Last Seen Read online

  “Gage! No! I’m here! Mommy’s right here!”

  Faith fights to break free—to save Gage—but the hands are holding her...pressing her down...voices are calling to her...

  “Faith! Faith, honey, wake up!”

  She gasped and startled awake. Michelle and Pam were with her, holding her down.

  “You’re having a bad dream,” Michelle said.

  Battling through her torpor Faith discovered she was at home in her bedroom.

  “A dream?”

  “Yes, it’s just a bad dream.” Pam nodded.

  “Gage is home?”

  Before they could stop her, Faith bolted from her bed and hurried to Gage’s room. She called for him but the deathly quiet of his empty room and his empty bed that was still made stopped her cold.

  “Gage?”

  She picked up his pillow, held it to her chest and pressed her face into it, smelling a trace of him.

  That’s all she had now, that and her guilt.

  Was this the price she’d have to pay for her sins?

  “Faith, honey.” Michelle and Pam took her shoulders. “Let’s get you back to your bed. You need to rest.”

  Racked with unrelenting agony, Faith slammed her back to the wall and slid to the floor. Through her sobs, as Michelle and Pam helped Faith to her bed, they heard her say, “I’m being punished! I’m being punished!”

  Officer Angie Berg heard it, too, and made a note of it in her log.

  The Second Day

  10

  Thirty minutes before dawn under a coral sky a man and woman stepped out of a blue Chevy Impala and walked to the front step of the Hudsons’ house.

  The woman was in her early thirties, white, five foot four, slender, hair pulled in a tight ponytail. She was jacked up on Starbucks. The man, midthirties, was black, six foot two, with a bearlike physique, calm and confident. Both had clipboard folders.

  They rang the doorbell.

  When Cal, who’d had about forty-five minutes of sleep since returning from the fairgrounds, opened the door, the woman spoke.

  “Mr. Hudson? I’m Detective Rachel Price and this is Detective Leon Lang, River Ridge Police.”

  Both held up leather-cased wallets showing their badges and IDs. Cal remembered them. They’d been standing with Berg and Ripkowski at the press conference.

  “May we come in?” Price asked.

  A new wave of concern rolled over his face. “Did you find Gage?”

  “No, sir, not yet,” Price said.

  “What about the car? Did he come to our car in the parking lot?”

  “I’m sorry, no. But we’ve got more people involved and there are things we need to do as soon as possible, so may we come in?”

  Cal surrendered the door and walked them inside.

  “There’s coffee in the kitchen,” he said.

  Some of the Hudsons’ friends were in the living room; some were asleep and others were talking softly on phones. The TV was tuned to a breakfast news show. Sports highlights were on. The volume was low.

  “I’m sorry. It must’ve been a rough night,” Price said.

  Cal rubbed his face and messy hair and nodded.

  “Excuse me.” Price noticed Officers Berg and Ripkowski drinking coffee in the kitchen, studying maps on the counter with two men. “I need a private word with our people before a fresh crew relieves them.”

  Price went to the kitchen, and Lang spoke up. “Sir, can you show me your son’s room?”

  Cal led him upstairs and down the hall to Gage’s room, which seemed to shrink when Lang stood in the middle of it, taking stock without touching anything. He noticed Gage’s posters—the Cubs, the White Sox, Bears, Bulls and Blackhawks—nodding to one that was a mosaic.

  “Your son likes Pokémon?”

  “Yes.”

  “So does my daughter. She has the same poster. Not sure what generation that one is.” Lang had a soft, infectious smile that became all business when he shifted gears. “Mr. Hudson, we’re doing everything we can to find Gage.”

  Cal nodded, then said, “Look, I’m going out to continue search—”

  “Excuse me, Mr. Hudson.” Cal turned to see Price had come in behind him. “We’re going to need you and your wife to come to our offices so we can talk.”

  “Talk?”

  “We want to go over everything very carefully with both of you and we should go now.”

  “What’s going on?” Faith had emerged from their bedroom clutching a robe around her. “Who are these people?”

  “They’re detectives and they want us to go with them to help with the search for Gage.”

  “Cal, Faith.” Price made sure she had their attention. “Has anyone contacted you claiming to know your son’s whereabouts, or to demand ransom? Maybe they contacted you in some way we’re not aware of?”

  “No,” Cal said. “We would have alerted your people here.”

  “Good, okay. Now, we’d also like to request your consent to allow us to search your home and conduct other aspects of our investigation—on your phones, computers, vehicles, bank records, credit cards, that sort of thing. We’ll have the paperwork at our office.” They all watched Lang close Gage’s bedroom door by hooking his pen behind the knob. “Right now we’d like to seal your son’s bedroom, along with the rest of the house, so our techs can process it. I’ve got a log here—” Price tapped her folder “—from Officer Berg. We’ll also collect DNA, and fingerprints from you and everyone who’s been in the house since Gage’s disappearance to create an elimination set. We’ll get details on where your volunteers have searched and who was involved. Mr. Hudson, being a crime reporter, I’m sure you understand these steps?”

  “Wait! I don’t understand. Why do this?” Faith’s bloodshot eyes searched their faces for the answer. “Why search our private lives, our home? Why take our fingerprints? Gage isn’t here. You had two cops sitting in our kitchen all night. Get out there and search the city. Search the freakin’ fairgrounds, talk to those tattooed lowlifes working on the midway!”

  “Faith.” Cal grabbed her shoulders. “Honey, this is what they have to do. It’s procedure.”

  “That’s right, Mrs. Hudson,” Lang said. “We’re sorry if it’s upsetting but we need to do this. Believe me, we’ve got a lot of people working to locate your son.”

  “I don’t understand.” Faith pulled at the cuffs of her robe to wipe at her tears. “I don’t understand any of this.”

  Cal hugged her, then turned to the detectives.

  “Do we have time to take a shower?”

  “A quick one,” Price said. “I’m sorry, but time is crucial.”

  Half an hour later, as Cal and Faith accompanied the detectives to their sedan, Faith froze, having trouble catching her breath.

  Gage’s bicycle was in the front yard beside the walk.

  For a burning instant she thought he’d come home from riding through the neighborhood, leaving his bike on the lawn like he always did, and her heart soared with the relief that he’d returned to her.

  She reached out to touch Gage’s bike but was stabbed with the cold, hard truth: he’d neglected to put it the garage before they’d gone to the carnival because he was so excited.

  Cal put his arm around her, calming her, moving her along as they were caught in the glare of TV cameras and the staccato flash of newspaper photographers.

  Mary Kitterly, a Chicago TV news reporter, turned to her camera, which had tracked the Hudsons’ walk to the car live for its morning news broadcast. She was reporting to her anchor in what the station was calling a “Breaking Exclusive.”

  “That’s right, Bob.” Mary gripped her microphone with one hand and steadied her earpiece with the other. “Sources tell me that River Ridge detectives are taking the couple, Cal and Faith Hudson, in for wh
at they call ‘interviews.’ Now, this comes less than twenty-four hours after the mysterious disappearance of their nine-year-old son, Gage Hudson, from the River Ridge midway.”

  “Mary, that’s an interesting turn of events in what is a very troubling case. Is there anything more you can tell us regarding the parents being escorted from their home by police?”

  The camera and Mary turned to see the perfect middle-class couple seated in the Chevy sedan before the doors closed and it whisked down the sleepy neighborhood street.

  “Bob, experts we’ve talked to have assured us that this is routine in cases involving missing children and does not imply any suspicion or role in the boy’s disappearance. It should be noted that it’s our understanding that the parents were the last to see the boy before he vanished...”

  11

  The River Ridge Police Department was headquartered downtown, across from city hall, in the Lewis D. Boatellick Building, a restored five-story glass-and-stone example of Midwestern civic architecture, named for the first officer killed on duty.

  Most cops called it “the Boat.”

  Price and Lang avoided the news crews huddled out front, driving through the secured entrance to the building’s underground parking garage. It smelled of exhaust, engine oil and cement when the detectives led the Hudsons to the elevator.

  They stepped off at the fourth floor and went down a corridor coming to a fluorescent-lit squad room. The walls were lined with maps, file cabinets, case-status boards, shift schedules and glass-walled offices. A large flat-screen TV suspended from the ceiling was tuned to an all-news channel. The middle of the room was open with an assortment of large desks cojoined in pairs.

  “Please have a seat.” Lang rolled out two chairs beside their desks. “First, we need you to sign the consent-to-search authorizations.”

  “They’re ready. I’ll get them,” Price said, going to another office, returning with a file folder and placing a legal-looking document on the desk before Cal and Faith, who tried to read the several stapled pages.

  “This allows us to immediately begin collecting material from your home—fingerprints, DNA—and search your computers and phones for anything connected to Gage.” Price extended a ballpoint pen to Faith, who stared at it without accepting it.

  Lang said, “Gage’s disappearance could be tied to someone who was in your home, contacted you or hacked your computer or phone. Unless we investigate, we won’t know.”

  Cal and Faith hesitated while Price kept the pen extended.

  “We could get warrants,” Lang said. “This is faster, lets us send an evidence team to your house right away. And our IT people can clone your phones right here right now in a very short time. That way we’ll monitor all the calls here, so if someone contacts you for a ransom, or finds Gage, or he tries to call you, we’re on it. No time is lost.”

  Cal was nodding but Faith remained hesitant as the detectives looked at them.

  “But you’ll also go through all of our private information?” she asked.

  “With your consent,” Price said.

  “I don’t have a problem with that,” Cal said. “Whatever it takes to help find Gage, right, Faith?”

  “Yes,” she said, “of course.”

  Cal and Faith signed, then handed their phones to the detectives. “Thank you,” Lang said. “We’ll take these to IT.”

  “What about the police officers at our home?” Faith asked.

  “What about them?” Price said.

  “How long will they be living with us?”

  Price and Lang exchanged a glance.

  “Are you uncomfortable having them there?” Price asked.

  “A little,” Faith said.

  “We’ve posted officers there for support and for your safety during this time,” Price said. “But after we clone your phones, they can be available at your discretion. Any time you’d prefer they not be inside, you tell us. We can post them outside, okay?”

  “Thank you,” Faith said.

  “Good. We’re going to get some coffee, fuel for the job,” Price said. “Can we get you coffee, juice, water?”

  The Hudsons declined.

  “We’ll be back in a few minutes.” Price offered a small smile. “And once we’re done the interviews we’ll take you down to processing for your prints and swab for DNA, then get you home.”

  Price and Lang left, leaving Cal and Faith alone.

  “I didn’t understand the consent we just signed.” Faith blinked back her tears. “I almost feel like we need a lawyer. I can’t think at all.”

  “This is all procedure. One way or another they’ll get what they want and we have to cooperate so they can focus on Gage.”

  “I’ll do whatever it takes to find him but I’m so afraid, Cal, I can’t think.” Faith cupped her hands to her face.

  Cal’s impulse was to put his arm around her but he abandoned the idea. Taking stock of the squad room, he pointed his chin to one of the outlying offices. Two men in sports shirts, wearing shoulder holsters, were questioning an overweight tattooed man.

  “Look, that’s the ticket taker. The guy who was in front of the horror house when we went in,” Cal said. “I didn’t like the way he eyed you.”

  “You noticed that, did you?”

  Cal studied her for a moment.

  “Yes, I noticed,” Cal said. “He gave off a bad vibe.”

  Faith let a few tense seconds pass before she nodded to another office where two other detectives were talking to a man. “That’s the chain-saw guy. At least they’re talking to the carny people. That’s a good thing.”

  As the minutes swept by, Cal and Faith looked at the desks. Their sides were pushed against a wall under a corkboard of notes, calendars, phone lists and personal items. To one side there was a framed degree from Elmhurst College for Rachel Price and a photo of her beaming in formal blues, with two men to her left and two men to her right. Congrats, little sis! The fifth cop in the family! Doug, Spence, Danny and Deke was penned below it.

  On the right side, there was a framed degree in Criminal Justice for Leon Wesley Lang from the University of Illinois. There was a snapshot of him with a woman and a little girl, about Gage’s age, by a mountain lake. The girl bore a resemblance to Lang.

  Each desk had a computer monitor and keyboard. File folders were fanned over the work area and notebooks were bound with elastic and neatly stacked. On one of the desks were splayed copies of the morning editions of the Chicago Tribune and the Chicago Star-News. The headline in the Star-News said Star-News Reporter’s Son Vanishes in River Ridge Fair Horror House. It ran atop photos of Gage in his blue Cubs shirt and Cal and Faith at the press conference.

  Faith’s hand flew to her mouth. “Cal,” she said, her voice quavering. “I don’t like this. What’re we really here for?”

  “They need to know exactly what happened and we have to help.”

  “It’s making me nervous. Will they need to know everything about us?”

  Cal looked at her.

  “They’re going to ask us whatever they feel they need to ask us, Faith. That could be anything. Are you ready for that?”

  She stared back at him. He was unable to read what was behind her eyes but her tone cooled when she finally said, “Are you, Cal?”

  For a moment, neither of them breathed.

  Suddenly she took his hand, squeezing it with both of hers, as if she’d been cued by Price and Lang’s return.

  “All set?” Price smiled briefly, taking note of the handholding. The detectives had returned with ceramic mugs of coffee, their clipboard folders and the Hudsons’ phones. “Thanks for those. Now, Cal, if you’d come with me, and Faith, if you’d go with Leon.”

  They led them to the far end of the floor, down a hall with several closed rooms. Price indicated Interview Room 402 on the left sid
e for Cal, while Leon did the same for Interview Room 403 on the opposite side for Faith.

  “We don’t want to be interrupted,” Price said, “so we’ll talk in these interview rooms.”

  Before they entered, Faith threw her arms around Cal, surprising him with a kiss on his cheek and a tight hug, her body trembling against his.

  Again, she searched Cal’s face.

  Then she turned and joined Lang.

  12

  Still feeling Faith’s kiss, Cal stepped into Interview Room 402.

  He took a quick look at the small room, barren of furniture but for the hard-back chairs on either side of a table with a wood veneer finish.

  As a reporter, Cal had been inside enough police stations, precincts and districts to know how investigators truly regarded these rooms. All of them were like this one, bright and sparse with white cinder-block walls that seemed to be closing in on you.

  Interview room? No, these were battlefields where truth waged war against deception.

  “Have a seat, Cal.”

  The chairs scraped on the vinyl floor and Price took her place across from him, set her mug on the table, then her folder, which she opened. She tapped her pen against the pad while scanning her notes.

  She was pumped for this.

  Cal swallowed. Most of the saliva in his throat had dried.

  Hang on to yourself and keep it together.

  Price pulled a small recorder from her jacket, switched it on and set it down between them. “This little one’s for me. I want to take down everything accurately.” She gave him a smile, nodding to the camera pointing at him from the ceiling in the corner of the room. “We record all interviews, a precaution for you and for us. Do you have a problem with that?”

  “None.”

  “Okay, good,” she said. “We’ve gone over your statements but I want to begin with you telling me everything that occurred yesterday when Gage disappeared, from the time you got up, to the time you went to sleep—or tried to. Include everything you did, everyone you interacted with, whether by phone, email, in person, tell me everything.”