Unbelievable

Three days.

It had been three days since Margaret Shaw’s son had gone missing. He had vanished from his bus stop. Every day he was dropped off in the same place, every day he walked home. There was a group of five kids that left from the same location. It was perfectly safe. It was supposed to be. Everyone remembered him getting off the bus, but that was it.

Now she wondered if their new town was as safe as she had thought. Was he getting along with everyone? He was a shy kid, who would want to hurt him? He never did anything to anyone.

No, she couldn’t let her mind wander in that direction. He was fine. He was probably with a friend. Maybe he was trying to act like a teenager. He was fine. Yes, he was fine.

But he was only fourteen and he was small for his age.

Her attorney kept calling and she kept hitting ignore, there was no doubt he was calling to say this wasn’t looking good for her. If he turned up, she would most likely lose custody of him. And if he didn’t turn up…

She needed to keep her phone line open in case Tom called or one of the officers tried to get in touch with her.

She was wandering through the park near his bus stop-again- hoping to find something she had missed. Three days. That was a while for a fourteen year old to be away from home.

Her phone lit up. Officer Brandon Deckland’s name flashed across the screen. Her stomach sank. Had they found something?

“Hello?”

“Morning Margaret. I’m going to get to the point. There’s some damage at your ex husband’s store. I just got a call from an officer on scene. If you’re not home, I think you should be.”

“I’m looking for Tom. I can’t j-”

“I understand, I’m saying go look for him at home. My gut is telling me you’ll have better luck there.”

She didn’t believe him but followed his directions. She cast her eyes around the park one last time before turning around and heading back to her SUV.

***

“The glass is shattered,” Mika muttered, standing after inspecting the pieces of glass on the ground. He had been hoping to see some clue as to what, or who, had happened. There were no fibers, bits of blood, or hair that he could see with a quick scan.

“Thanks for pointing that out sherlock. Couldn’t see that before you got here.” The shop owner grumbled, his hands in his pockets as he gazed at the store front. It was early morning, he was just getting ready to open when he realized the window on the side was open and his trash can was tipped over.

“But the smaller pieces are on the outside.”

“Your point?”

Mika assessed the man’s face, he knew him from around town. It was a small town, even though he was relatively new to the area, only living there seven years, he had run in with almost everybody. Hanson Long was known as the town grump; he conveniently owned one of the oldest general stores in the state and just so happened to Millburrow. It had been in the same brick building since 1892 and in the Long family since the 1920s. Not much had changed but the prices in that time period.

He had been in the process of going through a divorce a few years ago , rumors had flooded the streets about it. Mika listened, there was usually a dash of truth in every made up story he heard. He just had to find it.

It had been a nasty divorce, he wouldn’t expect anything else from Hanson Long. His ex wife had called the police a few times to check her house because she thought Hanson was trespassing, she had sounded so terrified. Mika could still remember the sound of her voice over the phone, whining, “I know he’s here!”

They never did find him on the property, but Mika had no doubt that he had been there.

Mika took it as a bad sign that he was thinking of this now while Hanson stared at him with his bright red cheeks and wide green eyes.

“Should I open up? What are you going to do about this?”

Over the years he had learned to keep his patience. Either way, Hanson would be upset.

“I don’t think you should open today. Did you notice anything missing?”

“Haven’t been in yet.”

Mika nodded. “Why don’t we take a look?”

He had already asked Officer Brandon Deckland to come to the scene, to take a look around the grounds. He was now intent on following Hanson around, taking in the store before anyone else entered and before Hanson could change anything.

Hanson handed Mika the key and the officer pushed it into the door, the mechanism making a loud clicking noise as he did so. They walked in and Hanson hit the light. To Mika’s surprise, he didn’t disarm the alarm system. It hadn’t been set. From previous run-ins with Hanson, Mika knew the alarm was always set. He didn’t trust anyone.

The store was clean, as it usually was when he walked inside. He followed Hanson as the owner walked from shelf to shelf, but his own attention went elsewhere. The window was broken, but so far that was the only damage he could find. Large chunks of glass sat on the floor, but the ones on the window sill and shelf just below had been crushed. He tried not to draw attention to it but he was curious. Pieces had almost been crushed to dust…as though they had been stepped on…

And even more odd, the glass had definitely been broken from the inside. Had someone been left in the store?

Hanson didn’t seem like the type of person that would leave someone in the store, not by accident at least.

“No merchandise is missing.”

Mika wasn’t surprised by Hanson’s statement. There was something off about all of this. The window wasn’t easily accessible from the ground, but the shelf provided a convenient step to get out. It wouldn’t be sturdy enough to hold the weight of someone the size of Mika or Hanson. It would have had to have been someone smaller, someone light.

Officer Brandon Deckland walked into the store after his investigation of the area outside. He locked eyes with Mika and clapped Hanson on the shoulder.

“Sorry about your son. We’re doing everything we can to find him.”

“His mother doesn’t watch him. They never should have given her primary custody. I shouldn’t be seeing my son every other weekend. He’s my son.”

Mika’s eyes ticked to the window and the shelf below as he cursed himself for not thinking of it sooner. Tom had been missing for three days. Hanson had never been questioned…it wasn’t an oversight on his part. Hanson, despite his grumpy demeanor, had many friends in high places. It was known that he had tried collecting Brandon as a pawn like the others, but he wasn’t easily played.

“Right, it’s a shame what the court systems do these days,” Brandon responded, rolling his eyes once Hanson had turned his back.

“What’s beyond that door over there?” Mika asked, nodding towards a door directly across from the window that was broken.

“Goes to the basement. Doors wonky.”

“What do you keep down there?”

“Nothing usually. It’s an old building and the basement is connected to the tunnel system under the town.”

“That’s true?” Brandon asked, even though he knew it in fact was. He had investigated a few assaults down there, but Hanson didn’t need to know that. He just needed to be distracted. Mika made his way towards the basement door.

“Of course it is,” Hanson responded. “There’s tunnels that cover the entire historic district. The only building that doesn’t have it is the tool store. They collapsed over there, thankfully it was the end of the tunnel anyways.”

Mika pulled the door open, the sound echoing through the building.

Hanson’s face turned bright red as he turned and pointed a beefy finger at the young officer. “I told you the door is wonky! I’m not going to get it to close now.”

Mika tested the door, opening it and closing it until the handle fell apart in his hand. One end bounced down the stairs to the basement below, the metal pinging off the stone steps all the way down. He opened the door to its full extent to get a better look at the backside of the door. There were gouge marks in the wood near where the handle had been and footprints along the wood. At one point, a small sneaker had almost gone through it. None of the damage was visible from the other side.

Someone had been in the basement, someone with a relatively small foot. His instincts told him it was the same person that used the shelf as a stool to get out of the building. Someone small and light. A woman…

Or a child.

Mika nodded at Brandon before heading down the stairs, his flashlight slowly roving the stairs and ground below.

The floor, as he suspected, was dirt. There were scrape marks across it and rope stretched from the wall to a few feet in front of the stairs. The end was frayed, a piece of a broken dish beside it. His light illuminated a small pile of plates, the one on top shattered with food fragments congealed.

Someone had been tied up in the basement.

Mika’s stomach sank briefly. It was hard to believe that someone in his town could hold someone hostage, could tie someone up in their basement. Their own child most likely, if his instincts were correct.

But they had escaped. How often did that happen?

He started up the stairs, pulling his handcuffs out as he went. This wasn’t going to be easy, but he wanted it over as quickly as possible.

“This wasn’t a break in. This was a break out.”

“No! You’ve got it wrong!”

“Hanson, put your hands behind your back. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney, if you can’t afford one, one will be appointed to you.”

“This is absurd!”

Brandon placed a hand on his shoulder to stop him from moving towards Mika. Spittle pooled at the corner of his mouth, reminding Mika of a rabid dog he had encountered as a child. Mika snapped the cuffs onto the man’s wrists as he thought of his father getting rid of the rabid dog. The irony of his father protecting him while this man put his son in danger wasn’t lost on him.

Together the officers pushed Hanson into the backseat of Brandon’s cruiser. Locals watched the scene from their windows, some closing the curtains while spotted, others stepped outside in full view of the officers and Hanson.

Brandon’s phone rang as he was closing the door. Quickly, he pulled it from his pocket hoping it was the phone call he had been waiting on.

“Officer Deckland.”

“He’s home!”

Brandon smiled. “Repeat that Margaret? You’re on speaker phone now.”

“He’s home!”

Mika shook his head in amazement as he leaned against the cruiser. He wondered if Hanson could hear the conversation. By the rocking of the vehicle, he assumed he could.

“Is he okay?”

“A few cuts, but other than that he’s fine.”

“Wonderful news! We have his father in custody.”

“What do we do now?”

Brandon took her off speaker and walked a few feet away. “That’s up to you. Do you want an officer sent to you for the statement or does Tom want to come down to the station? There’s a chance he may have to see his father again. After this ordeal, I’m not sure what he’s comfortable doing.”

“He said he would be comfortable going to the station. We will meet you there.”

Brandon smiled at the outcome of the day. He feared the trauma Tom may face as he grew older, but was happy the boy was reunited with his mother. There was no doubt that Hanson would lose his custody. It was already tentative following his behavior during the divorce.

“So?” Mika asked.

“We’re meeting them at the station. Tom is willing to answer questions.”

“This is unbelievable.”

“Unbelievable things tend to happen in Millburrow. You’ll get used to it eventually.”

Mika highly doubted that. He followed Brandon back to the station where he would meet Tom and Margaret Shaw, officially. But on the way, he would make a call to his father.