The hospital was in complete anarchy. Police everywhere. A mother weeping uncontrollably. Nurses frightened. Doctors frightened. Hell, everyone looked frightened. A very grave Sherbet had shut the break room door behind him and sat across from me.
Detective Sherbet and I had become close over these past few months. Not so close that I had disclosed to him my super-secret identity, but pretty damn close. Sherbet, no idiot, was aware that some really freaky shit was going down in his city. He knew I was connected to it, and in fact, might be the freakiest of them all. To his credit, he had yet to confront me about who - or what - I might know. Rather, he'd been approaching this from the outside, nibbling away at the edges. Perhaps his approach was a good one: absorbing small details at a time.
Sherbet was a big man, but not as big as Kingsley or my new detective friend out of Huntington Beach. If anything, he looked like a panda bear: salt-and-pepper hair, way too round around the middle, serious yet playful. And, if necessary, tough as hell.
"We have a child missing," he said simply. We were sitting at a round and heavily scarred table. His belly, I noted, actually rested on the edge of the table.
My own stomach sank. "What do you mean?"
"A patient, a child, was kidnapped not too long ago by an unknown male."
My heart froze. "When?"
"Just over thirty minutes ago. Kidnapped here, from the hospital."
"Oh my God."
"The hospital is on lockdown. No one in or out. Absolute insanity." As he spoke, Sherbet was watching me closely. The muscles along his hairy forearms moved just under his thin skin, as he clenched and unclenched his fists. "The city of Orange isn't my beat, but the guys here are good friends of mine. When a child goes missing all available hands come running. When I first heard the report, I thought of your son here."
"But he's okay." I knew this because I had already checked on him.
He nodded. "Sam, the boy was kidnapped from your son's old room."
"I don't understand."
"Your son, from what I understand, was recently moved from ICU to immediate care." I wasn't following but he continued on. "Another boy took your son's room. Within thirty minutes, he was gone."
"Oh, my God."
Through the closed doors, I could hear someone barking an order. A child was crying somewhere. In fact, many children were crying.
Sweet Jesus. What was going on?
Sherbet went on, "The parents were down in the cafeteria getting some coffee and preparing for another all-nighter when they got the news."
"Were there any witnesses?" My voice sounded hollow and distant.
"Oh, yeah. A man comes in claiming to be an uncle. Charming, smooth as hell, apparently. Says everything right. Front desk lets the bastard right in. Same with the nurses up here. Against protocol left and right. Heads will roll. Yet these same people don't remember letting the guy in. I don't understand any of it."
"They don't remember letting him, but they let him in?"
"Something like that."
"As in no memory of doing it?"
"Right." Sherbet frowned at me. The muscles of his forearm continued to undulate.
"What happened next?"
"You'll never believe it."
"Try me," I said.
"Better I show you."
He led me out of the break room and over to the room I was so familiar with, the same room my son had occupied for the past few days. Except now there was something vastly different about the room.
The entire window was missing.
Chapter Thirty-three
Sherbet said, "A minute or two after stepping into the room, the nurses heard what sounded like an explosion. When they rushed in to investigate, the boy was gone and the window was broken."
I was speechless. Beyond speechless. I couldn't formulate words. All I wanted to do was run to my son again and check on him, to hold him close and protect him forever.
What the hell was happening?
"For the love of God, Sam, what's going on?"
"I don't know, Detective, I swear - " I stopped when a disturbing image came to mind. "What did the man look like?"
"Tall. Caucasian. Dressed in slacks and a blazer. A blue blazer - Sam, what's wrong?"
"Just go on," I said. I had braced myself against the wall. Although I had little use for my lungs, they suddenly felt constricted, as if an anaconda had curled around my chest and was squeezing, squeezing. "Was he wearing anything else?"
Detective Sherbet was watching me closely.
"A bow tie," he said.
"Oh, shit."
"What do you know, Sam? Dammit, what the hell's going on here?"
"He was following me today."
"Who was following you today?"
"The man with the bow tie."
Sherbet blinked. "If he was following you, then why in the devil would he kidnap the boy?"
"The man was after Anthony, I think."
"Sweet Jesus, Sam."
"And got the wrong boy. He was just a few minutes too late."
"Why would he want your son?"
"He's trying to get to me."
"Who's trying to get to you?"
"I don't know."
"Who is he?"
"I don't know."
"Why does he want you?"
That I did know. Or, at least, I suspected I knew. "I have something he wants."
"Who is he, Sam? And dammit, don't tell me you don't know. You know something. I can feel it. You're holding back and now is not the time to hold back. There's a sick little boy out there who needs immediate medical attention, who's terrified and possibly hurt."
Sherbet had a son of his own, about the same age as Anthony, in fact. I thought about how Sherbet had been such a good friend to me. I also thought about how he was so close to the truth. To my secret. I looked into his eyes now. His desperate and wild eyes. I thought about the little missing boy - a missing boy that was supposed to have been Anthony. My heart broke for him and his family, and I realized that my secret could be a secret no more. At least not with Detective Sherbet.
"Can we talk somewhere more private?"
"No, Sam. We talk here."
"Please, Detective."
He didn't like it. "Fine," he said. "We'll talk in my squad car."
Chapter Thirty-four
His squad car was an unmarked Ford Crown Victoria, and he was parked in a handicapped spot directly in front of the hospital. The car was immaculate, as I suspected it would be. Not even a wadded-up bag of donuts, which I half expected to find.