Sara's Game Read online

  She stared down at the slip of paper, reading it over and over.

  Are you ready to play the game? Are you ready to play the game?

  Are you ready? Are you ready? Are you...

  She looked at the back side, expecting to find something else, a message saying, Just kidding! Good luck with the release! But no. Nothing. Only the glaring, blazing question. It had to be coincidence, didn’t it? Some ill-timed, cryptic joke being played on her by one of the LightPulse staff? Surely this ominous note didn’t have anything to do with the kids disappearing, did it?

  Of course it does. Don’t be an idiot.

  But what did it mean? The game? What game?

  Sara flung the note into the passenger seat. Jesus, not right now. I have to go.

  She cranked the keys and the Sienna’s hybrid engine whispered to life. Before she backed out, she took one last glance at the LightPulse office. Shelley stood outside at the front doors, watching from a distance. She waved, then gave Sara a thumbs-up as if to say, Everything is going to be okay.

  Sara forced herself to wave back, then swung the minivan out of the parking spot, and out into the lighter mid-morning commute.

  “Come on, come on!” she said, willing the stalled traffic in front of her to get the hell out of the way. The promise of a faster trip had been broken by road construction three blocks down, and she sat at a dead stop, wedged so tightly in between two cars that a pedestrian would have had trouble squeezing between the bumpers. “Move!”

  She pounded the steering wheel with her palm. Flashed a look at the note beside her, where it lay limp and lifeless, but foreboding and full of questions. She shook her head. Motherf—

  “Move!” she shouted again.

  But her demands went unmet. And she sat, trapped in a line of cars, imprisoned inside her minivan with no way out and no course of action other than to wait until the universe changed its mind. She briefly thought of abandoning the van where it sat to take off running. She was in good shape. She could do it. Three miles every evening on the treadmill while the kids did their homework wasn’t a guarantee of finishing a marathon, but it was enough to keep up her conditioning and ensure that her slowing metabolism wouldn’t allow too many fresh pounds around her hips.

  The thought of doing it, of jumping out and sprinting away, gave her a second to realize that she didn’t know where she was going first. She had stomped on the gas pedal and went, eager to be moving, anxious to be heading toward whatever horrendous event was waiting, like a Marine running toward the sound of concealed gunfire.

  How does one decide where to go first when two equally horrible things are happening at once?

  She tried to weigh the options. Lacey and Callie’s school was closer, but Jacob was the youngest. But was he really missing, or just hiding until someone found him?

  No, obviously not the latter, not with the girls missing, too. And the note. The stupid, menacing note mocking her from two feet away.

  Are you ready to play the game? Are you ready to play the game?

  Mr. Brown, the principal of Whitetree Elementary where Lacey and Callie were finishing up their fifth-grade year, had said that a group of teachers had taken their classes to the small ice cream shop next to the school. It was a last day treat, and Sara recalled Shelley’s reminder to sign the permission slip.

  And, like the chaos of Jacob’s game of hide and seek, the teachers had had trouble keeping up with everyone, both inside and outside the tight confines of the three-tabled, four-stooled room. Lacey and Callie were missing from the final headcount before they headed back to the school.

  “Move!” Sara yelled once more as the car in front of her crept ahead. She stayed put, hoping that with a few more blessed inches, she might be able to squeeze the minivan out and go hurtling down a side street, taking the long way through the surrounding neighborhood. Distance-wise, it would be out of the way, but it was better than being stalled where she was.

  From what she gathered, all three had gone missing around 9:00, while she was in her meeting with Teddy. Two separate instances, two separate locations, at the exact same time.

  It was coordinated, she realized. It had to have been.

  Which meant something bigger was going on than she’d originally thought. They had been targeted. She had been targeted. And it wasn’t just a coincidence.

  They’ve been kidnapped. Oh my God.

  It was obvious, now that she had an involuntary moment to stop and think it through. Earlier she had been in such a rushed panic that she hadn’t taken the time to consider the details.

  Why her? Why her kids?

  And who? Who would be doing this to her? To them? She tried to think of anyone who might have had any reason, and came up with nothing. There hadn’t been any strange vehicles in the neighborhood lately, no ragged homeless people around their favorite park, no news reports of kidnappings that she remembered. But really, as a single parent taking care of three rambunctious children, who has time to keep track of things like whether or not the green Volvo down the street is casing the block or is nothing more than a visiting relative?

  The thought brought on a rush of guilt that left her feeling like she had been punched in the stomach.

  It’s my fault. I should’ve made the time. I should’ve looked closer. Should’ve paid more attention. But how? When?

  With Brian gone, it was all up to her. She was the one dealing with everything. The late-night accidents in bed. The homework. Proper nutrition. Cleaning the house, doing the laundry. Rushing to t-ball games and ballet classes. Everything, all of it, on her own, on top of a fifty-hour workweek. She fumed at Brian for being gone and leaving her to deal with everything.

  It didn’t matter where he was, where he had gone, what had happened. He was gone, and now the kids were, too. She was alone and, without a doubt, powerless.

  She tried not to cry. It didn’t work.

  The car in front of her crept forward and Sara angled the minivan to the left, but it wasn’t enough.

  Come on, just a little bit more.

  Sara felt like she was suffocating. Rolled down the window for some fresh air, closed her eyes and inhaled. The smell came tainted with the stench of city and fresh asphalt from the paving crew up ahead. She coughed, but left the window open anyway. However stained the air might be, the sense of open freedom was better than being confined in her inability to get moving.

  She waited. And waited. Her panic grew to a pulsating tremor, and she wondered if she was being punished for torturing Teddy the same way earlier that morning. Karma. Bad, bad karma.

  She tried to think of anything strange that had happened over the past few days, searching her memories for some looked-over clue, some inkling of an idea as to why she and the kids would be the target of a coordinated kidnapping. At least it was some sort of action, some way of being productive while she sat immobile, taking short, fearful breaths.

  Sara didn’t have any enemies. Sure, she’d stepped on some toes while getting LightPulse into the national spotlight, but it was business, nothing more, and there had been no hard feelings. She was well liked—more than well liked—around all of the motherhood groups and the PTA. There was one minor instance where she’d exchanged cross words with the mother of a girl who had kept picking on Lacey, but enemies?

  Enemies? It was such a strong word. And it didn’t fit. Anywhere.

  She thought about the park again, their walks down to Miss Willow’s—the gray-haired, flowerchild babysitter. Their once-a-month trip to McDonald’s for sundaes and an hour in the multi-colored indoor playground. The girls loved the slides and interconnected series of tubes where they could pretend to be hamsters scurrying from one spot to the next. Jacob spent most of his time in the ball pit, burying himself under the reds, blues, and greens, and then hurtling up and out, like a dolphin at SeaWorld, screaming with joy and his hands high in the air.

  Those memories caused another series of tears, and she shifted her thoughts to the times when
she was by herself.

  The only time she did have to herself lately had been extended trips to the grocery store without the children. They were well-behaved in general, but taking them into the nearby Safeway resulted in so many admonishments to ‘Put that back’ and ‘Stop picking out junk food for snacks’ that she had given up and had began shopping after work before picking them up from Miss Willow.

  Sara scanned the images in her mind, and the only thing that stuck out, the only thing that felt off, had been during her last trip over a week ago. She’d caught a tall, good-looking guy in a white (or was it gray?) collared shirt staring at her. She remembered amazing blue eyes. Short, dark hair. Tan skin. It’d been hard to believe that he was actually checking her out in her rumpled slacks and untucked blouse, looking tired and unkempt after a long day at LightPulse. They had made eye contact. It lingered. He smiled. And then he moved on.

  It was the first and only time since Brian’s disappearance that she had allowed herself to think, ‘What if?’ But she’d dismissed the thought and had gone back to picking out a fresh box of organic cereal.

  Again, nothing. Nothing out of the ordinary. Nothing in her mind to make her think that it would lead to this theft, this agonizing robbery of the most important things in her life.

  She grabbed her purse, pulled out her cell phone to call Miss Willow, but before she had a chance to dial, the car ahead of her rolled forward once more, leaving enough room to escape.

  No more than five minutes had passed, but Sara felt like an animal released from captivity. She dropped her phone back into her purse and floored it across the southbound lane, screeching through a gap in the oncoming traffic.

  A red Honda missed her rear bumper by inches. The driver blared his horn as she wheeled her way onto the side street, missing a parked motorcycle by less than a foot. She overcorrected and almost sideswiped a pickup on the opposite side. Sara fought the steering wheel, whipping her arms back and forth, and straightened out the minivan’s trajectory just as an approaching car squealed to a stop. The driver glared at her. Sara crept past, mouthing, “Sorry,” but his dirty look suggested that the apology wasn’t accepted.

  On course now, and under as much control as her frazzled mental state would allow, Sara drove as fast as she dared, working her way through the middle-class neighborhood, praying she wouldn’t get pulled over. Talking to an officer at this point would be a good thing, but she didn’t want to risk the delay. Not until she was ready. Not until she was at Jacob’s school and was absolutely sure that he was gone and not taking a nap in some hidden place.

  She knew that the first three hours after a child went missing were the most critical ones. The fact had stuck in her mind after reviewing the literature handed out each year by the schools. By now, as she raced through the quiet streets, she guessed that forty-five minutes had passed since her children had gone missing. Possibly longer, if it had taken awhile for the teachers to notice. They could’ve been gone for an hour or more already.

  Sara pressed down harder on the gas pedal.

  Chapter 3

  Sara

  She didn’t bother with trying to find a parking spot. The minivan lurched to a stop at the front entrance to Rosepetal Elementary. She grabbed the note, shoved it in her purse, and got out, running as soon as her feet touched the ground. She flung open the wooden door, vaulted inside, and smelled the pine-scented cleaning solution. The exact same smell that had filled the halls and rooms of her grade schools back east over thirty years ago. Some things never changed.

  The halls were empty. It was a huge difference from the other times she’d been here. Even when classes were in full-swing, children and parents milled about for whatever reason. Young boys with too much energy or excitement who had been excommunicated to their own island prison outside their classrooms. A mother leading her daughter by the hand, past the artwork proudly displayed along the walls. Or a group of kindergartners trudging single-file, just like Jacob had been earlier that morning, on his way out to play hide and seek.

  Play. Play...

  Are you ready to play the game?

  But now, inside the school walls, none of those things were present. Rosepetal appeared to have been shut down. The doors of each classroom were closed, and she wondered how long it had taken them to get to that point, how long it had taken them to decide that something was wrong.

  First, she checked the principal’s office, in case Mrs. Bennett was there waiting for her. It was quiet and empty, as well, except for a late-twenties guy with a goatee, hipster glasses, and a flannel shirt. The typical Portland uniform.

  He glanced up at her, shot out of his seat. “Mrs. Winthrop?” he asked.

  She rushed up to the counter, knocked over the stack of mail. He tried to greet her as a volley of questions flew out of her mouth. Uncontained. Unrestrained. “Are you Dave? Have you found him yet? Where is everyone? Are they all out looking? Do you guys have any idea where he is?”

  He scratched his cheek, then ran a hand across his shaved head.

  She asked, “You don’t, do you?” and the realization fell from overhead like a dropped piano. “You idiots. How could you let this happen?”

  Dave appeared to know that this would be coming. In a calm, apologetic tone, one that sounded like it took no offense at the accusation or insult, he said, “I’m sorry, Mrs. Winthrop. I can’t even begin to imagine how hard this must be, and I won’t patronize you by telling you to calm down. That would be stupid—”

  “Damn right it would be stupid,” she said with enough contempt to keep him planted behind his desk, where it was safe.

  He nodded. He’d probably seen enough irate mothers to recognize when it was time to tuck his tail between his legs and be the beta male of the situation.

  “We’re wasting time. Where’s Mrs. Bennett?”

  “She and the rest of the available staff are in back of the school, still looking. The classroom teachers are following our standard policy. We’re officially locked down. You know, in case this was something—in case there was somebody—man, that’s not coming out right. In case something had happened to—”

  “Dave?”

  “Yes?”

  “Shut up.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “I want you to call the police.”

  “Mrs. Bennett said that wouldn’t be necessary yet, not until—”

  “If you don’t pick up that phone and dial 9-1-1 in about three seconds, I’m coming over this counter and I’m going to rip that goddamn earring out of your head. You understand me?” It seemed like such a random thing to threaten him with, but it was the first noticeable item that stuck out as a source of pain. She surprised herself with the intensity, and apologized. Then she said, “You know that something you were babbling about? It’s happening. My daughters are missing from their school, too, so I want you to call the police, have them send someone to Whitetree, and get someone here. Tell them I think they’ve been kidnapped, and it’s been an hour.”

  She didn’t wait for a response.

  Sara sprinted out of the office, down the hallway, and through the doors that led to the rear playground.

  Out back, some of the staff looked up into trees while some looked under parked cars on the nearby street. Others worked in pairs, walking up and down the sidewalk, calling out Jacob’s name, checking the yards of homes across the way.

  Sara shouted, “Jacob? Mommy’s here,” in a feeble attempt. “Time to come out now.”

  Mrs. Bennett—Wanda to those familiar enough to call her that—stood by the merry-go-round, surveying the action from her post. She was a large, imposing woman who had a stern demeanor when it came to disciplining the children and keeping the school running smoothly, but one-on-one, adult-to-adult, she was as an absolute sweetheart. Ready with a laugh, ready with a hug. She’d been Lacey and Callie’s principal, too, and had even brought a tray of lasagna by a week after Brian had gone missing. Sara liked and admired her, but had to contain the u
rge to scream at the woman.

  She knew she needed Mrs. Bennett to be focused and ready with details. Yelling at her would solve nothing. Yelling at her wouldn’t improve anything.

  Sara marched over to her and could see that the woman was already sweating through her light blue blouse. The rings of perspiration made a semi-circle underneath her armpits as she held up a hand to shield her eyes from the sun.

  “Mrs. Bennett!” Sara said.

  Please have some news. Anything good.

  Mrs. Bennett waved and rushed over, meeting her halfway. “Oh, Sara,” she said, holding out a hand to shake, but changed her mind at the last second and embraced her with a hug.

  Sara squeezed, and could feel the warmth of the principal’s body, the dewy perspiration on the woman’s back. She pulled away and asked, “Any luck?” but deep down, she knew it was pointless. Not with the girls gone, too. Not with that cryptic note. Are you ready to play the game?

  Mrs. Bennett said, “Not—not yet. We’re looking as hard as we can. He has to be here somewhere. No child has ever gone missing on my watch, and it’s not about to happen now.”

  “You should call them off.”

  Mrs. Bennett squinted at her, trying to decipher what she’d heard. “Call them off? Why?”

  “Because he’s been—” She had to shove the next word out of her mouth. “—kidnapped.”

  Mrs. Bennett scoffed, disbelieving. “What? No, don’t think that way. We’ll find him, I’m sure of it. My gut says we’re getting close.”

  But Sara could tell by the sound of her voice that Mrs. Bennett was only trying to stay positive, and, on some level, she didn’t believe what she was saying, either. The fact that she was being mollified bubbled up the rage boiling in her gut, but she stopped short of grabbing the principal by the shoulders and shaking her so hard her skull would flop around like a bobble-head doll.

  “It’s worse than you think,” she said. She told Mrs. Bennett about Lacey and Callie and how they were missing, too, how they had disappeared around the same time as Jacob. She told her about the cryptic note, and what she thought it meant.