The Perfect Son by Freida McFadden(27)



When was I searching for that address? Who lives there?

On a whim, I click on it. The British-accented voice of my GPS instructs me to drive straight and then make a right at the next light. I follow the directions, making a right at the light, followed by a left, and another right onto Green Street. I drive down the street, watching the numbers on the right side, which are the odd numbered houses. I’m looking out for number 41.

It’s not hard to find. It’s the house that has all the police officers and reporters in front. This house is clearly of interest today.

I don’t even need to check the mailbox, but I look anyway, just to torture myself. The black letters written on the gray box are like a punch in the gut:

MERCER

I turn the corner and pull over onto an empty street. I sit in my parked car for fifteen minutes, my hands shaking too badly to drive. Liam went out last night. He obviously took my car. And he drove here. To the home of the girl who is now missing. Possibly dead.

I reach into my purse and pull out my phone, but my hands are shaking so much that I nearly drop it. I barely manage to press the button for Jason’s phone number. Thank God, he picks up. Jason gets very involved with his work, and we have an agreement that I’ll only bother him for level two or worse emergencies. I think this counts.

“Erika?”

“Hey.” My voice cracks and I clear my throat. “Jason, we need to talk.”

“Jesus, what’s wrong? Are you okay?”

“There’s a girl from the high school that’s missing.” I suppress a sob. “She wasn’t in her bed this morning when her parents came into the room. And Liam… I think when he went out last night, he took my car and went to see her. Her address is in the car GPS. And now she’s missing. She’s gone, Jason. Vanished!”

“Wait…” Jason is quiet for a moment. “You’re saying he took the car out himself—without me?” His voice rises a notch. “That’s not okay! He only has a learner’s permit.”

“That is what you’re getting out of this? Jason, do you understand what I’m saying?”

“I… I guess not…?”

I take a deep breath. “This girl is missing. Somebody took her, and Liam might be the last person to see her alive.”

“So he should call the police and tell them what he knows so they can find out who did this.”

My hands are still shaking, but now it’s with anger. How could Jason be this dense? Maybe he’s not around much, but he knows the stories about Liam as well as I do. And no, he doesn’t believe there’s anything wrong with our son. But he has to realize how this looks.

“Wait.” Jason’s voice breaks into my thoughts. “Are you saying you think Liam has something to do with her disappearance?”

“Yes, that’s obviously what I’m saying!”

“Jesus Christ, Erika. Are you serious? You really think Liam would…?”

“You know what I think.”

“He wouldn’t. This is our kid we’re talking about.”

“Right.”

I hear shuffling on the other line. “Do you want me to come home?”

I let out a sigh. “No. There’s nothing for you to do. Not yet, anyway.”

“Liam did not do this,” Jason says with more conviction than I feel. “She probably just ran away and will turn up in a day or two.”

God, I hope he’s right. Because the alternative is too horrible to imagine.





Chapter 24


Erika



When I get home, there’s a white Lincoln Continental in our driveway. I recognize it immediately as my mother’s car. She’s the last person I feel like talking to right now, but it looks like she’s already used her key to get inside and is likely brewing herself a nice hot cup of coffee.

Even though my mother lives all the way in New Jersey, she’s currently retired and single, so she doesn’t think much of driving out to see us on a whim, without checking if it’s okay. Amazingly, Jason doesn’t seem bothered by it. His own mother died from breast cancer when he was in college, and his father passed away only a year later from a heart attack. (“He died of a broken heart,” Jason told me.) So he likes having the kids’ only grandparent around. I like having her here, but I wish she’d call.

Still, I have nowhere else to go. So it looks like I have to deal with whatever she wants.

As soon as I enter the house, I hear her clanging around in the kitchen. My mother loves the kitchen. She’s always buying us some new gadget to use in there. The last thing she got me was an instant pot last month. She spent twenty minutes raving about all the great stuff she could cook with it. Since then, it’s been collecting dust in the corner of my kitchen. I know that thing makes great soup, but I don’t like soup.

“Erika!” Sure enough, my mother is fiddling with our coffee machine. She’s the one who bought it for us, along with a year’s supply of coffee pods. Her gray hair is gathered into a bun, and she has her tortoiseshell glasses perched on her nose. “I’ve been waiting for you for half an hour! Is everything okay?”

I don’t even know how to begin to answer that question. My mother and I are close—she’s the first person I told when Jason popped the question—but I never shared my fears about Liam with her. What can I say? He was her first grandchild—her only grandson. I couldn’t bring myself to tell her he was anything less than the perfect little angel she believed him to be. Liam is always oozing with charm around my mother. She can’t see through him the way I do.

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