What if this was a mistake?

As I stood among A-Bay’s concerned citizens, listening to a mother beg for the safe return of her son, I suddenly remembered that Bram’s games were easy to lose. Even in grade school, there’d always been a twist designed to throw me off-kilter just when I thought I had things figured out. Like that money stolen from my teacher. It was all I thought about for weeks, until a new scandal replaced it. Mrs. Dooley’s original of our upcoming math test, complete with answers, was filched from the copy machine. Shortly after it began to make the rounds of the playground, I overheard my teacher talking to the principal about the strange timing of it all. The theft of her money was a smoke screen. The test was the target all along.

Tim had adopted a squint that told me he was having second thoughts about holding the event in the dark. At the podium, Virginia Hayes finally cracked. Tears coursed down her cheeks as she held up Trey’s favorite stuffed animal and promised her son he’d be home soon. At my sides, my hands, red with cold, squeezed into fists. How dare he. Taking those women was bad enough, but this? This was deplorable.

Think, Shay. Where is he? What’s next? If it were me Bram was ultimately after, he wouldn’t leave me at a disadvantage. The game was no fun unless both players stood a fighting chance. I thought of that day in the fifth grade, how the other teachers helped Mrs. Dooley look for the money and the principal gave a speech about dishonesty while, one floor down, a cunning boy with dirty hair slipped unnoticed into the copy room. That’s when it hit me. While the people of A-Bay were gathered in the cold, praying for little Trey Hayes, nobody was watching Bram.

The realization struck with the force of a falling branch. He’s not here, and he’s not coming. Wherever he’d been hiding Trey up until now, this was his chance to make a move.

“Thank you, Richard and Virginia, for sharing that with us.” Tim was back at the podium to finish up. My hands were stiff and raw from the cold, the burn still too tender for gloves, but I fumbled for my phone and navigated to Google Maps. Seconds later I was looking at a map of A-Bay.

If Bram needed somewhere to hide a kid, this was the first thing he’d do. The second would be to find a place that meant something to me.

Heart Island was located in the middle of the St. Lawrence River. A-Bay sat on one side of it, while Wellesley Island and the Thousand Islands Country Club closed in from the north. On the mainland, Keewaydin State Park, Otter Creek Preserve, and the Cranberry Creek Wildlife Management Area made up the bulk of the woodland. The cat in the forest. The memory rippled through me like a shiver. We had no evidence to suggest Trey was in the woods, too, but such areas were attractive to criminals. The isolation and dense foliage made it easier to hide their victims. Brett was proof enough of that. The woods were a big part of our youth. I could see Bram incorporating them into his game plan.