Chapter 35

According to Myron’s app, the ride to the Lake Charmaine area with current traffic would take upwards of ninety minutes. Myron first called the Pike County Sheriff’s Office to inform them of the situation. They patched him directly to Sheriff Daniel Yiannikos.

“I’m in my squad car right now,” the sheriff said. “Where is the boy?”

“Go to the top of Old Oak Road near Lake Charmaine,” Myron said. “If you walk a quarter of a mile south, there’s a ravine.”

“I know it,” Sheriff Yiannikos said.

“His name is Patrick. He’s there.”

“A possible jumper? He wouldn’t be the first.”

“I don’t know. But he’s threatened suicide.”

“Okay, I’m eight minutes from the location. How old is Patrick?”

“Sixteen.”

Nancy had been trying to reach him since they started driving. No answer.

“What’s his full name?” Yiannikos asked.

“Patrick Moore.”

“Why does that name ring a bell?”

“He’s been in the news.”

“The rescued kid?”

“He’s under a great deal of stress,” Myron said.

“Okay, we’ll be careful.”

“Let him know his mother’s on the way.”

Myron hung up and called his old friend Jake Courter, another sheriff, this time of Bergen County, New Jersey. He explained the situation and asked for a police escort.

“On its way,” Jake said. “We’ll pick you up on Route 80. Just keep driving.”

Twenty minutes later, when Sheriff Yiannikos finally called back, Nancy Moore gripped Myron’s arm so tight he was sure it would leave marks.

“Hello?”

“Patrick is alive,” the sheriff said, “for now.”

Myron let himself breathe.

“But he’s standing at the top of the ravine with a gun pointed at his head.”

Nancy almost collapsed. “Oh my God.”

“It’s calm right now. He’s telling us to stay back. So we are.”

“Has he asked for anything?”

“He just wanted assurances his mother was on her way. We said she was. We asked if he wanted to speak to her. He said no, he just wants to see her. He said for us to stay back or he’d shoot himself, so that’s what we’re doing. How far out are you?”

As promised, the Bergen County squad cars joined them on Route 80 heading west. Myron pressed down on the accelerator. The police helped him past the heavy traffic.

“Half hour, maybe forty minutes.”

“Okay,” Sheriff Yiannikos said. “I’ll call you if anything changes.”

Myron hung up, made a quick call to Win, and then asked Nancy, “Why did Vada come back?”

“Why do you think?”

“She saw the news reports,” Myron said, “about Patrick coming home.”

“Yes.”

“She wants to come clean.”

“That’s what she says. We, uh, waylaid her. Nothing harmful. We just convinced her to come to the lake to discuss it. Then we took her car keys and asked her to give us a few days. To talk her out of it.”

“And if she didn’t agree?”

Nancy shrugged. “I like to think we would have found a way.”

“Hunter was waiting for her. When we went up there.”