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teachers clustered together speaking in low voices. The principal conferred with Detective Mathis. Officers were re-entering the school, reporting to another detective in the foyer. The detective came to the door and hailed Detective Mathis. The two men spoke quietly, intensely, together.
    Caitlin clutched Noah’s hand and prayed, though her lips were dry and no sound issued forth.
    After a few minutes, Noah pried her hand loose from his, stood up and began to pace, running his hands through his hair. Finally, he could stand it no longer. He interrupted the two men who were talking. ‘What’s going on? What are you doing?’
    Detective Mathis turned back to Noah, and the rest of them. ‘All right, look,’ he said. ‘I’m going to leave a number of my men here to question students, teachers and the staff. Geordie may have told someone where he was headed, or asked someone to make a call for him. There are still many possibilities. Meanwhile the rest of us are going down to the station. You need to tell us everything you can think of. Everywhere that Geordie might have gone. And, just to be thorough, we have issued an Amber Alert.’
    Noah groaned.
    Caitlin wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. ‘What’s that?’ she demanded.
    ‘It’s a nationwide alert that is put out for a missing child,’ said Detective Mathis. ‘Missing children are treated differently than missing persons, or even missing teens. There’s no waiting period. The search begins immediately.’
    Noah stared at him. ‘You think someone took him?’
    Caitlin let out a cry.
    ‘We don’t know that,’ said Detective Mathis. ‘He could have left on his own. That does happen. Kids get an idea and off they go. Or he could be hiding somewhere right here in the school. It could be any number of things. But we have to . . . assume the worst. Hope for the best. But assume the worst.’
    ‘That someone took him?’ said Noah, his voice shaking.
    Detective Mathis looked back at him, and there was a glimmer of sympathy in his businesslike expression. ‘We have to go on that assumption. Yes.’

FOUR
    T he atmosphere in the police station was electric. Every available officer had been called in. The desk sergeant was assigning tasks, and officers were leaving in pairs, armed with the flyer of Geordie’s picture. For a moment, all activity stopped as Caitlin and Noah, shocked and shivering, followed Detective Mathis into the room.
    Paula and Westy were already there. Paula let out a cry and ran to Noah, who embraced her briefly. ‘I was working from home today. When you called, when Westy told me what you said . . .’
    ‘We came right away,’ Westy said, tears standing in his eyes.
    ‘Thanks,’ said Noah.
    ‘That little boy is everything to us,’ Paula cried. ‘We love him so much. He’s all we have left of Emily.’
    Westy lowered his head and put his arm around his wife to comfort her. Caitlin could see that his lips were trembling. Just then the door to the station house opened and Naomi walked in, accompanied by a police officer.
    ‘Noah,’ Naomi called out, waving. She spoke to the officer, who nodded. Naomi came over to where they stood. ‘Noah, what is going on? The police showed up at work and said I needed to come in. They wouldn’t tell me a thing.’
    ‘Geordie has disappeared,’ said Noah.
    Naomi clapped a hand over her heart. ‘Oh my God! Disappeared? But he was at school.’
    ‘No one has seen him since . . . Caitlin took him to school.’
    ‘How can that be?’ Naomi cried.
    ‘And you are . . .?’ Detective Mathis asked.
    ‘This is my sister, Naomi Pelletier,’ said Noah.
    ‘Thanks for coming in,’ said the detective.
    ‘No problem. But what do you want from me?’
    ‘Mrs Pelletier, we need to ask you a few questions,’ said Detective Mathis. ‘Mrs Eckhart said that she saw you at school this morning.’
    Naomi’s eyes widened. ‘Yeah, I was at school. Of course I was at school. I went to see my