Ladybugs swarmed the light, popping like kernels in oil. I realized why all the lights were so dim on the porch: All the other lantern sconces were also covered in the beetles.
When I was a little girl, Daddy brought them to the property. Since the beetles were known to kill other plant-eating insects, he purchased hundreds of them through one of his mail-order catalogs. They’d been in the lanterns my father and those men had carried that day in the woods—
The coil on the screen door squeaked. Tom, Chief Jeff Stacks, and another officer walked out. I inhaled sharply at the sudden recognition. Paul Strombino was the metro detective I always saw on the news, with his fierce, full mustache and sunken eyes, the one who was always assigned to investigate the most disturbing crimes in the city.
“I can’t get Brian to wake up,” Tom said. “I’d forgotten what’s it’s like to try and rouse an eight-year-old when they’re dead asleep. But he has to wake up, Lynnie; he’s the last one to see William.”
“What, again, did he say to you?” the police chief asked.
I cleared my throat, the words like thorns in my throat. “That the lights took William.”
“Could be someone with a flashlight. Or the headlights of a car,” the mustached detective said quietly.
“Lynn, this is detective Paul Strombino, with Metro PD,” Chief Stacks motioned. “He’s the best detective in town, maybe in the entire state.”
“Not true, but thanks.” The detective nodded in my direction. “I hope I can help, ma’am.”
“Thank you for coming,” Tom said. “I certainly hope you’re not needed.”
“I am not an alarmist, Senator. But I do not like the sound of this.”
“He’s got to be out there.”
“I’m sure he is. We just haven’t found him yet,” the police chief said, his hands on his hips. “We have thirty men in the woods right now. Those trees aren’t more than a square mile. We’ll find him. And our patrol units are combing the neighborhood. We haven’t issued an Amber Alert yet, but your grandson’s photo is quietly being distributed throughout all police channels.”
“Why would it be quietly sent out?” I asked. “Shouldn’t we let as many people know as possible know that he’s missing?”
Chief Stacks lowered his gaze and Tom squared his shoulders to me. “Because we have to be smart about this, Lynn. William is in those woods. Or he’s wandered somewhere in the neighborhood. If we go sounding the alarm, and he’s quickly found, never in harm’s way, it will reflect badly upon Chris and Anne.”
What you mean is it will reflect badly upon your political career—
A car came tearing up the driveway, squealing its tires as it came to an abrupt halt behind the police cruisers. Our youngest daughter leapt out of her Honda Accord, dropping her cell phone from her ear as she ran towards the house. Stella’s hair, usually styled professionally for morning television, was pulled back in a hastily assembled ponytail. “Why didn’t anyone call me sooner? Oh my God, Strombino? Why is he here?”
“It’s OK, Stella. Detective Strombino is here as a precaution,” Tom said.
“No sign of William?” she asked. “I couldn’t reach Kate or Anne on their phones.”
“They’re in the woods with everyone else.”
“Where is Greg?” Stella asked.
“Anne just checked on him. He’s asleep at her house with the neighbor watching him.”
“Oh my God, William,” Stella bit her lip.
“Go, Stella, we’re right behind you,” I waved her on.
“Do I need to call the TV station? Get William’s picture out?” she asked.
“No, not yet,” Tom responded. “Go to your sisters, Stella.”
Stella dashed across the lawn with the speed of the former track star she was in college.
“Let’s all go,” Tom took my hand. “We all need to keep searching.”
“Brian shouldn’t be up there alone.”
“There’s an officer stationed here,” Chief Stacks motioned upstairs.
“Come on, Lynn.” Tom tugged at my hand.
I swallowed, looking up at the bedroom window. I still wasn’t convinced Brian was sleeping.
Once, when we were teenagers, my best friend, Roxy, stole some cigarettes. We snuck off towards the tree line with them when Daddy saw us from the nursery. “Lynn Stanson! Roxanne Garth! You take one more step and you’ll wish the only trouble you were in was because of those smokes!”
I remember tilting my head, a rare flash, especially for me, of teenage defiance. But I saw Daddy approach with all the intensity of a bull, and I snatched Roxy’s hand and dragged her back to the house. I’d glanced over my shoulder at Daddy, but he wasn’t looking at us anymore. He was staring into the woods.
I should have asked you then. I should have made you tell me what happened that afternoon. Why those men wanted to go to that clearing with the gravestone. It was a gravestone—a child’s gravestone. I know what I saw. Why did they carry lanterns with ladybugs inside? There was so much I wanted to ask you, but I didn’t learn to only fear the woods that day.
After Daddy died, and Tom and I moved into and remodeled his house for our growing family, I made sure to read fairy tales to my girls of haunted forests where witches lived and children got lost. I routinely emphasized Lyme disease, and I sighed with relief when Anne declared she wasn’t the nature type—and her younger siblings were thankfully in the throes of older sister worship.
But decades later, it was the grandkids who salivated for the woods. When Tom finally succumbed to years of whining, he tried to sneak them out back. I saw them through the dining-room window and came out blazing from the kitchen.
Poison ivy! Chiggers! Ticks! Underground caves! Old bear traps! I tried to remember every line my father used on me. I held back on telling them about the monsters. They would have laughed, and I would have lost ground. Instead, I got a lot of groans, but ultimately the sad parade marched back in the house, with my husband shaking his head.
But there was nothing I could do to keep Anne’s boys from entering the woods from their own property. I knew Chris and Anne were wishing they had heeded my warnings, considered, up until this point, unwarranted. I had seen my son-in-law briefly in the last hour, and I wanted to grab his arm, tell him everything was going to be all right, that we would find his son. But Chris’s face was so full of despair I let him go. His voice was already growing hoarse.
I tried to banish the thought of William unconscious, dirt smeared over his sweet face, lying on the ground. He’s wandered off, I told myself. He’s asleep on someone’s screened-in porch. There are so many sprawling properties out here, mansions and estates filled with gardens and guesthouses and pergolas. Country-music executives, lawyers, doctors, and a few celebrities were our neighbors. There were so many places for William to go.
My phone began to vibrate again. Stella’s name came up on the screen.
“Mom, my overnight assignment editor called. I let it go to voice mail. They know something is going on; the cops are everywhere. It’s only a matter of time. I’m not returning the call. Dad needs to know it’s started.”
“I’ll tell your dad. Keep looking.”
“Mom.” Stella’s voice quieted. “Has Dad had the cops run the addresses of the registered sex offenders in the neighborhood?”
“Stella, there are no registered sex offenders around here.”
“Mom, there are registered sex offenders in every zip code in the city. We have to think about these things. I’ll find out myself if I have to.”