Set You Free Read Online Free

together. “Where were you before this?”
    I back away from the stench in search of fresh air. “On the playground at the junior school.”
    “And before that?”
    “Like I said, that Loose Marbles place.”
    Detective Evans looks at her phone again, swipes the screen, then puts it away. “Can you think of anywhere he might have gone? Not just from yesterday, but from any of the other days you’ve been with him. Some place he’s talked about?”
    “No, this is our route. Sometimes we go to a movie, but the rest of the time it’s this park, the Dairy Queen, the toy store and the school.”
    Detective Evans looks around as if she might spot Ben sitting on a bench or strolling down the street.
    “How do these things normally turn out?” I ask.
    She doesn’t stop to think. “You have three options. One, the kid ran off. There’s usually a good reason for that. And some warning. And most likely he or she’ll come back on his or her own. But five is pretty young for running away. And from what you’re telling me, Benjamin isn’t the most independent of kids. Plus, with him and his mom being like they are? I don’t see it. Two, one of the parents has taken the kid. There’s some kind of abuse going on in the home, or you’re looking at a divorce and one of the parents feels like they’ll lose the child, so away they go. But I don’t see that either. Do you?”
    “What?” I say. I’m trying to put as much distance between myself and the stink of garbage as possible.
    “Have you seen abuse or anything with Benjamin?”
    “From Jack?”
    “Or Erin.”
    “No. Not at all. They’re like…” I stare at the ground. “They’re perfect .”
    “No family is perfect.”
    “They seem as close as you can get,” I say.
    “Well, they’re both sitting home worried sick. When a parent takes a kid, they’re gone in the middle of the night. Not at home calling the police.”
    “What’s the third option?”
    Detective Evans wrinkles her nose as she puts her sunglasses on. “Abduction. Someone watching the kid who decides, for whatever reason, to take him.” I can see myself in her sunglasses when she turns toward me. “Benjamin’s room is on the ground floor,” she says.
    “You don’t think that’s what happened,” I say.
    “We can’t discount it. The window doesn’t appear to be damaged. But the Carters’ house doesn’t have screens. Benjamin’s window just had to be unlocked and someone could step right in.”
    “That can’t be. There has to be a fourth option.”
    “If so, I don’t know what it is,” she says, beginning to walk again.
    “There has to be something,” I say.
    “Such as?” Detective Evans says.
    “He’s hiding in a closet.”
    “Checked. The house has been swept.”
    “The attic?”
    “We went through every inch.”
    “The tree house they have out back? It’s totally enclosed. We play there sometimes.” I can picture the tree house with its little fake shutters and Ben inside, eating Oreos until he’s sick.
    “It and the surrounding area as well. A canine unit is there now.”
    I imagine Benjamin being led by the hand across his moonlit lawn by some creep.
    “Have you noticed anyone around?” Detective Evans asks.
    “No,” I say. Though I wouldn’t necessarily know. Ben brings you into his own little world, and everything else disappears.
    “Watching him from afar maybe? At the park or the Dairy Queen.”
    We’ve reached the school. The shaded windows are like mirrors. “I can’t think of anyone anywhere,” I say. “I honestly can’t. It always seems to be the same people in the same places, you know?”
    “Maybe you were sitting on a bench and he was playing? Someone came and talked to him?”
    “I don’t do that.” I shake my head. “We always play together. Hide-and-seek or tag or Sandman.”
    “No one else is ever with you while you’re babysitting?” Detective Evans asks, looking in a window.
    “I used to go to this school,” I