Read Online One More Day by Kelly Simmons - Free Book Online Page B

would have been taken in the first fucking place.

• • •
    John didn’t forget things like locking doors. Just as he would never forget a million other details, like the day Ben was kidnapped. A woman he didn’t know had called him on Carrie’s phone and told him there had been an incident outside the Starbucks in Ardmore, and his wife needed him right away.
    He’d been exiting a men’s room in a sports bar along City Line Avenue, about to join a group of clients and another salesperson for lunch. He’d answered right away when he’d seen it was Carrie calling, but the call itself gave him serious pause.
    â€œI’m sorry,” he said, holding one hand over his ear to drown out the din of the ESPN announcer coupled with music, as if competing for attention. “Who are you exactly?”
    â€œI’m a passerby,” she said.
    â€œPasserby?”
    â€œYes.”
    He frowned. It sounded like a hoax. Like something his mother would fall for on Facebook, although she wasn’t asking for money or his credit card number. She was asking for him.
    â€œDid you say ‘accident’ or ‘incident’?”
    â€œI don’t know, but you need to—”
    â€œCan I speak to my wife, please?”
    â€œShe’s with the police now.”
    â€œThe police?”
    â€œYou really need to get here,” she said. “She’s really upset, and—”
    He cut her off by saying okay and ended the call. He left without truly explaining—because who could explain what had just happened, a random call from a stranger—and got into his car, thinking there must be a car accident and an injury. A reason Carrie couldn’t call herself. He pictured a stretcher, a spent air bag, flashing lights.
    When he arrived not even a half hour later, there was a circle of crime tape around his wife’s car, three police cars blocking the intersection, and a crowd of at least twenty people gathered down the block, listening to a woman holding a sheaf of paper in her hands.
    He put on his flashers and stepped outside. A uniformed police officer approached him, his hand raised.
    â€œYou can’t park here,” he said.
    From behind him, a young man in a suit approached, tapped him on the shoulder.
    â€œExcuse me. Are you Mr. Morgan? I’m Detective Forrester.”
    â€œYes. Where’s my wife?” John said, his voice rising, his neck craning. He searched the crowd for a flash of Carrie’s shiny hair.
    â€œShe’s in the squad car. I’ll take you to her.”
    â€œSquad car? God, what’s happened?”
    â€œWe’re trying to sort that out.”
    â€œI mean…generally.”
    â€œGenerally?”
    â€œHas there been a car accident?”
    Detective Forrester blinked, swallowed. He had been on the force for just a few years, had never handled anything but insurance fraud, a house fire, a stabbing between neighbors near the city. And here was the husband, a young guy who looked like they could have gone to school together, played soccer, who depended on him to make things right. And his boss, Nolan, standing like a wall behind him, just waiting to say it: Find out where the hell the father was, to make sure his alibi was air-fucking-tight, and that these two’s marriage was A-fucking-OK . Because that was the way things went with these kinds of cases.
    â€œJohn!” Carrie cried, emerging from the back of the squad car. “They’ve taken him! He’s gone!”
    And the looks the three men silently passed around spoke volumes. Who’s taken him? Gone where? And Whoa, wait a minute. She said “they.”
    Later that night, after John had gathered all of Ben’s photos for posters and called their families and helped search the woods below the Y and along the train tracks, as they had struggled to fall asleep despite being exhausted, John had asked Carrie what she’d meant