“You’ve been sleeping inside the restaurant? For how long?”
“Two weeks.”
I’m in shock. “How have you been getting in?”
“You don’t have an alarm at that one restaurant, and I finally figured out how to pick the lock after a few tries. Your other restaurant was too hard to get into, though.”
“You know how to pick…” I can’t help but laugh. Brad and Darin are going to love saying I told you so. “Why’d you go from sleeping there to vandalizing it?”
Josh looks at me reluctantly. “I don’t know. I guess I was mad.” He pushes his plate away and leans back in his chair. “What now? Do I have to go back to her?”
“What do you want to happen?”
“I want to live with my dad.” He scratches at his elbow. “Can you help me find him?”
I want to find Tim about as much as I wanted to find my mother, which is not at all. “Do you know anything about him?”
“I think he lives in Vermont now. I just don’t know where.”
“When’s the last time you saw him?”
“A few years ago. But he doesn’t know where to find me anymore.”
Josh looks every bit his age right now. A fragile kid, abandoned by his father but refusing to lose hope. I don’t want to be the one to rip that from him, so I just nod. “Yeah, I’ll see what I can do. But for now, I need to let your mother know you’re okay. I have to call her.”
“Why?”
“If I don’t, this could be considered kidnapping.”
“Not if I’m here willingly,” he says.
“Even if you’re here willingly. You aren’t old enough to decide where you want to live, and right now, your mother has legal custody of you.”
He grows visibly irritated. He stabs at his breakfast with a scowl, but doesn’t take another bite.
I step away to call Sutton. I unblocked her number after she left my restaurant last night in case she needed to get in touch with me. I dial her number and put the phone to my ear. After a few rings, she finally answers with a very groggy hello.
“Hey. I found him.”
“Who is this?”
I briefly close my eyes while I wait for her to wake up and remember her son is missing. After a few quiet seconds, she goes, “Atlas?”
“Yeah. I found Josh.”
I can hear rustling from her end like she’s hopping out of bed. “Where has he been?”
I really don’t want to answer that. I know she’s his mother, but I feel like it’s none of her business where he’s been, which is an unusual opinion to have. “I’m not sure where he’s been, but he’s with me now. Listen… I was wondering if he could stay here for a while? Maybe give you a break?”
“You want him to stay there with you?” The way she puts the emphasis on that last word makes me wince. This is going to be harder than I thought. She’s the type of person who fights for the sake of fighting, no matter what outcome she really wants.
I could enroll him in school and make sure he attends,” I offer up. “Take the truancy heat off you.” It’s quiet on her end, like maybe she’s contemplating that.
“Such a martyr,” she mutters. “Bring him back. Now.” She ends the call.
I attempt to call her back three times, but she sends the calls to voice mail.
“That didn’t sound promising,” Josh says. He’s standing in the doorway of the kitchen. I’m not sure how much he heard on my end, but at least he couldn’t hear her end.
I slide my phone in my pocket. “She wants you back today. But I’ll call a lawyer tomorrow. Hell, I’ll call Child Protective Services if you want me to. There’s just not much I can do on a Sunday.”
Josh’s shoulders drop when I say that. “Will you at least give me your phone number?” He asks that like he’s scared I’m going to say no.
“Of course. I’m not going to abandon you now that I know you exist.”
He picks at a hole in his sleeve, avoiding eye contact with me when he says, “I wouldn’t blame you for being mad at me. I cost you a lot of money.”
“You did do that,” I say. “Those croutons were expensive.”
Josh laughs for the first time this morning. “Dude, those croutons were fucking delicious.”
I groan. “Don’t use that word.”
The Risemore Inn is clear on the other side of Boston. It takes us forty-five minutes with traffic to get there, and it’s not even a weekday. When we pull into the parking lot, Josh doesn’t immediately get out of the car. He just sits quietly in the passenger seat, staring at the building like it’s the last place he wants to be.
I wish I didn’t have to return him to his mother, but I put in another call to my lawyer friend this morning after talking with Sutton. He said if I want to go about this the right way without her having ammunition against me, the only thing I can do is return him. And then, if I want to take her to court, he said I need to get a lawyer and go through the process.
Anything done outside the process could be a mark against me.
