I felt his small hands push away as he stammered back. “Miss Cliff,” he said, looking around, his eyes wide with confusion.
I reached out and took off his hat, running my fingers through the hair that I had combed for two summers, when he would take a bath at my house before Anne came to take him home, knowing he would fall asleep on the two-minute drive. “Oh, baby. It’s me, it’s Nanna.”
“Miss Cliff!” William practically screamed.
The boys that had gathered around us began to part, making way for a slow-moving woman whose face was lined with wrinkles.
“What’s going on here?”
“This is my grandson.” I smiled through tears. “I’ve been looking for him. Oh William, I can’t believe it—”
“Miss, I think you have the wrong boy,” the woman said, placing a weathered but protective hand on William, who moved in closer to her.
“You don’t understand. William, it’s Nanna.”
“Miss Cliff,” he said anxiously.
“Your birthday is June 26.” I kneeled down, flinching as he stepped farther away. “You hate peas. You love dinosaurs. If you pull up your pants leg, you’ll see the birthmark you have on the back of your right thigh—”
“Miss, you’re scaring the children. Boys, take Alan and go to the bus.”
“No!” I cried out as William and the boys turned and ran.
Miss Cliff shuffled in front of me, her ancient voice lowering to a whisper. “You need to go. Right now. Whoever you are, get out of here now.”
“No.” I tried to step around her.
“I warned you,” Miss Cliff said, looking back to the bus. “Security! I mean, officer, can you please come here?”
“William!” I screamed, seeing him look back once more before hurrying on the bus.
I easily sidestepped the woman and ran, seeing a figure emerge from a car that I hadn’t noticed was parked behind the bus. A man, wearing a dark blue jacket and matching pants, put out his arms.
“What’s going on here?” he said.
“That’s my grandson!” I cried out, pointing to the bus. At the door, the hunched-over figure of Miss Cliff was herding the other children on, pointing one curved and bony finger to hasten their step.
“Please calm down, ma’am, and tell me what’s going on,” the man said, blocking me.
“My name is Lynn Roseworth, my husband is Senator Tom Roseworth. We’ve gone on television to say our grandson is missing. And he’s right there!”
“OK, OK, calm down.”
“Lynn!” Roxy waved as she hurried over. “Lynn, what’s happening?”
“He’s on the bus! He’s in there! William’s in there!”
The doors to the bus closed and the engine fired up.
“Lynn, are you sure?” Roxy was almost out of breath.
“Ma’am, just relax,” the officer said.
“It’s leaving!” I said as the wheels of the bus shuddered and turned. “No! Stop that bus!”
“Ma’am, that’s enough. You’re going to have to calm down—”
“And who the hell are you?” Roxy demanded.
“I’m police—”
“If my friend says her missing grandson is on that bus, then you better stop that bus.”
The man murmured into the speaker on his shoulder. “Five-ninety, please send a car to the north end of the park.”
“No!” I watched the bus drive way. “Roxy, no….”
“What the hell is wrong with you?” Roxy squared off with the man. “Stop that bus!”
“You both have caused quite the scene out here. That bus is only going up to the day care, and once you’ve calmed down, we’ll see about going up there and checking this out. But I saw that little boy, ma’am, and he didn’t know you from Adam.”
A white car pulled up, its red light lazily spinning on the dashboard. I turned to Roxy with frantic eyes. “He didn’t recognize me, Roxy. He didn’t know it was me. He didn’t remember.”
Roxy’s hand went to her mouth. She reached into her purse and began to dig around for her phone.
“What’s going on?” another officer, also dressed in dark blue, asked as he approached, looking intently at Roxy as she tore into her purse.
“I’m going to call her husband right now, who happens to be a US senator.”
“What we’re all going to do is calm down,” the first officer said. “Let’s take a ride and go over all this.”
“Let’s go.” The second officer took Roxy gently by the arm.
“Get your hands off.” She tried to jerk away, until she looked closely at his face.
He sucked his teeth loudly. Even I could smell fried chicken from where I was standing.
“Jesus,” Roxy said softly.
“You have a good memory,” the man said, opening the door to the squad car.
The front hallway of the building the officers called their police station was sparsely decorated with historic photographs of Argentum in cheap frames, including one of an old barbershop in which a mural was painted with a waterfall spilling into a creek. Where the Water Falls was written in decorative letters in the stream.
That photograph melted into my blur of panic. I knew I’d been wild-eyed in my demands for my phone to call Tom, practically screaming at the officers as I kept looking out the back window of the squad car for any sign of the bus. Even when they ushered us into the building, I took another glance before the door shut, hoping to catch a glimpse, to even know the direction William was going.
I had him. And I let him go.
The men took us to a back room, telling Roxy to try and calm me down. She responded with a colorful tirade of curse words interspersed with idle threats. They shut the door and said through the glass that they were getting in touch with the FBI.
“Google her, you assholes!” Roxy shook the locked handle. “Lynn Roseworth! Wife of Senator Tom Roseworth! Her grandson’s disappearance has been announced all over the world! What kind of rock have you been living underneath?”
I paced the room, my fingers entangled in my hair. “What the hell is going on, Lynn? What is wrong with this place? That officer was the gas station creepo yesterday, now he’s a cop?”
“She didn’t call them officers at first,” I said, my eyes darting.
“What?”
“The woman with William and the other children. She told me I needed to leave, and then said she tried to warn me. She called ‘security,’ and then quickly referred to him as officer.”
“My God, now that I think about it, they weren’t wearing any badges….”
“I shouldn’t have let that bus go. How can I ever tell Anne that I had him, and I let him go?”
“You could have hung on to the back of that bus and it wouldn’t have made a difference,” Roxy said, then she added quietly. “Are you sure, Lynn? Are you sure it was him?”
“It was him.”
“Dammit,” Roxy stood, wincing. She had run too fast from the other end of the park when she saw the commotion. “Why didn’t we call Tom, or Ed, or anyone for that matter, to tell them where we are?”
“Because I know what they would have said. I could blame the cell service, which doesn’t seem to exist here. But I could have called from the road. I knew the second I called, I would hear Anne plead for me to come to Champaign, or Tom would remind me how reckless this is and all the damage I’ve caused.”
“Speaking of Tom, and I know you hate to hear this, but you’re both public figures, and they can’t keep you locked up in here. One search online and they’ll see everything they need to know. We’re going to get William, Lynn.”
“He didn’t recognize me. Is that what’s happening here? People who are kidnapped are brought to this town? Joe at the general store woke up in the hospital in this town without his memory. Sarah at the inn doesn’t remember anything of her life, either. Roxy, is this is where Daddy found me? I didn’t have a memory either.”