Never Have I Ever(101)

I could hardly make sense of the words under the photos. It was a letter, a heartfelt plea. A mother’s plea. A mother, asking for her boy back. There was no man. No man pictured on the site at all, though there was a number to call with a 206 area code. This was Luca’s mother. No, this was Ezra’s mother, and her name was Faith Wheeler.

I shoved myself back from the desk.

“Who are you?” I asked Roux, so shocked that the words came out of me, aloud. “Who the fuck are you?”

Then I was scrambling for my phone, punching in the number on the screen with shaking hands.

It was answered on the second ring.

“Hello?” A woman’s voice, urgent. She sounded as if she’d been startled from sleep, though I knew that it was earlier in Seattle. “Hello?” she said again. When I couldn’t get my mouth to work, she said, “Ezra?” with such desperate hope in her voice that I unfroze. “Ezra, is it you?”

“No,” I said. My voice came out hoarse and graveled. “I’m Amy Whey.”

“But you called this number. Did you see him? Is he all right?” she said.

“Are you his mother?” I asked. Because I couldn’t get my head around it. Was this woman— Had she been with Roux? A couple? “I mean, are you his only mother?”

“Yes, I— Wait, what?” she said. Her voice became incredulous. “What do you mean, am I his only mother? Of course I am. Do you know where he is?”

I’d risen to my feet. I was walking toward the front door, my steps jerky, pulled almost, as if I were a puppet.

I said, “He’s with the woman on the website. The dangerous one. I thought she was his mother.”

I heard her breath come hissing out of her, as if she’d been struck hard, in the chest. I was at Char’s front door now, letting myself out into the night.

“No. No, she is not. Where is he?” she demanded, her voice so raw. “Where are you?”

“Pensacola, Florida,” I said.

I closed Char’s door softly behind me. I hoped she wouldn’t wake up now. I had to get to Roux’s. I had to make sure the red car was still in the driveway. I had to know that she hadn’t, with her horrifying prescience, sensed something in my text. That she had not already taken him and fled.

On the other end of the line, the woman burst into noisy tears. She tried to talk around her huge, barking sobs, but I could barely understand her. “Is he still there? Is he all right? Is he still with Rose?”

“Yes,” I said, not sure which question I was answering. Maybe all of them, assuming Roux’s name back in Seattle had been Rose.

I was running now, past the Fenton house, and the red car in Roux’s driveway came into sight. I stopped, unsure what to do now. She’d stolen him. Roux had stolen this woman’s child.

“God, that bitch, that bitch. She’s dangerous. Be careful.”

“Should I call the police?” I asked.

The Sprite House was entirely dark, no light shining out from behind the ugly gray blanket tacked up over the picture window.

“No! Let me. This is a dedicated cell line, just for Ezra. I’ll call the police from my real phone,” Faith Wheeler said. Her sobs had abated, a little, but her urgent words were running all over one another. “There’s a detective on the case. Morris. He’s good. He never gave up. He can call the locals from here, so they know to be careful. So they know my child is in the house with her. Morris told me to call him, not 911, if I got a tip. I just want Ezra safe. She’s dangerous. I don’t want Ezra hurt. Where are they?”

Even as I told her the address, I was hurrying on quick and quiet feet up the driveway, past the dark house. Understanding but not understanding. God, I didn’t want to understand, but my feet kept moving, taking me back to the tall privacy fence. My fingers lifted the latch.

“They’re home,” I whispered. “The car is here.”

She didn’t answer, and a few seconds later I could hear her voice talking to someone else. She must be on the other phone with her detective.

I made my way around to the master-bedroom window. I knew which one it was. No window treatments. No light was on, but the window glowed faintly all the same.

I pushed a quiet path through the high azaleas shielding it. Peered in.

Roux was there. Luca, too. He faced her in profile, wearing only pajama bottoms, his pale, bare chest gleaming in the light from a small spray of candles. She had on even less. Only a bra. She had her hands on his shoulders, and his hands were on her bare hips. She pushed him, down and down, until he was kneeling before her. Then she lifted one leg to wrap over his shoulder, her hand on the back of his head, pressing him in, close.

I turned away so fast the bushes rattled, and then I dropped to my knees. I had seen it, though. I could not unsee it. Now Roux’s old words were rattling in my head. Boys are sweet, she’d said when I accused her of hating men. I remembered her hands on Oliver, compressing his chest and his hips when he’d woken at her house, crying. He had quieted at her touch, but I could hardly bear the thought of her hands on my tiny boy. I’m a baby whisperer, she’d said, and the memories nauseated me. I hadn’t understood her. I hadn’t understood her game at all.

“Are you there?” Faith Wheeler said. Too loud.

“Shhh,” I said, my voice a sick, faint whisper. “They’re awake. Inside. I see them.”