Chapter 2 - What Was Taped Under the Seat
The bus sat behind the gym exactly where it always parked. A maintenance worker had to unlock it, and he didn't move fast enough for how my chest felt.
"Which seat?" he asked.
"Near the front. Window side."
I climbed the steps two at a time. Caleb always picked the same seat because the back made him carsick. I dropped to my knees in the narrow aisle and reached blindly under the metal frame.
My fingers hit tape.
An envelope was pressed flat against the underside, held there with silver duct tape. My son's handwriting was scrawled across the front in thick marker.
*MOM.*
I ripped it open so fast the paper tore.
Inside was a brass key and a folded sheet of notebook paper.
*"Mom,"* it read. *"Marcus is lying. But please don't blame him. If you're reading this, something went wrong. Locker 218. Capital Station. I love you. Ethan."*
Wait — Caleb had written his own name at the bottom, like he needed to make sure I knew it was really him.
My knees buckled. The school principal caught my arm before I hit the floor.
"Caleb wrote this," I whispered, like saying it out loud would make it more real.
Then something else landed on me all at once.
The text. If that message really had come from my son, then somewhere out there, right now, Caleb was alive.
I dialed the number anyway, ignoring his own warning not to reply.
It went straight to voicemail.
Detective Reyes arrived twelve minutes later, out of breath.
"Do you think Caleb sent it?"
"I don't know."
"Did Tyler know about any of this?"
"I don't know."
For six months, Tyler Brennan had looked me in the eye and told me my son got on that bus. Reyes called his parents immediately.
An hour later, Tyler sat across from us in the principal's office, thinner than I remembered him, his hands twisting in his lap.
Reyes slid a copy of Caleb's note across the desk. Tyler read it, and his face crumpled.
"I'm sorry," he said, voice cracking.
My chair scraped back hard against the tile floor.
"You lied to me? For six months, you sat there and lied to my face?"
Tyler covered his face with both hands.
"He told me to."
"Where is my son?"
"I don't know," Tyler said, and I wanted to scream at him until the walls shook.
Instead, I heard Caleb's words in my head. *Please don't blame him.*
I forced my voice down. "Start talking. Now."
Tyler wiped his face with his sleeve and told us everything.
On Sunday morning, before the bus left the capital, Caleb told him he needed to meet someone nearby — just for a few minutes.
"He said he'd be back before we pulled out," Tyler said.
"Who was he meeting?"
"He wouldn't tell me. He just made me swear that if he wasn't back in time, I'd tell everyone I saw him get on."
"And you did it."
Tyler nodded, tears sliding down his face. "I thought he'd be back in ten minutes. He wasn't. By then I'd already lied to the teacher, and I didn't know how to take it back."
"So you kept lying. For six months."
"I panicked. And then every day that passed made it harder to tell anybody the truth." He looked at me, eyes red. "I'm sorry, Mrs. Foster. I'm so sorry."
Reyes leaned in. "Did Caleb tell you anything else? Any name, any hint?"
Tyler hesitated. "Just that somebody needed his help. That's it. I swear that's all I know."
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I was already standing.
"Locker 218," I said. "That's where we go."
