Page 61 of Cut Off
I don’t even consciously decide. My feet are already moving.
“Ms. Lark?” I fight to keep my voice cheerful and not reflect what’s happening to my heart. “Where is Eli Anders?”
Jonah’s already at my elbow.
The panic starts in her eyes—a flicker—and travels down to her mouth, where it erases her polite smile. The clipboard tilts. She glances at it as if hoping it will lie to her. It does not. “Eli was picked up early.”
Jonah goes still next to me. Not normal still. Not even hockey-still, that controlled coiled thing he does at the blue line. This is the kind before an explosion.
“By who?” he grits.
Ms. Lark looks at her clipboard again. “His grandmother. Gwen Anders.”
No one says anything. The flagpole rope tings against its pole. A car horn honks somewhere. I’m aware of my own hands clenching at my sides.
“How,” I say, and I’m proud of how level it comes out, “did Gwen Anders get on the pickup list?”
Ms. Lark’s face flicker’s becomes a full storm system. “She—she came in this morning with documentation. The principal approved it. She said she was on the family contact form, and—” She stops, visibly adding things up in her own head and finding a sum she does not like. Her hand drifts toward her mouth. “Oh, no.”
Jonah doesn’t shout. He doesn’t grab her clipboard. He doesn’t do any of the things a person who looks like Jonah Holt could plausibly do. He takes one step closer, removes his cap, and his voice, when he speaks, is the lowest I’ve ever heard it.
“Ms. Lark.” His jaw twitches. “I need Gwen Anders removed from every list. Every form. Every document in this building. Today. She’s not on any approved list. She’s never been. I want it in writing.”
“Yes,” Ms. Lark croaks. “Yes, I’ll—I’ll go to the principal’s office, Mr. Holt.”
“Now.” The quiet way he says it is worse than yelling.
She’s already moving, the clipboard pressed to her chest like a shield. Jonah doesn’t watch her go. He’s pulling his phone out of his pocket. The cap is dangling from two fingers.
After calling the police, we’re running back toward the SUV.
When we’re off down the road, I’m dialing Eli, which goes straight to voicemail, while Jonah’s dialing Gwen through the car’s speakers.
It rings. And rings. I watch his jaw. It rings.
An automated voicemail answers.
He hangs up. His hands shake on the wheel, which I pretend not to notice.
He calls again. I call again. Same thing.
“Jonah,” I say.
He looks at me with the expression of a man whose worst nightmare has just unleashed itself.
“Give me your phone,” I say. “I’m calling Lily Hernandez.”
He does, and I scroll to Ms. Hernandez’s contact and tap call. She picks up on the second ring, brisk and warm, and I cut her off mid-greeting.
“Lily, it’s Zoe. I’m with Jonah. We’re at Dickens Elementary. Eli’s gone. Gwen Anders picked him up from school saying she had authorization. We can’t reach Gwen or Eli. Jonah’s driving to her house.”
Jonah opens his mouth, and his voice, which he’s been holding for the last five minutes, finally cracks when he says, “Gwen.” Then he stops, jaw locked, and says, low and steady, “She took him. The hearing’s in nine days, and she has my kid.”
“I’ll make some calls right now,” is all she says before she disconnects.
Jonah stares down the road, twenty feet of asphalt. I put my hand on his arm, just above the elbow, and I don’t say anything because there’s nothing to say.
His chest rises. Falls. Rises.
