His concern sent his thoughts spinning off sideways to home, to his wife, to his son, to Heather rushing out, to getting Toby ready, to changing the boy’s clothes after he’d spilled juice on his shirt. Then positioning him in the car seat, buckling him in, almost getting into that fender bender—

Sometimes riding in the car helped Toby fall asleep. Heather and he would take turns driving the boy around when he got fussy just to get him to go to sleep, and then—

Focus.

Think.

Asleep.

Wait.

Day care.

The next thought came at him fully formed, and as it did the bottom dropped out of the moment as if he were plunging down a roller coaster, as if he were caught in that hover-quiver breath-holding gasp of time when you know you’re about to plummet three hundred feet after just a few more slim clicks of that chain on the track beneath you, but you haven’t quite started the descent yet.

But then you do.

You were supposed to drop Toby off at day care. You were supposed to—

The descent.

One heading straight for hell.

You never swung by the center. You never dropped him off.

Your son is in the car. Toby’s still in the car.

It’d been over two hours already, and with today’s heat, that was probably more than enough time to—

“Oh my God.”

The chain clicked.

The plunge.

The descent had come.

Jake Reese bolted for the door.

46

Jake seemed to have no strength in his legs as he rounded Gracie’s desk, her questioning look and the words, “Is everything okay?” hardly registering as he whipped past her.

Every parent’s worst nightmare.

Please, God.

Oh please.

He threw the outside door open and the wall of heat met him like a thick, living thing, oppressive and grim and stifling.

All Jake could think of were the news stories that came out each year about the hot car deaths of young children, about how quickly vehicles can heat up and the insane temperatures they can reach in just fifteen or twenty minutes. A distracted mom or dad forgets their baby in the car. Maybe Mom goes shopping or Dad goes to the golf course and the child dies of—

No.

A distracted parent goes to work.

Like you.

No.

And the child succumbs to heatstroke and—

No!

As he darted through the parking lot, a driver who was backing out of his spot smacked into Jake hard enough to send him careening into a parked minivan six feet away.

The driver jumped out and shouted about What was he doing? and Was he okay? and how He needed to look out for cars in a parking lot like this, but Jake ignored him, ignored it all, found his footing and sprinted toward the street, disregarding the throbbing pain in his leg.