“Toby, where is Gavin?” Brenda demanded, rushing out from the kitchen behind me. Her eyes swept over my son’s state, her anger instantly morphing into sheer panic. “Where is my boy? Is he hurt?”

Toby swallowed hard, his throat working dryly. Tears welled in his red-rimmed eyes, leaving clear tracks through the dirt on his cheeks.

The Story Continues After Part 2

PART 3

The Name on the Concrete

“He’s alive,” Toby whispered.

“But he’s trapped.”

Brenda reached for the back of a chair.

I heard the wood scrape across the tile as her hand missed it.

“Trapped where?”

“Under the old Kingsley bridge.

The service tunnel.

We were trying to get him out.”

It took a full second for the words to make sense.

The Kingsley bridge had been closed to traffic for years.

Below its western approach, the river ran behind warehouses that were mostly vacant.

The city had fenced off the drainage works after an inspection found unstable concrete.

Nobody with any sense went there.

I pressed my phone into Toby’s palm.

“Show me where.

Right now.”