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reservation.”
    “Then leave him a note and some money for a pizza. He’ll go with us another time.” He was already reaching for his wallet.
    Teri shook her head and moved back into the house. “This isn’t like him. Call the restaurant and see if you can push the reservation back fifteen minutes. I’m going to call some more of his friends.”
    Tom smiled wryly. “Why don’t you call the police department and all the hospitals while you’re at it?” When Teri glared at him, he took her hand, sat on the sofa, and pulled her down next to him. “He’s sixteen, Teri,” he repeated. “Almost seventeen. He’s allowed to assert his independence.”
    “No, you don’t understand—”
    Tom put a gentle finger to her lips, silencing her objections. “His father died barely two years ago, and you’ve been seeing me for almost six months. He’s got to be thinking I’m trying to replace his father. You’ve got to give him some slack.”
    Suddenly this morning’s fight came flooding back to her, and she realized Tom was right. Ryan had tried to act like an adult when he agreed to go to dinner, but he hadn’t really wanted to.
    “You’ve got to give him some time, Teri. He has to deal with things on his own timetable, not yours.”
    Teri looked beseechingly into his eyes. “Then where could he be?”
    Tom shrugged. “It’s Friday night. He and a couple of friends could have gone out for pizza and a movie.”
    “He promised he’d be home,” she insisted, shaking her head. “He left school a few minutes after four—he should be here by now.”
    Tom squeezed her hand reassuringly. “You can’t make him be what you want him to be. Somewhere along the line he just decided he didn’t want to go out to dinner with me. And that’s okay. You can’t freak out every time he’s an hour late, or you’ll go insane by the time he’s off to college.” He kissed her cheek, then stood up, drawing her to her feet. “C’mon. Let’s go have a nice dinner, and you can have a chat with him when we get home. And just a chat,” he added with mock severity. “Not a tirade. Okay?”
    Teri shook her head. “I just don’t think I can go. I’ll be worried every minute and—”
    “Sorry, not going is not an option,” Tom interrupted. “If you stay home, you’d miss a terrific meal, and you’ll just sit here ruining your manicure.”
    Teri tried to scowl, but couldn’t quite pull it off. “But I won’t be able to enjoy the meal, or you, or anything else,” she sighed.
    “You’ll enjoy it more than you’ll enjoy just sitting here. So maybe you won’t be scintillating. Who cares? Just leave him a note and have him call you on your cell when he gets home. And I promise if he’s not home by the time we get back, I’ll not only help you track him down, but do half the worrying, too. Okay?”
    He was right—of course he was right. And if it hadn’t been for the dinner date—a date Ryan hadn’t really wanted to go on at all—she wouldn’t even be worried. Probably all that had happened was that he’d changed his mind about having dinner with them, and hadn’t called because he didn’t want to let himself get talked back into it. She took the phone back to the kitchen and scribbled a note to Ryan, leaving it on the refrigerator where he couldn’t miss it. Then she checked her cell phone for messages one last time, made sure it had enough charge and dropped it into her purse.
    “Okay,” she sighed as she returned to the living room. “I guess I’m ready.” But as she slid into the car a minute later, she knew she wasn’t ready at all. Despite Tom’s words about enjoying the evening, she was certain that all she would do would be to worry about Ryan.
    Something, she just knew, had happened to him.
    She couldn’t explain it, but she knew.
    She knew, the way a mother always knows.

    Caleb Stark filled his mop bucket with hot, soapy water from the big sink in the custodial closet, then pulled the