He missed his father. Florida was so far away.
He pulled his white-and-red-striped tube socks up to his knees and left the fellowship hall as quietly as he’d entered. He needed to get home, or he would be late. And if he was too late, his mother would notice and scold him for dawdling and taking too long on his route.
Outside, the full sun crested the horizon. The streets were busier at this hour than normal. Passing cars, several people out walking, calling to each other. Sammy clutched his canvas bag in front of the wet spot on his crotch and dashed across the churchyard to the sidewalk. As he was about to cross the street, he stopped and waited for two speeding motorcycles to pass. They slowed at the top of the hill, then stopped. A group of people crowded around the corner of Tenth and Hillcrest, where one of the other paperboys had his bundles delivered.
Sammy started running again to make up time. But instead of turning right on Tenth and walking just one block north to Cutler Avenue where he lived, the shortest and most direct path home, he crossed Tenth and continued west on Clark. It took him in a wide, circular route to his street.
His safety route.
A route where no one would think to look for him. Where he would be a little safer.
CHAPTER 2
One and a half hours missing
Crystal Cox hunched over the kitchen table reading the Des Moines Register about the latest news from the Olympics in Los Angeles. Everyone was stewing over a big controversy the day before when an American runner got tripped by a barefoot South African and fell, losing the race she was favored to win. The ensuing debate was whether the South African had run a dirty race. Crystal slid a pen from behind her ear and opened a red spiral notebook. She jotted down a possible article idea for her school paper on cheating in the Olympics. Or maybe an article on spectators’ need for heroes and villains in competitive sports. When she started her senior year in a few weeks, she would be editor of both the yearbook and her high school newspaper, The Railsplitter, with a weekly column and regular feature stories, so she was always on the lookout for good story ideas.
With no new article ideas gelling, Crystal closed the newspaper and shuffled to the sink. The basin was still full of cold, stagnant water, dirty plates, and tumbler cups. She was supposed to have done the dishes last night but had forgotten. She reached into the water, her hand breaking the greasy layer floating atop, and fished around for the dishrag. She’d get them cleaned up quickly, before her mother awoke.
As she washed, Crystal switched on the police scanner sitting on a shelf above the sink set to the Des Moines frequency. Her father had left the scanner behind when he moved out after the divorce three years ago, and listening to it was her favorite pastime. An odd interest for an eighteen-year-old girl, but it was a great source of local breaking news. Whenever Crystal was in the kitchen, the scanner was on. She was so used to its chatter filling the background of the house that she’d learned most of the police ten-codes. Ten-eleven, dog case. Ten-seventy, fire alarm. Ten-fifteen, civil disturbance.
Crystal clamped a pair of pliers around the hot-water valve of the sink and pulled until the water ran. The handle had broken months ago, but as usual her mother didn’t have the money to fix it.
As Crystal rinsed dishes under the tap, she yawned again. She’d been unable to sleep in late because her bedroom was too hot and uncomfortable, even with the box fan blasting on high three inches from her head. A dispatcher’s voice crackled through the speaker, her voice hurried, urgent.
“Ten–thirty-five, major crime alert. Suspected ten–forty-one A at corner of Hillcrest Drive and Tenth Street. Available officer in the area, please respond.”
Ten–forty-one A … Crystal didn’t recognize the code. She turned up the volume.
“APB thirteen-year-old male, brown hair, brown eyes, five feet two inches, one hundred and five pounds, last seen at corner of Hillcrest Drive and Tenth Street on paper route between five forty-five and six AM wearing blue jeans and gray tank top. Name is Christopher Thomas Stewart. Father just called it in.”
The frequency squealed and clicked. A male voice now. “Unit 22 responding.”
“BOLO silver or gray Camaro reported in vicinity of Tenth and Hillcrest where child was last seen.”
Crystal pulled the faucet off and tapped the pliers head against her chin, thinking.
They were looking for vehicles. Child last seen … 10-41A …
They were looking for a missing paperboy.
Hillcrest and Tenth was just three blocks away.
She dropped the pliers on the counter and stepped outside onto the damp, seeping pavement of the driveway. Dewy air blanketed her.
The corner of Hillcrest and Tenth was just blocks from Sammy’s paper route, too. He should’ve been finished with his route and home by now.
Multiple police sirens wailed in the distance. Crystal squinted her eyes behind the thick lenses of her glasses, trying to make out a pair of blurry figures at the end of the street. It was two uniformed cops, stopping and searching every passing car.
Several neighbors had also noticed the commotion and peeked out between curtains or poked their heads through the cracks of front doors. Crystal walked farther down the driveway. Next door, old Mrs. Murley was standing in the middle of her yard in her floral housecoat and curlers, shading her eyes against the sunrise as she watched the police work.
This missing-kid thing was for real. A current of worry for Sammy rippled through Crystal’s gut but was quickly replaced by excitement. This could possibly be a topic for her YJWA scholarship application. The Young Journalists Writing Award was a national essay-writing contest for journalism majors with a $2,000-a-year renewable college scholarship, and Crystal desperately needed that money if she had any hope of going to college next fall. This year, the topic for the journalistic essay was “Issues of Contemporary Societies,” and this missing kid could be a promising lead. All good journalists had to follow promising leads, and Crystal was serious about becoming a journalist. She wasn’t some lookie-loo or rubbernecker like all her gawking neighbors.
Crystal rushed back into the house and grabbed a pad of paper and a pen from the junk drawer and hastily scribbled down what she’d heard on the scanner moments ago.
She stuffed the notebook and pen into her back pocket and ran up the stairs two at a time, leaping over piles of clothes and discarded shoes, and pushed open the door to her mother’s bedroom. Tina lay sprawled on her stomach across her queen-size water bed, a thin top sheet tangled around her body.
“Mom,” Crystal whispered, nudging Tina’s shoulder. “There’s something on the police scanner.”
Tina didn’t move. She’d worked late again last night at her second job: waitressing at a Chi-Chi’s restaurant on weekends. During the week she cut and permed hair at a Haircrafters Salon in the mall, so Sundays were her only morning to sleep in.
“Mom! I just heard something on the police scanner,” Crystal repeated.
“Ten more minutes,” Tina murmured, and pulled the sheet over her head.
“No, listen to me.” Crystal peeled the sheet back. “A kid went missing. I heard it on the scanner. I’m going to go look for Sammy and check out what’s going on.”
The old family cat, Mr. Tibbs, who often slept curled in a ball on her pillow, stirred and stretched, burying his claws in Tina’s long, ratted hair that still smelled like fried food from the restaurant.