A Son's Tale Read online

  Whittier’s responding smile did it to her again. “Good answer,” he said, walking back over to the other side of the room.

  His legs were long and firm and he moved with the grace of an athlete.

  “I happen to agree with Ms. Lowen…” he was saying when Morgan’s phone vibrated against her hip.

  She never went to class without that phone. Being the single parent of a strong-minded boy wasn’t easy work. Sammie always came first.

  Morgan tried not to be too obvious as she glanced down at the screen, although Whittier knew about Sammie. Knew why she kept her phone on during class, and encouraged her to do so.

  The vibration signaled a text from Julie Warren, the office administrator at Rouse Elementary where Sammie was in summer school taking art and swimming. Julie was also Morgan’s friend.

  The message was one word: Call.

  They had a lunch date. Maybe Julie had to cancel. Wouldn’t be the first time.

  She typed her response.

  In class. Emergency?

  She sent the text off with one hand, leaving the phone in its clip.

  The reply was almost instantaneous. Like Julie hadn’t waited for her reply before sending it.

  S missing!

  The phone vibrated again, but Morgan didn’t take the time to look down. Closing the lid on her notebook computer without shutting the thing down, she threw it on top of its case in her backpack. She had the bag slung on her shoulder before she was completely standing and was already digging in the side pocket for her car keys.

  “My son…” She wasn’t even sure what she ended up blurting out as she ran from the room.

  CHAPTER TWO

  SILENCE HUNG OVER the classroom for thirty seconds or more after Morgan Lowen’s dash from the room. Her frantic words—“My son is missing from school!”—occupied the space, squeezing out all the excess air.

  And then the rumbling started—low voices emanating from seats all across the room. His students’ wide-eyed glances darted between one another, the door, him. One kid—“Jackass,” Cal had privately dubbed him—sat there staring at his electronic tablet, looking bored. That’s when Cal noticed the wireless device mostly concealed by the kid’s long, unkempt hair. He had an earphone in. And was listening to God knew what on Cal’s time.

  “Class dismissed,” Cal said, filing away a mental reminder to pursue wireless Jackass at some future date.

  Yeah, this was college. Yeah, students were responsible for their own education at this point. But he had more to teach than knowledge of American literature. He had the minds of tomorrow in his sphere and he took his job seriously.

  He answered a couple of questions about a two-thousand-word paper due at midterm and confirmed that they’d be covering The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn all of the following week as the syllabus stated.

  “You think her kid’s going to be okay?” Bella was standing by the long table that served as his desk at the front of the window-lined classroom.

  “I do,” Cal said, ignoring the thread of alarm trying to take up residence within him. “She said he was missing from school. He’s probably just playing hooky. Or hiding out with a friend in the bathroom. It’s summer school so things are a little less strict and kids have more of a tendency to roam.”

  “Some jerks once locked my little brother in his locker,” Bella said, sliding her electronic notebook into her backpack. “He was there for an hour before anyone knew he was missing.”

  “His teachers didn’t miss him?”

  “They had a sub and it was during lunch break.”

  And someone should have noticed he was gone. Like they’d obviously noticed Morgan Lowen’s son was missing.

  “They should check the lockers for him,” Bella added, standing in front of him with her backpack slung over one shoulder.

  “I’m sure they’ll find him.” Cal slid a couple of folders, notes, into his soft-sided leather briefcase.

  “I didn’t even know she had a son.”

  Cal had. He knew, too, that she’d given birth to and raised the boy completely on her own, but he wasn’t going to gossip about another student. What he wanted to do was get back to his office in case she contacted him. He and Morgan had never crossed the line between teacher and student; he’d kept his interest in her completely professional, but he’d be kidding himself if he said he wasn’t attracted to her.

  And Cal did not kid himself. He couldn’t afford the luxury.

  Morgan had been having some troubles with her son. He knew because she’d missed class in the spring due to some antics the boy had pulled at school.

  He hoped she’d also let him know that Sammie was fine.

  “She doesn’t wear a wedding ring.” Bella was still standing there.

  Again, Cal said nothing and Bella, after staring at him for another several seconds, shrugged.

  “Well, I just hope everything’s fine. Have a great weekend, Dr. Whittier. See you Monday.”

  She walked out, allowing Cal to hurry to his office.

  * * *

  MORGAN COULDN’T REMEMBER the four-block drive from Wallace University to Rouse Elementary. She’d run out of class and ended up in the parking lot of her son’s school. She’d called her mom. But only to ask her if she’d heard from Sammie. Grace Lowen was going to be taking Sammie to Little League practice Saturday while Morgan officiated sack races at the day care. Morgan had told Sammie that morning to call his grandmother and remind her of the next day’s practice.

  Grace hadn’t heard from him.

  The call with her mother lasted about thirty seconds. Morgan didn’t let on that anything was amiss. She didn’t know for sure that it was.

  And she couldn’t deal with her father at the moment.

  Julie was pacing the sidewalk at the entrance of the parking lot when Morgan pulled up in her eight-year-old Ford Taurus, purchased used the year before. Julie jumped in and Morgan pulled into the closest parking spot.

  “Oh, God, Morg, I have no idea how this happened,” Julie said, glancing toward the door of the school. “Mr. Peterson has already called the police.”

  The school principal. A man Morgan had always thought was calm and rational, ready to call the police?

  “He’s got to be hiding someplace,” Morgan said, swallowing panic. “Did they check the bathrooms? The girls’, too?”

  Julie nodded.

  “What about the shop? Did you check the shop? You know he wanted to finish that little wood car he’d started last session.”

  Julie was already shaking her head. “He asked to use the restroom,” she said. “The hall security camera shows him going into the boys’ restroom at the end of the hall, and in twenty minutes of tape, he never came back out. But he’s definitely not in there.”

  “What about the grounds camera?”

  “It’s broken at the hinge, but we can’t tell if the break is new or not.”

  “How long ago did he leave class?”

  “He asked to go to the bathroom half an hour ago. As soon as his teacher reported that he hadn’t come back and wasn’t in the bathroom we went to the security camera. I texted you as soon as I saw the film.”

  “Have they checked his locker?”

  “Yeah. His suit and towel for swimming are in there.”

  “What about his lunch?”

  They were out of the car, hurrying toward the walk.

  “Today is picnic-on-the-lawn day, remem
ber? We provide brown-bag lunches.”

  “Oh, yeah, right.” Picnic-on-the-lawn day had seemed so far away.

  “They’ve locked down the school, Morg. Come on. We have to get in there. They’re waiting for you… .”

  The fear in Julie’s eyes held Morgan frozen for a split second. And then she ran.

  * * *

  CAL PUSHED THE BUTTON on his office answering machine before he’d taken his seat behind his desk.

  As if there’d be some news about Morgan Lowen’s son there already. Just because her urgency was coursing through him like a river with a broken dam didn’t mean that he was in any kind of loop that would be privy to her private information on an immediate basis.

  Still, he couldn’t just sit there. A child was missing. Something had to be done.

  He was overreacting, of course. Kids went missing every day, and almost every single time they turned up. Morgan was probably with Sammie at this very moment. Maybe scolding him for having given her a scare. Or taking him for fast food hamburgers, which she’d told Cal she’d done last April after Sammie’s problems at school. She’d wanted her son to talk to her. Rather than punish him, she’d wanted to know why he’d acted out.

  “This message is for Dr. Caleb Whittier. Dr. Whittier, I left a message yesterday. My name is Detective Ramsey Miller. I’m with the Comfort Cove Police Department in Comfort Cove, Massachusetts. It’s important that you return my call… .”

  Cal cut off the message before the man recited his numbers, including one for a private cell, a second time. He hadn’t been anywhere near Comfort Cove, a coastal town not far from Boston, since he was seven years old. Not since the accusations had forced him and his father out of town.

  He’d be damned if he was going to waltz back there of his own accord. Other than this office line at school, his numbers—landline and cell—were unlisted. His father’s cell was a pay-as-you-go with an untraceable number. They rented instead of owning so that there was no tax record of the residence. They used a P.O. box for mail. He paid taxes, but Frank didn’t. His father worked at the local nursing home, doing handyman and janitorial work, and the rent on the home they lived in was free in trade. Cal hadn’t lived thirty-two years without learning a thing or two about protecting his father from the stalkers who’d all but ruined his life.

  Bile rose in his throat as he thought about the tall, proud man who’d once stood at the helm of one of Massachusetts’ most prestigious private high schools, getting up every morning to fix bathroom plumbing and mop piss off floors.

  His father had not only been one of Massachusetts’ most respected educators, he’d also been a damn good basketball coach. And in the past twenty years the only ball he’d touched professionally was the float ball in a toilet.

  There were two other messages. One confirming that while the adventure vacations group had sympathy with Cal’s plight, the thousand bucks he’d put up for his father’s fishing trip was not going to be refunded, regardless of the circumstances. The second one was from the assistant of one of yesterday’s bankers informing him that she’d sent a list of questions that he would need to answer, in writing, before her boss could consider Cal’s scholarship request for the young artists’ league.

  Voice mail over, he sat down. Opened his email.

  And saw the message in his in-box that Joy had sent the day before, confirming their date the night before. She’d said she had something to speak with him about. He’d thought she wanted to deepen their relationship with spoken commitment. To talk about some kind of future.

  It hadn’t gone that way… .

  “Hi, hon. How was your day?” he’d said as he’d met her outside the restaurant. He’d bent down for a kiss, which she’d returned as though everything was fine. It hadn’t been until later, back at her place, that she’d let him know how she was really feeling.

  He’d pulled her into his arms. She’d pushed him away.

  “I don’t want to do this, Cal,” she’d said. “It’s like I’m on your list of things to do, not like I’m the person you need in your life. When you kiss me…I don’t know…I don’t feel like I do it for you anymore.”

  “It’s not that,” he’d hastily assured her. “I want you.”

  “I’m not talking about sex, Cal. All your working parts are in perfect order, as I’m sure you’re fully aware. You’re the best lover I’ve ever had and then some.”

  “So what’s the problem?” His tone was purposefully light. But he knew. In the end, the story was always the same.

  “You don’t give enough of yourself, Cal. You bring gifts. You take me to concerts and the theater. You’ve introduced me to some great restaurants that I’d never been to even though I’ve lived in Tennessee my entire life. You entertain me. You bring me physical pleasure I didn’t even know I could feel. But you never talk to me. I know more about what’s playing and who’s cooking than I do about you.”

  Different words, but same story. As he’d predicted.

  “What’s there to tell?” he’d asked, as much out of habit as anything. And he’d waited for her answer with more curiosity than hope. Would her answer be any different than any he’d ever heard before?

  “If I knew that, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

  “Did it ever occur to you that you know what there is to know?”

  “It did. But I don’t believe that. You have too much insight, too much consideration and too much understanding to ever pass for a shallow man.”

  Her words made him uncomfortable. “You get more of me than anyone else in my life gets.”

  She’d wanted more.

  He wasn’t going to give it to her.

  Her next words replayed themselves loud and clear—their echo joining the chorus of others in his mind. “I think we need to start seeing other people, Cal.”

  “You’re breaking up with me.”

  “Were we ever really going together?”

  “I was seeing you exclusively. You know that.” He only had exclusive sex.

  She’d paused.

  Two months prior they’d had “the talk.” The one that said she was important to him. As he was to her.

  And what more was there? They’d established in the very beginning that neither was interested in marriage or family.

  None of the women Cal dated were. That criteria was at the top of his list when considering whether or not he should ask a woman out. “I know you care about me, Cal. And I’ll always care about you,” Joy had finally said. Then she’d added, “And no, I’m not saying I don’t ever want to see you again. I just think we need to see other people, too. You know, to keep things from getting too…personal.”

  They were done sleeping with each other. “I understand.”

  “We’ve had some really good times.”

  “Agreed.”

  She’d offered him coffee to sober up so he could drive. He’d had several cups. The silence had gotten awkward.

  Then he’d stood.

  “Call me, okay?” she’d said, standing there in her banker’s conservative shirt and jacket, her arms wrapped around her middle.

  He’d pulled the knot on his tie up. “I will. You do the same.”

  “Of course.”

  He’d left her house pretty certain that he and Joy would never speak again.

  There was another message from her in Friday morning’s incoming email. She was sorry for how things had gone the night before. But she really thou
ght their decision was for the best. She hoped he understood that she wouldn’t be referring any more of her clients or associates to him for his fundraising efforts. And she wanted the earrings back that she’d left in his car the previous week.

  Cal would have been a lot more bothered about Joy if he’d known that Sammie Lowen was with his mother, safe and sound.

  CHAPTER THREE

  SHE WAS LIVING a nightmare. She’d wake up any second.

  Longing for the quilt on her bed, to be able to pull it up over her head and warm her freezing body, Morgan sat in the chair at the police station and waited for her parents to arrive.

  She’d already answered all of the officers’ questions.

  “Let’s go over things one more time, Ms. Lowen.” The female detective sitting across from her in the little room with only a table and four chairs emanated sympathy. About ten years older than Morgan, Elaine Martin didn’t look any more like a cop than she did. She wasn’t even in uniform.

  “The smallest things can make a difference,” Detective Martin said. “Tell me again everything you can remember about this morning.”

  “I got Sammie up at seven, just like always.”

  “Did he get right up? Or did you have to nag him?”

  Was the woman calling her a nag? Did she think Morgan wasn’t a good mom? That she’d somehow failed her son? Failed to see that someone was watching him? Out to get him? Or…

  “Ms. Lowen? You okay?”

  Morgan focused. Detective Martin’s brow creased with concern.