Unforgivable by Laura Griffin Page A

equipment parked there. Does Sam like bulldozers?”
    Her eyes widened. “He does.” She cast a frantic look over her shoulder. “You think he might have gone—”
    “Jonah’s checking. Let’s keep looking here, though. Where were you when you last saw him?”
    “The petting zoo. I was buying food. We’ve searched everywhere, but—”
    “Let’s search again.” Ric nodded at the patrol officer. “Dispatch call you?”
    “Yeah.”
    “See if you can get another unit out here.”
    “They’re already on the way. I’ll walk the trail again.”
    The uniforms dispersed, and Mia briskly set off toward the petting zoo.
    “He wouldn’t run off like this. He just wouldn’t. There’s something wrong.”
    “Where’re his parents?”
    “My sister’s in San Francisco on a business trip. I left her a message.”
    “And the dad?”
    “Who the hell knows? Or cares? The guy’s a shit.”
    Ric looked at her. He’d never heard her curse before. “There a custody situation?”
    She snorted. “Yeah, my sister does everything. Sam’s dad doesn’t give a damn about him.”
    She sounded strong, but when they got to the barn, she stood beside the food dispenser, and the tears threatened to spill over.
    “I just stepped over here for a minute. Maybe two. I fed in my quarters and filled a cup with food …” Her voice trailed off as she turned and searched the animal pen. There wasn’t a single child in it. Maybe they’d cleared the kids out to look for Sam.
    Ric tromped around the barn. He checked behind hay bales and water troughs, looked for open gates. He scanned the horizon and noticed the steel crane towering over the line of trees to the east. If Jonah was having any luck at the construction site, he’d call. Not that it would be very lucky if he did. If the boy was at that job site for this long, he’d probably either hurt himself or been hurt by someone else and left there.
    “What’s his favorite animal?” Ric asked.
    “He likes the tigers.” Mia shook her head. “We already checked there. They even put the animals inside and looked through their entire enclosure. Nothing.”
    Ric glanced across the trail at the reptile house, which was closed for renovations and surrounded by yellow tape. “What about snakes? Did you—”
    “The zookeeper checked.”
    “How about the snack bar?”
    Mia gazed down the trail. “We’d just had hot dogs for lunch. I promised him a hot cocoa later, but—”
    Ric grabbed Mia’s arm as a kid emerged from the back of the reptile house. Green jacket. Red hair. He stepped between two orange barricades and blinked up at the sun.
    “Sam!” Mia rocketed across the trail and dropped to her knees in front of him. She yanked him against her and hugged him to her chest.
    Ric tipped his head back and breathed a sigh of relief. This was why he wasn’t cut out for parenting. Your whole life could go to shit in a heartbeat.
    He walked over to Mia, who was checking Sam’s head as if he had a fever. The kid looked fine to Ric. Maybe a little baffled by the tears streaming down Mia’s cheeks.
    “Are you okay? Really?” She hugged him again and again as he stood there nodding numbly. “Oh my God, Sam, you scared me to death! What were you doing in there? Are you sure you’re okay?”
    Another nod. “I was looking at the python. It’s still in there, even though you said it was closed. There’s a boa, too. And a gila monster.”
    “We were very worried about you.” She shook his shoulders. “You can’t just run off like that. I had no idea—” She stopped in mid-sentence and stared at him. “What’s on your mouth?”
    Sam looked at his feet.
    “Sam? What have you been eating?”
    “A Snickers bar.” It was barely a whisper.
    “Where did you get a Snickers bar?”
    “The man gave it to me.”
    “What man? Who?”
    “The man in the reptile house.”

CHAPTER 5

    Mia eased shut the door to her guest room and crept down the hall. She heard a car pull into her