This time he looked forward to seeing his sister and her husband. This time Matt would be with him. Celia might even be too shocked to nag.
Denny started the engine. What was taking the kid so long in there?
A flatbed truck with some heavy equipment on it pulled into the parking lot, and a burly man jumped down.
Denny tapped his fingers on the steering wheel impatiently. He had hoped Matt would be out of the men’s room before anyone else went in.
The truck driver walked along the side of his rig, checking the tie-downs.
Come on, Matt, Denny thought. Get out here!
The truck driver jogged off down the path, without looking at Denny. When he reached the sign where Pookie was tied, he gave the dog a pat and kept going.
Finally Matt came out and headed toward Denny’s car. Denny opened the front door on the passenger’s side. “Sit up here with me,” he said. “It doesn’t smell as strong.”
Matt climbed into the front seat and buckled his seat belt.
He looked at Denny and gasped. “You changed your hair,” he said, “and you shaved off your mustache.” One hand nervously fingered his earlobe. “You’re wearing a new shirt, too.”
“Smart kid. Very observant.”
“You look a lot different.”
“Do you think I look like you?” Denny asked as he backed out of the parking space.
“No.”
“Do you know who I am?”
Matt shook his head no.
“I’m your dad.”
Matt’s eyes narrowed. He examined Denny for a few seconds, then asked, “What’s your name?”
“Don’t you know your own dad’s name?”
“I know it. My mom told me.”
“My name’s Denny Thurman.”
“Oh.”
Denny could tell Matt recognized the name.
“You had on a wig before, didn’t you?”
Denny didn’t answer.
An uneasy feeling crept over Matt as he thought about everything this man had told him. Something was wrong here, and as soon as he got home, he’d tell Mom exactly what had happened.
Denny left the parking lot and headed out of Marymoor Park toward Highway 520. He glanced once in the rearview mirror, but he couldn’t see the dog.
Good-bye, Pookie, he thought. Good riddance.
It had been less than ten minutes since the school buses left, but it seemed like forever to Bonnie. WHERE WAS MATT?
“Who are Matt’s friends?” Mr. Quinn asked.
Bonnie and Mrs. Jules named four children from Matt’s class. Mr. Quinn called each of their homes. Twice he got an answering machine and left an urgent message. The other two times, a woman answered, questioned her child, then reported the child hadn’t seen Matt after school let out.
“Maybe someone gave him a ride home today,” Mr. Quinn said. “Perhaps a neighbor or somebody else Matt knows saw him in the bus line and offered to drop him off. Maybe he’s home right now, waiting for you.”
Bonnie called her own number, although she knew Matt wouldn’t be there. They always rode the bus home together unless Mom made other arrangements in advance. Always.
The answering machine clicked on. “Matt,” Bonnie said, “if you are home, call the school right away.” She read the number off the telephone base.
Bonnie hoped her mom would get there soon.
“Did Matt have a problem today?” Mr. Quinn asked Mrs. Jules. “Did you send a note home?”
Mrs. Jules said, “He didn’t get in trouble in class. He rarely does. Matt’s one of my easiest boys, except for his tendency to think about baseball too much.”
Something’s happened to him, Bonnie thought. Maybe the anxious feeling that started in PE hadn’t been because of remembering the dream; maybe it was a premonition.
Was Matt going to disappear from her life without even a chance to say good-bye, the way her dad did?
Mr. Quinn turned to the school secretary, Mrs. Williams. “Were there any visitors at school this afternoon?” he asked.
Mrs. Williams picked up the sign-in sheet and glanced at it. “One parent came to take a sick child home. The regular volunteer who listens to the first-graders read was here, and we had a delivery for the library.”
“Nothing unusual,” Mr. Quinn said.
“Nothing unusual,” Mrs. Williams agreed.
Matt’s cheeks started to itch. He rubbed them, one hand on each side of his face. The more he rubbed, the more his cheeks itched. They felt hot, like two glowing coals. His chest itched, too, and he stuck one hand up his T-shirt to scratch.
“I think you were wrong about the candy bar,” he said.
“What do you mean?”
“I’ve got hives.”
Denny looked at the boy. His face was puffy, especially around his eyes.
“I itch all over,” Matt said. “I need to take one of my pills.”
“What pills?”
“The green ones that I take every morning.”
“Vitamin pills?”
“No. I take a vitamin pill, too, but now I need the kind I get from the doctor, for my allergies.”
Matt kneaded his ears. Denny frowned, watching him. Pink blotches bloomed on the boy’s face and neck. Whoever heard of a kid being allergic to chocolate? Still, Matt did look as if he had scrubbed his face with poison ivy. Small bumps like mosquito bites rose on the blotches. Matt’s lips seemed swollen.
“Did you ever get hives before when you weren’t home?”
“Once I got them at school when I traded my snack for another kid’s cupcake.”
“What did your teacher do?”
“The school nurse gave me an allergy pill. Mom had taken some in to the nurse on my first day, in case I ever needed one.”
Denny gripped the steering wheel tighter. Nervous perspiration began to soak his T-shirt. He couldn’t take the kid to a doctor. No way. “What happens if you don’t get a pill?” he asked.
“The hives last longer and itch more. The pill makes them go away.”
“You’ll have to itch, then.”
“I’ll take a pill as soon as we get home. I know where Mom keeps them.”
“Forget the pills. We’re not going there.”
“You said we’re going home.”
“We are. We’re going to my home, which is now our home. You’re going to live with me from now on. We’ll have a great time, me and you.”
Matt shook his head. “I don’t want to live with you.”
“Too bad.”
“I want to call my mom.”
“Hey, this was her idea. She said to be a good boy and do what I say.”
“What about my clothes and my toys and my blankie?”
“She’s going to mail everything to you. The pills, too. Not that you’ll need your old clothes or toys. I bought everything new for you—a PlayStation with lots of games, and a DVD player and a bunch of movies and a Game Boy.”
Matt stared at the man. “Are you rich?” he asked.
“You better believe it, kid. I hit it big last week, so once you get to my place, you can have anything your little heart desires.”
Matt thought about that. Mom wouldn’t let him have a PlayStation because she thought most of the games were too violent. He had a few movies but not DVD movies. He wondered if Mom really knew where he was going and about all the computer games.
His father’s name was Denny Thurman, but how did Matt know that’s who this man was? He’d never seen his dad; he didn’t know what his dad looked like. Maybe this man was only pretending to be Denny Thurman. “How do I know you’re really my dad?” he asked.
“What? My own kid wants to see identification?” Denny pulled a wallet from his hip pocket, then tossed it to Matt. “All right. If you don’t trust me, look at my driver’s license.”
Matt flipped open the wallet and peered at the driver’s license, wishing he could read. The photo was this man’s face. The license must say Denny Thurman;
if it didn’t, the man wouldn’t show it to him.
Denny scowled while the kid examined his driver’s license. This was not going the way he had planned. Not at all. Tim and Thomas never got red spots on their faces. They didn’t question everything Winston said.
Matt closed the wallet and handed it back.
“Satisfied?” Denny asked. “Convinced I’m not lying to you? I’m really your dad?”
Matt nodded, but he didn’t know what to think. This man really was his father, yet he knew not everything the man said was true. Mom would never have sent Matt to live somewhere else without talking to him about it first, and she certainly wouldn’t have let him go without his clothes or his allergy pills.
Something didn’t add up. First the man said Pookie was hurt when Pookie wasn’t, and now he wasn’t going to take Matt home. A terrible suspicion formed in Matt’s mind. Had he made a horrible mistake when he got in this car?
Matt rubbed his face some more. He didn’t like this man, even if he was his dad. “What about Bonnie?” he asked. “Is she going to live with us?”
“She isn’t my kid. You are.”
“Bonnie will be mad when she finds out Pookie came with me.”
“We don’t care what Bonnie thinks. Forget about her.”
“I don’t want to forget Bonnie. I want to go home.”
“Be quiet,” Denny said. “You’re giving me a headache.”
The uncertainty flowing through Matt’s mind jelled into conviction. He should never have gotten into the car with this man, whether Pookie was there or not.
“I’m going to sit in back with Pookie,” Matt said. He unbuckled his seat belt and started to climb over the seat. He stopped, looking down at the floor. “Pookie’s gone!” he cried. “He isn’t here!”
Denny shrugged.
“He must have jumped out when we stopped at the bathroom,” Matt said, “and we didn’t see him go. We have to turn around!”
“Forget it.”
“FORGET IT? We can’t drive off and leave him behind.”
“Sure we can.”
“Pookie’s old,” Matt said. “He can hardly see.”
“Calm down. He’s fine.”
“He isn’t fine! He’s loose at the park. We have to go back and get him. He’ll get hit by a car!”
“He won’t get hit. I tied him to a post.”
Matt glared at Denny. “You left him at Marymoor Park on purpose?”
“Stupid dog stunk up the whole car.”
“That wasn’t his fault. You’re the one who said to feed him chocolate.” He put his hand on Denny’s arm. “You have to turn around! We can’t leave Pookie by himself!”
“Let’s get something straight here,” Denny said as he pushed Matt’s hand away. “I call the shots. I make the decisions, not you, and the sooner you learn that, the better off you’ll be.”
“Pookie will be scared. He won’t know where he is.”
“The dog’s lucky I left him at the park. I could have got rid of him.”
Matt’s voice was only a whisper. “What do you mean?”
Denny pulled his T-shirt up, revealing the gun.
Matt stared. He’d never seen a real gun before.
“Zip your lip about the dog, understand? The mutt was nothing but trouble.”
Matt shrank into the seat, leaning against the door, as far from Denny as possible.
They rode in silence for a minute.
“I bought a bunch of board games,” Denny said. “Stuff like Monopoly. I used to play Monopoly when I was a kid.”
“You said I could have anything I want at your house,” Matt said.
“That’s right. You got it made, kid.”
“I want Pookie.”
Denny gave Matt a disgusted look. “Correction: You can have anything you want except a dog.”
Two tears trickled down Matt’s cheeks, making shiny trails across the red blotches.
“What are you sniffling about? Any normal kid would be thrilled to get every new toy and game.”
“Why did you bring Pookie if you don’t like him?”
Denny didn’t reply.
Let the kid figure it out for himself.
Bonnie ran out of the school office when she saw her mom’s car. Mrs. Sholter stopped in the bus zone, jumped out, then put an arm around her daughter’s shoulders as they hurried inside.
“He didn’t come to the bus,” Bonnie said, “so I went to his room and he wasn’t there. We’ve looked everywhere.”
Mrs. Jules explained about the hall pass and how she’d checked in the boys’ bathroom. Mr. Quinn told about calling the bus drivers and Matt’s friends. Other teachers said they had searched the classrooms and the playground.
“We need to call the police,” Mrs. Sholter said. She took a phone from her purse and dialed 911. Everyone in the office listened to the call.
“The police are coming,” she said when she hung up.
Teachers wove in and out of the office, asking if Matt had been found yet. Several walked back through every room in the school again, checking closets, restrooms, and the cafeteria for any sign of the missing boy. By the time the police arrived, the staff felt positive Matt was not on the school grounds.
The policeman, Officer Calvin, asked the same questions Mr. Quinn had asked, plus a few more.
“Would he have left the school grounds by himself? To buy candy, perhaps?”
“Absolutely not,” Mrs. Sholter said.
“Would he have left with someone else—maybe accepted a ride home?”
“No,” Mrs. Sholter said.
“He always rides the bus with me,” Bonnie said.
“Did anyone other than staff come to the school this afternoon?”
Mrs. Williams said, “A parent picked up a sick child, a volunteer came to hear the first-graders read, and a package was delivered to the library.”
“I didn’t get any package today,” Mrs. Payton said.
Everyone turned to look at the librarian.
Mrs. Williams picked up the sign-in sheet. “A delivery man came at two twenty-five, with a box for the library. He signed in and took a visitor’s badge, and I told him how to find the library.” She frowned. “He didn’t sign out, though. I didn’t notice before; he never signed out.” She counted the badges in a small box next to the sign-in sheet. “He didn’t return the badge, either.”
“I never got a delivery,” Mrs. Payton repeated.
Officer Calvin asked, “What company was the deliveryman with?”
“UPS,” Mrs. Williams said. “He said he had a package for the library and—”
“Are you sure he said UPS?” Officer Calvin asked. “Was it the regular driver?”
Mrs. Williams ran one hand nervously through her hair. “I didn’t recognize him, but he said he was from UPS. He carried a box and a clipboard, and he had on a brown UPS uniform.”
“Did you see his truck?” the officer asked.
“I didn’t look for his truck.”
“Would someone call UPS, please?” Officer Calvin said.
Mr. Quinn looked up the UPS number and called. It took a while to get a live person on the line, but when he did, he explained what had happened. He gave the school’s address. Then he put one hand over the telephone mouthpiece and whispered, “She’s checking.”
A moment later he said, “Are you certain?” Then, after a pause, he said, “Thank you. Yes, I’ll let you know.”
Even before Mr. Quinn hung up, Bonnie knew from his expression what he was going to say.
“UPS had no delivery scheduled here today,” Mr. Quinn reported.
Mrs. Williams covered her mouth with one hand, her eyes brimming with tears.
“This isn’t your fault,” Mr. Quinn said. “You had no reason to suspect the man wasn’t who he said he was.”
“He lied,” Mrs. Jules said. “Maybe he came here to try to steal a child and he saw Matt alone.”
Bonnie’s throat felt tight, the way it
always did when she came down with a bad cold.
Officer Calvin said, “It appears Matt was by himself at the wrong time.”
Mr. Quinn pounded his fist on the countertop. “We tried to have good security,” he said. “We tried to prevent something like this. We even had an assembly on what to do and say if approached by a stranger.”
“It’s hard to prevent every possibility,” the officer said.
“Matt KNOWS not to go anywhere with a stranger,” Mrs. Sholter said. “We talked about it many times. He’s been told to scream and run away if anyone tries to take him.”
“None of the staff noticed anything unusual,” Mr. Quinn said. “Nobody heard Matt yell.”
“He would never leave with someone he doesn’t know,” Bonnie insisted.
The police officer shook his head. “Even kids who know better sometimes get tricked,” he said. “The man probably lied to him, and Matt believed what he was told.”
“Are you saying you think Matt went willingly?” Mrs. Sholter asked.
“It happens, even with kids who’ve been taught all the right things. The trouble is, we can’t figure out in advance what some crook might say.”
“I can’t believe Matt would do that.”
Bonnie couldn’t believe it, either.
“I’ll need a photo of Matt as soon as possible,” Officer Calvin said, “and a full description, including the clothes he wore today. I believe this case warrants issuing an Amber Alert.”
“What’s that?” asked Bonnie.
“Matt’s description will be broadcast immediately on the emergency alert network. It’s the system used for severe weather emergencies such as torna does or a volcanic eruption. An Amber Alert will get Matt’s description out to the public instantly with messages on the highway reader boards and on radio and TV. Thousands of people will be looking for him within an hour.”
“Thank you,” Mrs. Sholter said.
“I wish we could broadcast a description of the abductor or the vehicle Matt left in. More than once a motorist has spotted a car that police were looking for and called to report its location. But a good description of the boy might be enough.”
Mrs. Sholter opened her wallet, took out a picture of Matt, and handed it to Officer Calvin.
“When was this taken?” he asked.