Page 75 of Breathing Under Water

I spent the night pacing the house, looking out from different windows, checking every vantage point, and begging God to send Leo home. At one point, I did fall asleep in a kitchen chair after Phil covered me with a plaid throw blanket, but I woke with a start just a few minutes later and went back to Leo’s room. I keep searching his stuff, digging for any clue among his airplane manuals and rock collection.

“We had a hit with video surveillance,” Finch says, looking from me to Phil, who’s hurrying out from the kitchen.

“He was at the Port Jefferson bus station early this morning.”

“Port Jeff?” Phil says as Harrison and Yvonne emerge from the kitchen too. Phil reaches into his pocket, and I know he’s grabbing for his car keys. Meeting my eyes, he says, “Let’s go get him.”

Finch holds up a hand. “Sir, there’s more.” He looks down at the tablet in his hand, scrolling over the screen. “There was another hit afterward, at Penn Station.”

My hand flies to my chest. Leo can’t be at Penn Station by himself. It’s a zoo! The crowds, the dirt, the noise. A disaster waiting to happen. How long has he been there? I can’t even think about all the different ways he could be at risk. “He’s going to hate that! All those people rushing past, the screeching ofthe trains.” I’m so frantic I can barely tell up from down. I spot my flip-flops in a basket near the door and dash toward them.

“Ma’am, hold up,” Finch says. “After Penn Station, he was spotted at the Port Authority.”

I don’t understand any of this. Leo never goes anywhere so far away on his own, and I can’t understand why he’d even want to.

“Port Authority?” Phil demands, looking at me. “Where is he trying to go?”

“Call the Port Authority police!” I shriek, looking toward Finch. “He can’t be there by himself. Someone has to get to him.”

“Ma’am,” Finch says. He’s infuriatingly calm, no urgency to his tone at all. “This footage is from several hours ago.” He shakes his head and starts scrolling through something on his tablet. “Yup,” he says. “Subject seen at Port Authority at nine a.m.”

“Don’t call him the ‘subject’!” I’m totally losing it.

Finch ignores my outburst. “He was spotted on the upper level, near a vending machine.”

“But it’s nearly two! What has he been doing since nine a.m.?”

“I’m sorry, ma’am,” Finch says. “That’s the last image we have. Sometimes the crowd can create blind spots for the cameras, and it was rush hour. It’s possible he got on a train or a bus or walked out of the station. We’re going to dispatch more units to the Port Authority, have them check areas where the subject—where your son—might have moved, places that might not be covered by the cameras. The bathrooms, stairwells, nearby gates.”

Oh, Leo. I can just see him, huddled in a bathroom stall, overwhelmed by the environment, hiding from everything. Hisnoise-canceling headphones won’t be enough to drown out the chaos of the situation. I imagine he’s holding one of his little airplanes, running his fingers over the wheels, not soothed at all.

“Please.” I grab onto Finch’s forearm. There is so much fear, so much panic, it’s hard to form words. I just look up at the policeman and repeat myself. “Please.”

37

McKenna

April 2024

If the older man working the night shift at 7-Eleven thinks the combination of items I’ve brought to the counter is odd, he doesn’t let on. I’m sure people buy all sorts of weird stuff at these places, so my little haul of peanut butter, tuna packets, baby wipes, batteries, and duct tape doesn’t seem to faze him. I’ve been getting better at choosing only essential items when I go for supplies, but I notice a display of car air fresheners off to the side and can’t stop myself from grabbing one. Having caught a whiff of the sour smell coming off my sweatshirt, I decide air freshener is essential too.

As soon as I’m back in the car, I hang the little pine-scented tree around the mirror. It’s probably going to take a lot more than a three-inch piece of cardboard to freshen up this space, but here’s hoping. I’m just turning on the car to head back to campus when my phone rings with a number I don’t know.

“Hello?”

“Is this McKenna Jamison?” the man on the other end of the line asks in a gravelly voice.

“Yes.”

“This is Officer Haversham with the Cedar Hills Police Department.”

My first thought is Hollyhock. They must have found something, and now they want me to come in for questioning.

“I understand you have a relationship with a young man named Leo Becker.”

“Leo?” I straighten in my seat. “Is he okay?”

“He’s gone missing, ma’am, and we’re calling around to see if anyone knows where he might be. When was the last time you saw him?”