Chapter 20: Where the Boy Went

Margery heard enough of the call to stand up.

"Go," she said. "I'll sit with her."

She meant Mom, who was still on the sofa with her hands open in her lap.

I did not argue.

Regina picked me up at the club door in a rented car with the engine running.

She drove with both hands tight on the wheel, and she did not slow for the yellow lights.

"I put a watch on him last week," she said. "A child's watch, with a map. Colby doesn't know it's his."

"Is it on?"

"It's on."

She held her phone out at the next light.

A small blue dot sat inside the outline of the airport.

"He's flying home," Regina said. "He's flying him out of the country, Cedric. He has a passport for him. I never saw it."

"Have you called the police?"

"From the apartment. They're sending someone to the terminal. They said it could take a while."

The dot did not move.

We left the car in the first spot we found and ran.

The terminal was bright and almost empty at that hour, with a few rolling suitcases and a floor machine humming down a long corridor.

The departure board listed one flight to the city Colby had lived in for seven years.

Boarding, it said.

Gate fourteen.

We came around the last corner and saw them.

Colby sat in a row of plastic seats with two suitcases beside him and Jasper on his left.

Jasper wore his too-big winter coat and held a paper bag in both hands.

His eyes were red, and his face was turned away from his father, toward the window.

A woman in an airline vest stood at the desk with a phone against her ear, watching Colby.

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