Last Seen: A gripping edge-of-your-seat thriller that you won’t be able to put down

“Where’s our son?” Faith asked.

“Inside that door, with the cops.” One of the security kids pointed. “He was so smart, ma’am—kept yelling that the man with him was not his father. That got our attention.”

When Ripkowski opened the door, Faith and Cal felt their hearts plunge. The boy in the chair, under the watch of two officers, was wearing a blue Cubs shirt but dark-colored shorts and—

“He’s not our son,” Cal said.

Faith steadied herself against the doorframe as a man behind them said, “This is huge mistake!” Two other officers had placed plastic handcuffs on his wrists. “Trevor, for God’s sake, tell them the truth!”

The boy, who appeared to Cal and Faith to be eleven or twelve, screwed his face into an icy grimace, then spat, “You’re not my father!”

At that moment a distraught, breathless woman arrived with a girl of about seven, who was clutching a big blue stuffed bear, as if to shield her from what was unfolding. The woman asked, “Don, Trevor, what’s going on?”

Ripkowski approached the woman. “Can you show me some identification? Do you know these people, ma’am?”

“I’m Marjorie Bricker.” She fished her wallet from her purse. “He’s my son, Trevor, and he’s Don Zaret, my fiancé. What is this—why’re you arresting him?”

“Marj,” Zaret started, “Trevor was trying to pass himself off as the missing kid—”

“We told you to keep quiet!” one officer said.

Zaret continued, speaking faster. “He made it look like I’d kidnapped him. I told these officers that it was because I wouldn’t let him ride the Rocket Blaster by himself.”

“I’m warning you, sir!” the officer said as Zaret got one more plea in.

“Remember, those were your instructions, Marjorie. No Rocket Blaster or Avalanche!”

The woman was showing Ripkowski photos on her phone of the family together. “See, he’s my son!”

Ripkowski turned to Trevor. “Is this all true?’

Trevor looked at his mother, then at the Hudsons. He was perceptive; he’d figured out who Cal and Faith were and knew the seriousness of what had befallen them. He’d seen the sober reality up on the big screens. Now, reading the pain in Cal’s and Faith’s faces, he turned to Marjorie Bricker and his chin crumpled.

“Why do you have to marry him, Mom? Did you stop loving Dad?”

“Oh, sweetheart, of course not. I’ll always love your father.” Marjorie hugged the boy, turning to the Hudsons and police, stifling her tears. “My husband—Trevor’s dad—was a soldier. He was killed in Afghanistan just over two years ago. Trevor’s had a hard time accepting Don in our lives.”

Zaret, still cuffed, blinked at the ceiling.

“Please.” Bricker turned to the police. “This is all a misunderstanding.”

The arresting officers were processing the explanations.

“Look,” one of them said. “It’s going to take some time for us to sort things out. We’re going to need to verify everyone’s ID.”

Marjorie Bricker turned to the Hudsons. “I’m so sorry. Please understand.”

Cal and Faith nodded but they didn’t understand.

How could they?

At this point nothing made sense to them.

Absorbing their heartbreak, they made their way back to the Chambers to face the mounting horror of Gage’s disappearance.

7 (#ulink_267f8e14-b0da-5847-af29-e849cc88972c)

Yellow plastic police tape had gone up around the Chambers of Dread.

America’s flag of tragedy, Cal thought, his mind pulling him back to crimes he’d known as a reporter. Like when he’d watched a grieving husband look through closets and drawers for a photo of his wife, killed in a hit-and-run—“I’m sorry, she was shy about having her picture taken.”

Or the time an inconsolable mother had shown him her murdered son’s bedroom, his towel still damp from his shower that morning. He’d been shot in gang-war cross fire the day he’d received his acceptance letter from Loyola.

Cal never forgot interviewing a chain-smoking priest who’d given last rites to a great-grandmother stabbed and robbed on the street after buying groceries, his hand shaking with each pull.

In writing their stories, and so many others like them, Cal had accepted what he was: an invader.

Intruding on people’s torment at the most horrible time of their lives was what he did for a living. Sure, he could always justify and rationalize it as his job—the champion of a free press. But he hid the creeping fear that one day there’d be a reckoning, a price to be paid for these and his other sins—including the one that haunted him to the point where he questioned his worth as a reporter. As a person.

But over time, as his professional armor had hardened, he’d grown smug, thinking he was immune to being touched by crime. It couldn’t happen to him. It just couldn’t. He was a middle-class family man, a decent guy, living in a good West Side neighborhood.

But here he was, grappling with a terrifying reality.

His son was missing.

A fact so chilling it numbed him.

It was now more than two hours since Cal and Faith had seen Gage.

Cal was waiting at the Chambers while Faith took a turn searching the immediate midway again. Gage had to be out there somewhere. If he’d run off to play some kind of game intent on popping up and saying, “Guess I really scared you guys!” Cal swore he would kill him. But Gage wouldn’t ever play a joke like that. He’s a good kid.

Checking his phone Cal saw that the Chicago Star-News had posted Gage’s picture and details about him online. He called the newsroom.

“Stu, it’s Cal. Anyone contact the paper with anything on Gage?”

“Sorry, Cal, nothing yet but nutbars. Wish I had better news.”

Cal dragged both hands over his stubbled face as he hung up. He was a smart reporter, skilled at his craft; there had to be something more he could do. He racked his brain, then texted Stu with an idea. The moment after he sent it, his phone rang. It was Faith.

“On my way back—anything?”

“Nothing.”

The police alert on Gage’s disappearance had triggered several actions. One was the swift response of the River Ridge Neighborhood Patrol. A dozen volunteers, with more on the way, had arrived at the fairgrounds wearing lime green vests. They were equipped with radios, cell phones, maps, experience in searches and a “can-do” attitude.

“We have always found who we’re looking for,” the patrol leader, who was a retired cop, assured the Hudsons. “Little kids, Alzheimer’s patients who’ve wandered off...sooner or later, we find ’em.”

With the blessing of Herb Dulka and Vaughn King, the patrol had set up, near to the Chambers, a temporary Gage Hudson Search Center, consisting of tent canopies and several folding tables, all provided by the fairgrounds and midway. In quickly organized operations, the patrol fanned out to search the fair and neighborhoods surrounding the grounds.