The Last Thing She Ever Did(40)

Liz had. She tried to step away, but Katrina latched onto her arm.

“You must be devastated,” the reporter said. “I’ve heard you’re close with the Franklins.”

“Yes,” Liz said, “we are.”

“Great. Can we do a quick interview?” She looked in the direction of her cameraman. “We need to get the word out. Every single second counts.” Katrina didn’t wait for an answer. “Rex, are you getting this?”

The cameraman, his head down and eye in the viewfinder, gave a quick nod.

“I really don’t want to do this,” Liz said, trying to extricate herself from the reporter.

“But you have to,” she said. “We have to find Charlie. I need to know what you know. Everyone in Oregon is looking for this little boy. You can help.”

“I wasn’t home when he went missing,” she said. “I was taking the exam for the bar in Beaverton.”

“My uncle’s a lawyer,” Katrina said, as though they now had a connection. “How are the Franklins doing?”

“You need to talk to them,” Liz said.

Katrina motioned for Rex to get closer. “Oh, we will,” she said. “They’re talking to us in a few. You’re background. What can you tell us about Charlie?”

Liz’s eyes started to get wet. She could feel her hands shake, and she put them behind her back and looked into the lens. “A beautiful boy,” she said. “That’s all I can say.”

Just then Owen appeared from behind his wife and hooked his arm around her.

“She’s in shock,” he said. “Not now. This is a terrible time for everyone.”

Without another word, Owen pulled Liz into the house and shut the door.

Katrina turned to Rex. “I bet GMA is already working with them. God, we’re always so late. I blame you for that, Rex. You are so slow.”



The FedEx quick print shop was on the same block as Sweetwater. When Carole and Liz passed by the restaurant that morning, neither said a word about stopping inside. There didn’t seem any reason for it. Everything had been an ordeal that day. Reporters at the house wanted a story, but there was nothing more to be said. Charlie was gone. No one knew where. At FedEx, Carole started to break down when she told a young man with a shaved head and a half dozen visible piercings why they were there.

“I need to make some posters,” she said.

“Color or black-and-white?”

“Color,” she said.

“Do you have your graphics done?” he asked. “We can help with that if you don’t. Totally reasonable.”

Carole stood mute for a second.

“We could use some help,” Liz said, taking Charlie’s photo from Carole’s trembling fingers.

The employee nodded. All of Bend knew about Charlie Franklin by then.

They followed him to a computer terminal at the back of the store. Liz did most of the talking while the young man scanned Charlie’s photo and typed in the information.

“Maybe we should make the word missing in all caps,” he said. “Like this. And red. I think red would make it more prominent.”

Carole looked at the screen. “Yes, red. Thank you.”

A half hour later, they were out the door with five hundred flyers that would soon be posted all over town.

“We should have offered a reward,” Carole said.

“People will help,” Liz said. “They will. You don’t need a reward.”

They dropped a stack off at the police department, the school district offices, the High Desert Art League. They hung them in the windows of shops all over town. The two women ate and drank nothing. They just kept handing out posters and telling the same story over and over.

“He just vanished. He’s my son. Someone out there must have seen something. Please help me find my boy. He’s scared. I know he is. Tell everyone you know about Charlie. Someone has to have seen him.”

No one looked at Carole or Liz without sadness in their eyes. None who saw them that day would have traded places with either of them for all the money in the world. There could be nothing worse than losing a child.

Maybe one thing, Liz thought, then chastised herself. Who was being self-absorbed now? Carole’s torment had to dwarf hers.

When all the posters were gone, they sat on a bench at Drake Park, looking at the other moms as they paraded their children back and forth on the pathway that fronted Mirror Pond. Liz had said that they should just go home, but Carole was adamant that she wanted to be in a place that Charlie loved so much.

“Maybe whoever took him will take him here. Maybe Charlie’ll convince his kidnapper to bring him here.”

Liz didn’t know how to respond. In her grief and shame, she’d veered toward the improbable on numerous occasions.

Carole sprang to her feet when she glimpsed a blond-headed boy from behind. He was the right height and build.

“Charlie?” she asked, running over to the child, who was holding a young woman’s hand as they walked toward a massive redwood tree.

“Charlie!” she cried out, bending down and dragging the child into her arms.

“Hey! What are you doing?” the woman said. “Don’t touch my daughter!”

Carole froze, then leaped back from the child.