded mustard stain, his khaki shorts and sneakers, Cal felt a surge of love for his son. He would do anything for him.

No matter what problems Cal and Faith had, they needed to show Gage that they were still a family intact; that’s why they were here at the River Ridge Summer Carnival. Every year the big traveling midway of games and thrill rides visited their suburb on Chicago’s West Side for ten days. Gage had ached to come, specifically to respond to the double dares from his friends about going through the Chambers of Dread.

“Marshall and Colton said they were going to get their parents to come to the fair today, too. I hope so because if I see them I’m gonna tell them, ‘In your face, dudes! I conquered the Chambers of Dread!’”

Cal mussed Gage’s hair, smiling and thinking that maybe this fear, the kind that was manufactured and sold, would take their minds off the real things they feared in their lives. Maybe for a short time they could pretend to be a happy family.

Cal glanced back at the fat man on the stool, saw him raise a walkie-talkie and say something into it.

The Hudsons were next in line.

As they entered the Chambers of Dread through the yawning jaws of the Demon King, the carnival barker’s warning of doom echoed.

Cal and Faith exchanged measured looks before they and Gage stepped into the darkness.

2

Thick waist-high fog enveloped the Hudsons in the dim light; wisps of it curled around Gage’s chest as they began their journey through the Chambers of Dread. Screams from the unseen visitors mingled with moaning in the darkness ahead of them. They moved toward ominous rumbling, coming to a passageway formed by a large, tunnellike drum, continually spinning, inviting visitors to step through the Portal to the Grim World Beyond, according to the twisted neon sign above it.

Keeping their balance while walking through the portal with a few other people, the Hudsons found a deeper darkness on the other side and began moving slowly through a maze when a large, cloaked figure emerged in front of them.

“Oh my God!” Faith gasped as the figure raised a severed human head before them, then vanished.

“It’s not real, Mom!” Gage laughed.

“I know, sweetie. It just startled me. Are you okay?”

“Yeah, this is so dope!”

But the underlying nervousness in Gage’s voice worried Faith, making her wonder if he’d be okay. Especially with what seemed to be up ahead.

Agonizing pleas beckoned them to the Dungeons of Dread and a darkened narrow walkway that reeked of rotten eggs and had water trickling down its jagged stone walls.

“Oh, no, let go! No!” a teenager ahead of them shrieked.

Something scratched at Faith’s ankles. Then it gripped them before she kicked free. Looking to her feet she saw clawlike hands reaching out from barred windows where the condemned, confined in a subterranean prison, grabbed desperately at them, calling, “Save us! Don’t leave us!”

Hurrying through the dungeons, the Hudsons came to another dark twisting connection echoing with wails, growing louder as they got closer to the next chamber.

There, the entire scene glowed in flickering orange, yellow and red as flames licked from a massive mound of wood and bramble. A large post protruded from the center. Bound to it, a woman wrapped in a white nightshirt, her head shorn, face glistening, her eyes inflamed, screeched, “So you think burning me, the witch queen, will be my end! Fools! I curse you all! I’ll torment you from hell!”

The temperature soared, giving the scene a heightened degree of authenticity. Faith saw one man point out for his wife how the flames were controlled from a gas line, that the wood pile was a prop, like the gas fireplace in an expensive home.

“Did you hear me?” the witch queen screamed. “You’re all cursed! Forever!”

Faith found kinship with the witch queen.

Her writhing against her bindings echoed how Faith felt, bound to her heartache. Cal had grown distant over the last couple years and she didn’t know why. After one of his big stories he’d grow pensive. Faith didn’t know what was happening with him. Whenever she tried to talk about it, he’d shut her down. He’d become absorbed in his work and was never home. She was always alone, making her feel that he preferred the long hours of working with cops, criminals and street-smart, pretty female reporters to being with her.

Had he fallen out of love with her? Once, she’d overheard him on a call joking to someone that journalists were truth seekers and PR people were professional liars. Did he feel that way about her? Most of her work was for big nonprofit groups and charities, and that was the only time she’d heard him talk that way, so she let it go.

Or tried to.

Faith needed to hold things together for Gage’s sake. But it wasn’t easy. She knew Gage idolized his father and lived for any free moment Cal spared for him. But it only happened when it was convenient for Cal. How many times had he canceled at the last minute on promised father-son days to see a movie, or the Cubs, or check out video games because he had to work late?

Gage was crushed every time. He was resilient, but still, it broke Faith’s heart.

Cal had promised her that he would leave the crime beat and advance up the editorial ladder toward a more stable job and life. It never happened—and she knew it never would because he loved what he was doing. That’s why she saw the looming layoffs at the paper as a chance for him to start something new, for them to reconnect. Because little by little she felt something was slipping away from them. They were growing apart, forcing Faith to take a hard look at taking control of matters because she and Cal couldn’t go on like this.

They used to be so much in love. What was happening to them?

The cries of the witch queen soon faded as the Hudsons navigated another labyrinthian connection to the next chamber where they were met by the distinct sound of vigorous chopping. Then, emerging in the gloomy darkness, they saw a man in a blood-streaked apron swinging a cleaver, blood running down his arm while he chopped slabs of meat on a table.

“Whoa!” Gage said. “It’s the insane butcher!”

Legs and arms, some twitching, were displayed on the hooks and chains near the butcher as he worked. His hair as wild as Medusa’s, his face contorted and smeared with blood, as he stopped his work to offer the Hudsons delicacies from an array of bowls. One was filled with eyeballs, one brimmed with fingers and another held brains.

“Gross!” Gage laughed.

“No, thanks,” Cal said.

As the Hudsons moved on with a small group, the light grew increasingly darker, making it nearly impossible to see each other, let alone Gage’s face. The actors and sets were of a higher caliber than Faith had anticipated and she worried that Gage was going to have nightmares after this.

She reached for his hand but he shook her attempt away.

“I’m not a baby, Mom!”

Suddenly the air filled with a loud hellish combination of perverted circus music and a thousand fingernails scraping on chalkboards. They came to a clown, malevolent makeup covering his face. Enormous fangs jutted from his head. He sat before an organ on a stool of bones while playing a demonic tune on a keyboard of little skulls, offering entertainment at the gateway to the next chamber.

It was the darkest passage yet.

Faith felt the floor beneath them undulating as thunder cracked. They were walking on something twisting, rolling and squirming.

Something slimy and alive!

Sudden lightning flashes revealed they were on a stream of snakes.

“Oh God!” Faith screamed, rushing ahead, thinking they couldn’t be real—they must be some sort of animatronics or CGI, though they sure felt real.

The connection, dimly lit with the lightning flashes, led them through a cavern-like passage overwhelmed with spiders and bats, forcing Faith to swat frantically at her face and hair.

They’re not real, Faith assured herself, swatting around her hair.

“Gage? Cal?”

“Right behind you,” Cal said.

Continuing in the next narrow connection they were nearly blind in the dark. They came upon rumbling so powerful everything vibrated. Feeling their way forward they brushed against earthen walls that were moving, closing in on them, forcing them to turn sideways to pass through. Sounds grew louder with the foreboding rumbling and heightened the sickening sense of being crushed and entombed.

“I don’t like this,” Faith said.

“Keep pushing forward,” Cal said. “It’ll be okay.”

The walls were actually constructed of foam and, after the initial horror, the passage ended by opening to the next scene: a figure standing in a cemetery. Her skin was alabaster, her white gown torn and filthy as if she’d just crawled from her grave. She hovered a few feet over the burial grounds threading around headstones, stopping before the Hudsons and snarling at them. Throwing her head back, she opened her mouth to vomit a stream of blood that gushed by them.

“The executioner is coming for you and there’s no escape!”

Struggling to distinguish the entrance to the next scene, Faith, Cal and Gage searched the cemetery for an exit in vain before they were motivated to look again by the sudden rattle of a revving chain saw.

“There, by the crooked tree!” Gage shouted.

The lid of an upright coffin had opened, inviting an escape just as the executioner materialized from across the graveyard. A huge man, face wrapped in a ragged, grotesque mask, held the saw high over his head, gunning the motor as he approached them.

“Let’s go!”

Gage ran through the coffin door, his parents behind him with the chain-saw maniac pursuing them.

They entered the final chamber where the floor was akin to a big plate, a flat, spinning wheel, large enough to hold a car. The room went pitch-black. Faith couldn’t see her hand in front of her face as the floor rotated. She couldn’t see Gage or Cal as the air exploded. Earsplitting, menacing metal music thudded in time with the sudden hyperflash of strobe lights, creating confusion and terror. In the chaos, Faith now glimpsed Gage and Cal—was that them?—moving on the far side of the spinning wheel.

Or was she seeing other people?

“Gage! Cal!”

The music roared and she failed to hear a response—if there was one—as the floor turned and turned, disorienting her. Through the strobes, she spotted half a dozen curtained portals just as the chain saw’s whine grew louder, alerting her to the fact the lunatic was in the room.

“Save yourself!” a recorded demonic voice boomed. “Choose your exit now, or perish!”

Faith sensed that the saw-wielding lunatic had stepped onto the wheel and had her in his sights. That saw better not be real, she thought before jumping to one of the curtained portals. Her heart skipped as the floor beneath her gave way and she fell onto a cushioned rubber slide that dropped in darkness for a few seconds before gently delivering her to the lighted, safe world outside.

Catching her breath, Faith stood, stepping aside as a teenage girl slid down the chute behind her. Blinking in the sunlight, regaining her composure, Faith looked around the landing zone of half a dozen chutes that webbed out to deliver visitors on a large air mattress.

“Hey!” Faith spotted and joined Cal, who’d exited at the farthest chute. “That was wild! Where’s Gage?”

Cal’s grin began melting as he looked at her, then around.

“He’s not with you?”

“No, I thought you had him?”

“No, I saw him with you.”

“Cal, where’s Gage?”

Faith and Cal searched the chutes delivering a thrilled survivor every few seconds. Gage would be next. He had to be next. The seconds grew to one minute as their hearts continued to pound. Two minutes passed, then three.

Time ticked by with no sign of Gage.

3

“I can’t believe this,” Cal said as he and Faith walked the perimeter of the chutes, searching the slides and the clusters of people shuffling along the exit barricades for Gage.

He wasn’t there. He wasn’t anywhere.

“Maybe he got out ahead of us and ran to another ride?” Faith said. “Maybe he went to a food stand?”

“I doubt it, but wait here for him and I’ll check.”

Cal shouldered his way through the exit lines, battling frustration and unease while searching the rivers of people that were flowing into the midway crowds. Gage wouldn’t have left the chutes without us, he thought. He knows better. Unless he was confused and figured we’d got out first and left without him? Maybe he rushed to the next ride. No. No way. He’d wait. He’s a good kid—he’s sharp, like his mother. No matter how tempting the midway would be he’d wait for us.

Come on, Gage, come on. Where is he?

Cal continued, turning full circle, bumping into people, scanning faces of boys Gage’s age until they began blurring. Cal scoured the Polar Express—nothing there. Then he stopped in front of the Zipper where Bob Seger’s Hollywood Nights was throbbing amid the grind of the thrill ride’s diesel and roaring crowds.

No sign of Gage.

Quickly, he circled food stands that were selling burgers and fries, pizza, ice cream, nuts, pretzels and cotton candy, scanning the people ordering, waiting or those eating at the small tables nearby.

No sign of Gage.

Cal thought it unlikely Gage would travel down this way alone in such a short amount of time, and trotted back to Faith at the Chambers of Dread.

Her hope that he’d have Gage with him died on her face as they exchanged sobering looks.

“He hasn’t come out here,” Faith said, turning to the chutes. “Do something, Cal!”

Near them, they saw a man in his thirties wearing a work shirt with an embroidered Ultra-Fun Amusement Corp roller-coaster logo above his left pocket, a ball cap and Ray-Ban sunglasses. Obviously a midway worker, he was helping women recover at the slides, his rolled sleeves displaying tattoo-laced biceps.

“Our son hasn’t come out yet,” Cal said. “Can you help us?”

The man was unshaven; his long hair curled from his cap, the toothpick in the corner of his mouth punctuated an expression that told Cal he’d been everywhere, seen everything, heard it all and was bored.

“People get hung up in there. Take it easy, pal, he’ll be out.”

“He’s only nine!” Faith interjected. “He was right at the exit curtains with us and he’s not here. It’s been more than five minutes!”

Cal saw Faith’s body reflected in the man’s mirrored glasses as he assessed her summer top and shorts. His toothpick shifted and he nodded to the Chambers.

“Did you see him on the spinner?”

“Yes, if that’s what you call the last thing before these slides, yes,” she said.

“Hang on.” The man unclipped a walkie-talkie from his studded belt, turned and spoke into it. “Alma, it’s Sid. We got a straggler in the spinner.” He turned to Faith. “What’s he wearing?”

“A Cubs T-shirt, ball cap and sand-colored shorts, khakis,” Faith said.

“Got a lotta kids wearing that same stuff,” he said.

“A blue Cubs shirt and ball cap,” Cal added. “And he’s wearing sneakers, blue SkySlyders.”

“How old did you say?”

“Nine,” Faith said.

After Sid relayed Gage’s description into the walkie-talkie, it crackled and a woman’s bored-sounding voice said, “Roger. Stand by.”

“Your people can see in the dark?” Cal asked.

“We got infrared cameras everywhere in the Chambers and Alma watches from a control desk.”

Several moments passed with Sid’s silent calm countering Cal and Faith’s anxiety, projecting an attitude that this sort of thing happened all the time. He scratched his whiskered jaw, then raised his walkie-talkie again.

“Check the graveyard and the crusher.”

“Stand by. I think...” the radio said. “Yup! Got him. He’s coming your way.”

“Oh, good!” Faith said, relief washing through her.

“He should be at the chutes about...now,” the radio said.

A middle-aged woman with glasses whooshed down one slide, then two teenage girls shot down another, then a big-bellied man followed by a boy in shorts and a Cubs T-shirt—a red one. The kid looked more like twelve.

“That’s not Gage! That boy’s not our son!” Faith said.

“We need to do something now, Sid!” Cal said.

Sid held up a hand to stem their rising concern and he spoke into his radio.

“Alma, that’s not him. Go back farther—the witch, the clown, the butcher—and double-check. Shorts and Cubs T-shirt. Nine years old.”

“A blue T-shirt!” Faith said.

Sid shook his head. “The cameras don’t pick up colors, just shades, black, white and in between.”

A few more tense moments passed, then Faith said, “Sid, we’re losing time and this is getting serious. Gage could’ve fallen. He could be hurt or unconscious in there! You’ve got to shut it down, turn on the lights and let us search for him now!”

“Relax, ma’am. We have procedures for these situations.”

“Then use them, dammit!” Faith said.

“Hang on.” Sid pulled the walkie-talkie to his mouth and took a few steps away, but even with the noise Faith and Cal could hear him.

“Still nothing, Alma?”

“Still looking.”

“Call a Code 99.”

“Vaughn won’t like it.”

“Call it.” Sid turned back to the Hudsons. “What’s your son’s name?”

“Gage Hudson,” Faith said.

Sid nodded and relayed it to Alma, setting in motion Ultra-Fun Amusement Corp’s procedure for a serious incident at an attraction. Within minutes, more staff emerged amid radio dispatches and workers talking on cell phones. Some went to various points to help visitors leave the Chambers of Dread through emergency exit doors and down stairs, apologizing and handing them vouchers for a free return. Other staff converged at the chutes. One of them, a man in his early sixties with a white cowboy hat and aviator glasses, had a private huddle with Sid before he came directly to Faith and Cal. He was wearing a navy golf shirt with the Ultra-Fun logo.

“Vaughn King—I run the midway attractions.” He nodded. “We’ll find your son, folks.” King, face tanned with neat, trimmed white stubble, presented an air of authority as he turned and spoke softly into his phone.

Cal and Faith heard a loud announcement being made within the confines of the Chambers. It was muffled but they could make out a woman’s voice on the PA system calling Gage’s name, telling him to report to a staff member.

“We’ve shut down the ride,” King said. “We turned on all interior lighting. We’ve got staff inside who know every nook and cranny looking for your son. All the actors at the scenes are looking, too.”

“Does this happen often?” Cal asked.

King’s gaze was fixed on the Chambers as he stuck out his bottom lip.

“It happens. In Kansas City, we found a teenager who’d huddled in a corner of a set, her eyes shut tight. She’d refused to open them. Found the Chambers a little too scary. In Indianapolis, we had an eighty-three-year-old veteran off his medication who wandered behind the butcher’s scene without the actor knowing. Found him sleeping behind the meat props. In Cincinnati, a woman fainted near one of the spinner’s exits. Unfortunately, no one noticed until we searched for her. It happens.”

“What about the exits?” Faith asked. “We never saw exit signs inside.”

“They’re dimmed but activated and illuminated in an emergency.”

“Gage could’ve gone out one of them,” Cal said.

“An alarm goes off when they’re opened. Staff would’ve been alerted and that didn’t happen.”

Ten tense, solid minutes passed without results. King glanced at his watch, then spoke softly into his walkie-talkie. He looked at his watch again, bit his bottom lip and turned to Faith and Cal.

“Does your son possibly have a cell phone?”

King’s question thrust the situation up to a more serious level.

For a second Cal recalled how Gage had begged them for his own phone. Most of his friends had phones. But Cal and Faith had said no—it cost too much, he was too young, he’d be tempted to use it in class to play games. They’d refused to give him his own phone for all those reasons, at first. Then they’d caved and got him one, and Gage promptly lost it. They got him a second one and he’d lost that, too. So that was it. No more phones.

Now their rationale seemed infinitely feeble because, facing what they were facing, they’d have given the world to go back in time and get him another phone.

“No.” Faith blinked back tears. “He doesn’t have a phone.”

King’s Adam’s apple rose and fell. He removed his sunglasses and his blue eyes were tinged with concern.

“I’m sorry, folks, but we can’t seem to find him.”

4

Cal couldn’t accept what Vaughn King was implying—that somehow Gage had vanished.

“That’s ridiculous. He didn’t just disappear,” Cal said. “He’s in there.”

Faith cupped her hands over her face. “Where else could he be?”

King stared at Cal, then Faith.

“Our people have already searched. Are you certain he didn’t exit ahead of you and wander down the midway?”

“He was with us in the spinner!” Faith said. “Let us search for him.”

King removed his hat, drew his forearm across his brow, a gesture suggesting that allowing the public access during a Code 99 was against company policy. A second later, as if he’d convinced himself that this situation was exceptional, or maybe to diminish potential liability—we did everything to help those parents—King found himself nodding and clicking the speaker on the small walkie-talkie again.

“This is Vaughn. I’m bringing the parents inside to search.” To Cal and Faith, he said, “All right, let’s go.”

His radio crackled. “But, Mr. King, the policy prohibits—”

“I know what the policy says.” King cut the speaker off. “I’m bringing them in!”

The key ring on King’s belt jingled as they all hurried toward the entrance. Moving around the other side of the attraction, Cal saw the Chambers of Dread for what they were: a series of interconnected truck trailers, forming an interlocking network that claimed to be America’s Biggest Traveling World of Horrors! He noticed the empty stool belonging to the fat ticket taker who’d eyed Faith and wondered if he was helping search for Gage.

King led them through the jaws of the Demon King. There was no fog when they entered; bright lights lit the inside. Their footsteps echoed as they rushed through the spinning portal, which was now stationary. Gage had to be in here. The ever-present thud of the midway outside hammered a deadened rhythm as Cal and Faith looked for their son.

“Gage!” Faith called. “It’s okay! Come out now. It’s Mom and Dad!”

All the interior walls were painted black; so were the floors and ceilings, where Cal noticed nozzles of the sprinkler system and the surveillance cameras. Suddenly the air exploded with ear-piercing staccato beeps. A side exit door opened and closed as a young woman in an Ultra-Fun shirt holding a walkie-talkie stepped inside.

“We checked the area around this exit, Mr. King. We didn’t find him.”

“Thank you, Hayley.”

Cal looked at the small exit light overhead and how the door was also painted black. It blended in with the walls, like camouflage, almost invisible.

“Hold on, I want to look out there,” he said.

The girl let Cal step through the door. The alarm bleated as he took stock of the backside of the structure, one not seen from the midway crowd. His heart was thumping faster now as he saw tentacles of huge power cables flowing on the ground and breathed in the smell of diesel and hydraulic fluid wafting from the generators and the pumps powering the rides nearby. The area was congested with an array of truck trailers, positioned to form narrow walkways leading to RVs and campers where Ultra-Fun staff lived while on the road—a netherworld of latter-day gypsies. Cal scoured the area, then the alarm bleated and King appeared on the stairs with Faith.

“Mr. Hudson!” King shouted. “The alarm would’ve been activated if your son used one of these exits!”

Cal took a second sweep under the trailers for anything that would lead him to Gage. Finding nothing, he conceded King’s point and returned.

Resuming their hunt in the Chambers, Faith and Cal came to the large cloaked figure they’d encountered earlier, the one toting a head. The figure had adjusted the costume. In the naked light, Cal and Faith saw that he was an acne-faced young man of linebacker proportions.

“Hi, Mr. King. We’ve searched everywhere in our section. He’s not here.”

“Thanks, Lonnie,” King said, moving on to the area smelling of rotten eggs—the Dungeons of Dread. Opening a door, he led the Hudsons down a few short steps to a cramped dugout set behind prison bars where actors with clawlike prop hands shook their heads.

“He’s not with us, sir,” a young woman—one of the “damned”—said.

Cal, Faith and King kept going, coming to another exit door, tripping the alarm. At this one, Faith exited and took the stairs, which landed tight to a chain-link fence. Trailers were backed against it. An empty lot stood on the other side of the fence, earthen, muddied and pot-holed with discarded tires, a stove and a filthy sofa—a menacing patch of misery.

“Gage! It’s Mom, honey! Gage!”

The fear that had seeped into her voice was unmistakable, Cal thought, joining her and searching the confined area for several minutes before returning inside. Once more they’d activated the alarm, underscoring their desperation on their way to the next set.

The air smelled as if a gas stove had been switched off when they got to where the burning witch queen had cursed them. The room’s temperature had dropped a little from the oven-level it had been during the act. The actress had left her stake and was still searching the edges of the prop wood pile.

“I’m sorry, ma’am.” The witch shook her head. “He’s not here but I’m sure you’ll find him, don’t worry.”

Moving quickly to the next set they were greeted by the insane butcher still clad in his bloodstained apron and surrounded by props of limbs. Faith was thankful they’d stopped twitching. Still, the scene sent a shiver coiling up her spine. She dropped to her hands and knees, looking under the table and around the suspended torsos. Cal crawled on the floor from the opposite side, the chains creaking as they brushed against the props, which marked them with streaks of stage blood.

“Gage! Gage, come out, son!” Cal called as the butcher and King exchanged a look.

They’d found nothing here.

The butcher shook his hideous face, telling the Hudsons, “We looked everywhere in this section, folks. He’s not with us.”

Cal and Faith hurried ahead with King, stopping to inspect the areas surrounding every exit that they came to. They didn’t find Gage with the fanged clown, who’d hefted the organ from a wall in order to look behind and under it. There was nothing to search at the river of snakes and the cavern of bats and spiders. Those areas had been filled with computer-generated images. Under the lights, these sets were void of anything searchable.

Gage was not among the tombstones in the graveyard. There, the wretched zombie woman offered a sympathetic smile, shaking her head—“He’s not here”—but with her makeup she came off looking like the possessed girl in The Exorcist.

In the spinner, the large round floor was motionless. At the six curtained exits leading to the slides, they saw the chain-saw executioner. He’d pushed his mask up to the top of his head, revealing the face of a handsome man in his thirties.

“I’m so sorry if I scared your little boy.” He offered the Hudsons a small, warm smile. “He’s not here but I’m sure you’ll find him.”

They didn’t.

Cal and Faith’s search of the Chambers had proven to be fruitless.

“This way.” King led them to one of the exits, and the outside stairs down, returning them to the chutes to where a small group of Ultra-Fun staff had gathered.

Amid the chattering walkie-talkies, some of the staff cast looks of awkward pity at the Hudsons standing helplessly at the slides—their faces bearing small smears of stage blood. It had now been nearly half an hour since Cal and Faith had last seen Gage, yet all around them the fair kept going, people kept squealing with joy, the thrill rides kept spinning and twirling, the music kept rocking, as if nothing had changed.

But everything had changed.

Faith’s breaths started coming in gasps; her hands started shaking. “Cal, this can’t be happening, not to us!”

“Take it easy.”

“Maybe, maybe Marshall’s and Colton’s families are here and this is a big joke to scare us? That’s got to be it, right?”

“Faith, I don’t think so.”

“No. No!” Faith’s knees buckled and Cal caught her. “Gage!”

Gage couldn’t be missing, Cal thought. It couldn’t be true. Maybe it was part of some pranking TV show? He struggled to grasp it all but their futile search of the Chambers with its grotesque faces and sets was a descent into Dante’s circles of hell.

Cal felt something monstrous had raked a claw across their lives while the screams of the midway grew louder and he reached for his phone. His fingers were trembling when he pressed the numbers for 911.

“River Ridge Emergency Dispatch, what’s your emergency?”

“My son is—” Cal started but his heart was hammering in his chest and his mind was swirling with disbelief. He glanced at Faith, her anguish piercing him. He couldn’t believe this was happening. What kind of parents lose their kid? He had to stop thinking that way and stay in control.

“Sir, what’s your emergency?”

Cal gripped his cell phone with such force he nearly cracked the casing. “My son is missing.” He resumed reporting Gage’s disappearance, but for one burning instant he felt trapped in a dream.

Wake up, go to Gage’s room—you’ll see he’s there. Wake up!

But Cal didn’t wake up because he wasn’t dreaming.

5

Four minutes after Cal’s call, River Ridge police officers Angie Berg and Erik Ripkowski arrived at the chutes. Already briefed by their dispatcher, they wasted no time and followed procedure.

“We need to talk to you separately, folks,” said Berg, reaching for her notebook before taking Cal aside while her partner stayed with Faith.

The two officers had been close by. Today was their third shift on midway patrol, which was considered a semivacation usually involving nothing more than community relations duty. Berg had become partial to the fudge, while Ripkowski loved the Polish dogs. Up to now, their most serious call had been a woman who’d attempted to steal a fifteen-year-old girl’s phone. Turned out the woman was the intoxicated mother of the boy the girl had dumped. The woman’s husband, who was embarrassed, apologized and took his wife home.

But the Hudson call was different.

It went well beyond a midway nuisance, and of all the young officers on the River Ridge force, Berg and Ripkowski were two of the brightest.

“Take a breath, sir, start at the beginning,” Berg, her sandy hair pulled up in small bun, told Cal, her pen poised.

At this point Gage had been missing for almost forty-five minutes.

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.

6

Gage comes out of the portal with Faith and Cal, they pass the cloaked figure, move to the dungeons where hands claw at them; Gage’s eyes glow; the infrared images of the Hudsons are captured in shades of gray, black and radiant white; the Hudsons move through darkness; ahead and behind them other groups creep with trepidation: a man and woman holding hands, two teenage girls holding each other, their eyes and teeth blazing, moving beyond the phosphorescent flames of the burning witch, then the insane butcher, the fanged clown; some people are cowering, others are crouching in the cave of bats and spiders; Gage, Faith and Cal rush across the zombie graveyard pursued by the chain-saw maniac to the coffin doorway when they vanish in the sudden flash of a static snowstorm.

“Play it again,” Ripkowski said.

He was with Berg and Vaughn King in the cramped, dimly lit control room attached to the Chambers of Dread. They watched over Alma McCain’s shoulder as she operated the attraction’s console bank of infrared security cameras. A can of diet cola, a half-eaten slice of pizza and a Lord of the Flies paperback were next to her. Small TV screens displayed images for each section of the Chambers, but the system had malfunctioned for the final sets. Alma pecked at her keyboard, replayed the footage, but it was futile at the spinner.

“This is where it freezes and won’t work. It’s given us trouble since the lightning strike in Milwaukee.”

“Did you see anything unusual when you watched this live when the Hudsons went through?” Ripkowski asked Alma.

“No, but to be honest, I wasn’t looking at the spinner at that time.”

“Were you reading?”

“No, I was not reading. I take my book with me on breaks.”

“Did an emergency door alarm activate anywhere today?”

Alma exchanged a quick glance with King before saying, “No.”

“So—” Berg tapped her pen on the screen “—we’ve got four emergency exits and six exit chutes with no recorded video. Erik, what do you think?”

“We need IT’s help to recover that footage if they can—either our people, or Chicago PD, somebody with the expertise—because this is where the boy vanishes. And we’re going to need statements ASAP from everyone on duty today.”

Then Berg and Ripkowski stepped outside to update Cal and Faith amid the noise of the midway, which, with the exception of the Chambers of Dread, had resumed action at full throttle.

“Did the cameras show you what happened?” Cal asked.

“No, they’ve got technical trouble with their system,” Berg said. “But we’re going to have experts look at it.”

“Dammit.” Cal’s eyes were brimming, for it was now close to ninety minutes since Gage had vanished. “What about the RVs and trailers behind the rides where all the midway people live? Did you check there?”

“We’re on it.” Berg moved the Hudsons slightly so they could see between the rides; uniformed officers were knocking on trailer doors. “Our people, and Cook County officers, are canvassing in there right now,” Berg said. “Few people are home, most are working the midway. The chances someone was around to see anything are slim.”

“There must be something more you can do!” Faith’s voice broke, then she turned to King and Dulka, letting loose with her frustration. “Why did you start the fair again? Please shut it down so we can keep looking! Our son is missing!”

“Ma’am,” Dulka said, “we’re taking this very seriously. We’re going to keep your son’s picture up on the big screens all day. We’ve closed the Chambers. We have our staff on the grounds searching for him. We’re doing everything we can, but we’ve got thousands of paying customers.”

Faith’s head snapped to the officers.

“You’re the police! Can’t you order them to shut it all down?”

“Not at this time, as no crime’s been committed,” Ripkowski said. “Everyone’s coopera—”

“But there has to be more you can do to find Gage!” Faith shouted. “What about bringing in detectives and the FBI?”

“We’re bringing in canine units and we’re—” Ripkowski and Berg’s radios crackled. “Erik, Angie! We’ve got him at the south gate!”

* * *

Cal and Faith ran to the gate with Ripkowski and Berg. Faith’s heart was racing and she fought back tears as their small posse wove through streams of fairgoers.

Cal’s jaw was fixed in restrained relief when they came to a wooden outbuilding standing to one side of the gate where two security staff waited; both of them were in their teens.

“Where’s our son?” Faith asked.

“Inside that door, with the cops.” One of the security kids pointed. “He was so smart, ma’am—kept yelling that the man with him was not his father. That got our attention.”

When Ripkowski opened the door, Faith and Cal felt their hearts plunge. The boy in the chair, under the watch of two officers, was wearing a blue Cubs shirt but dark-colored shorts and—

“He’s not our son,” Cal said.

Faith steadied herself against the doorframe as a man behind them said, “This is huge mistake!” Two other officers had placed plastic handcuffs on his wrists. “Trevor, for God’s sake, tell them the truth!”

The boy, who appeared to Cal and Faith to be eleven or twelve, screwed his face into an icy grimace, then spat, “You’re not my father!”

At that moment a distraught, breathless woman arrived with a girl of about seven, who was clutching a big blue stuffed bear, as if to shield her from what was unfolding. The woman asked, “Don, Trevor, what’s going on?”

Ripkowski approached the woman. “Can you show me some identification? Do you know these people, ma’am?”

“I’m Marjorie Bricker.” She fished her wallet from her purse. “He’s my son, Trevor, and he’s Don Zaret, my fiancé. What is this—why’re you arresting him?”

“Marj,” Zaret started, “Trevor was trying to pass himself off as the missing kid—”

“We told you to keep quiet!” one officer said.

Zaret continued, speaking faster. “He made it look like I’d kidnapped him. I told these officers that it was because I wouldn’t let him ride the Rocket Blaster by himself.”

“I’m warning you, sir!” the officer said as Zaret got one more plea in.

“Remember, those were your instructions, Marjorie. No Rocket Blaster or Avalanche!”

The woman was showing Ripkowski photos on her phone of the family together. “See, he’s my son!”

Ripkowski turned to Trevor. “Is this all true?’

Trevor looked at his mother, then at the Hudsons. He was perceptive; he’d figured out who Cal and Faith were and knew the seriousness of what had befallen them. He’d seen the sober reality up on the big screens. Now, reading the pain in Cal’s and Faith’s faces, he turned to Marjorie Bricker and his chin crumpled.

“Why do you have to marry him, Mom? Did you stop loving Dad?”

“Oh, sweetheart, of course not. I’ll always love your father.” Marjorie hugged the boy, turning to the Hudsons and police, stifling her tears. “My husband—Trevor’s dad—was a soldier. He was killed in Afghanistan just over two years ago. Trevor’s had a hard time accepting Don in our lives.”

Zaret, still cuffed, blinked at the ceiling.

“Please.” Bricker turned to the police. “This is all a misunderstanding.”

The arresting officers were processing the explanations.

“Look,” one of them said. “It’s going to take some time for us to sort things out. We’re going to need to verify everyone’s ID.”

Marjorie Bricker turned to the Hudsons. “I’m so sorry. Please understand.”

Cal and Faith nodded but they didn’t understand.

How could they?

At this point nothing made sense to them.

Absorbing their heartbreak, they made their way back to the Chambers to face the mounting horror of Gage’s disappearance.

7

Yellow plastic police tape had gone up around the Chambers of Dread.

America’s flag of tragedy, Cal thought, his mind pulling him back to crimes he’d known as a reporter. Like when he’d watched a grieving husband look through closets and drawers for a photo of his wife, killed in a hit-and-run—“I’m sorry, she was shy about having her picture taken.”

Or the time an inconsolable mother had shown him her murdered son’s bedroom, his towel still damp from his shower that morning. He’d been shot in gang-war cross fire the day he’d received his acceptance letter from Loyola.

Cal never forgot interviewing a chain-smoking priest who’d given last rites to a great-grandmother stabbed and robbed on the street after buying groceries, his hand shaking with each pull.

In writing their stories, and so many others like them, Cal had accepted what he was: an invader.

Intruding on people’s torment at the most horrible time of their lives was what he did for a living. Sure, he could always justify and rationalize it as his job—the champion of a free press. But he hid the creeping fear that one day there’d be a reckoning, a price to be paid for these and his other sins—including the one that haunted him to the point where he questioned his worth as a reporter. As a person.

But over time, as his professional armor had hardened, he’d grown smug, thinking he was immune to being touched by crime. It couldn’t happen to him. It just couldn’t. He was a middle-class family man, a decent guy, living in a good West Side neighborhood.

But here he was, grappling with a terrifying reality.

His son was missing.

A fact so chilling it numbed him.

It was now more than two hours since Cal and Faith had seen Gage.

Cal was waiting at the Chambers while Faith took a turn searching the immediate midway again. Gage had to be out there somewhere. If he’d run off to play some kind of game intent on popping up and saying, “Guess I really scared you guys!” Cal swore he would kill him. But Gage wouldn’t ever play a joke like that. He’s a good kid.

Checking his phone Cal saw that the Chicago Star-News had posted Gage’s picture and details about him online. He called the newsroom.

“Stu, it’s Cal. Anyone contact the paper with anything on Gage?”

“Sorry, Cal, nothing yet but nutbars. Wish I had better news.”

Cal dragged both hands over his stubbled face as he hung up. He was a smart reporter, skilled at his craft; there had to be something more he could do. He racked his brain, then texted Stu with an idea. The moment after he sent it, his phone rang. It was Faith.

“On my way back—anything?”

“Nothing.”

The police alert on Gage’s disappearance had triggered several actions. One was the swift response of the River Ridge Neighborhood Patrol. A dozen volunteers, with more on the way, had arrived at the fairgrounds wearing lime green vests. They were equipped with radios, cell phones, maps, experience in searches and a “can-do” attitude.

“We have always found who we’re looking for,” the patrol leader, who was a retired cop, assured the Hudsons. “Little kids, Alzheimer’s patients who’ve wandered off...sooner or later, we find ’em.”

With the blessing of Herb Dulka and Vaughn King, the patrol had set up, near to the Chambers, a temporary Gage Hudson Search Center, consisting of tent canopies and several folding tables, all provided by the fairgrounds and midway. In quickly organized operations, the patrol fanned out to search the fair and neighborhoods surrounding the grounds.

Cal and Faith had taken turns scouring the midway with searchers, going up and down the avenues, looking behind rides, behind games of chance, in restrooms, picnic areas, all while Gage stared down on them from his picture on the giant screens.

Back at the search center Cal and Faith saw firefighters probing the underbelly and the roof of the Chambers. Others had gone inside to examine the interior. So far, they’d found nothing. A dog barked and the Hudsons turned to a police officer and a panting German shepherd.

“Folks, Officer Peddet. This is my partner, Champ. We’re here to help. Do you have anything belonging to Gage that he would have worn?”

Faith reached into her bag. “I’ve got his hoodie. I’d brought it in case it got chilly, or rained.”

“Good, don’t take it out yet.” Peddet, who wore large glasses, making him look like Clark Kent, led Champ and the Hudsons closer to the chutes of the Chambers and the exit stairs near the back. “This is the area where you last saw your son?”

“Actually, inside on the spinner,” Cal said.

“Okay, we’ll go inside. I’ll take the hoodie with me now.”

Faith withdrew the soft blue hoodie. Champ yipped as Peddet let the dog sniff the fabric.

“We’ll try to pick up Gage’s scent,” Peddet said, “but we’ve got a lot of smells in the air. It’ll be challenging and may take some time.”

Cal and Faith watched as Peddet and Champ left to search for a trail, Champ’s leash jingling as he tugged at it.

At that moment, Cal’s phone rang. It was the Star-News.

“Cal, its Bannon. Do you have a second?”

He repositioned his grip on his phone. “Yeah.”

“Stu just assigned me to call you for comment on the story we’re doing, but if there are more ways we can help, you let us know.”

Cal was grateful Stu had taken his suggestion earlier, that the Star-News do a quick story.

“Good, what do you need, Rich?”

“Just tell me what happened—what’s going through your mind?”

Cal hesitated, thinking how Bannon had asked exactly what he would’ve asked a parent if he were doing a story. Cal exhaled, quickly related the history of events, ending with: “We’re deeply concerned but hopeful we’ll locate him.”

“Thanks for talking to me and good luck. I’ll get a story up fast as I can. You should know that Stu’s sent Lori Kowski and Franco to the fair.”

Cal knew that the case of a missing child would draw media attention. And it did. A TV news crew from Channel 9 was the first to arrive, followed by reporters from the Chicago Tribune, the River Ridge Review, Chicago Sun-Times, Channel 77, WBTN Radio News, Channel WT2 and, as expected, Lori Kowski, a reporter, and Franco Ginnetti, a photographer, from his own paper.

Security staff had helped keep Cal and Faith out of view, taking them to a trailer for privacy to prepare to speak to the press.

“This can’t be real,” Faith sobbed.

“Maybe he wandered off,” Cal said.

“Why didn’t you let me hold his hand, Cal?”

“Because he’s doesn’t want to be babied. You’re always smothering him, Faith.”

“How would you know what he wants or doesn’t want? You’re barely ever home!”

Cal shook his head bitterly. “You should’ve been watching him, Faith.”

“Don’t you dare put this on me! You had him.”

“Me? He was with you on the spinner.”

“No, he was with you! I told the police I last saw him with you.”

“That’s what you told them?”

“It’s the truth.”

Cal looked away, took a breath, then looked back.

“We have to stop this. We have to stop fighting because in about one minute we’re going to step in front of the cameras and ask people to help us find our son.”

Faith hugged herself while shaking her head. “I don’t think I can speak to them.”

“We’ve got to provide a united front. We’ve got to keep pushing the word out. Just stand by me. We’ll keep it brief and I’ll do the talking. Can you do that...for Gage?”

She cupped her hands to her face. “I need a moment,” she said.

“For what?”

She reached into her bag. “I have to fix my hair and face.”

* * *

Upward of twenty newspeople were waiting near the Chambers when Cal and Faith came out. They were joined by Dulka, King and Officer Bryan DeSanto, a River Ridge police spokesman who led off the news conference with a short summary and update on the ongoing search before turning to them.

“Gage’s parents have agreed to take a few questions,” DeSanto said, triggering a deluge as cameras flashed on them.

Cal was ruggedly handsome with his soft stubble, dark eyes and dark hair. Faith, even anguished, had the fresh-scrubbed face of a natural beauty, framed by blond shoulder-length locks with a slight wave.

They were the all-American middle-class couple.

“Mr. Hudson, was your son was abducted?”

“There’s no evidence of that.”

“No calls for ransom, no one claiming responsibility?”

“No, nothing to suggest he was abducted.”

“But you go into the ride and leave without him? Isn’t it likely that someone, somehow, kidnapped him?”

“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.”

“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.”

“It makes you think about what you’re going to do if you lose your job. I’ve been with the Star-News a long time and reporting jobs are pretty hard to come by these days.”

“So there’s some stress in your home?”

“No more than anyone else in this economy.”

“What about you and Faith?”

“What about us?”

“Tell me about your relationship. How did you meet?”

Cal remembered the first time he saw Faith. She was on her phone, upset and in tears. He was immediately infatuated. After approaching her, he’d learned that her boyfriend had broken up with her and he thought, Who’d be stupid enough to break this girl’s heart? So he asked her out and they fell in love.

“We met in college.”

Price smiled. “And Gage is your only child?”

“Well, after Gage, Faith miscarried once and we never had another.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. When was that?”

“Two years after Gage was born.” Cal blinked several times.

Price made a note. “And Faith is with a public relations firm downtown?”

“Yes.”

“How would you describe Faith, Cal—is she calm or a nervous person?”

“She can be both.”

“How would you describe her intelligence?”

“Her intelligence?”

“Yes, is she a genius, a linear thinker, slow to grasp things?”

“No, she’s very intelligent, way smarter than me, graduated near the top of her class. She was in Mensa for a while.”

“Mensa? Really?” Price made notes. “Is she generally liked by others?”

“Yes.”

“Is she religious, devout?”

“She’s Catholic, goes to Mass. Well, not as much as she used to, but she’s still involved in the school and church.”

“What about you?”

“I was raised Catholic, was an altar boy, but I stopped going to church a long time ago.”

“Why? Were you abused or something?”

“Too much hypocrisy for me.”

“So you lost your faith.”

“No, guess you could say that I put it on the shelf.”

Price made notes. “Back to Faith—is she a good mother, attentive, or career-focused?”

“She’s a good mother. Gage is her world.”

“Would you say she’s confident or self-conscious?”

“Both, depends on the situation. She can be sensitive and sensitive to other people’s feelings.”

“Is she restrained and controlled or does she give in to urges and temptations?”

Cal hesitated at the word temptations and met Price’s eyes, wondering where this line of questioning was headed.

“She’s a disciplined, hardworking, devoted mother who has a weakness for banana milk shakes and tacos.”

“What about her spending habits?”

“She likes to shop—she’s fashionable. She buys things for Gage. But she’s not out of control or anything. In fact, she earns more than I do.”

“Does that bother you?”

“No.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

“Tell me about her hobbies, likes, dislikes?”

“She picks the mushrooms and onions off her pizza or salad. She loves to read, mostly general fiction. She belongs to a book club. She likes TV crime shows.”

“Really? What kind?”

“The true-crime stuff—Dateline, The First 48, unsolved murder mystery stuff, forensic stuff.”

“And you?”

“No, I don’t watch those shows.”

“Funny, I would think it would be the other way around.” Price made notes. “Have you ever been unfaithful to her, Cal?”

“What?” Cal shot her a look for offending him. “No.”

“Has she ever been unfaithful to you?”

Price sipped from her mug, as if she’d just asked him the time of day, watching him from over the rim. Cal swallowed and looked into her eyes. They were indifferent to any pain she may have caused as she waited for an answer. Cal suddenly imagined Faith across the hall and Lang asking her a similar question.

“No. She’s a good wife and our marriage is solid.”

Price nodded and made notes.

“Sure, we argue from time to time. I’ve ticked her off and she’s ticked me off. Mostly it’s me ticking her off, but that’s what a marriage is.”

“I wouldn’t know. I’m not married.”

A soft knock sounded at the door.

A man in a suit, who looked senior to Price, stuck his head in.

“Excuse me, Rachel? Something’s come up. We need you now.”

13

Long before the knock on the door had ended Detective Price’s interview with Cal, across the hall in Interview Room 403, Detective Leon Lang slid a tissue box closer to Faith Hudson.

“Faith, I know you’re devastated and exhausted but the sooner we get through this, the faster Detective Price and I can go to the next step.”

“I’ve told you everything.” She touched a tissue to her eyes. “How can I sit here talking to you when every fiber in me is screaming that my child, my baby, is missing and when—” her fingers tightened into fists, her knuckles whitened “—when I don’t know where Gage is, if he’s safe, if he’s warm, if someone’s hurting him.”

“I know this is hard but we have to work together to help Gage, all right?”

Lang’s soft smile was assuring, his tranquil demeanor calming. That he had a daughter close to Gage’s age made his compassion genuine.

“All right.” Her voice was barely a whisper.

“Good,” he said, and consulted his notes. “Before we move on, I want to go back to the last moment you saw Gage. You say that you saw him in the spinner at the exits with Cal?”

“Yes, the last I saw him he was with Cal.”

“You’re certain about that?” Lang checked his notes. “Because in your initial statement to Officer Ripkowski you indicated you weren’t sure.”

“Yes, there was confusion—the floor was spinning, the strobe lights and the guy with the saw—but I’m sure I saw him with Cal.” Her chin crumpled.

“But he obviously wasn’t with Cal when you exited.”

“No.” She shook her head and brushed her tears.

“All right, I want to move on. Does Gage take any medication of any kind?”

“No.”

“Does he have any chronic illness or injury or condition?”

“No.”

“Has he ever needed or received counseling for any issues?”

“No.”

“Any problems in school?”

“Academically?”

“Start with that, yes.”

“No, his grades are good. He likes school. He completes his assignments. He’s very bright. He told me he wants to be an architect, that he wants to design buildings and stadiums.”

“What about peer pressure or bullying at school?”

“No, nothing that I’m aware of.”

Lang made notes while Faith glanced again at the camera up in the corner that was recording everything.

“Has anyone moved in or out of your neighborhood recently?”

Faith thought. “The Robinsons at the end of the block—they’re accountants. They retired and moved to Nevada about two months ago. A family—the Carrutherses, from Seattle—moved in with twin teens, a boy and a girl. They keep to themselves, pretty much. I think the dad works at O’Hare for United or Delta.”

“Have you observed anyone taking special interest in Gage?”

“No.”

“Anyone acting suspicious around him?”

“No.”

“Tell me about Cal, his personality. Just quick descriptors—would you say he’s calm or nervous?”

“Calm.”

“Overly suspicious or overly trusting?”

“Well, he’s a crime reporter, so I’d say suspicious.”

“Self-centered or a team player?”

“I’d lean to self-centered.”

“Heartless or compassionate?”

“Depends.”

“How?”

“If he needs an interview with someone, he can be as compassionate as he needs to be. If he’s trying to beat his competition on a story, he can be heartless, ruthless even.”

“Would you say your husband is a giver or a taker?”

Faith considered the question for a moment. “A taker.”

“A taker?”

“He’s often at work, or with friends, or sources. Taking Gage to the fair was like a gift of his time to us.”

“Would you characterize him as a workaholic?”

She nodded.

“Is that a source of tension for you and Cal?”

She took a moment to respond. “No. We’ve adapted.”

“Would you say Cal is solitary or needs to be with others?”

She brushed a tear from the corner of her eye.

“Solitary.”

“Deceptive or truthful?”

“Truthful, unless he’s suspected someone has deceived him.”

“What do you mean?”

“If he’s dealing with unsavory types for a story, that sort of thing, he’ll do whatever it takes to get at the truth.”

“Would you say he was arrogant, or humble?”

“Somewhere in between, I suppose.”

Lang made notes.

“All right. Now, Faith, prior to Gage’s disappearance, was there any significant event in his life and yours—a school problem, a relationship or family issue, something involving police, anything?”

Faith began shaking her head. “No, nothing out of the ordinary.”

“Any recent stress in your family, say, with something financial, a death?”

“Cal’s worried about losing his job at the paper.”

“And what kind of stress has that put on you and Gage?”

“We try to keep that from Gage, but I told Cal we could survive on my salary if we tightened up on things.”

“And Cal’s reaction?”

“He didn’t really want to talk about it.”

“Faith, do you have any marital stress at all now, or in the past?”

She swallowed and blinked quickly. “A few arguments here and there, like most married couples, but no.”

“Aside from the workaholic thing, is Cal a good father?”

“Yes.”

“A good husband?”

She nodded.

“Faith, I have to ask these questions, but before you answer, you must understand that no matter what the truth is, all we care about is finding Gage, all right?”

“All right,” she said, unsure of what was coming.

“Do you suspect anyone of being involved in Gage’s disappearance?”

“No.”

“Are you involved in your son’s disappearance?”

“No!”

“Did someone help you to cause his disappearance?”

“No, absolutely not!”

Lang made notes, glancing at the time on his mini digital recorder.

“Has Cal ever been unfaithful to you?”

“No.”

“How would you characterize his attitude toward infidelity?”

“Oh my God, Detective, what do you think?”

“You tell me. Is he indifferent to it?”

“It’s wrong.”

“Have you ever been unfaithful to Cal?”

Faith clenched her tissue; her breathing quickened and she turned as if counting the cinder blocks in the wall.

“Listen, Faith,” Lang said. “All we care about is finding Gage and to do that we need a foundation of honesty and truthfulness.”

“No, Detective Lang, my answer is no.”

He held her in his gaze for a moment, then made notes.

“Good, that’s good.” He resumed looking at her with a hint of his warm smile. “You work as a public relations manager downtown at Parker Hayes and Robinson?”

“Yes.”

“Do you have any reason to believe someone in your workplace would want to harm Gage?”

“You keep asking me the same questions. The answer is no.”

Lang was flipping back through the pages of his notes when there was a knock on the door and Detective Price leaned into the room.

“Leon, something’s come up. We have to go.”

“Okay.” Lang turned to Faith. “Excuse me,” he said to her. “We’re pretty much done.”

In the hall beyond the detectives, Faith saw Cal and a uniformed officer.

“What’s going on?” Cal said. “Will somebody tell me?”

“Hold on, Mr. Hudson.” Price turned to Faith and said, “Officer Ramirez will take you and Cal downstairs so we can swab your cheeks for DNA and collect your fingerprints—all routine, I assure you. Then she’ll drive you home.”

“Wait!” Faith saw men in the squad room pulling on jackets, talking on phones, heading out, the heightened activity signifying some sort of development. “What’s happened? Is this about Gage?”

“Please.” Lang nodded to the uniform. “Carmen, would you?” Then to the Hudsons: “Please go with Officer Ramirez, she’ll get you home.”

“Please tell us!” Faith’s eyes widened. “Did you find Gage?”

Hands went to Faith’s shoulders to nudge her toward the elevator but she shook them off.

“Why won’t they tell us anything? Cal, did they find Gage? Please! Somebody tell us! Did you find our son?”

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