Page 98 of Guitars and Cages

“Oh shit! I’ll be right there.”

I broke more laws than I could count, ignoring the honking of horns as I cut people off, driving the wrong way down a one-way street, and weaving in and out of traffic. I was off the bike the moment I got it stopped, charging into the bar with wild eyes, scanning the room.

“When was the last time you saw him?” I asked Morgan as soon as I spotted him. “And where?”

“I checked on him right before I came down to do inventory. He was in his room, drawing. He was quiet, but he perked up when I read him a chapter from the book you guys got him from the museum. When I checked again about half an hour ago, he was gone.”

I frowned and stormed up the stairs to his room, wanting to look around myself. A quick scan of his room showed that the window was closed and his two pairs of sneakers were by the desk. His drawings were there, his backpack hung from the closet door, but his blanket with the red race cars was missing, and so was the Tasmanian Devil stuffed animal.

I stood there scowling in thought until Morgan yelled from behind me.

“I’m going to check the block, maybe he snuck off to the arcade. Stop standing there wasting time and fucking help us look for him.”

“He’s not at the arcade,” I told Morgan as I turned around.

“And how the hell would you know? Shut the fuck up and look, Asher. I don’t need your lip right now.”

I sighed and said nothing, knowing he was upset. I started looking in closets and under beds in all the rooms, checking cracks and crevices. Rory had said something in the museum, about wanting to curl up when he missed his mom. Now his favorite things to curl up with were missing, and I couldn’t help but feel that he was asleep, wherever he was, and that kid was one sound sleeper and wouldn’t hear us yelling for him.

I heard Morgan come back, and I ran down the steps to meet him. “Morgan, listen to me, please. Where are the hidey holes in this bar, and the crawl spaces? Every old bar in the city has some, or at least that’s what I’ve heard. Where are the ones in here?”

He looked perplexed. “I ain’t never noticed any.”

“Fuck,” I muttered, and turned away from him, trying to think like a little kid. I’d found all the hidey holes in the old ranch house back home; how hard could it be to find them here? The bar would have been loud, and the door to the downstairs was kept locked with a key that only Morgan, Alexia, and I had. The only way in or out would have been the back way. No one could get in without a key, but Rory could have left, though I didn’t think he had. I was sure he was in the bar, somewhere upstairs.

I went back up, only now when I went to his room I wasn’t looking for the obvious. I walked slowly, looking for seams, a handle, anything out of the ordinary, especially down low. In the back of the closet, low near the floor, I found it: a handle that when I pushed down on it, opened a door. There was Rory, his blanket pulled around him, clutching his toy, fast asleep and oblivious to the worry he’d caused. I breathed a sigh of relief and leaned my head against the wall for a moment, trying to calm down before I reached in and scooped him out. He didn’t even move.

I laid him back on his bed and kissed his forehead; then I stepped out into the hall.

“I found him,” I called to the others. Footsteps raced toward me, Alexia getting there first. I moved so she could see that Rory was fine and back where he belonged. Morgan peered in the doorway, too, his hand gripping the frame, the relief evident in his eyes.

“Where the hell did you find him?” he asked.

I motioned for him to follow me and showed him the crawl space.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” he said, surprised and relieved.

“Maybe you should check the other closets, too,” I suggested before stepping carefully around him. Alexia and Morgan began whispering back and forth from the doorway, so I tucked Rory in better before I turned to talk to Alexia. “Has Kimber even called to check on him?”

Alexia looked startled, and I suddenly felt concerned.

“Morgan didn’t tell you?”

“Tell me what?”

“Kimber sent a packet of papers; they arrived today. It was supposed to be his birth certificate and stuff that we needed in order to enroll him in school. That’s what she’d said on the phone, anyway, but when we got it, it was school records and medical records, vaccinations, all of that, his Social Security card…there were pictures, and there were legal documents, too, signed and notarized, saying she was turning over custody of Rory to Morgan. She had a letter in there, but there was no real explanation. Just that she knew he would raise him the way Chase would have wanted him to be raised and that she couldn’t do it anymore.”

“Damn,” I said. “What the fuck was she thinking, leaving him? Did she ever have any fucking intention of coming back?”

“I don’t know, but that’s about the same thing as Morgan said.”

“Does Rory know? Have you guys told him yet?”

Alexia shook her head. “No, not yet. Morgan was at a loss for how to explain it, and so am I. He’s gonna be heartbroken, Asher.”

“I know. I’d love to choke the hell out of her for putting him through this.”

“Funny, I would have expected you to take her side,” Morgan said from behind me.

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