“I know, but just this once, it’s okay,” Libby assured him. “We have to hurry before Mommy gets back.”
With the kids buckled in, Libby drove with one eye on the road, and one eye on the rearview mirror so she could see their faces—Alice’s worried stare out the window, Max’s intent study of the back of the console between the front seats and his ability to reach it with his foot. She chatted happily with them, asking about school, about their friends. It felt like the old days, when they were a big happy family, when Libby would pick them up from school and hear about their day, then bring them home and prepare dinner for the four of them while Max played and Alice danced around the kitchen, repeating everything her friends had said that day.
Today, Max was desperate for Libby to know about his new game. Alice talked over him about her beautiful butterfly costume and the fairy costume that her best friend Sasha would wear. She smiled in her rearview mirror. “Hey, you two. You know how much I love you, right?” she asked.
“Yes,” they said in unison. The question was familiar to them, their answers automatic.
It felt as if the last few months were falling away, as if nothing had happened, as if Libby had never been separated from them. It felt as if things really could go back to the way they were, as if Libby really could have her family back, right here, today.
TWENTY-SEVEN
When Sam pulled onto Main Street, he knew something was wrong. He was used to seeing a Pine River cop parked outside the Grizzly Café, but this late afternoon, there were three of them.
He parked and walked to the Grizzly Lodge, bile rising in his throat. When he saw Gwen standing at the entrance of the lodge, talking with two police officers, he knew, he just knew, and his heart sank.
“Sam!” Gwen shrieked when she saw him. “You have to help me! Libby has taken the children!”
“What?” He could imagine many things, but kidnapping was not one of them. Libby’s misdeeds were generally more out in the open than that.
“I had to go get the posters, and I told Libby and Dani that my kids were coming. Alice has a dance recital at five-thirty, and I said I’d be right back. But when I came back, they were all gone! Where are they? Where could they have gone? She took them!”
“Gwen, calm down,” he said, putting his hands on her shoulders. “Where’s Dani?”
“Her chef said she had to run to Walmart because the produce truck never arrived. And she won’t answer her phone! But Mrs. Ramsey saw Libby put my kids in her car and drive off! She saw her, and she heard Libby tell them to hurry before I came back!”
Sam glanced at the woman who was standing with John Powers, a police officer he knew fairly well. “You saw them?” he asked Mrs. Ramsey.
“Yep,” she said, scratching her arm nervously. “I watched her put those kids in the backseat. She didn’t even have a booster for the boy. She told them they had to hurry before their mommy came back. Then she just drove off, pretty as you please.”
“Did anyone call her?” Sam asked, taking his phone from his pocket.
“No,” Gwen said. “I don’t have her number! Why would I have her number?”
“Gwen . . . calm down,” he said. A thousand thoughts rushed through Sam’s mind, not the least of which was that he should never have let his guard down. He should have kept to himself, should have left his heart shuttered. Right now, he felt gutted. He’d let Libby in, had let her into the crack in his heart, had wrapped himself and his hopes around her. This was a bone-crushing disappointment.
He punched her number into his phone and waited for it to connect. What stung was that he’d told her that this was the one thing he couldn’t bear, the one thing that he had to avoid. If he couldn’t trust her, if he couldn’t believe in her judgment, that she would not take everyone on an emotional rollercoaster, he couldn’t maintain the relationship. The lack of basic trust was what weakened him, sapped him of his strength, and for the sake of his own sanity, he could not have it in his life.
“She took my kids!” Gwen cried. “She may be halfway to Mexico by now!”
“Mrs. Spangler, you need to calm down. You’re jumping to conclusions. We don’t know anything yet. We need to speak to Ms. Boxer, but in the meantime, we’ve got units looking for Miss Tyler right now,” John Powers said calmly.
Libby’s cell phone began to ring.
“I am not going to calm down! She stole my kids!” Tears began to slide from Gwen’s eyes. She pressed a hand to her heart and bent over with despair.
“Hey! That’s her!” Mrs. Ramsey said suddenly. All heads swiveled around as Libby’s little red car slid into a vacant spot at the end of the block.
Sam clicked off his phone.
A moment later, Max appeared, running down the sidewalk, leaping to hit the top of each parking meter as he passed it. Behind him was his sister, holding a purple frilly dress over her shoulder, running toward Gwen.