“Whoa, my sister is in the hospital?—”
“She’s fine!” I snapped. “She’s anemic. I overreacted, okay? Now, where the hell is the kid?”
I looked at everyone in the waiting room, but they all looked at me as if they didn’t even know the kid existed.
“Well? Someone had to have seen him!”
Again, everyone was silent.
“We’ll find him,” Ma said, stepping forward. “He must be around here somewhere. It’s not like he could just leave.”
But he could, and he most definitely would. Blake and I were the only people this kid had, and after what he heard me say, I wouldn’t be surprised if he walked out.
“Sam, make sure Blake gets home alright.”
“You’re leaving?” he asked, grabbing me by the arm as I strode past him. “Your wife is?—”
“My wife wants me to find Wes,” I hissed, “and she’ll be pissed as hell if I don’t find him.”
I jerked my arm out of his grasp and stormed toward the front door. “Jeff! I need a ride.”
“On it!”
I looked in every direction before storming toward the parking lot. He couldn’t have gone that far, and yet, I was sure he was already long gone.
“Where are we going?”
I shook my head, trying to figure that out. “Where would you go if you felt you weren’t wanted?”
“Home.”
But that wasn’t the right answer. The kid didn’t feel like he had a home. “Maybe, but only to grab his things.”
“Bus station.”
My eyes drifted from the shadows to my younger brother. “The bus station?”
Shrugging, he cocked a grin at me. “I thought about running away a time or two. Even made it as far as Kalispell before I realized I didn’t have enough money to get me any further. Some old man took pity on me and drove me home.”
“That’s dangerous as fuck.”
“I was young and stupid. Hence, why I thought running away would solve all my problems.”
“He doesn’t have anyone he would go to around here.”
“Maybe old man Callahan?”
It was a possibility, but I doubted the old man would lift a finger to help anyone. “We’ll start there, but I highly doubt he would go to him.”
Striding for the truck, I was still kicking myself over the words I had spoken. They weren’t wrong in any way, but I had to realize that when we invited Wes into our home, it was for more than a temporary solution. That kid was vulnerable, and if I wanted to get through to him, I had to start thinking of him as part of the family.
“I parked it right here,” Jeff frowned, staring at the empty space.
“Clearly, you didn’t or it would be here.”
“No, I swear…it was right next to a white SUV.”
I glanced around the parking lot and noted the dozen or so other SUVs in the area. “Jeff, you have the wrong fucking spot. There are white SUVs everywhere.”
