Greer poked her head into the rec center office where Amy was catching up on some administrative work behind the desk.
“Do you have the parent contact list?” she asked, easing into the room. “One of my students isn’t here.”
“Ah, yes,” said Amy as she swiveled in her chair and began scanning one of the bookshelves. She stood, grabbed a black binder from the shelf, and asked, “Which student?”
“Jamie Sand.”
After opening the binder, Amy flipped a few pages until she found the call sheet then popped the binder rings open and handed the single, laminated page to her.
“Are you sure he’s not out sick?” she asked. “The Sands aren’t the best at informing us when their kids aren’t well enough to come to school.”
“That’s what I’d like to find out,” she said, skimming the sheet for the name Sand. When she found their number, she reached for the phone and asked, “May I?”
“Of course,” said Amy, grabbing her empty coffee mug and rounding the desk so that Greer could have a seat if she liked. “I could use a refill anyway. Take your time.”
As she neared the open doorway, it occurred to Greer that the camp coordinator didn’t find Jamie’s absence suspicious. “Chief Maguire didn’t mention anything to you?”
“Hmm?” said Amy, facing her.
“He’s your older brother,” she pointed out.
“What would he have mentioned?”
Greer smiled, realizing it was none of her business how the chief chose to run his investigations. Just because Amy was his relative didn’t mean he’d automatically confide in her. In fact, now that she was thinking about it, it was probably better that he hadn’t. “Never mind,” she said, pressing the phone against her ear. “Thanks again.”
Amy nodded, though she looked skeptical, and disappeared around the corner.
Greer punched the seven digit number into the keypad and as she listened to the line ring and ring, she checked the time. The clock on the wall above the office door read 2:45 pm. In fifteen minutes, camp would let out for the day. If she couldn’t get through to Sally or Anson...
The line opened up and a woman barked, “Hello?” in a raspy voice.
“Hi,” said Greer urgently. “Is this Sally Sand?”
“Who’s this?”
She sounded irritated, but Greer tempered her concern and made sure to speak in a non-confrontational tone. “This is Greer Langley. I’m one of the art teachers at the Hope Falls Summer Camp,” she explained. “Your son, Jamie wasn’t here today.”
“He doesn’t need no art,” she snapped.
“Well, he’s quite good at it-”
“Don’t call here again,” she warned and a second later the line cut out.
Taken aback, Greer looked at the phone in her hand, unable to process the curt conversation that had just taken place. She returned the phone to its cradle on the desk, wondering what to do. Hunter and she had gone to the police yesterday and suddenly the Sands had decided that Jamie didn’t need to attend art camp? This was no coincidence.
The binder was lying face up on the desk, its rings open so she returned the laminated call sheet, snapped the rings shut, and pushed the binder onto the shelf where it belonged.
When she entered the main room, Hunter was helping the kids clean up their stations. She joined in, gathering tools and setting them in a metal basin to be washed.
He joined her at the front of the room and asked, “Did you talk to him?”
“What? No,” she said in a far away voice. “His mother picked up and the conversation was brief to say the least.”
They looked at one another for a long moment, as the kids ran playfully around the room behind them. Hunter clenched his jaw and his expression was so severe that she apologized.
“It’s not your fault,” he said quietly. “Do we know their address?”
Greer glanced over her shoulder at Amy, who was sipping coffee from her mug, meandering through the students and pointing out what was left for them to organize.
“Keep her occupied,” said Greer before padding towards the hallway.
She stepped inside the office, glanced over her shoulder to be sure Amy hadn’t followed after her, and walked briskly to the bookshelf.
As soon as she had the binder in her hands, she found the call sheet, but there were no addresses listed. She ran her finger down the various tabs, which marked each section, scanning the labels. When she found one marked Emergency Contact, she flipped it open and began whipping through each student’s page until she came to Jamie Sand’s.
“Bingo,” she said, pulling her cell phone from the back pocket of her jean skirt. After cueing up the photo app, she snapped a shot of the address and then quickly slid the binder into place on the shelf.
When she turned, Amy Maguire was standing in the doorway.
“Forgot something,” said Greer sheepishly.
“You have to let Eric handle it,” she said as though she knew how painful it would be for Greer and Hunter to sit idly by. “My brother knows what he’s doing.”
“Oh, I was just returning the binder,” she lied. “I’d left it on your desk.”
Amy raised an eyebrow at that, but didn’t press the issue further other than stating, “If there’s one thing I’ve learned living in Hope Falls it’s that you can’t take matters into your own hands.” When Greer’s brows knit together, she clarified, “You’ll only get in his way and jeopardize the good he’s trying to do.”
What could she say to that? If she asserted her reasoning, she’d only invite an argument, so she nodded thoughtfully and said, “You’re right.”
Amy stepped aside for her to pass through the doorway.
“Have a nice night,” Greer told her, as she started up the hallway.
The main room was empty. She found Hunter on the stone steps outside, standing with Tasha and Jennifer, who were swapping war stories about the challenges of having wrangled their highly energetic and wild students all day.
As she neared Hunter, he softly asked, “Did you get it?”
She nodded discretely and then Amanda and Justin caught her eye. They were strolling hand-in-hand up the walkway.
“Hey,” said Tasha, getting her attention. “You wanted to go hiking, right?”
“We did,” said Greer before quickly correcting herself. “We do.”
Tasha started down the walkway and met the couple. “We’ll follow you?”
“Sounds good,” said Amanda. “We're parked right down there.”
As Jennifer joined them and they made their way towards the parking lot, Greer called out, “We’ll catch up with you.”
“Gotta put on my hiking shoes,” Hunter added.
“Mountain Ridge Outdoor Adventures, right?” said Greer and Amanda pivoted and began walking backwards.
“The one and only,” she said with a smile.
A warm breeze rolled through, blowing Greer’s light brown hair across her face. She combed her fingers through her hair and watched her friends climb into their rental car and drive off behind Amanda and Justin’s pickup truck.
Hunter took hold of her hand and they crossed down the walkway, as straggling kids played on the lawn.
When they reached the sidewalk, she glanced back at the Youth Rec Center where Amy was drinking coffee on the steps.
She waved to them and said, “Have fun, you two!”
Greer waved back, silently thanking her for staying late to see to it that the remaining children connected with their parents safely.
After climbing into their rental car, Greer pulled her cell phone from her pocket and re-read the Sands’ address.
“It looks like he lives near King’s Pond,” she stated, studying Google Maps after she’d plugged in Jamie’s address.
“How far?” he asked, turning the engine and easing his foot onto the accelerator.
As they drove out of the parking lot, she approximated, “At least a mile.”
“So it’s late, it’s dark, and Jamie runs a solid mile through the woods to get to the rec center,” he mumbled, retracing Jamie’s whereabouts on the night they’d first encountered him. “What the hell happened at home that he took off into the wilderness?”
“Let’s think this through,” she said, feeling suddenly out of sorts. “What are we going to do once we get there?”
“At this point I just need to see that he’s alive.”
“Hunter?”
He didn’t return her gaze, but stared straight ahead at the winding road.
“We should talk,” he admitted. “But now’s not the time.”
Three tense minutes later, after driving through a dense forest, she said, “Slow down,” and studied the map on her cell. “Here,” she blurted out, pointing to a dirt road on the right.
“We haven’t passed the pond yet.”
“This is it,” she insisted. The road sign was swallowed in tree branches, but she was still able to read it out loud, “Pond Road.”
Their vehicle bounced over ruts as they crawled down the dirt road, which in Greer’s estimation looked more like a path. Grass had sprouted along the median and though this strip of Hope Falls seemed seldom traveled, the tread was deep. At times the undercarriage of their car scraped mounds in the road and Greer tried to recall which insurance package they’d bought. One trip down Pond was beating the hell out of their Toyota sedan.
They came to a shallow clearing, rolled to a stop, and eyed a dilapidated shack that was set in from the road by about twenty yards.
Greer sensed more than saw the house’s condition. Its tin roof was bent at strange angles, its wooden siding—weathered and faded. The porch that wrapped the one-story home looked sunken in and its railing was broken in three places. The yard to the left of the house was covered in stacks of old tractor tires and on the other side there was a rusted-out car elevated on cinder blocks, its wheels and windshield gone.
She had been so consumed with the abject poverty that she hadn’t noticed the teenaged boys seated on an old sofa at the far end of the porch.
“Sally was definitely home when I called earlier,” she said, unfastening her seatbelt.
“Yeah well, I don’t see any vehicles,” he countered. “She could’ve gone into town.”
Greer touched eyes with him, as she tried to breathe away the knots that were forming in her stomach.
“You can stay in the car if you want,” he offered, popping the driver’s side door open.
“No, it’s okay,” she told him as she climbed out. She glanced at him over the hood of the car, adding, “You’re not intimidated?”
He stared at the teenaged boys on the porch then said, “I know these guys, their type...”
As confused as she was by his vague admission, she jogged up beside him when he started off towards the shack.
“I guess we never talked about our upbringings,” she said. “You had brothers?”
He snorted a laugh, but seemed a million miles away. “I can’t tell you how familiar this is.”
When they neared the shack, the two teenagers stood and braced the porch railing. The taller of the two was lanky, wearing nothing but ripped jeans. He knocked back the can of beer in his hand, chugging the dregs, then chucked it into the yard. The other, a pudgy boy who looked at least a year younger, folded his arms and spat onto the grass.
“You lost?” the older one said.
“Directions is gonna cost you,” added the other boy, as he shot his brother a clever smirk.
Hunter stated, “We’re not lost. Where’s Jamie?”
But the kids ignored him, hopping over the railing and advancing on Greer. As the taller one began circling her, his younger brother said, “Austin must like you so lucky for you we won’t be charging cash.”
Austin flicked her hair then jumped back with a laugh when she screwed her face up. Hunter stepped in, but the younger brother rushed up behind her and smacked her ass.
“Hey!” she yelled, whipping around, but he was already jogging backwards.
Pissed, Hunter barked in a tone she’d never heard before. “Get over here.” He was pointing to the ground and his stance was so assertive that the kid locked eyes with his older brother for what to do next.
Austin grinned and said, “You’re trespassing. Can’t complain if we feel like having some fun about it.”
Greer’s heart was pounding. She hadn’t felt this shaken up since middle school when the excuse, boys will be boys had been the administration's answer to every ass grab and bra snap.
“Keep your hands to yourself,” she warned in a shaky voice.
“Get your brother out here,” Hunter demanded. “We need to talk to him.”
Austin laughed, shooting his pudgy sibling a wicked smile, then said, “Sounds like you're the boss.” Then he sucked in a lung full of air and yelled, “Yo, Chester! I think I know why them cops came round!”
From inside the house a man shouted, “The fuck?” and stomped his way to the screen door.
Not quite an adult, definitely not a boy, a tank of a teenager threw the screen door back. It slapped against the weathered siding of the house, as he stepped onto the porch.
Chester was six and a half feet if he was an inch. He had the arms of a boxer and the grimace of a bitter old man, and when he started down the porch steps, a surge of adrenaline rushed through Greer’s veins. If he took a swing at Hunter, things would go south very fast.
Locking eyes with Hunter in a way that caused Greer’s heart to leap up her throat, Chester said, “You called the cops on us?”
Hunter held his hand up, as the kid advanced on him. “Jamie’s your younger brother?”
“Who wants to know?”
“His art teacher,” he asserted, but it only made the kids burst out laughing.
“His fruity art teacher? Do I have that correct?” he challenged.
“You should be looking out for him,” said Hunter in a firm tone, though the kid was towering over him.
Greer held her own, but caught sight of the scars on Chester’s arms. When she stole a quick glance at Austin and his brother, who were looking on like a pair of sneering hyenas, she noticed cigarette burns along their arms and chests as well.
“Hunter,” she said softly, pulling him back by the arm.
“If you looked out for him,” he went on. “Then the cops would have no reason to come here.”
“Get the fuck out,” said Chester, seething. “Or I’ll remove you myself.”
“Let’s go, Hunter,” she said, pulling him back again.
But Hunter was hell bent on standing his ground. He glared at the kid and after a long moment he finally snorted in disgust and walked away with Greer.
“Don’t come back now, ya hear?”
As soon as Chester had yelled it, his brothers chimed in, echoing the sentiment and chucking rocks at their heels.
“They’re all in the same boat,” said Greer quietly, as they neared their car. “Those kids have been warped.”
“They don’t have to be,” he said angrily. “They didn’t have to let it harden them into monsters.”
He whipped the driver’s side door open and spilled in behind the steering wheel.
Greer opened her door then saw Jamie jogging through his brothers down the grassy road towards her.
“Hey,” she said, smiling and meeting him halfway. “We missed you in art class today.”
“My dad wouldn’t let me go,” he told her, out of breath.
Chester called after him from the porch. “Get your ass back here, boy!”
But Jamie ignored him. “I wanted to go to class.”
“I understand,” she said, kneeling in front of him, as Hunter climbed out of the car. “Do you know who Chief Maguire is?”
“Yeah, he came around last night,” he said darkly, his brows knitting tightly together. “That’s why Dad yanked me out of camp.”
“Did the chief get a chance to talk to you privately?” she asked, easing into the issue at hand.
Hunter neared them, but didn’t interrupt.
“He said hi, but then Mom told me to go to my room,” he explained. “Can I come with you?”
“Come with us?” she repeated.
“Yeah to hang out?”
“Jamie, you’d have to ask your parents.”
“They don’t care,” he insisted.
“I’m afraid they would care,” she told him.
Frustrated, he said, “They won’t be home ‘til late. They won’t even know.”
Greer glanced up at Hunter, who looked pained.
Turning towards the shack, Jamie called out, “I’m going with them,” then quickly asked Greer, “where are you guys going?”
As if coming out with it was a bad idea, she said, “Hiking.”
“I’m going hiking with them!” he shouted to his brothers.
Chester yelled, “Like hell you are!” and started after them.
“Like hell I’m not!” he asserted, taking hold of Greer’s hand.
Chester stopped midway and quickly glanced at his brother, Austin for a tense beat then grinned at Jamie. “All right, little man,” he said easily. “See if I care.”
“I don’t know about this,” she told Hunter.
“If he wants to come,” he said, inviting Jamie towards their car. He opened the back door for him and added, “He can come.”