“What’s this?”
“Pam gave it to me.”
“Oh, I see.” Cal glanced at Pam, then looked at the rosary briefly before closing his hands around Faith’s and the rosary. He squeezed encouragement, then she cupped her hands tenderly to his face before he left with a small group for the parking lot.
* * *
They didn’t find Gage at section B, space number 23, southwest of the fairgrounds where they’d parked their Ford Escape.
And as the afternoon passed, no sign of Gage had surfaced in the ongoing search of the fair and the surrounding neighborhoods, some of which had been canvassed four times by ardent volunteers. The periodic announcements appealing to fairgoers for help continued but to no avail. Alerts had gone to Amtrak and bus terminals, to O’Hare and Midway airports and to the Chicago Transit Authority, but nothing had emerged.
Gage’s disappearance had become Chicago’s top news story, drawing national interest. Some networks used footage recorded by fans across the country from inside the Chambers of Dread, noting that it was billed as America’s Biggest Traveling World of Horrors. Every news report also included footage of Cal and Faith, who, even in their heartbreak, were a photogenic couple.
Tips began flowing to River Ridge police from the Amber Alert but they were vague, nothing concrete. “I thought I saw that kid with a Slurpee at a 7-Eleven but I’m not sure which one.” Or, “I tell you I saw a boy like that running down the midway, that’s all I know.”
The sun sank and night fell over the River Ridge Fairgrounds. The midway continued bustling with flashing and pulsating lights while the rock music hammered. But by 11:30 p.m., the crowds had thinned, food stands began closing; the rides began shutting down and the music was silenced.
At midnight the gates were locked.
Near the Chambers of Dread, desperation was mounting.
While Faith and Cal waited at the search center with clusters of police, security staff, volunteers and media, a funereal stillness had gripped the grounds, bringing the Hudsons to the next stage of their anguish.
“Faith.” Cal took her hands in his, hearing the tremor in his voice. “It’s time to go home.”
“Go home?” She stared at him as if he’d just uttered the vilest words imaginable.
“Go home and rest, Faith. You can look again after some sleep.”
“Go home without my son?”
A surge of panic filled her eyes and she began shaking her head at the devastating weight of what had befallen them. The threads of her restraint unraveled and one by one they snapped as her facade of calm and reason exploded with volcanic might at the awful, terrible horror.
“No, no, no. I can’t go home without him. No, I can’t! No, I can’t! No, no!” Faith began chanting, pulling at her hair as if she’d lost her mind. “Gage!” She stood, screaming full bore in a gut-twisting pitch, as if barbed wire were scraping her vocal cords. “Gage!”
Cal moved to console her; she fought him off. Michelle and Pam, along with their husbands and police, rushed to help but she twisted and writhed, sobbing before crumpling to the ground in a heap.
They struggled to help her; one of the officers radioed for EMS and within two minutes a siren yelped. An ambulance, lights flashing, inched toward them. From a distance news cameras captured Faith’s breakdown as paramedics checked her signs.
“She needs to rest,” one of them said.
“Take her home,” Cal said, giving them the address. “I’ll sign whatever waiver you need. I’ll ride with you. Just take her home.”
She didn’t fight as they transferred her to a gurney, lifted her into the ambulance and drove off. Cal was at her feet. A paramedic watched over her while she continued calling softly for Gage.
Looking upon his wife, struggling to maintain control, Cal felt he had melted into a strange dreamlike river. As they rolled through the fairgrounds he was stabbed by the thought of how they’d come here together as a family and were now retreating like troops crushed by an overwhelming enemy.
The streets of River Ridge looked alien to him.
Nothing was real anymore.
More news crews were waiting on the lawn and sidewalk of the Hudsons’ house when they arrived, shouting questions at them. Cal waved them off. Samantha and Rory Clark, their neighbors who had a key, had hurried outside the Hudsons’ house to help. The paramedics brought Faith inside and suggested she take an over-the-counter sleeping pill.
They put her in bed; Cal sat alone with her, not knowing what to do as his exhausted brain throbbed with thoughts of Gage.
He couldn’t sleep, so after she drifted off he went back downstairs.
Officers Berg and Ripkowski were still in the house.
“We can ensure our people stay the night with you, to be prepared for anything. It’s your option,” the officers had told Cal.
“Yes, I’d like it if someone were here for now.”
Along with Officers Berg and Ripkowski, Michelle and Pam had arrived with their husbands and offered to stay in the room with Faith. Samantha—“Sam” to her friends—had made strong coffee. Cal needed to be alert. He drank two large cups, fighting to hang on to himself while sitting in his kitchen with his friends.
For a burning instant he envied and hated them.
They knew where their kids were. They hadn’t lost a child. He knew what they were likely thinking: I wouldn’t have let my kid out of my sight for one second—not like Cal and Faith, not me.
Cal then loathed himself as his friends expressed their genuine, heartfelt concerns, urging him to eat and rest.
How can I sleep not knowing where Gage is? Is he terrified? Is he hurt somewhere? Is he locked away? Oh God, please tell me where he is.
Cal knew what he had to do.
He hurried to the storage closet, next to the kitchen. He opened a big backpack, stuffed it with items from the kitchen and closet. He got a couple of flashlights, tapped them to test the batteries, grabbed Gage’s hockey stick and headed for the door.
“Where’re you going, Cal?” Officer Ripkowski asked.
Rory Clark glanced at the others, who were puzzled.
“Gage may have tried to walk home.”
“You think so? It’s about two miles and he’s only nine, Cal,” Ripkowski said.
“I know. I showed him once how to get to our place from Blossom Avenue and it leads to the fairgrounds. I’m going to track back to the car and search along the route he might’ve taken.”
“I got a flashlight in my car.” Rory nodded to the other men. “We’ll come with you, unless you officers think that’s a problem?”
“Go ahead,” Berg said, reaching for her radio. “We’ll advise our people and wait here.”
In the following hours, with two news crews in tow, Cal and his group of suburban fathers walked the route Gage might’ve taken. They searched front yards, backyards and driveways, raking their flashlights under cars. They looked in alleys and behind strip malls. Cal used the hockey stick to probe trash cans and poke hedges and shrubs.
All the while the men called out for Gage, they stopped late-night dog walkers, joggers and people on bicycles to ask for help, showing them Gage’s picture on their phones. And the group consulted with every River Ridge police car they encountered, patrolling and on alert in the hunt for Gage.
They arrived at the River Ridge Fairgrounds finding the Hudsons’ SUV was