I&#39ll Be There (29 page)

He had two hundred-dollar bills that Julio Cortez had given him in his pocket, along with a chocolate bar, a bottle of water and a handful of aspirin. Sam paid eighty-two dollars and sixty cents
for a one-way ticket to Las Vegas.

The man behind the counter told him that from Vegas a bus left every ninety minutes headed to Mexico. Nine were scheduled a day to Tijuana. Eight had routes to Mexico City.

The bus didn’t leave for two more hours, so with the ticket in the pocket of Buzz’s old jean jacket, Sam took a seat in the waiting area next to an elderly lady in a tracksuit. She
told him that, because she was afraid to fly, she was travelling by bus to see her cousin in San Diego. It was going to take her two days.

Sam nodded and said he’d never been on an airplane. He didn’t add
as far as he could remember
he hadn’t. But who knew – maybe he was really a pilot. The old woman
took his statement to mean that he was also afraid to fly.

Having a young man as handsome and rugged as Sam tell her that he’d never flown in his life was a huge comfort to Irene Robichaux. The bus station had been remodeled many times over the
decades, but the inside still looked close to the way it did sixty years ago when Irene had dreamed of sitting on a bench with a young man like Sam.

And so, when he fell so deeply asleep that his head tilted over and he slid onto her shoulder, she didn’t mind. He smelled like pine trees and campfires and the outdoors.

Irene shut her eyes, and for a long moment felt exactly as if she were seventeen again. Only now she was out late with the most handsome boy in town.

Riley Holland had a lock on being crowned prom king.

At least he did, until the prom ticket price was discounted after Bobby Ellis was pushed down a flight of stairs at the Mountain Basin Inn by one of two men under surveillance who had serious
underworld crime connections.

Rumour also had it that the FBI was now involved, because Bobby had gotten a good look at the main guy. Now everyone knew the suspects were foreigners. That’s what Bobby had told Farley
Golden, but she was sworn to total secrecy.

Riley Holland was smart and funny, but more than that, he was a good guy. He was considerate – and not because he thought it was going to get him somewhere. It was just his nature.

So of course, when the tide turned and the general consensus went from voting for Riley Holland for prom king to voting for Bobby Ellis, Riley made it appear that he was a little
disappointed.

In fact, he was the one behind spreading the word that voting for Bobby was a way to acknowledge what he’d done. To Riley Holland, being prom king was embarrassing. It was like when a pack
of girls chanted your name in unison in a big chorus during a football game. Not cool.

But Bobby Ellis didn’t know that.

At Churchill High, the result of the prom voting was announced during the week prior to the event. Six years before, two girls who were vying for the coronation of queen got into a fistfight in
the bathroom, and after that the administration decided they needed to be there to monitor the election results. Since it was a junior and senior prom, both classes were eligible. But most years,
seniors won.

When the results of the balloting were announced during the assembly in the gym on Thursday before the Saturday night prom, Bobby Ellis went out to the podium to put on the goofy gold crown and
have his picture taken next to Summer Maclellan, who was the prom queen and the hottest girl at school. Bobby raised his good arm into the air and repeatedly pumped his fist.

Victory.

It really got the crowd going.

Sitting high up in the fold-out bleachers, trying to appear interested, was Emily. But she found the whole thing impossible to even watch. And so she turned her head slightly and looked
away.

And that’s when she had the surprise of seeing Bobby Ellis’s parents in the far corner of the gym. Bobby’s father had one of those mini-video cameras that fit in the palm of
your hand, and he was recording the event.

And next to him, Bobby Ellis’s mother was doing the fist pump.

Riddle took the pad of yellow legal paper that was on the table and a pen that was on one of the desks and began to draw. He had been craving using lines to escape for what
seemed like forever. And now he would not be distracted from drawing an exact replica of the inside of the dinosaur hunters’ tent by answering a bunch of loud questions.

I will never forget finding the tent.

We slept in tents before. Sometimes when we didn’t sleep in the truck. I will never sleep in the truck again.

Never.

And that is a very, very good thing.

I will never, ever live with that man again. I don’t know where he is, but if I tell them, they might try to find him. That’s why I tell them nothing about what happened.

Because now that is my choice.

And I will never see Sam again. But I will not tell them, because they did not even know him. So they do not miss him. I will never stop missing Sam.

I tell them what I want to tell them.

Because now that is my choice.

Riddle only stared at the table, refusing to talk to the piece of crumpled green felt with eyes that looked like fried eggs. He was at least eight years too old for a hand
puppet, and it wouldn’t have worked even back in the day when it had been age appropriate.

After two hours, Dr Pincus, the regional director of child services, reported to the sheriff. ‘After intensive evaluation, it is my determination that the minor has been through a
traumatic event.’

Lamar waited for more, but Dr Pincus was now signing some kind of form and appeared to be done with his evaluation.

Lamar shot him a look of total disgust and said, ‘You gotta be kidding me! It took you two hours to come up with that?’

Dr Pincus was in his car and back on the road ten minutes later, listening to his favourite call-in talk-radio programme.

Arrangements were made for Riddle to continue to sleep in the juvenile holding area of the law enforcement facility.

The three scientists were still on the hook and had been asked not to leave until Riddle was able to reveal more information. And since there wasn’t much else to do, they kept filming.

You had to attend school on Friday, or you weren’t allowed to go to the prom on Saturday. Emily woke up early and spent twenty minutes debating whether she could stay
home sick.

Because thinking about the prom did make her feel ill. But didn’t everything now make her uneasy?

And then, as she plotted a possible fever, another realisation hit her. She was given special treatment now. She could miss class, and Bobby Ellis and his parents would call the school.
They’d get permission for her to go to the dance the next day. She could see that all happening.

Hadn’t someone said once that love was attention? No more. No less. But there was attention. And there was obsession. And there was possession.

Sam had never considered possessions. There wasn’t a place in his life for ownership of any kind. It was so unlike everyone else she knew who defined themselves, at least in part, by their
things.

From her position in bed, Emily stared across the room at the heart that Sam had given her. It was mounted on the cream-coloured wall. The heart was made of so many pieces. But they fit together
in such a way that, from a distance, it looked like one piece of gnarled wood.

Emily shut her eyes and allowed herself for just a moment to hear Sam’s guitar, and she could suddenly see him that last night walking away into the dark. And he had Riddle at his
side.

She knew that if Riddle fell into the water, Sam would have gone to save him. She knew that. He would have done anything for his little brother.

How do you get over someone who changed the way you see the world? She had no idea. But she did know one thing: you don’t just randomly replace him with someone else.

After seventy-two hours and many, many, many inquiries from many different people, Riddle said that his mother was named Debbie Sweetcake Bell and that she worked in a
hospital.

But he didn’t know her phone number.

There were no hits on the internet for Debbie Sweetcake Bell, but when they went online and searched
Debbie Bell
and the word
hospital
, it was discovered that she was employed by
Sacred Heart Medical Services.

It was midmorning on Friday when Randall Monte, working the admitting desk in the ER, placed the caller on hold and went to find Debbie.

She was with a patient, but Debbie could tell by Randall’s face that the call was important. It wasn’t until they were in the corridor heading to a phone that Randall told her that
it was someone from the police department in Utah on the line.

Debbie felt her pulse double. And she was an expert in heart rate and adrenaline surges.

Were they calling her to say that they’d located bodies? She punched the line to take the call and with what she hoped was a steady voice said, ‘This is Debbie Bell . . .’

A voice on the other end of the line responded, ‘My name is Henry Wertheimer, and I’m calling from the Emery County sheriff’s department . . .’

Debbie wasn’t breathing. The man had stopped talking midsentence. Just say it. Bad news needs to flow quickly. Didn’t they give these people any trauma/crisis instruction? Finally
the man took a breath – or was it a swallow of a cup of coffee? – and continued, ‘. . . And we have a boy here who was found in the Manti-La Sal National Forest, and he says that
he’s your son . . .’

Debbie’s hand was trembling now. But she managed to say evenly, ‘He’s alive?’

The voice continued, ‘Yes, ma’am. He’s here, and he’s very much alive. And he wants you.’

Debbie felt her knees start to buckle. She reached out and steadied herself against the wall. She could hear the shuffling sound of the receiver changing hands and then Riddle’s voice,
very low, in what was a hoarse, wheezy whisper, said, ‘I tried to take care of Sam. I tried . . .’

And then Debbie could tell that he was crying.

And now she was crying. And she was talking and crying as she said, ‘Of course you did. I’m coming there, sweetheart. Right now. I’m coming to get you. Right now,
Riddle.’

She had a son. His name was Jared. But when the man on the phone had said they’d found a boy in the Manti-La Sal National Forest, and he’d said he was her son, she
knew that this was also now true.

And she also knew that somewhere, deep in her soul, she had never stopped believing she would see him again.

Debbie Bell’s first call was to her husband. Together they made a plan, and part of that was an agreement not to tell Emily the news until they had everything sorted out.
She was going to the prom with Bobby Ellis the next day. There was no reason to derail that. Finding Riddle was a miracle, but it would of course point out the obvious. Sam was gone.

Being the head nurse of an emergency room in a large hospital means that you understand rules and regulations. And that means you speak the language of bureaucracy.

Debbie’s second call was to Detective Sanderson. She knew that the state of Utah would not release Riddle into her custody without documentation. Sanderson couldn’t believe that the
authorities hadn’t identified the boy right away. But it was typical. They were looking for two kids. And one had turned up. He’d been with three adults. Those people were now the focus
of the investigation.

The detective reminded Debbie that they had found the inhaler she got for Riddle at the Liberty Motel. The inhaler was checked out in her name. This meant that she had dispensed medicine to him.
That fact was a good thing.

After Debbie arranged to have her shifts covered for the next three days, she paged Dr Howard, who signed out two more Proventil inhalers for Riddle. And then Debbie remembered something else
that could be used as evidence of prior association.

Debbie had filled out preliminary forms with the school district in an attempt to register Riddle and Sam. The forms were incomplete, but they had been recorded as received at the end of April.
Debbie could get a letter from the woman in the Board of Education office verifying this.

She and Tim would have to petition the juvenile court for legal guardianship, but she believed, given the circumstances, that they could be granted temporary custody.

And so Debbie made copies of their income taxes (to show their ability to care for Riddle). She took pictures that Riddle had drawn while at their house. She took her latest letter of
commendation from the hospital, and then she drove home, where Tim was now waiting.

As quickly as she could manage, she stuffed clothes into an overnight bag. She gathered together a thermos of just-brewed coffee, a turkey sandwich, a bag of oranges and a slice of banana cake
with buttercream frosting that she wrapped in plastic and placed into tupperware.

The cake was not for her.

Debbie Bell kissed her husband goodbye and told him that she loved him. She then drove away from the house as anxious as she ever remembered being.

She just hoped that, in the next eight-hour drive, she didn’t get a speeding ticket.

Detective Sanderson, prompted by Debbie Bell’s call, spent the rest of the morning on his computer. He was assembling the paperwork needed for her to take Riddle across
the state lines.

Without his help, the boy would be placed in foster care until social workers and the state of Utah could make a determination regarding his welfare.

But Detective Sanderson, who considered this to be a miracle, knew where the boy belonged.

The veteran driver Juan Ramos leaned into the popping microphone of the bus PA system and announced, ‘Las Vegas, Spanish for ‘the meadows’. Hard to believe,
but this place was once naturally a green spot. Enjoy, folks. And watch your step.’

Sam had been through this city many times with his father and Riddle, and now as he stood on the scorching-hot blacktop of the bus depot parking lot, it all seemed only vaguely familiar. He knew
he’d been here before.