Hunter
By the time we ran to Maisy’s car and sped out of Howell Farm, Nell was long gone. We’d followed her trail of dust on the gravel, but when she hit the paved county roads, her trail disappeared. Anywhere else, and we would have been able to track her down, but the roads that led to Howell Farm formed a more complicated labyrinth than the corn maze.
I made a guess, choosing the road that led back to town, but Nell must have chosen a different route because her black sedan was nowhere in sight.
Coby was gone.
All I saw was open road as I flew back toward town. Open road, and Maisy shaking in the passenger seat. The color had vanished from her skin and her eyes were vacant. When I clutched her hand, it was ice cold.
“We’ll find him.” I squeezed her hand before letting it go and digging out my phone. My foot pressed harder on the accelerator as I flew toward town, calling 9-1-1 as I drove.
By the time we’d made it to the sheriff’s station in Prescott, the place was swarming. The minute a call had come into dispatch that a child had been taken, every deputy had abandoned their Sunday-afternoon plans and raced for the station.
Jess had been waiting for us. He’d shuffled us into a conference room and started asking questions. Maisy and I had given him a recap, describing Nell’s and Coby’s clothes and Nell’s car, then he’d left us to kick off the AMBER Alert and give his team orders.
Leaving Maisy and I alone, forced to watch the activity in the bull pen through a long window.
Deputies all dressed in plain clothes were buzzing around the open room, most of them on the phone. They’d been making calls to other county justice departments, enlisting support to set up roadblocks. They’d also been notifying airports and Amtrak of the situation and passing on Nell’s and Coby’s descriptions.
All the while, Maisy and I sat helpless.
Sitting in black swivel chairs, we sat fucking helpless.
“We’ll find him.” I slid her chair as close to mine as it could go, the wheels touching, and slid my arm behind her neck.
She nodded but didn’t say a word. The shaking in her hands was getting worse, so with my free hand, I held them both in her lap.
“Okay,” Jess said, coming back into the conference room and taking the seat across from us. “The AMBER Alert is going out shortly. We’re making calls to every known transportation hub in Montana. We’ve got patrols stationed on all of the roads going into Wyoming and Idaho. Half of my deputies are going to start combing the old county roads. We’ll get him.”
“What can we do?” I asked.
He shook his head. “Hate to say this, but just sit tight.”
Sit tight. The last thing I wanted to do was fucking sit tight.
“Maze, Gigi is coming down. Want her to bring anything?”
She shook her head and dropped her glassy gaze to the table.
“Maze, look at me,” Jess murmured. Her eyes left her lap and locked on Jess. “We’ll get him.”
A tear slid down her cheek and the pain in my chest squeezed tight.
Fuck. I couldn’t see her like this. I couldn’t just sit here and do nothing but watch her suffer. Would she hate me for this? She should. I’d brought Nell into her life and now her son was gone.
The panic I’d felt earlier was starting to morph into blinding rage.
Nell—my own stepmother—had stolen Coby. She’d taken him from right underneath our noses.
What the fuck was wrong with her? What was she doing to him right now? If she hurt one hair on that boy’s head, I’d strangle her myself. The idea that she could be hurting him made my stomach roll.
Don’t picture the worst. Don’t picture the worst.
Gruesome images flooded my mind despite my will to keep them out. I’d spent too many nights in a Chicago emergency room not to know what the unthinkable looked like. What it looked like when an adult tried to break a child’s bones. Or what happened when a human body was thrown from a moving vehicle.
My stomach rolled again as the images played on a loop. The blood drained from my face as the bile rose, but I swallowed it down.
I had to stop thinking the worst. I had to stop thinking the worst and be the strong one, because Maisy needed me.
Stop. Just. Fucking. Stop. He’ll be okay.
Please. Please, let him be okay.
A lone cry from Maisy’s mouth interrupted my silent pleas. She slapped a hand over her mouth and squeezed her eyes tight, causing a few more tears to fall.
“Take a breath, baby. Just breathe.” My hand slid down her back and rubbed gently. “Just breathe.”
The hand on her mouth dropped. “He’s my son. He’s mine. My baby. I’m his mom and he needs me. I’m a good mom. A really good mom. And he needs me.”
“You are a good mom. The best.” I swallowed hard. “We’ll get him back.”
My throat was burning as it threatened to close tight. Maisy was breaking down and there wasn’t a fucking thing I could do to stop it. So I just sat tight, watching as the love of my life, the strongest woman I’d ever known, completely fell apart. Her shoulders collapsed as she cried into her hands, folding in on herself in that black swivel chair.
“Baby. Baby, please, breathe. Just breathe.”
It only made her cry harder.
Not knowing what else to do, I lifted her out of her chair, set her carefully on my lap and held her tight. She buried her face in my neck and kept on crying. Her entire body shook, every muscle, and no number of calming words or gentle whispers could make it stop.
My eyes shot to Jess, whose own face was creased with worry.
“Go. Find him,” I mouthed.
He nodded once, then left us alone, returning to the bull pen to talk with his deputies.
“We’ll get him back,” I whispered into Maisy’s hair. Not even her sweet lilac smell was a comfort, but I kept on whispering. “I promise. We’ll get him back.”
My phone dinged on the conference-room table at the same time Maisy’s did in her purse. It was a loud, shrill alarm, not my normal ringtone. I picked it up even though I knew what the screen would say.
AMBER Alert: Jamison County.
My heart plummeted. No parent should ever see their child’s name in an AMBER Alert. No parent should ever have to feel this kind of crippling powerlessness.
“We’ll get him back,” I repeated it again. Over and over, because it was the only power I had. I made a vow because I couldn’t do anything else.
No matter how long it took, I would get Coby back. I’d look forever to find my son.
He was my son.
Everett might have donated the sperm, but Coby Holt was mine, just as much as he was Maisy’s.
“We’ll get him back.”
Time passed too slowly as we sat and waited. And waited. And waited.
What felt like days were only minutes as the clock on the wall ticked with a deafening noise. The entire time, Maisy sat shaking in my lap. Her crying had stopped, only to make the shaking worse.
“Gigi’s here,” I said when I spotted her friend rushing through the bull pen.
Maisy didn’t move. She just kept shaking. The shock had settled into her bones and she was shutting down. The fear of losing Coby had rendered her paralyzed.
“Hi.” Gigi crossed through the door. She didn’t say anything else, just came to the chair that had been Maisy’s and scooted it close. Then she took Maisy’s hands in hers and bowed her head to pray.
Felicity and Emmeline came in next, standing at our backs while their husbands joined the crowd in the bull pen. When Beau and Michael came in, they nodded at me and merged with Jess’s remaining deputies to make phone calls. Maisy’s parents came in last with Sabrina, the three of them taking the chairs across from us at the table. They looked distraught when they walked into the conference room, but at the sight of their daughter, distraught turned to petrified.
They looked as bad as I felt.
An hour went by. Then another. The thoughts I’d tried to banish—the ones where Coby’s tiny body was lying lifeless along a gravel road—wouldn’t stop plaguing my mind.
Please. Please, bring him back alive.
I hated being stuck here—helpless—when all I wanted was to be out searching for my child. But I didn’t dare move. Maisy’s shaking had stopped and now she was practically lifeless. A couple of times during the last two hours, I’d held my hand to her chest just to make sure she was still breathing. So as much as I wanted to help the search, I couldn’t leave her alone.
More time passed until Jess appeared in the doorframe of the conference room and caught my attention. He jerked his chin and I sat straight. All eyes were on Jess but he didn’t say a word. I looked across the table to Brock, then down to Maisy. Her dad immediately stood and rounded the table, taking the seat at my side. With as much care as I could, I handed Maisy over to her dad, watching as she curled into his lap like she’d done it a thousand times.
“Be back.” I bent to kiss her hair, then rushed out of the room.
“Did you find him?” I asked Jess the second we were out of earshot.
Jess nodded. “Yeah, we found him.”
I let out a breath but didn’t feel that flush of relief. “Is he okay?” My voice cracked. “Tell me he’s okay.”
“He’s a little banged up, but he’s okay.”
“Banged up? What’s that mean?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know the details but was told nothing serious. Bottom line, Faraday, he’s okay.”
I steadied myself on Jess’s arm as the relief nearly took me to my knees. He’s okay. My son was okay.
“We need to go get him and get him checked out,” Jess said. “Are you coming or should I call Dr. Peterson?”
“I’m coming.” I turned back to the conference room and looked at Maisy.
“Go,” Brock mouthed as he comforted his daughter. As much as I wanted to bring her along, she was too fragile. Instead, I’d bring Coby back to her.
I nodded to Brock and then followed Jess out of the station.
“Ambulance will meet us there,” Jess said as I climbed into his truck.
“Right. Drive fast.”
Forty-five minutes later, Jess pulled his sheriff’s truck with lights flashing into a small airstrip one county over.
The grass around the rough runway was brown and untrimmed and the lines on the pavement had long since faded to near invisibility. The tin hanger that had once been gleaming silver was now spotted with brown rust. A worn, three-seater airplane was parked in the middle of the runway.
And Nell’s black sedan was crashed into a row of sand barrels at the far end of the runway. It was surrounded by three of the neighboring county’s cruisers.
Jess pulled up to the cluster, and before he’d even put his truck in park, I was out the door, racing toward the little boy who was sitting on the hood of a cop car.
“Coby!” I shouted.
He slid off the car in a flash, darting past the cops to race my way. “Hunter!”
I ripped the knees of my jeans when I landed, skidding to a stop to wrap my boy in a hug. He fell into my chest, his arms looping around my neck as I enfolded his small body.
“You’re okay,” I breathed. “You’re okay. I’ve got you.”
And I’d never let go.
He started to cry and I hugged him closer. While I’d been living a parent’s nightmare, Coby had spent three hours in terror. His shoulders heaved as he cried and clung to me with every ounce of strength in his skinny arms.
“I want Mommy,” he cried into my neck.
“Okay. We’ll go get her.” I pried him off my chest and did a thorough inspection, feeling my way along every inch of his arms, legs and torso. “What hurts?” He had a small cut on his forehead and another on his arm.
“My head hurts here.” He pointed to the cut. “And my hand.”
“Show me.”
He pointed to his left wrist. I palpated it carefully, doing my best not to move it too much in case it was broken. “I think you just sprained it. Once the ambulance gets here, we’ll get it all wrapped up. Okay?”
He nodded as more gigantic tears slid down his cheeks.
I pulled him back into my arms at the same time the ambulance’s siren sounded in the distance. I held him tighter, turning to whisper in his ear, “I love you, Coby.”
“I love you too.”
I vowed right then to tell him every day. I’d never feared that my dad hadn’t loved me, but he’d rarely said the words. Coby would know without doubt.
“How is he?” Jess asked, coming to my side.
I scooped up Coby and stood. His legs wrapped around my waist and his arms around my neck gripped even tighter, nearly choking me. “Scared mostly. A couple cuts and probably a sprained wrist. It might be broken. What happened?”
Jess had been so focused on speeding to the airstrip our trip here had been in complete silence. Now that I had Coby back in my arms, I was ready for answers.
“Pilot called it in.” Jess pointed toward the deputies who were standing around a cruiser and talking to a man in a tan jumpsuit. “He saw the AMBER Alert come through, and when she showed with Coby, he stalled her. Deputies got here and she tried to make a run for it. Guess she grabbed Coby and got him back in the car. They blocked her in but she tried to bust through the barrier. Got stuck instead.”
I pried Coby off my chest a bit. “Does your head hurt? Are you dizzy? Do you see any white spots when you look around?”
He shook his head.
I was going to have him checked for a concussion regardless as soon as we got back to Prescott.
Nell was sitting in the back of a cruiser. Her handcuffed wrists were in front of her face as she pressed a white gauze pad to her forehead.
“Can I see her?” I asked Jess.
He hesitated.
“Please. I just need to ask why.”
“It’s not protocol and this isn’t my crew.” He blew out a loud breath. “Tell them you’re a doctor and that you want to check that cut on her head before the ambulance gets here. Better hurry.”
“Okay.” I peeled Coby away again. “Hang with Jess for just a minute, okay, buddy?” He resisted but I transferred him to Jess anyway before walking to the back of the cruiser.
I nodded to the deputies, told them I was a doctor, and was waved on. I crouched down low in front of the open door at the back of the cruiser.
Nell dropped her arms, the gauze pad coming down too. The cut on her head—likely from hitting the steering wheel—would need about seven stitches but it had already started to clot.
Her face was pale and splotchy. Her hair, which had always been so sleek and straight, was a frizzy mess. She looked heartbroken. She looked nothing like the beauty my dad had married or the woman I’d grown up with.
“Why, Nell? Why did you take Coby?”
“Hunter.” She reached for me with her handcuffed wrists. “I can do better this time. I can do a better job with Everett. I just need some time and you’ll see. He’ll see. I can be better.”
“Nell, that’s Coby. My son.”
She shook her head frantically, the clip in her hair now falling out completely. “I just need to try again. Everett will love me. I’ll make him love me and he’ll be okay.”
“Nell—” I stopped myself. Nothing I said would matter.
Nell’s sanity was gone. Something had happened in the last year that had completely cracked her mind. All the anger I’d had for her evaporated. In its place a deep pity settled, pity beyond any I’d ever had for another human being.
“Okay, Nell,” I said gently.
Her frantic nodding stopped as a tear slipped down her cheek.
“You go with these nice men, okay? They’ll get your cut all fixed up.”
“But then I can try again?” she asked. “I can try again with Everett?”
I smiled and patted her knee.
Then I stood and nodded at the deputies, walking right back to claim Coby from Jess’s embrace.
“Come on, buddy. Let’s go home and get Mommy.”