“Good call to get her out of here,” Nick said.
“Glad you agree. She doesn’t need to be here for this.”
“No, she doesn’t.”
“I don’t want to call my mother and tell her Ethan is missing.”
“She’ll find out soon enough.”
“Still…”
“I know, babe, but asking her to help with Abby will give her something to do, so it’ll help them both.”
“True.” Sam placed the call to her mother, hoping she wasn’t waking her. When she stayed with the kids, she slept in a room in the residence that they’d assigned to her a while ago.
“Hey, how’s date night going?” Brenda asked, sounding sleepy.
“It was great until we got a call from Tracy that Ethan’s missing.”
“What?” her mom said on a gasp. “Missing?”
Sam gave her a brief recap of the evening’s events and told her Nick was heading back to the White House with Abby in tow. “I think it’d help for her to see you when she gets there.”
“I’ll be waiting for her. She can stay in my room if she wants to.”
“I’m sure she’d love that, and there’s a birthday party tomorrow she’s very eager to attend.”
“I’ll get her there. How’s Tracy? I mean… she has to be out of her mind with worry.”
“She is, but we’re doing what we can to help. She’ll be relieved to have you taking care of Abby.”
“Tell her I love her, and I’m praying for our Ethan.”
“I will.”
“You don’t think…”
“I don’t know much of anything yet. I’ll keep you posted.”
“Okay, thank you.”
Sam closed her phone and glanced at Nick. “Now I need to tell Trace and Mike that I made plans for Abby.”
“They won’t mind.”
He accompanied her to the kitchen, where her brother-in-law was on the house phone while Tracy listened intently to his side of the conversation.
When he finished the call, he shook his head. “Nothing new. No one seems to know who this Brecken kid is.”
Sam told them about the plan for Abby.
“That’s a good idea,” Mike said wearily. “Thank you for thinking of it.”
“Do you have contact info for the school principal?” Sam asked.
“Just her email,” Tracy said.
“Write down the address. I’ll have Freddie send her an email to tell her what’s going on and ask her to help us figure out who this kid is and where we can find his parents. We’ll tell her it’s an emergency.”
