When Aubrey was eight years old, a boy named Jimmy Ryce had gone missing a few miles from her house in Coconut Grove. Jimmy had been nine, and she could still recall the photo of him on the newscasts and in the newspapers—a grinning child in a baseball cap, gripping a bat. Mama had tried to keep the news of his disappearance from her, but it had been everywhere. Aubrey hadn’t been allowed to go anywhere by herself, even to school or on her bicycle to her friend Meagan’s house.
She’d been angry about the tighter restrictions, but then three months later, the news that they had discovered Jimmy’s ruined body had changed her. For years afterward, she would glance over her shoulder to see whether anyone was following her, and if a stranger looked her way, her heart would speed up in fright.
Had Ethan ever learned to be wary of strangers?
The taxi continued in thick traffic down Le Jeune Road, past used-car dealerships, Latin American restaurants, and billboards in Spanish advertising health care and surgical procedures. The busy commercial streets felt alien until they crossed US 1 into the lush, dark forest of Coconut Grove. The driver turned onto a narrow street, palm fronds and overgrown banyan-tree branches brushing against the sides of the taxi. As her childhood home came into view, the vise around Aubrey’s chest eased.
In the early-afternoon light, the house appeared just as it always had, like someplace where Sleeping Beauty might have comfortably slept for a hundred years, hidden away from the world. Vines grew over the faded, salmon-colored stucco walls, mildew darkened the oncered gabled roof, and magenta bougainvillea overhung the arched windows. Aubrey had left ten years earlier when she’d gone to college, and had come back only two or three times a year to visit her mother, yet she still thought of this place as home.
But her home was no longer a cloister.
Dozens of cars and news vans were parked helter-skelter on the torn-up lawn, blocking the driveway and much of the road, and a crowd of reporters stood at the edge of the property. The tightness in her chest returned.
Twenty-four hours after Ethan’s disappearance and the vultures were already circling. They knew, just as she did, that with every passing hour, the odds of getting Ethan home safely diminished.
She paid the driver and stepped into the heat, anxious to get to her mother, concerned about what the stress of Ethan’s disappearance might be doing to her. Aubrey had seen her mother debilitated from vertigo several times—most recently two years ago when she’d been sued by the parents of a little boy who had died while under her care. Aubrey could only imagine how Mama was coping with the disappearance of her own grandson.
She made her way through the reporters, trying to avoid eye contact with them. She hoped her mother had called Jonathan and asked him to stay at the house and protect her from this. In the last couple of years, Jonathan had become Mama’s main support system, not only helping her through the malpractice lawsuit and problems with her medical-practice partners, but also keeping her from falling apart when things went wrong. Like now.
“Excuse me.” A woman jumped in front of Aubrey and shoved a microphone in her face. “Are you a member of the family? Is there any news on Ethan? How is the family holding up?”
Aubrey pushed past the woman and hurried down the cracked coquina walkway toward the front door. These people didn’t care about Ethan. They just wanted a good story. She fumbled through her handbag for her house keys.
“Will the police activate an AMBER alert?” one of the reporters called out. “Have they confirmed Ethan has been abducted?”
Aubrey got her key into the lock, opened the door, then slammed it behind her. She dropped her coat and suitcase and leaned against the door. She stood there, wanting to be strong when she saw her family, and took in the familiar musty smell, like old, damp towels—the result of roof leaks that had dripped through the walls. A smell Mama had been trying unsuccessfully to erase all the years they’d lived here, but which was as much a part of the house as the creaky Dade-pine floors and coral-stone fireplaces.
But there were sounds that didn’t belong. Constant ringing, like phones in a telethon. And a droning noise, like from swarming bees.
“Are you Aubrey?”
She turned toward the stranger who had stepped into the foyer: a woman with too-thick eyebrows and jet-black hair, pulled back from a face that had been scarred by acne. She was probably in her early thirties, a few years older than Aubrey, and wore a gray, crumpled pantsuit. Her thumb was hooked on her waistband, over a gold badge.
“Yes. I’m Aubrey Lynd.”
“Detective Gonzalez with the MDPD Missing Persons Unit.” She had an accent Aubrey recognized from growing up in Miami—northeastern with a hint of Latino. “Your mother said you were coming.”
“Tell me about my nephew. Is there any news?”
“Nothing yet, but we’re doing everything we can.”
“Where is my mother? I need to see her.”
“In the other room, speaking with the FBI.”
“The FBI?” Aubrey wasn’t sure if she should be alarmed. “Are they involved?”
“Apparently your brother’s in-laws have quite a bit of clout,” the detective said. Aubrey picked up an edge of irritation in her voice. “The FBI deployed a CARD team to work with us.”
“Card?”
“Child Abduction Rapid Deployment.”
Aubrey’s heart bounced. “Has Ethan been abducted? The reporters were asking about an AMBER alert.”
The detective scratched a tattoo that stuck out from under her wristwatch. It could have been a nervous tic, not a good sign. “We don’t issue an AMBER alert without a known suspect or a vehicle,” she said. “We have neither. But we’ve put out a media alert. We’re being aggressive in trying to find Ethan quickly.”
They’re trying to find him quickly. Aubrey wanted to believe the detective’s confident words, not her faltering body language. He’s going to be fine.
She took a deep breath to settle herself and glanced around the small foyer.
The walls were plastered in thick swirls, as had been the style in the 1920s, but the pattern made her dizzy.