“I’m on the road.”

“This Jan Harwood disappearance. You’re handling that.”

“As we speak,” he said.

“You asked for tests on some hair and blood samples in the trunk of the husband’s car.”

“That’s right.”

“They’re back. They both match the missing woman, based on the hair samples you took from the house when you had it searched.”

“I hear ya.”

“I think you need to move on this,” the chief said. “Looks like this clown moved her body in the trunk.”

“Maybe,” Duckworth said.

“Maybe?”

“There’s parts of this I don’t like,” the detective said.

“Looks to me like you’ve got this son of a bitch dead to rights now. Time to bring him in again, sweat him out. Once you lay this out for him, he’s gonna fold.”

“I can bring him in again, but I’m not sure.”

“Look, Barry, I’m not going to tell you what to do. But I am going to tell you this. I’m getting a lot of pressure on this one. From those fucking amusement park people, from the tourism office, and the mayor’s office. As well as that weasel Reeves. God, I hate that guy. The bottom line is, Five Mountains makes a lot of money not just for Five Mountains, but for the area. People start thinking there’s someone snatching kids there, they’re going to stay away. And from the sounds of it, this guy may have made up all that shit about his kid getting abducted there. You hearing me?”

“Absolutely,” Duckworth said.

“If I were you, I’d bring him in again.”

“He’s hired Natalie Bondurant.”

“Well, by all means, bring her in, too. Once she sees what you’ve got on her client, she may just tell him to take some kind of deal.”

“Got it,” Duckworth said. “I-”

But the chief had ended the call.

Duckworth was getting another feeling in his gut. He didn’t like this one at all.

Dad and I drove over in two cars as fast as we could. Mom was standing on the porch, waiting for us, and ran over to the driveway as we each pulled in.

She was at my door as I was getting out.

“There’s still no sign-”

“Start from the beginning,” I said as Dad got out of the other car and came over.

Mom took a moment to catch her breath. “He’d been out in the backyard off and on all day. Playing with the croquet set, just whacking the ball around.”

“Okay,” I said.

“I was doing some things in the kitchen and around the house, checking outside for him every few minutes, but the thing was, I was always hearing whack, whack, whack, so I knew what he was up to. And then I realized it had been a while since I heard it, and I was pretty sure I hadn’t heard him come in, so I went out to make sure he wasn’t getting into anything he shouldn’t, like your father’s tools in the garage. And I couldn’t find him.”

“Dad,” I said, “call the police.”

He nodded and headed for the house.

Mom reached out and held my shoulders. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, David, I’m just so-”

“Mom, it’s okay. Let’s-”

“I swear, I was watching him. I only let him out of my sight for a few minutes. He was-”

“Mom, right now we have to keep looking. Have you tried the neighbors?”

“No, no, I’ve just been looking everywhere. I thought maybe he was hiding in the house, under a bed, something like that, maybe playing a trick on me. But I can’t find him anyplace.”

I pointed to the houses next door and across the street. “You start knocking on doors. I’ll make one last check of the house. Go. Go.”

Mom turned and ran to the house on the left as I ran up the porch stairs and into the house.

“His name is Ethan Harwood,” Dad was saying into the phone. “He’s four years old.”

I shouted, “Ethan! Ethan, are you here?”

I ran downstairs first, checking behind the furnace, moving back the door to the storage compartment under the stairs. A four-year-old boy, he could hide in a lot of places. I could remember, when I was Ethan’s age, getting out my parents’ suitcases and curling myself up inside them. One time, one of them latched shut on me, and Mom heard my screams before I ran out of air.

The flashback made me dig out the larger cases-a different set, all these years later-from under the stairs and give them a shake.

Satisfied that Ethan was not in those cases, or anywhere else in the basement, I scaled the stairs and faced Dad as I came into the kitchen. He was off the phone.

“They said they’re going to have a car swing by in a while,” he said.

“A while?” I said. “A while?”

Dad looked shaken. “That’s what they said. They asked how long he’d been gone and when I said under an hour, they didn’t seem all that excited.”

I moved Dad aside and grabbed the phone, the receiver still warm to the touch, and punched in 911.

“Listen,” I said once I had hold of the dispatcher who’d spoken to my father. “We don’t need some car coming by in a while to help us find my son. We need someone right fucking now.” And I slammed the receiver down.

To Dad I said, “Go help Mom knock on doors.”

For the second time in almost as many minutes, Dad turned and did what I told him.

I ran upstairs and opened closet doors, looked under beds. There was an access to the attic, but even with a chair, there was no way Ethan could hope to reach it.

“Ethan!” I shouted. “If you’re hiding, you better come out right now or there’s going to be trouble!”

Nothing.

By the time I got out front of the house, about a dozen neighbors were on the street, milling about. My parents’ door-knocking had brought people out, wondering what was going on and whether they could do anything to help.

“Everyone!” I shouted. “Everyone, please, can you listen up for a second?”

They stopped gossiping among themselves and looked at me.

“My boy, Ethan, you’ve probably seen him around here a lot the last couple of years. We can’t find him. He was in my parents’ backyard, and now he’s gone. Could you please all check your properties, your backyards, your garages? Any of you with pools, God forbid, please check them first.”

My mother looked as though she might faint.

Some of them started nodding, like Sure, that’s a great idea, but they weren’t moving with any speed.

“Now!” I shouted.

They started to disperse, save for one man in his twenties, a tall but doughy, unshaven lout with a tractor hat on. He said, “So what’d you do, Harwood? Getting rid of the wife wasn’t enough? You got rid of the kid, too?”

Something snapped.

I ran at him, got him around the waist, and brought him down on a front yard. All the others who’d been heading off to hunt for Ethan stopped in their tracks to watch the show. Straddling the man, I took a swing and caught the corner of his mouth, drawing blood instantly.

“You motherfucker,” I said. “You goddamn son of a bitch.”

Before I could take another swing, Dad had his arms around me from behind. “Son!” he shouted. “Stop it.”

“You fucker!” the man with the hat said, rolling onto his side, feeling his mouth for blood.

Dad shouted at everyone, “Please, just look for Ethan.” Once he had me off the man, Dad leaned over him and said, “And you get your sorry ass home before I take a kick at it myself.”

The man got up, dusted himself off, and started to walk away, but not before looking at me and saying, “You watch it, Harwood. They’re going to get you.”

I turned away, my face hot and flushed. Dad came up alongside me. “You okay?”

I nodded. “We have to keep looking.”

Even though Mom had said she’d already done it, Dad and I searched the backyard and his garage. The croquet set wires were shoved into the lawn randomly, striped wooden balls scattered about. There was one mallet lying on the grass. I went over, picked it up, as though it could tell me something, then dropped it back to the ground.