Chapter Three
“I don’t know what I should do,” Brooke said to Nate two hours after the initial frantic call from her mother about Ethan being missing.
Her baby brother… Although, at eleven, Ethan wasn’t a baby anymore.
However, he’d always be one of her babies, one of the original loves of her life, along with her sister, Abby, who was nine.
The thought of something bad happening to either of them was so unbearable that Brooke could hardly keep it together while she waited to hear something from home.
“What do you want to do?” Nate asked as he massaged her shoulders.
He’d driven down from Princeton the night before for a three-day visit they’d been counting down to for weeks.
This was to have been their last time hanging out together in Charlottesville, before she—and Elijah—went home for summer vacation, putting all of them in DC for a few months before she transferred to Princeton in the fall.
“My mom told me not to come running home, but how can I think about anything else as long as my brother is missing?”
Nate turned her so he could see her face. “It could turn out to be a simple case of miscommunication or something.”
Brooke shook her head. “That’s not it. I’m sure of it. Ethan knew if he messed up, they’d lock him up at home. He’d never have done anything to endanger his newfound freedom.”
“I’m kind of surprised to hear he’s allowed to run around in DC at eleven.”
“He’s with his friends.”
“Still… That’s kind of young.”
“I don’t know what to say. I’m so scared that something terrible has happened.”
“Why don’t we get you home to be with your family?”
“I have an exam Wednesday and a paper due and—”
“Will you be able to focus on anything as long as he’s missing?”
“No.”
“Email your professors. Tell them what’s going on and that you’re going home to DC to help look for your brother.”
“What if I can’t make up the exam and get the paper done before the end of the semester? My acceptance to Princeton is contingent on finishing the year here.”
“Maybe they’ll let you finish remotely. Worry about that when Ethan is home safe.”
“Right. Okay.”
“Let’s go pack what you need for a couple of days at home.”
Nate was by her side as she gathered clothes, toiletries, notes for the paper she’d been working on and other items needed to study for her last final exam at UVA.
Twenty minutes later, they were in his Mustang heading north.
“Thank you for this.”
“No problem.”
“Yes, it is. You just drove more than five hours yesterday, so it’s got to be the last thing you feel like doing today.”
“This’ll be much quicker, and don’t worry about it. I understand that you need to be with your family right now. Did you tell your mom you’re coming?”
“I will now.”
Brooke composed a text to Sam’s phone, hoping it would reach her mother. I decided to come home. Nate is bringing me. Will be there in about 2.5 hours.
“How much you want to bet he’ll be home when we get there?” Brooke asked.
“That’d be good.”
“I’ll smack him upside the head for messing with our time together.” She hoped against hope that he was there to be smacked when she arrived.
Brooke called her brother for the twentieth time since her mom had told her he was missing. Once again, the call went straight to voicemail, so she texted him—again.
Ethan… we’re worried sick about you. Please check in with one of us. Whatever is going on, we’ll handle it together. We love you.
“What do you know about his friends?” Nate asked.
“I knew his elementary school friends, but my mom says he’s hanging out with a new group since he’s been in middle school. She’s been trying to find out more about them, but he’s become secretive and sneaky.”
“All the more reason not to let him run around unsupervised.”
Brooke sighed. “Yeah, probably.”
“I don’t mean to be critical of your parents. It’s easy for me to say what I’d do when I don’t have an eleven-year-old begging me to go out with his friends.”
“It’s your law enforcement training talking.”
“Yes, that. Exactly. Most people don’t realize…”
She looked over at him. “What don’t they realize?”
“Nothing. It doesn’t matter.”
“What were you going to say?”
He released a deep sigh. “I don’t want to freak you out any more than you already are by telling you things you don’t need to know right now.”
“Things about kids?”
“Yeah, and what they’re up to online, among other things.”
“My parents monitor his online activity.”
“Kids have figured out a way around that.”
“What do you mean?”
“They have codes and stuff that parents would never understand.”
“Seriously? How does that even work?”
Nate glanced at her before returning his attention to the road. “You sure you want to hear about this?”
“Not at all, but it might help find Ethan to know more about it.”
With obvious reluctance, he said, “Say you want to score weed, for example. Maybe the code word is strawberries, and you text a friend saying you’re craving strawberries, which is a super basic example.
It’s usually much more sophisticated than that.
Parents scrolling through a kid’s phone would never stop on the word ‘strawberries’ like they would if the message said ‘weed’ or ‘pot.’”
“That’s terrifying.”
“I’m sorry. I’ve said too much.”
“No, it’s fine. I’m so na?ve about these things. Ever since everything happened to me, I’ve sort of checked out of social media and keep in touch with far fewer friends than I used to. I found out who my real friends are.”
“You’re not missing anything by staying away from social media and online nonsense.”
“Sometimes I feel like I am. My friends from home are still connected through social media, and I’m not. But I talk to the ones who matter, the few who stood by me through the bad times.”
“I’m sorry if this situation is resurrecting painful memories for you.”
“They’re never far from the surface.” As she looked to him for reassurances, she noticed for the millionth time how beautiful he was.
She never got tired of looking at him. His wavy dark blond hair, blue eyes and dimples had led her roommates to give him the McDreamy nickname, which had stuck, much to his dismay. “Thank you for taking me home.”
“I want to know where your brother is, too. I hope it turns out to be no big deal.”
Brooke hoped the same thing, but the longer they went without word from Ethan, the more convinced she became that whatever was going on would end up being a very big deal.
Mike called Sam on her cell. “Lieutenant Archelotta wants to see you over here.”
“I’ll be right there.” She went to tell Tracy she was leaving for a short time but would be back and conveyed Brooke’s message that she and Nate were on the way home.
“Has something else happened?” Tracy asked.
“Nothing new. I’ll let you know if I hear anything. Stay close to the landline.”
“I’ve got nowhere else to be but sitting right here hoping to hear something before I go insane.”
Sam squeezed her shoulder, wishing there was something more she could do for Tracy. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
“Okay.”
“I’ve got to go back to Tracy’s house,” Sam told Nick in the living room.
“Brant told me the Secret Service is assisting in the search. I was coming to tell you that.”
“That’s great news. We’ll take all the help we can get.”
“I also called Scotty so he doesn’t hear about it on the news.”
“Oh cripes. I never even thought of that. Should you reach out to Eli, too?”
“I will. Do you want me to stay with Tracy while you’re gone?”
“That would help.” She went up on tiptoes to kiss him. “Thank you.”
“I want to be out there looking for him.”
“I know, but we’ve got everyone on duty watching for him. You’re better off here, providing support to Tracy.”
“Sure I am,” he said with frustration, “but whatever. It is what it is.”
“I’ll be back as soon as possible.”
“I’ll be here.”
“Love you.”
“Love you, too. Be safe out there.”
“Not going far.”
When she stepped out of the house, Agent Quigley greeted her. “Where to?”
“Back to Tracy’s.”
“Got it.” He held the door for her and had them on the way in a matter of seconds, with a young female agent she didn’t recognize riding shotgun.
Agent Quigley, who went by Q, had been filling in on Sam’s detail while one of her regular agents, Jimmy McFarland, recovered from being shot while protecting her. Apparently, Q had drawn the weekend shift.
“Anything new?” Q asked.
“Not yet. Our IT lieutenant is working on the devices at the house and asked me to come there.”
“Hopefully, he’s found a thread for you to pull.”
“I can’t pull the threads on this one. But I can help find the threads in the first place.”
“They told you not to work the case?”
“In so many words. I don’t care about who’s in charge. I just want to find my nephew. Before I had kids of my own… They were my kids, you know? Brooke, Ethan, Abby, Jack, Ella. They made the infertility bearable because I had them. I love them like they’re my own.”
“How’s your sister doing?” Q asked.
“Terrible. I can’t bear this for her and Mike. It’s horrible not to know where he is.”
“Yeah, for sure. It was the thing my mother was most afraid of when we were growing up—one of us going missing.”
“It’s a parent’s worst nightmare.”
“Definitely. Were you told that our team is assisting the MPD?”
“Yes, Nick just told me that, and I’m so grateful. You know what else I’m grateful for…”
He glanced at her in the mirror. “What’s that?”
“That this can never happen to my kids because of you guys. I wish every kid had dedicated Secret Service agents keeping them safe like mine do.”
“I wish they did, too. Might get some societal pushback on that, however.”
“Yeah, probably. People get itchy about being watched. I’m wondering when Scotty will start chafing. He’s probably already wishing he could be running the streets with his friends.”
“You wouldn’t let him do that, even if his dad wasn’t the president.”
“No, I wouldn’t, and frankly, I’m shocked that Ethan was allowed to at eleven.”