His voice was wrong.
Slow. Slurred. Like he was talking from the bottom of a swimming pool.
“Tommy, open the door. Come out the back.”
“Can’t.”
“What do you mean you can’t?”
“It’s locked.”
I went cold all over.
“Locked from where?”
“Outside.”
I tried the back door. The one off the patio that leads into the mudroom next to the laundry room.
It was unlocked.
I don’t know if they forgot. I don’t know if they never thought anybody would come around back. I’ll never know.
I stepped inside.
The mudroom was dark. The laundry room door was right there on my left.
There was a sliding barn-door bolt on the outside of it. The kind you’d put on a pantry. Up high. Where a kid couldn’t reach it from inside.
It was slid shut.
I pulled it open.
Tommy was sitting on the tile floor with his back against the dryer. He was wearing his school sweatshirt. His eyes were half closed. He looked up at me, and it took him two full seconds to focus.
“You came,” he said. “I told you not to.”
There was a plastic cup on the counter by the sink. The red kind you’d use at a picnic. A little bit of something pinkish left in the bottom.
I knelt down and put my hands on his face.
“Tommy. Look at me. Did you drink something?”
“Medicine,” he mumbled. “For sleeping.”
I didn’t think. I didn’t stop to argue with myself.
I picked up my phone and called 911.
Sophia Rivers is an experienced News Content Editor with a sharp eye for detail and a passion for delivering accurate and engaging news stories. At TheArchivists, she specializes in curating, editing, and presenting news content that informs and resonates with a global audience.
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