Free Strong Light of Day by Jon Land

Peacemaker instead of a doll. All of a sudden, though, she found herself hoping against hope that some higher power would hear her words and grant her that much. A long time ago she’d witnessed her mother gunned down by Mexican druggers, and not all that long ago had watched her father die a slow death from heart failure. But this, she thought to herself, was the worst moment of life, all of it filled with a dread fear that if one of these boys wasn’t Luke Torres, son of Cort Wesley Masters, she might never see him again. That he’d been swept away into the ether that defined the violence of the world, which had so long defined both her and his father.
    The figure of a Houston detective she recognized moved in front of the window, blocking her view. He bent over, to tie his shoe maybe, and she got her look at both boys, their faces turned away and still indistinguishable.
    Her stomach was fluttering and her knees had gone weak when one of the boys turned and peered through the glass, meeting her gaze with a face coated with grime, streaked with tears.
    Luke Torres.

 
    15
    A RMAND B AYOU, T EXAS
    Caitlin burst through the door, no thought given to protocol or to disturbing any evidence the boy’s clothes may have shed. Luke had already bounded off the office couch by then, practically leaping into her arms, his hair smelling of tree bark, wood smoke, and the outdoors when she hugged him. She felt his tears soaking into her shirt before his sobs even became audible.
    In her mind she said lots of things, comforting words meant to ease his plight, his confusion, make all this right. But in reality she said nothing at all, just hugged the boy tighter and didn’t let go until he did first, sniffling as he backed off slightly.
    â€œIs it true?” he just managed to utter, swallowing hard. “What they’re saying about the other kids?”
    Caitlin looked toward the Houston detective she recognized. “I suspect it is.”
    She turned her gaze toward the couch and the second boy, who was shivering beneath a blanket wrapped over his shoulders. He had ice-blue eyes, big and full, his hair hanging in wavy ringlets past his shoulders. Looked like some kind of model or something, except she also seemed to recall him starting on the school soccer team, for which Luke casually described himself as a “scrub.”
    â€œYou okay, son?” Caitlin asked the boy on the couch, knowing it sounded lame, because of course he wasn’t.
    The boy’s eyes quickly turned from fearful and longing to furtive, turning away from hers as if she’d spotted something in them he didn’t want her to see. She let it go, cursing herself for feeling the Texas Ranger in her creeping back in to wonder exactly how this boy and Luke had gotten separated from the rest.
    What were you doing in those woods, son?
    She posed that question only in her mind, knowing there’d be plenty of time for answers later.
    â€œMy dad know?” Luke asked, swabbing a long-sleeve shirt over his eyes and nose.
    â€œGot a message from him saying he’s on his way.”
    The office’s overly bright fluorescent lighting made his face look shiny through the stitches of grime streaking it. Compared to his older brother, Dylan, just short of his twentieth birthday now, Luke had always been a little kid to her. Except he wasn’t anymore. He looked older and more mature than Dylan had at this age and was just as good looking, even more so. Both boys had inherited their mother’s beauty—a curse as much as a blessing, in her mind.
    Something made Caitlin glance back at the boy still seated on the couch, trying to remember his name, until Luke repeated his question.
    â€œHe should be here shortly,” Caitlin resumed.
    â€œRanger,” the Houston detective whose name continued to slip her mind started, “we need to talk to these boys now, if you don’t mind.”
    â€œWell, I do mind,