The Reckoning by Christie Ridgway Read Free Book Online

Emmett.
    â€œTraffic patrol,” he said.
    The traffic patrol! Of course it was the traffic patrol—theolder kids of the elementary school who were charged with getting the littler ones safely across the street. As she watched, individuals peeled off the small crew to stake out the corners of the nearby intersection while more little kids poured out of the gates. Some headed for yellow school buses, some ran into the arms of the cell phone mothers, and groups gathered to cross the streets.
    In the streaming parade of children emerging from the school, Linda couldn’t find Ricky.
    Studying the faces around her, she made her way toward those open front gates, her shins bumped by plastic lunch boxes, her thighs thumped by backpacks that gave each little kid linebacker shoulders. “Ricky!” she heard a high voice yell, and she spun left to follow the sound, but lost the speaker in a sea of pigtails and porcupine-spiked hair.
    She whirled back, telling herself she’d find her son, telling herself not to panic, telling herself even a person without a brain injury might be confused within the mass of chattering voices and afternoon exuberance. Breathe, Linda, breathe.
    â€œGrrrr!” Something knee-high and wearing a gruesome, paper-plate-with-poster-paint mask came at her, eyes glittering, bitty fingers curled into claws. Linda drew instinctively away from it, and her back hit someone else’s solid frame.
    Emmett’s. He held her against him with an arm across her waist. “It’s a jungle out here, isn’t it?” he said against his ear.
    Even as his warm breath sent goose bumps sprinting down her neck, Linda relaxed against him. Just as it had in the grocery store, his presence calmed her and gave her renewed strength.
    â€œI don’t see Ricky,” she said. “Could we have missed him?” The cell phone moms hadn’t missed their kids. Already they were climbing back into their cars, their kids in tow, their mouths still moving as they continued their calls.
    â€œWe didn’t miss him.” Emmett placed a hand atop each of her shoulders and turned her back to the intersection of streets. “See that Stop sign over there?”
    Attached to the Stop sign was Ricky, his features almost lost beneath the plastic yellow brim of his hard hat. Her son, Ricky. Star of the traffic patrol.
    At least, that was how it seemed to her. A swell of warmth rose inside her as she watched him nod to the group of children waiting on his corner. They hurried through the crosswalk under his serious gaze.
    She looked up at Emmett. “He’s very good at that, don’t you think?”
    â€œTruly a prodigy.”
    Her eyes narrowed. “Are you laughing at me?”
    He shook his head. “No. You just sounded so motherish.”
    She considered the notion. “No, I don’t have the cell phone for it.”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œNever mind.” She returned her gaze to Ricky, watching as he monitored the last of the crossers, then tucked his Stop sign under his arm and headed back for the school. She realized the instant he saw her.
    â€œHi,” she said, hoping she still had that motherish tone that Emmett had noted. Maybe if she sounded like a mother and acted the part, she’d really begin to feel like one. “Good day at school?”
    â€œWhat are you doing here?” he asked, his eyes darting toward his patrol buddies and then back to her face.
    â€œI thought maybe you’d like a ride home today, instead of taking the school bus. We could stop for…ice cream or something.” She glanced up for Emmett’s approval, but he’d drifted away from her and Ricky.
    â€œI want to take the bus.” His glance flicked over to anotherboy, who was standing shoulder to shoulder with him. “Anthony and I always take the bus home together.”
    She shrugged. “We could take Anthony with us. For the ice cream,