The Youth Rec Center was bursting with life. Children playfully raced around the grass in front of the building, hollering and excitedly urging their parents inside. A large banner had been strung across the bricks over the entrance—Welcome Parents!—and another hung in the main room—Hope Falls Art Show.
Hunter and Greer had arrived early to help Amy and the other teachers and assistants curate the students' work around the room. Twenty sculptures were showcased on pedestals, which were artfully positioned throughout the space. Photographs as well as paintings had been mounted on the walls. In the center of the room were Hunter and Greer’s sculptures—Hunter’s female figure in sensual repose, Greer’s nude male crouching, its gaze hungrily fixed on the sculpted woman beside it as though the two were about to make love.
Parents meandered from piece to piece, praising their kids and promising ice cream and other rewards.
Hunter was hanging back against the wall and glancing from happy face to happy face, as Greer mingled with one of the fathers on the other side of the room.
He wondered if Jamie was all right—wherever he was—or if the boy was in the midst of complete upheaval.
It didn’t seem fair.
Greer caught his eye from where she stood beside their youngest student—a blonde little girl in pigtails—who was telling her mother the story of how she came up with the idea to sculpt an elephant. Greer smiled, inviting him over with a wave, but he didn’t have it in him to make small talk.
Instead, he turned and started through the doorway, making his way to the supply closet where Jamie’s work-in-progress was still resting on one of the shelves. He leaned over the sink, handling the artwork with care as he took it down.
When he returned to the main room, he pulled a spare pedestal from the corner out onto the floor and set the absentee kid’s sculpture on it. The sculpting tool was still protruding from its back. Its eyes were still two hollow pits. Its mouth twisting downward as it always had. He didn’t care how disturbing or uncouth it might seem. The sculpture expressed Jamie’s dark emotions and for that it deserved to be seen.
Amy Maguire worked her way through the crowd, joining him. “Sweet of you,” she said, knowing full well it was Jamie’s piece.
“It’s powerful,” he commented.
When he lifted his gaze, he noticed Greer heading over, having excused herself from the parents who had occupied her attention.
“I’m blown away by the turnout,” she said, smiling at Amy.
The woman was reserved as ever in her response, saying, “The pilot project was a success. We’ll have to host an art camp every summer, maybe run it for two weeks instead of five days.”
Eagerly, Hunter stepped up and said, “I’d come back,” which seemed to surprise his girlfriend as much as it did Amy.
She offered him a genuine smile and said, “We’d love to have you, both of you. These kids got a lot out of their time with you, as well as Tasha and Jennifer.”
Perhaps to clear the air, Greer launched into sudden apology, explaining, “We should have heeded your advice-”
“Water under the bridge,” she told her in a friendly manner that instantly set Greer’s mind at ease or so it seemed. “Really, I haven’t given it a second thought.”
“Be that as it may,” she went on, “we should’ve trusted Eric to handle things. We... or I, I should say, really overstepped my bounds.”
As he studied Amy’s reaction—her warm smile, the ease in her posture, the way she made a point to look each of them in the eye—he gleaned that she might know more than he did about how things had turned out for Jamie.
He was about to ask in fact when excitedly she said, “Oh good, Michael’s here,” and began waving at a man who had just entered the rec center. “The proprietor of the art camp, Michael James Gowan just arrived,” she explained. “I’ll introduce you.”
Amy started through the crowd towards him, leaving Hunter to lace his fingers with Greer’s.
Though Michael was dressed in a suit, he easily outshined his formal appearance. Tall with dark brown hair that matched the color of his eyes, the politician and financier seemed built for hiking a mountain or paddling a canoe. There was something rugged about him and the glint in his eyes implied a lust for life that went far beyond keeping Hope Falls thriving.
After a quick hug, Amy released Michael and led him through the room, weaving between sculptures and children alike. Hunter straightened his spine and shook the man’s hand, as Amy made introductions, “Artists, Hunter Black and Greer Langley.”
“Yes,” said Michael. “So nice to meet you both. I’ve heard great things about each of you.”
Hunter feigned a nervous smile, wondering if the senator was aware of his repeat transgressions—kidnapping and getting pummeled to name the worst offenses. But Michael made no indication he’d heard.
As small talk between Greer, Amy, and the senator elaborated into a substantial conversation, Hunter noticed Chief Maguire enter the rec center with Jamie Sand in tow.
“Excuse me,” he said quietly enough not to interrupt and made a beeline towards the boy. He ruffled his hair when he reached him. “Hey, you made it. I thought you’d be on the other side of Lake Tahoe by now.”
“He stayed with social services last night,” Maguire explained, as he checked his wristwatch. “Carol Sand should be arriving any minute now.”
Hunter thanked him with a look and then crouched in front of Jamie to say, “I set your sculpture out.”
“Yeah?”
“If you get inspired, you can put the final touches on it,” he suggested, taking Jamie’s hand.
The chief chuckled and gave Hunter a friendly jab on the shoulder before wandering over to a few off-duty cops who had caught his eye.
Jamie was sure to stop at every sculpture, studying each one closely, as they made their way to the back of the room where his own piece sat on a pedestal.
Hunter commented, “Maybe he doesn’t need a metal rod stabbing him between the shoulder blades,” and the kid smiled sheepishly, pulling out the tool and smoothing over the hole it had made.
As Jamie worked on his sculpture, lifting its clay frown into a smile and filling in its eye sockets, Greer joined them and said, “Now it’s a party” She patted the boy's shoulder affectionately. He beamed a big, toothy grin up at her then fell into deep concentration, shaping his artwork.
“Aunt Carol’s on her way,” Hunter whispered in her ear.
She shot him a relieved glance, but it didn’t last.
From outside a woman shouted, “Where is my son?” and the commotion that followed caused every head in the room to turn towards the entrance. “Get your hands off me!” she shouted.
Hunter barreled through the room, accidentally clipping shoulders with one of the parents and trying not to bump into the pedestals as he rounded them.
When he threw the door open, Officer Geffen was doing what he could to restrain a middle-aged woman from tearing up the stone steps.
Her eyes locked on Hunter—her weathered mouth grimacing, the pattern of deep creases on her face tightening as she winced. “Is that him?” she demanded. “Is that the bastard who abducted my child? He should be locked up!”
Geffen ordered, “Calm down, Mrs. Sand!”
But she was deaf to him, yelling, “He’s in there! I know he is! Jamie?”
“We talked about this, Sally!” Geffen was holding her by the shoulders and doing what he could to urge her down the steps without hurting her, though she swung at him like a lunatic.
The few parents that were outside getting some fresh air looked on in alarm.
“There will be a hearing at Family Court in a few days,” he reminded her.
“Don’t you dare announce my business for all of Hope Falls to hear!” she sneered.
It was then that Hunter saw a rusted-out Volvo idling up the street. The man behind the steering wheel made slow work of stepping out of the vehicle, but when he started for the rec center, his pace was all but calm.
Having heard the argument, Chief Maguire hurried down the stone steps just as Anson Sand took hold of Geffen’s shoulders from behind and jerked him off of his wife.
“Whoa!” said Maguire, intervening. Swiftly, he separated Anson from the officer, who quickly wrangled Sally Sand all over again.
Jamie had exited the rec center as well, old fears that he was about to get it having summoned him front and center. Greer was at his heels and held his hand in a protective manner.
“You can’t do this,” yelled Sally before asking her husband, “they can’t do this, can they?”
Maguire and Geffen were already escorting them down the walkway, however. They rounded onto the sidewalk and didn’t stop until they reached the idling Volvo where they engaged the Sands in a private conversation that in Hunter’s estimation wasn’t going very well.
After a great deal of effort, the cops managed to get husband and wife into their vehicle and before long the Volvo tore down the street and disappeared behind a thick row of pine trees.
When Hunter glanced back at Jamie, he could see the boy was trembling. He jogged up the steps and placed his hand on his shoulder. Jamie brightened in response, but soon broke free of Greer and Hunter’s grasp, padding down the steps with his gaze locked on a black sedan that was pulling to a stop along the curb.
“Aunt Carol!” he exclaimed, running to the driver’s side door, as a woman who looked remarkably similar to Anson Sand climbed out of the vehicle.
Jamie threw his arms around her waist and didn’t let go.
Wasting no time, Chief Maguire and Officer Geffen walked over and Hunter overheard their formal introductions. The chief thanked her for making the drive and soon Jamie was pulling her by the hand to come inside the rec center and check out his sculpture.
As Jamie led his aunt up the steps and inside the building, Hunter took hold of Greer’s hand. Geffen followed in after them and though Maguire was at the officer’s heels, he paused in front of Hunter and Greer.
“I want to thank you both,” he said. “We might not have discovered how bad things were over at the Sands had it not been for you two.”
Greer asked, “So he’ll stay with his aunt from now on?”
“It’s a bit more complicated than that, but I can guarantee no one is going to hurt that little boy ever again or his brothers.”
With that Maguire shot them a confident smile and started into the rec center.
Hunter turned to Greer and tucked her hair behind her ear, whispering, “We survived.”
She smiled, holding his gaze for a long moment, then asked, “You’d come here next summer?”
He answered with a kiss, pulling her in and holding her tightly against him.