Page 25 of The Boy Who Cried Bear
He shakes his head as he falls in beside us. “He’s been gone since dinner. Dana came home from work, and someone saw Max with Yolanda, so she didn’t worry about it right away. A few people were going to the Roc for after-work drinks, and they invited Dana. She told Carson they’d go to dinner at six thirty—just come and grab her at the Roc. He was playing his game and lost track of time. Dana was enjoying some time out and also lost track of time. She remembered just before seven. When she went to get the boys, Max hadn’t come home.”
Anders pauses for breath, and I should let him go on, but my brain is already compiling a timeline. “When did Yolanda last see him?”
“Five. Max wasn’t hanging out with her after all. He was with Gunnar. Which is causing a bit of drama, but we’ll stick a pin in that for now.”
“Okay. So Max was with Gunnar until…?”
“Five. Same time Yolanda last saw him. Kendra needed Gunnar. Yolanda fetched him. She told Max she’d bring him a cookie.”
“One of Casey’s cookies?” Dalton says.
Devon confessed that Yolanda has been commandeering some of “my” cookies. I don’t care, but I’ve decided to let Yolanda think she’s putting one over on me. Maybe allowing this minor power move will keep her from needing bigger ones.
“I think so,” Anders says. “Anyway, she brought him back a cookie, only he wasn’t there. No big deal. He’d never actually said he was staying. Gunnar got back just before five thirty, and there was still no sign of Max. They figured he’d gone home.”
“Who saw him after that?”
“A few people said he was heading in the direction of the family residences, but Carson had been there the whole time and never saw him.”
“Did anyone see Max go inside? Or just head that way?”
“Just head that way. That would have been about five twenty. Before Dana got off work.”
“And after that?”
“No one has seen him since.”
* * *
We’re back in town and taking over the search. Once Dana realized Max never went home, she checked with Yolanda, who got Anders. It took about thirty minutes for them to confirm that no one had seen Max since about 5:20.
Anders has had April and Kenny asking door-to-door while he organized a search. By the time we arrive, everyone has been questioned and everyone is looking.
I make a few adjustments to the search. Dana is certain Max is still in town, that if we told everyone not to leave, he wouldn’t. While he’s a curious child, he does what he’s told, even more so since his father’s death, not wanting to upset his mother. Dana thinks he went poking around and fell asleep in some nook or cranny.
Do I believe that?
It’s possible, I guess, and here’s where most of us aren’t any help. We don’t have kids. All we can do is think back to our own childhoods and evaluate the likelihood of that scenario.
“That’s not what happened,” Anders whispers to me as we search a storage-building underfloor compartment that has already been searched twice.
I glance up at him. “You aren’t buying it.”
“I found lots of hiding places as a kid. You need to get away, and you find a spot. Max needs to get away more than most kids but…” He shrugs. “How deeply can the kid sleep? Would he even fall asleep? He’s not five. He’s ten, and he’s a mature and responsible ten. I’m not saying it’s impossible but…”
“So what are the options? One, he’s hiding and asleep and doesn’t hear us. Two, he’s hiding and angry, so he isn’t answering, but he doesn’t strike me as that kind of child either.”
“Yeah, he’d never freak out his mom on purpose. That’s what I keep coming back to. He’s a sensitive kid, and I mean that in the best way.”
“Intuitive and empathetic.”
Anders nods as he shines his light around the goods stored in the cold compartment. “He knows what his mom’s going through, and he’s not going to get pissy and hide. And who would he be pissy with? The last people he interacted with are Gunnar and Yolanda, and he was relaxed and smiling.”
“Option three is that he was hiding somewhere and got hurt. But the worst he’s going to do is fall and twist his ankle, and we’ve searched all the spots where he might fall.”
“You think he could have gone into the woods?”
We head for the hatch and climb out before I answer. “I think Dana’s right that he wouldn’t deliberately defy her. Again, it’s about not worrying her. He also wouldn’t deliberately ignore a sensible order to stay out of the forest.”
