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“I don’t know,” said Odelia. “There’s something funny going on. What are the odds of two people to go missing in the space of two days? Very slim, I should say.”

“Three people,” said Gran. “You forgot about the little boy.”

“Four, if you add Chief Alec,” said Chase.

Odelia took out her phone and tried her uncle’s cell again. Straight to voicemail, just like all the previous times she’d tried him. So if he had been abducted by aliens, which seemed to be Gran’s grand theory, the aliens weren’t picking up the phone either.

They’d arrived at the house where the August family lived, and Gran had taken her Duffer out of her purse and was munching on it again. “Want a bite?” she asked.

“No, thanks,” said Odelia.

They rang the bell, and after the requisite introductions, they were invited in. The August home was a modest one-story structure, and judging from the stack of Missing Person flyers in the hallway, and people coming and going to pick them up, the search for the missing boy was in full swing. They took a seat in the living room, and while Chase made the introductions, Odelia picked up a flyer and studied the kid’s face. Nicky August looked about eight, with a gap-toothed smile and a freckled nose. She felt her heart sink at the thought of what could possibly have happened to him.

“If I told him once, I told him a million times,” said Alma, the boy’s mother. “Never stray too far from home. But you know what boys are like. They get caught up in whatever game they’re playing, and before you know it they’re out on the street, chasing a ball, or chasing a car, thinking they’re Superman or Batman or whatever.”

“So he was playing in the backyard…” Chase prompted, jotting down notes.

“He and Jay were kicking the ball around, and then next thing I know I look through the kitchen window and they’re gone. For a moment I simply couldn’t breathe. You can’t imagine what it feels like, Detective. One moment they were there, and the next… poof! Gone! I looked everywhere, and when I didn’t see them of course I ran into the street, and then rang the neighbors’ house and the house across the street and all the other houses but no one had seen them. They had simply vanished. Like smoke.”

“No cars that you thought looked suspicious?” asked Chase. “Or someone driving past the house the last couple of days that you never saw before in the neighborhood?”

“No, nothing like that,” said the woman’s husband Mark.

“You said he was playing with… Jay?” asked Odelia with a frown. “So who’s Jay?”

“Oh, Jay is Nicky’s best friend,” said Alma. “They’ve been besties since first grade. Always together. We’re very lucky that Nicky found a good friend like him, because in kindergarten he wasn’t very social, and never really bonded with anyone.”

“Nicky is a single child, you see,” said Mark. “After we had him, we tried but…”

“He was a miracle baby,” said Alma. “I didn’t even think I could get pregnant. The doctors had told us to stop trying, and maybe adopt, so when I got pregnant it took me a while to realize what was happening, and so when Nicky was born we were both over the moon, of course. We tried for a second one, but I guess one miracle was enough.”

“So that’s why we were so happy when Nicky found Jay. He’s like the brother he never had. Always together, never a cross word.”

“But… we haven’t received a report about a Jay missing,” said Chase.

“Probably because Jay’s folks are out of town,” said Alma.

“When they’re away—and they often are—Jay stays with his aunt,” said Mark.

“We called her last night, to tell her about what happened, but she didn’t seem overly concerned.”

“She seems to think Nicky and Jay ran into town to go to the movies or to the mall.”

“We told her Nicky wouldn’t do that. He wouldn’t just go off on his own. But she laughed and said we didn’t know Nicky as well as she did, and then hung up on us.”

“So there’s another little boy missing, and we weren’t even told?” said Chase with a frown.

“Is it possible that they did go into town?” asked Gran. “That they did go to the movies? Boys being boys, I mean.”

Both parents shook their heads decidedly.“No way,” said Alma. “Nicky knows not to do that.”

“We’ve always been very protective of him,” Mark explained.

“Maybe a little overprotective,” Nicky’s mother added.

“We were so happy when we had him, and also afraid of losing him, that he knows not to run off without telling us and scaring us half to death in the process.”

“No, ma’am,” said Alma decidedly. “Someone took our boy. Just took him like that.”

Chapter 27

Colin Duffer watched the angry crowd that had gathered outside his shop with concern. He didn’t like the crowd, even though he knew he should. The crowd irked him, but at the same time the crowd also showed that their strategy, once deemed so risky and outrageous, had won through to success in spite of the odds.

“I hate those people,” he said.