Just for Fun (38 page)

The phone rang again as she read the final lines. Lucy. Of
course. “So did you see it?” her sister asked impatiently.

“Yeah. Hang on.” She walked out of the office with her
mobile. Out into the passageway. “Yeah, I saw it.”

 “I hope you aren’t going to start excusing him again,” Lucy
warned. “Even you can’t find a way out of this.”

“I don’t know what I think,” Emma admitted. “Nic just swore
to me—just
yesterday—
that he doesn’t cheat. And what Claudia’s mum said,
the other stuff, I
know
that wasn’t true. If it’d been up to Nic, Claudia
would’ve come along every time we were together. So if that was a lie, why
wouldn’t this be?”

“This girl’s just lying, then?” Lucy said. “Come
on,
Em.
You don’t really believe that.”

“I don’t know what I believe,” Emma said, more firmly this
time. “And I’m not going to decide. Not until I talk to Nic.”

“And when will that be?” Lucy demanded.

“Well, not
now.
It’s . . . almost midnight there. And
I have to go back to work. I’ll ring him tonight, when I can talk, and he can
too. I have to go.”

“Em . . .”

“I have to
go,
Luce.”

The thought of walking back into the office, past the desks
full of men who would, she knew, have read both stories, made her quail. No
hope for it, though. She’d have to face them sometime. Back to the drawings,
she told herself fiercely. She could do this.

It was even harder than she’d imagined. Because there was
Ryan, standing near her desk, talking to Sean. Her colleague looked at her with
some sympathy, but Ryan openly smirked as she walked by. Whatever Nic had said
to him, it had kept him quiet these past months. But there was no question he
was enjoying her discomfiture now. She ignored him and opened her document
again, feeling sick inside.

A trip to the gym at lunchtime helped, as always. At least
nobody in her class knew her name, or who she was. She was just another body to
them. She’d go back to work. Finish the Emirates drawings. Go home and ring
Nic.

Another call on her mobile, though, soon after she’d got
back to her desk, put an end to those plans. Zack’s childcare center. Oh, no.
Not today.

“Hi, Emma.” It was Zoe, the center’s director, sounding a
bit harassed. “I’m afraid I’ll have to ask you to come get Zack.”

“Is he ill? What does he have? How bad?”

“He isn’t ill,” Zoe hastened to say. “It’s not that at all.
But he’s been fighting, and you know that’s not on.”

“Fighting?
Zack?” Emma couldn’t have been more
surprised. “How? Why?”

“What was in the paper yesterday,” Zoe said reluctantly. “And
this morning as well, I hear. A couple of the boys said some things. I gather
that Zack felt he had to defend his . . . his father. It would have been better
if you’d told me about this, so I could have looked out for it. As it was, I
didn’t know anything till one of the aides explained it to me. I don’t read the
Herald.”

“Sorry,” was all Emma could think of to say. She opened her
desk drawer, pulled out her purse. Hastily saved her document and began the process
of shutting down her computer. “Is he hurt? Is anyone else hurt?”

“Nobody’s badly injured,” Zoe said. “A few scratches and
bruises, that’s all. But it’s a center policy that we don’t allow fighting.
He’ll have to go home and cool off. I’m talking to the other parents as well.
It wasn’t unprovoked, and I don’t anticipate serious consequences. But you’ll
need to impress upon Zack that no matter the provocation, fighting isn’t
allowed. And he’ll need to make some apologies. But we can discuss it more when
you bring him in tomorrow. Just now, you have a very unhappy little boy, and I
think it’s best if you take him home and get him calmed down before we go any
further.”

Emma was already on her feet, on her way to Roger’s desk. He
was in the midst of a discussion with one of the project managers, and Emma
waited, shifting from one foot to the other, until they’d finished. Roger
didn’t cut it short, kept her waiting a good five minutes. Turned to her at
last. “Yes?”

“I need to leave,” she said abruptly. “For the day, that is.
I need to collect Zack from childcare. I’ll be back in the morning, maybe a bit
late.”

“You have a deadline,” he said sharply.

“Sorry. He can’t stay there, and I need to go.”

“I could write you up for this,” he threatened.

“Why? Because my kid has an emergency?” All the frustrations
and injustices of the past two days boiled over into rage. “All right. I’ll
tell you
I
have an emergency. I have an emergency, and I need to leave.
I’ll finish the Emirates revisions first thing in the morning. It’ll take me
two more hours max. It’s an
internal
deadline, and you know it.”

“You need to watch your tone,” he said, bristling.

“And you need to watch yours,” she snapped. “Because I have
the legal right to use my sickness benefit for myself
or
my child.
Anything else is discrimination, and it’s illegal. And my son needs me, and I’m
leaving.”

She left him gaping after her, and didn’t look back.

She drove as fast as she dared, cursing the distance, the
traffic across the Harbour Bridge. Pulled into the carpark at last and hurried
into the center’s office.

“Hi,” she told Zoe distractedly. “I got here as quickly as I
could. Where’s Zack?”

Zoe looked at her in surprise. “I thought you’d already got
him.”

“What?” Emma felt the unease rising like a cold tide. “What
do you mean?”

“No worries,” Zoe said hurriedly. “He must have got confused
and gone back to the room. I came back in and he wasn’t here, so I assumed
you’d collected him. Let’s go have a look.”

Emma tried to calm her racing heart as she walked down the
hallway with Zoe. They stuck their heads into the big activity room. Empty.

“The big kids must be playing in the back,” Zoe decided. Another
walk out to the enclosed play yard, full of boys and girls running, swinging
from overhead bars on the play structure, going down the slides. But no Zack.

“Let me just ask,” Zoe said, looking a fraction less calm.
Emma kept searching the crowd of moving children, turning to look around her. Assuring
herself that she’d see her son at any moment.

Zoe came back with the lead teacher, concern clear on both
their faces. “Joan says he didn’t come back after she took him to the office,”
Zoe said. “That she told him to wait there for you. Nobody else could have
collected him, I take it.”

“No,” Emma said. Her voice sounded as if it were coming from
someplace far away, and the fear was like a tangible being, sitting on her
chest, clawing at her.

  Zoe nodded, still maintaining her calm demeanor. “Come on
back to the office. We’ll have the teachers take a look round the center. He
can’t have gone far. He’ll just be hiding, maybe. Afraid he’s in trouble, and
not wanting to face you. That can happen, you know. We’ll find him, I’m sure of
it.”

Back to the little office again. Zoe ringing the other
teachers as Emma fidgeted in her visitor’s chair, frantically trying to think
of something—anything—she could do to find her son. She wanted to get up and
run through the center searching for him, but she forced herself to stay where
she was.
He’s here,
she assured herself over and over.
He’s hiding,
and he’s here.

Ten minutes? Fifteen? of Zoe taking calls, before the
director turned to Emma with a sigh. “That’s everyplace searched, and no sign
of him. I’m afraid we have to assume he’s left the center. The most likely
thing is that he would have walked home. I’ll go with you, and we’ll drive the
route.”

“He wouldn’t do that, though,” Emma protested. “He doesn’t
have a key, and he wouldn’t
do
it.”

“Children do funny things when they’re upset,” Zoe said.
“Running home can seem perfectly logical to a six-year-old, even though you or
I wouldn’t consider it. Let’s just have a check for him, before we do anything
else.”

“Like ring the police, you mean. We need to do that right
now. We’re wasting time here.”

“Let’s check first,” Zoe coaxed. “He could be sitting
outside your front door this minute.”

“No,” Emma said. Her hands were gripping the arms of the chair,
and she’d lost the battle with the fear that consumed her. “No. Ring the police
now. They can see if he’s at the flat. They can check more quickly than you and
I can.”

They waited, not talking, after Zoe made the call. Emma
stared at the phone on the desk, willing it to ring with the news that the police
had found Zack, safe and sound, at home. But it remained resolutely silent. Then
there were two police officers in the doorway, a man and a woman, faces serious
under the familiar caps with their checkered bands.

Emma jumped up. “Did they find him?”

“Sorry.” For a horrible moment, she thought the man was telling
her something else. “We haven’t found him yet. Not at your flat, not on the
route. We’re calling in a search team now.”

“Oh, God.” Emma put a hand out to the back of the chair, and
the female officer came forward.

“Why don’t you sit down,” she suggested. Then turned to Zoe.
“Maybe a cup of tea. Because we need to ask some questions.”

“Who’s looking?” Emma asked desperately. “What search team?
Who?”

“We’ve rung the right people,” the man assured her. “They’re
looking now, near the center. Going door to door and asking if anyone’s seen
him. But in order for us to direct them, we need some answers from you.”

Emma answered their questions automatically, pushing down
the terror that lurked just below the surface. No, there was nobody else who
could have come to collect Zack. Noplace else she could think of that he would
have gone. Nobody who knew he was meant to be leaving early.

“Why
was
he leaving early?” the female officer asked.

“He’d been fighting,” Emma explained.

“Was he unhappy?” the officer asked Zoe. “Upset? Would he
have thought he was going to be in trouble?”

“Yes,” Zoe confirmed. “Very upset. I don’t know about in
trouble.”

“No,” Emma protested. “I mean, yes, he’d have been upset,
I’m sure. But he wouldn’t have thought . . . he wouldn’t have been worried
about what I’d do. I don’t think so.”

“What about his dad?” the male officer asked. “He wouldn’t
have collected him? Did you ring him?” he asked Zoe.

“Oh.” Zoe looked confused. “No.”

“His dad’s in England,” Emma explained. “With the All
Blacks. His dad’s Nic Wilkinson.”

Both officers sat up straighter at that. “But the boy’s name
isn’t Wilkinson,” the man said.

“No. Zack has my name.”

“Would anyone else know who his dad was?”

“Yes,” Emma said, a new wave of cold fear engulfing her.
“Anyone who read the
Herald
yesterday could know.”

“And come here to kidnap him?” Zoe protested. “We do have
precautions. People can’t just walk in off the street and abduct a child.”

Emma froze at the words.
Kidnap. Abduct.
Then turned
her anger and fear on Zoe. “Like you had precautions against Zack walking out?
How do we know nobody took him? Has anybody asked?
Is
anybody asking?”

“Do you have security cameras?” the male officer asked.

“No,” Zoe said. “We’ve never needed them.”

“I need to ring my sister,” Emma said abruptly. “And Zack’s
dad. I need to ring Nic.”

Ringing Lucy was harder than she could have imagined. Saying
the words.
Missing. Gone.
Emma found herself choking on the story.

“Please come,” she finally begged. “Please come be with me.”
She rang off. Looked at the mobile again, then took a breath, picked it up to ring
Nic.

Four rings. Five. It was . . . what was it? Two o’clock?
Three? She couldn’t think. Then his voice, fuzzy with sleep. “’Lo? Emma? What?”

The tears, then. “Zack,” she got out. “He’s gone, and they
can’t . . . Oh, God, Nic. They can’t find him.”

“What?”

She explained in halting sentences, her breath coming in
shallow gasps. Saying it didn’t get any easier. It just made it more real.

“Who’s looking? Where?” he demanded. “What are they doing to
find him?”

“I don’t
know,”
she wailed. “They say they’re
looking. And they asked about . . .” She swallowed, forced herself to go on.
“About security camera footage. In case somebody . . . in case somebody took
him.” She was shaking so hard, she nearly dropped the phone. “Oh, God, Nic.
What if somebody took him?”

“Emma,” he said sharply. “No. Nobody’s going to have taken
him. He was in the center, right? Somebody would’ve had to come in. That won’t
have happened. For ransom? Not in En Zed. He’s walked someplace, is what it is.
But why?”

She explained about the fight. “Shit,” he said, his voice
shaky with emotion. “Bloody hell. He’s run away. Because he thought . . .
Bloody
hell.
But they’ll find him. They’re going to find him. Let me
talk to the police. Is somebody there with you?”

Emma handed the mobile to the female officer, heard her
answering Nic’s questions about the search team.

“I’ll be escorting your . . . Ms. Martens to her home shortly,”
the woman said. “If the boy’s wandering about, he could arrive home at any
time. She’ll be more comfortable there as well.”

“Yeh, I’ll be staying with her,” she confirmed. A few more
sentences, and she handed the phone back to Emma.

“Nic,” she said, hugging herself with the arm that wasn’t
holding the phone, rocking back and forth in distress. “Oh, God. Zack.”

“I’m coming back,” he said. “I’ll find out when I can get a
flight. But it takes so bloody
long.”

“No,” she said at once. “Please. I need you to be there. I
need to talk to you. I can’t have you be gone, not be able to ring you, for
more than a
day.
And they’ll find him before that, won’t they? They have
to find him.”