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  I grabbed my phone out of the car and my wallet just in case I needed it. I checked the time. It was only four o'clock, Kayden would still have an apartment full of children. I wasn't about to bring him into this mess when I knew there was nothing he could do about it. I'd call him as soon as I knew all the kids had gone home. Hopefully by that time, Christopher would be back, safe in my arms.

  I called Philip, but his phone rang until it went to voicemail.

  “I couldn’t get ahold of Philip,” I told the officer as I climbed into the police cruiser.

  I hardly paid any attention as we drove through the side streets and parked behind town hall. When we got inside, I marched straight to the mayor's office. It was empty. The clerk sat there behind the receptionist desk.

  “Mr. Stone, what brings you back in here today?”

  “I need to find the mayor now.” I had no time to be nice. Each second Christopher was with Ian Miller was absolute torture.

  She pursed lips. “Mr. Miller said that he was taking off today for a weekend trip. Sounded like he was going up to his cabin.”

  I exchanged a look with Officer Jefferies and let him continue with the questioning.

  “When did he leave?” he asked.

  About eleven-thirty, I think. It was right after his son was here.”

  “Philip was here?” I said.

  “Yes, but he didn't talk to his dad. He just withdrew his application and left. He requested a copy of the same documents you were looking at yesterday, Mr. Stone.”

  “Oh?” I said.

  “What did you request a copy of yesterday?” Jefferies asked me.

  “The town budget. I had some questions about the money that the library raised this year and I wanted to know where it was being allocated. The librarian mentioned having to pay fees. I'm not an accountant by any means, but I have run a business before. I know about budgeting and a lot of the numbers in the city budget don't add up. I talked with Philip last night about the fact that I think his dad is stealing money from the town.”

  The clerk gasped audibly. “Not Ian,” she said. “He loves this town.”

  Officer Jefferies face didn’t change at all as I spoke, as if me telling him this was not a surprise.

  “Yeah. So much so that he's kidnapped my son.” I glared at her. All I wanted at this moment was to have Christopher here safe.

  “Let's go to his home. If we can't find him there then we’ll take the next steps.” Officer Jefferies gestured toward the exit.

  I swallowed thickly. Please let the mayor be at his home. I couldn’t take this any longer. “All right,” I said and followed him out of the building.

  As we drove through town, I finally began to look around and see things instead of operating in a daze. It had been nearly an hour since I'd figured out that my son had been taken from me. The longest hour of my life.

  “There's smoke,” I said.

  Jefferies leaned in and looked out the windshield. “Yeah. I heard the sirens go off earlier.”

  “I wonder where,” I said.

  He rattled off the address.

  His words took a moment to register, then it dawned on me. “Did you say one sixteen West High Street?”

  “Yes,” he said. “Apartment fire. Doesn't appear that anyone was home.”

  “That's Philips apartment,” I said. “That must be where he is. Let's go there.”

  “Your boyfriend's apartment is burning, and your son is missing? You’re having a hell of a day, Mr. Stone.”

  “Yeah, you're telling me.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Philip

  The apartment was a complete loss. The structure of the house remained, but the inside was destroyed. Thankfully, no one had been home and my neighbor's house cat had escaped out an open window. The cause was yet unknown, but it appeared to have started in my apartment.

  I hadn't left anything on this morning, hadn't cooked any breakfast. I hadn't even had coffee.

  Outside the apartment, I took off my gear and stashed it away in the truck where it belonged. I’d take it back to the station soon to clean it and refill my oxygen tanks.

  I let the crew that was actually on shift takeover.

  “Philip!” Ollie’s voice filtered in through the haze of shouting around me and I turned to find him standing there next to a man I recognized as one of the newer police officers in town.

  Ollie’s face was pale, and his eyes were red-rimmed. I went to him and pulled him in my arms. “Hey,” I said. “Are you okay? I wasn't home. It was—”

  “It's not that,” he said. “It's Christopher.”

  My stomach dropped and I looked to the officer. I’d assumed the man was here because of the fire but was it something else?

  “What happened to Christopher?”

  “Your dad,” Ollie choked out a sob.

  The officer spoke up, “Mr. Miller, did you talk with your father today?”

  “No,” I said. “What's that got to do with anything? Ollie? What's going on?” I held Ollie’s shoulders and forced him to look at me.

  His voice shook as he spoke. “Your dad picked Christopher up from school. They let him take him because he's the mayor, even though he's not authorized to pick him up. We can't get ahold of him. I have no idea where he is.”

  I pulled Ollie into my arms and held him. “Oh God.” What in the hell could my dad be doing with my son?

  “Mr. Miller, did you tell your dad to pick up your son? Did you give him permission?”

  “No,” I said. “I would never. My dad isn't interested in Christopher. I would never let him take him without supervision.” My brain went into overdrive. “Have we gone to his house? His office? When did this happen?”

  “He picked Christopher up around eleven-thirty. We were just on our way to your parent’s house to see if he's there.’

  “I'll go with you,” I said. “Let's go right now. Have you tried his phone?”

  Ollie nodded. “He hasn’t answered the house phone or his cell phone.”

  “Let's go.” I was still wearing my fireman pants and my white t shirt. I reeked of smoke and fire, but I didn't care. We all piled into the officer’s car and he sped away from the scene.

  Thankfully, my parents lived close by, inside the city limits. Once we were at the house, I was ready to bolt out of the car, but the officer put a hand on my forearm and stopped me.

  “Do we have reason to believe that your father could be dangerous or violent if he is here?”

  “No,” I said. “I mean, the man is clearly unhinged and he's got a screw loose or some shit, but I don't think he'd be violent.”

  “Are you sure? I bet before today you didn't think your dad was capable of kidnapping.”

  The officer had a point.

  I shook my head. “I don't know. He doesn't own any firearms that I'm aware of, so he shouldn't have anything, and my mom doesn't have a violent bone in her body.”

  He nodded. “Mr. Stone, would you like to come with us? Or do you want to wait in the car?”

  “Come with you,” he said.

  “All right. It'd be best if you stay behind us. Let Philip knock, and I'll be with him, okay?”

  Ollie nodded.

  We went to the door. I wanted to pound on it or burst into the house unannounced but Jefferies insisted that we knock and so I did.

  My mom answered. She brightened when she saw me, but her face turned to a frown when she saw who I was with. “Philip, is everything okay?”

  “No,” I said. “Where's dad?” I pushed my way into the house and looked around. “Dad? Christopher? You in here?”

  “Christopher?” My mom said. “Why would he be here? What's going on?”

  “Ma'am, I'm Officer Jefferies. Can you tell me where your husband is right now?”

  My mom looked between me and Jefferies. “He’s at work. He left this morning. I haven't seen him since then. He usually gets home around six, unless he has something else going on.”

 
“About what time did you last see him?”

  “He left at eight-thirty this morning. What is this about?”

  “Mom, Dad picked up Christopher from school and we can't find him. He took my son.”

  She gasped and held her hand over her chest. “Are you sure?”

  “Yes,” Ollie said as he stepped into the house. “The school secretary let him take Christopher.”

  I grasped my mom’s hand. “Mom, where would he go? He's not at his office. Where would he take him?”

  She looked around frantically and stuttered, “I… I have no idea. He's either here or at work. There's no other place he’d—the lake house,” she said.

  “Where's the lake house, ma'am?”

  “We have a cabin on Lake Dexter. It's about a two hour drive. He mentioned something about it last week. He asked me where the key was. We closed it up a few months ago because we hadn't taken any time to go up there. You remember Philip, you helped us?”

  “Yeah. Where's the key, mom?”

  “On the hook in the foyer.”

  I rushed to the entryway of the house and searched the key hook. There were keys to my mom's car, extra keys to dad’s car, but the lake house key was missing.

  “He must have gone there. Mom, what in the hell could he be doing with my son?” I couldn’t contain my anger any longer and my mom flinched as my voice rose.

  “I don't know,” she said. “He was really upset yesterday after you left, but I didn’t expect this.” She sobbed.

  I turned to Ollie and Jefferies. “Let’s go to the cabin.”

  The both nodded.

  ***

  The drive to the cabin took forever. Awful scenarios ran through my head, ranging from best case where we found Christopher completely unharmed and my dad surrendering himself to arrest and spending the next fifty years in jail to absolute worst case which I couldn't even put into words.

  I wanted to sit in the back of the cruiser with Ollie. To hold him, talk to him, but he had barely said a word since this whole thing had started.

  “We’ll find him, Ollie,” I said. I turned around and looked at him. His jaw clenched, and he just nodded.

  I tried not think of any other scenario except finding Christopher unharmed. Anything else left me wanting to throw up.

  The lake house sat at the end of a road, our lot was larger than most others. I'd begun to wonder now how it was that we had afforded it in the first place. Had my dad been stealing money from the town since his very first term? What in the hell had he hoped to gain from all of this?

  Officer Jefferies had spent a lot of the drive on his radio, putting out an alert for my dad's car and descriptions of my dad and Christopher for other officers. We opted not to send the police to the lake house. There was a police cruiser at my parent’s house in case he returned there.

  When we pulled into the drive, the house looked deserted. There was no car in the driveway. Jefferies parked the car and turned to look at Ollie and me.

  “We'll do a similar scenario as we did at the mayor's home. Philip and I will go to the door, see if he's there. Ollie, you wait behind us.”

  “All right,” I said.

  “No,” Ollie said. “I'm going with you to the door. If my son is in there, I want to get to him right away. He's going to be scared.” Ollie hiccupped and swallowed a sob.

  “Okay. Let's do this.” Jefferies got out and then opened the door for Ollie. The two of them went to the door, the officer slightly ahead of Ollie, while I waited back.

  They knocked and waited. No answer.

  The officer knocked harder this time and shouted “Millerstown police. Ian Miller, are you in there? Open the door.”

  No answer.

  I saw movement in the window, and the curtains fluttered. I made a noise and pointed. Both Ollie and the officer looked. There was a flash of brown hair and then the door swung open.

  Christopher launched himself into Ollie's arms. “Dad!”

  Ollie fell to the ground with Christopher in his arms. I ran to both their sides. Ollie sat on his knees, he held Christopher in front of him, running his hands down his arms and legs, making sure that all of them were there.

  I held Christopher's face in my hands. “Are you all right? What happened? Are you okay?”

  Christopher nodded, tears in his eyes. “I'm fine. I'm hungry, but I'm fine.”

  Ollie choked out a laugh. “We’ll get you some food. Okay, buddy? Whatever you want.” He hugged Christopher close to him. With his other hand he reached for me and grasped my hand. “He's fine,” Ollie said. “He's fine.”

  I don't know if he was reassuring me or himself. Either way, I was beyond grateful.

  Jefferies cleared his throat. “The house is empty. There's no one else here.”

  “The man that drove me here left,” Christopher said. “Someone called him, and he said something about police being on their way and he left.”

  “Did he say where he was going?” I asked.

  Christopher shook his head. “No. He didn't say much to me at all. He gave me an iPad and told me to watch cartoons or something. There weren't any games on there, though. But I found some videos. Can I keep the iPad?”

  “Did he say anything to you?” Ollie asked. “When he picked you up? When he took you here? Did he say why? Anything? Did you hurt you?”

  Christopher shook his head. “He said that he was my Alpha dad's dad. I asked if that made him my grandpa. He said no. He didn't want to be my grandpa.” Christopher made a face that looked a little bit like disgust. “He smelled kind of bad and he mumbled a lot.”

  I looked to Officer Jefferies. “What now?”

  “We've got a BOLO out on your father's car, if he goes to an airport or a train station to try and get away, we'll catch him. I assume you want to press charges?”

  “Yes,” Ollie said. He looked at me. “Sorry, Philip. He can't get away with this.”

  I nodded. “Of course. You're right. You're right about the money. You're right about everything.” I pulled Ollie and Christopher both into my arms. I never wanted to let go. I’d never take these two for granted again. I may never let them out of my sight again. “Can we go home?” I asked.

  Jefferies nodded. “First we may want to get Christopher looked at. You'll want to speak with a doctor about trauma therapy.”

  “I know.” That sort of thing was standard protocol when emergency situations involved children. I just hated to think that we'd have to go through it with our son.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Oliver

  I lifted Christopher out of Philip’s car and carried him into the house. The poor boy was exhausted after spending half the day kidnapped, though we'd never use that phrase with him, and the rest of the day in the hospital, answering questions from doctors and police officers.

  He fell asleep before we could even offer to get him ice cream on the way home.

  “Do you want me to take him?” Philip asked.

  I shook my head. I never wanted to let my little boy ago. I took him inside, and carried him up the stairs, then laid him gently in his bed. I watched him sleep for a bit, while Philip pulled the covers over him. Then he and I looked at one another.

  He opened his arms, and I stepped in. That’s when I broke. I let out all the emotion from the day, and I sobbed silently against his shoulder.

  He lifted me and carried me out the door, then down the stairs to the couch.

  “I don't know how I’m ever going to be able to leave him again,” I said. “How am I supposed to take him to school tomorrow?”

  Philip didn’t bother to correct me and tell me tomorrow was Saturday.

  “He can stay home. I'll stay home. Nobody's going anywhere tomorrow.”

  “Yeah, but what about the next day? And the day after that and the next after that?”

  Before Philip could answer, a knock sounded at the door.

  He stood to answer it. “Stay here,” he said.

  I heard Officer Jefferies
voice, apologizing for stopping over so late, so I stood and went to the front door next to Philip.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “I was on my way home, thought I’d stop by and let you know that Ian Miller was picked up at the airport about an hour ago. On Monday, he’ll be transported back here and arraigned.”

  A weight I hadn’t even known was there lifted. “Thank you for letting us know. Would you like to come in?”

  “No, I don’t want to interrupt your evening any more than I have to. I also wanted to tell you that there’s been some evidence that Ian started the fire at Philip’s apartment as well.”

  “Son of a bitch,” Philip said as his body tensed.

  I laid a hand on his shoulder and he relaxed slightly.

  Officer Jefferies gaze flicked to the end table just inside the front door. I kept a decorative bowl and a framed picture there. Jefferies did a double take, then turned back to me. “Is Christopher all right?”

  “Yes,” I said. “He’s sleeping. We’ll see what tomorrow brings.”

  He nodded, then gestured to the picture. “Friend of yours?”

  I picked up the frame. It was a picture of me and Kayden with the two boys. “Oh God. I haven’t called Kayden yet. He’s going to kill me.”

  “Kayden?”

  “Yeah, he’s my best friend. He and I are turning this place into a daycare soon, actually.”

  “Who’s the boy?” Jefferies asked.

  I was too tired to wonder at the twenty questions. “Kayden’s son, Jackson.”

  Jefferies nodded. “Same age as Christopher?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Two months older actually.”

  He narrowed his eyes. “Well, if you need anything from me, please don’t hesitate to call. I’m sure we’ll be in touch as the investigation gets underway.”

  “Thank you,” Philip said.

  Jefferies gave a curt nod and left.

  “Was that weird?” Philip asked me after he closed the door.

  “A little,” I said. I closed my eyes and a tear slipped out of the corner. “I'm sorry, Philip.”