Have You Seen Jeremy Bright?: A Novel of Domestic Suspense by Michael Devereaux

Author:Michael Devereaux [Devereaux, Michael]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: anonymous
Published: 2023-05-17T16:00:00+00:00

Seven

Ben had run the gauntlet of reporters when he returned—two more news vans had gathered, bringing the total to four. He ignored their nipping at his heels, came into the house from the garage, a stack of cardboard boxes in his arms. Joss took the top two from him and set them on the table. He put the others next to them. She flipped the lid off the first box.

There was her missing son, smiling up at her from one of two thousand printed flyers.

Joss sank into a chair, staring at Jeremy’s face. His sweet, happy face. Where was he now? He’d been taken from her, she was sure of it. He would never have run off without telling her. Even Detective Morrison had come around to believing that. Wherever he was, he certainly was not happy or smiling.

Ben slipped out to the garage while she gazed at her son’s face. She turned as she heard him return. He held up the foamcore-backed poster; the printers had put the flyer image on a big sheet, almost three feet by four feet. Jeremy’s larger-than-life-sized face beamed at her from across the room.

She swallowed, feeling a tightness in her throat. They’d only realized yesterday—yesterday?—that he was missing, but it seemed days. Months. Her house, her heart, had a giant sucking black hole in it, a chill wind screaming through the void he’d left.

“I think it turned out okay,” Ben said.

She nodded, unable to speak. He gazed at her a moment, set the poster against the lower drawers next to the fridge, facing in. The blank white back of the posterboard felt like looking at ice.

“Did you find the— Ah, there it is.” Ben picked up the easel from where Joss had left it leaning against the counter to the right of the sliding glass doors. Opened the legs and gave it a shake. “That should be good. I’ll stick the poster to it with some duct tape in case we get wind— Oh Joss.”

She couldn’t help it, the tears had begun again. Ben leaned down and wrapped her in his arms; she gripped his forearms hard, but it still felt like she was alone in the room. Not his fault; she couldn’t seem to stop crying.

“It’s like…” She sniffled. “It’s like we’re planning… a funeral.”

His grip tightened, squeezing the breath from her, and finally she felt him there. “We are not planning a funeral,” he said. “This… well, this sucks, but it’s all the steps the people at the missing children’s agency said we need to do.”

She glanced up at him. “Sucks?” Ben was as straightlaced as they came about his language, the result of a minister father and uber-Christian mother.

He shrugged. “I think you’ve corrupted me.”

“If only,” she said, giving him a faint smile.

He kissed the top of her head. “We should probably get set up. It’s one-thirty.”

“Oh.” The last thing Joss wanted to do was dive into that pool of sharks outside, but like Ben said, it was necessary.

He saw. “Let me handle them,” he said.

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