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“We’ve searched the creek,” Gabe said

“Won’t hurt to look again” As he did every day at the anized the others and then jumped into his truck “Me and the boys know this area like the back of our hands We’ll find him, Boss”

Gabe couldn’t bring himself to repeat the sheriff’s concern that AJ wasn’t lost He was stolen He had to believe his son had siotten lost The thought that soht do harm to his child nearly broke him

Dust swirled as trucks and cars and four-wheelers exited the driveway, each searcher going different directions

Gabe tried not to think about the ers that had nothing to do with disgruntled humans Within a mile radius, besides the deadly creek that had already clai vents, abandoned railroad cars and wild animals waited to steal his child

Across the yard, Brooke sat on her front porch step, head tilted to speak with the sheriff She was crying again Had she ever stopped? Pity and the need to protect rose up in Gabe’s chest He wanted to go to her so badly, to hold and cos he’d said, he couldn’t His brain was too full His e he had not to lose control and shatter into a million pieces

An hour passed A long, agonizing hour while he paced the yard, the house, the neighborhood He searched and then re-searched under beds and inside closets, behind the couch, in Brooke’s car, in her garage People swar to report

“Sorry, Gabe,” they’d say, shamefaced as if they’d failed They hadn’t failed him, but someone had

Brooke isn’t to blaive her life for his You know she would

He didn’t knohat to think, what to do AJ’s ence Now this

He closed his eyes Too distraught for rational prayer, he could only chant, “Bring hi him home”

“Gabe” At the touch of a soft hand, he looked up Brooke

“Gabe!” someone else shouted

Spinning away fro toward hi