Susan Phillips - The Great Escape

Lucy understood. “I’ll check to make sure he’s okay.”

“How could he have been so irresponsible?”

Because he was twelve, Lucy thought. And because Lucy should never have encouraged Bree to leave him alone with so many rowdies on the island for the weekend.

Even though she’d rinsed off, Lucy’s feet still stuck to the vinyl floor as she crossed the kitchen. She turned down the hall. Toby’s door was open. He usually kept it closed so Bree wouldn’t nag him about the mess. With a sense of foreboding, Lucy looked inside.

The room smelled of strawberry bubble gum and boy-funk. The last few days’ clothes lay in a heap on the rug, along with a discarded bath towel. The bed was unmade as usual. And empty.

She searched the house. He was gone. She shoved her sticky feet into her sneakers, located a flashlight, and went back outside to find Bree staring into space, smoking a cigarette.

All she does is sit on the back step and smoke. That’s what Toby had told her, but Lucy hadn’t seen Bree do either in weeks. “He’s not in the house.”

Bree’s head shot up. “What do you mean? Where is he?”

“I don’t know.”

Bree came off the step. “I’m going to kill him! Doesn’t he know he’s only making things worse?”

“He’s probably not thinking too clearly.”

Bree ground out her cigarette. “Because of me. Because of what I said to him.” She turned toward the woods just as Lucy had done on the day they’d met. “Toby!” she shouted. “Come back here right now! I mean it!”

Not exactly the way to lure a frightened kid home. On the other hand, Bree sounded like a million other angry mothers.

Not surprisingly, Toby didn’t appear. Finally Bree grabbed a flashlight of her own, and they separated to search the perimeter of the yard, the root cellar, and the woods around the house. They went into the neighboring orchard and shone the flashlight down the ravine. “I’m calling Mike,” Bree declared. “Toby’s over there now. He has to be.”

But he wasn’t.

“Mike hasn’t seen him,” Bree said when their brief call was over. “He’s going out to look. What am I going to tell him? That I screamed at Toby and told him to go?”

“You’re only human.”

“Maybe he’s at your house. Check over there while I wait for Mike. Please.”

Lucy couldn’t bear the idea of seeing Panda again, and if anything other than Toby’s safety had been involved, she would have refused, but she couldn’t refuse this. She followed the path she’d traveled so many times in the daylight, but at night the woods were no longer as friendly. “Toby!” she called into the silence. “Toby, it’s Lucy. Bree isn’t mad anymore.” Not true, but good enough. “I want to talk to you.”

The only response came from the rustle of night creatures and the hoot of an owl.

She emerged from the woods. It was one in the morning, and the sky had cleared. With no light pollution, the stars shone brightly overhead. Until she’d come to the island, she’d forgotten what a real star-spangled sky looked like.

The house was dark, and she prayed it would stay that way. As she moved deeper into the yard, she shined her flashlight around. Her hands were still tacky even though she’d washed them, and her clothes stuck to her skin. She even had honey in her eyebrows.

A shadow moved on the porch. A shadow too large to belong to Toby. Her heart sank. She couldn’t go through this again. Except she had no choice. She stiffened her spine and directed the beam toward the screen. “Toby’s disappeared,” she said brusquely. “Have you seen him?”

The shadow stood. “No. How long has he been gone?”

“Since around nine.” She briefly explained what had happened, glad she couldn’t see him clearly.

“Let me get my shoes on.” A few moments later, he emerged with a flashlight of his own. Its beam swept over her. “You’re a mess.”

“Really? I wasn’t aware.”

He ignored her sarcasm. “The front door’s locked. I don’t think he could have gotten in the house.”

“He has a talent for breaking and entering. Check while I look in the garage.” No way was she going in the house with him. She made her way to the garage, but as she stepped inside, she was flooded with memories of the afternoon they’d made such kinky love here. She couldn’t imagine ever being so uninhibited again.

She searched the interior of the garage, then went outside to check the area around the woodpile. The longer Toby went missing, the more anxious she became. In so many ways, Toby was her doppelgänger. She knew what it was like to be a kid who felt alone in the world, and she knew how dangerous that kind of desperation could be.

Panda emerged from the house. “It’s clear inside.”

“Maybe the boathouse.”

But that, too, proved fruitless. They split up to circle the yard and the woods nearby. Lucy had tucked her cell in her pocket, and she called Bree, but the agitation in her friend’s voice told her nothing had changed.

“What if he went to the beach?” Bree said. “Anything could have happened. The thugs who vandalized the farm stand—Maybe he ran into them. I called the police back, but they won’t do anything till morning. Why did he have to make things worse? That’s all he’s done, right from the beginning, is make things worse.”

Panda came up behind Lucy. “Ask her if his bike is still there.”

Lucy did.

“Hold on,” Bree said. “Mike’s beeping in. I’ll call you right back.”

Lucy’s phone rang again within minutes. “Toby’s bike is gone. Mike’s out on the highway, but so far he hasn’t seen anything.”

Lucy relayed the information.

Panda took the phone from her, every inch the cop. “Bree, it’s Patrick Shade. Can I have Mike’s cell number?”

Lucy looked frantically around for something to write with, but Panda didn’t seem to need pen or paper. “Got it. Is there any particular place Toby tends to go when he’s upset?”

He listened and nodded. “Okay. What was he wearing?” He listened again. “Go to his room and look around. See if he took anything with him. A backpack? Clothes? Anything at all. Call me back when you’re done.”

“He’s going to be fine,” Lucy said to herself as he disconnected. “I know he’s fine.”

Panda was already talking to Mike. “Toby has his bike. Where are you now? All right … Check the south beach, and then stop here and we’ll work out what to do next.”

Lucy tried to imagine where she’d have gone if she were Toby. Even though he’d grown up on the island, she couldn’t imagine him huddling in the woods all night. He’d look for someplace where he’d be alone but where he’d also feel safe.

She remembered the rocky bluff Panda had made his brooding place. It was more open than the woods, and the rocks offered some shelter. While Panda headed toward the highway, she climbed the slope.

The air was still at the top, and she could hear the lap of waves below. She swept the beam over the rocks, praying for a glimpse of him. Nothing.

In a few hours, it would be dawn. Increasingly worried, she returned to the house. Panda was coming down the drive with Toby’s bike. She ran toward him. “Did you find him?”

“Only the bike. It was hidden in the trees about thirty yards up the road.”

She thought of the bikers, along with the other lowlifes who came to the island to get drunk and make trouble. “What if he left it there and hitched a ride?”

“I don’t think so. I found some footprints. It’s too dark to follow them, but my guess is that he was coming here.”

“We’ve looked everywhere.”

He gazed toward the woods. “Maybe he waited until after we’d searched before he settled in.”

Safe. Sheltered.

She and Panda moved together.

LUCY FOLLOWED HIM DOWN THE steps to the dock and into the boathouse. The creaks of the boat at its mooring had been the sound track of their lovemaking, but unlike her, Panda didn’t seem to be plagued by painful memories. He directed his flashlight toward the cabin door. She was almost certain she’d latched it after she’d searched here earlier, but now it was slightly ajar. He eased it open and shone his flashlight inside. She peered around him.

Toby lay curled in the front berth, the one in the bow, sound asleep.

Her relief left her momentarily light-headed. Panda passed her cell phone back. She retreated to the stern and called Bree. “We found him in the boathouse,” she said breathlessly. “He’s asleep.”

“Asleep?” Bree sounded more furious than relieved. “Don’t let him get away! I’m coming.”

Lucy didn’t like what she was hearing, but Bree hung up before Lucy could advise her to calm down first.

Panda emerged with a very groggy, very dirty Toby. The boy’s clothes were filthy. Dried blood crusted his arm and smeared his cheek. His legs were covered with honey-saturated grime, and patches of hair were glued to his head. “I didn’t hurt anything on the boat,” he muttered, looking frightened.

“I know you didn’t,” Panda said gently.

Toby tripped on the steps up to the house and would have fallen if Panda hadn’t steadied him. Just as they reached the top, Mike came running around the side of the house. When Toby saw him, he began to stumble toward him.

“Toby!” Mike exclaimed. “What were you thinking? You should never have—”

Their reunion was interrupted by a banshee’s scream as Bree shot out of the woods. “Toby!”

Mike froze. Toby instinctively stepped backward, away from all of them, only to butt up against the picnic table.

She looked like a wild woman, clothes caked with grime, red hair flying. “How could you do something so awful?” she screeched as she dashed toward him across the yard. “Don’t you dare do anything like this again!” Before any of them could stop her, she grabbed him by the arms and started to shake him. “Do you have any idea what could have happened to you? Any idea at all?” Her fingers dug into his flesh; his head jerked.

All of them lunged for her, but before they could touch her, she wrenched Toby tight against her. “Anything could have happened to you. Anything!” She started to cry. “You scared me so bad. You shouldn’t have left. I know I yelled at you. I was out of control. I’m sorry. But you shouldn’t have run away.”

She pushed him back a few inches, cradled his cheeks in her hand, and turned his face up, her voice choked with emotion. “Promise me you won’t ever run away from me again. If we have a problem, we’ll talk about it, okay? Promise me.”

Toby stared at her mutely, his eyes huge.

She rubbed her thumbs across his grimy cheekbones. “Do you hear me?”

“I promise.” A big tear spilled over his bottom lid. “But we lost everything,” he whispered. “Because of me.”

“We didn’t lose you, and that’s what’s most important.” She pressed her lips to his forehead. “We’ll figure something out about the rest.”

All the fight left him. He wilted against her. His arms snaked around her waist. She hugged him tightly and buried her lips in the top of his head. He’d finally found safe harbor, and his small body began to shake as he tried to hold back his sobs. Bree crooned something only he could hear.

Mike stood apart from the rest of them, an outsider once again. Toby hadn’t looked at him once since Bree had arrived.

“Let’s go home,” Lucy heard Bree whisper to Toby. “I’ll make us some pancakes. We’ll sleep late tomorrow. How about that?”

His words came out on a hiccup. “Your pancakes aren’t too good.”

“I know.”

“I don’t care,” he said. “They’re good enough for me.”

She kissed the top of his head. Their arms around each other, they walked toward the woods. Just before they stepped into the trees, Bree stopped. She looked back at Mike. Lucy saw her begin to lift her hand only to let it fall back to her side. Another long moment passed, and then she and Toby disappeared.

Mike stayed where he was, alone in the pool of dim yellow light. Lucy had never seen anyone look so devastated. “I wanted to adopt him,” he finally said in a disconcertingly quiet voice. “I was going to talk to her about it tomorrow.” He gazed toward the trees. “She could have sold the cottage and made a fresh start somewhere else. I thought she’d like that.”

Lucy understood. After what they’d just witnessed, Mike knew that Bree loved Toby every bit as much as he did and that she’d never let him go.

Lucy heard herself say, in a voice very much like Dr. Kristi’s, “Making her happy is important to you, isn’t it?”

He nodded. “Always has been. From the moment I set eyes on her. She only remembers what a clueless idiot I was. She’s forgotten about the times the other kids weren’t around when she’d draw for me or we’d talk about music. Goofy stuff.”