"Can you tell me what he was wearing?"

Detective Chen held his pen poised over his notebook, looking from Mouse to Henry and back again.

Detective Morris took a sip of her coffee, as they waited. She looked over at her partner, who gave her a knowing look back. She was pretty and blonde, he was husky, noticeably shorter than her. They had a look and feel of having worked together a long time.

Henry had called 911, and they'd redirected him to the police department, explaining that, horrifying thought it was, a missing child wasn't considered emergent. Detectives Chen and Morris had arrived at their house within fifteen minutes, and had been very kind.

"Um, well, he was in his pjs last night, though he could've changed? Or put on a coat or something?" Mouse, voice trembling, turned to Henry, her eyes enormous. "Oh my god, Henry, he can't be outside in nothing but his pajamas, can he? He'll freeze!" Tears spilled over as she began breathing rapid shallow breaths.

Henry rubbed her back, trying to calm her down. "Shh, you have to relax, Mouse, it's not good for you guys when you get all riled, please."

"But Henry, it's so cold! It's twenty degrees right now! He could get frostbite, or hypothermia, or--"

"How about if you check his dresser and closet?" Detective Morris suggested, not unkindly, rising. She motioned an "after you" gesture, and Mouse and Henry rose to lead the detectives to Leo's room.

"Shouldn't there be more of you?" Henry asked as they walked. "Like people to dust for fingerprints and forensic people?"

"That's only for active crime scenes," Detective Chen explained, again, very patiently. He was used to dealing with distraught parents, unfortunately. "We're just taking a report for now."

"But someone took him," Mouse said as they entered Leo's room. "Isn't kidnapping a crime? Please, you have to help us."

"Please look through his clothes and try to figure out what he was wearing," Detective Morris said implacably.

"And it doesn't look like anyone took him," Detective Chen continued, waiting by the door. "There's no sign of forced entry, no one's contacted you for ransom or anything."

Ransom.

Forced entry.

Mouse forced herself to calm down as she quickly looked through Leo's things. His drawers full of tiny socks, all of his shirts and pants, mocked her.

"Nothing's missing," she told the detectives. "He must still be in his pjs."

At the detectives' looks, she continued.

"SpongeBob, his pjs have SpongeBob on them," she supplied. "Button down fleece, top and bottom, long sleeves." She put her hand to her mouth and swallowed before continuing. "None of his shoes are missing, and his boots are still here, too, so he must be in his little slippers--" her voice trailed off into a sob, and she leaned into Henry for a moment. "Pikachu, yellow Pikachu slippers," she told Detective Chen, who wrote it down. "And his robe is right here, too," she added softly, touching it where it hung. "Oh no."

"I'm going to call in this description," he said to his partner, going back to the living room.

Detective Morris nodded and turned back to Leo's distraught parents.

"So tell me what's been going on in Leo's life lately," she suggested gently, leading them from their son's room. "Any trouble at home, or at school?"

Henry stared at her. "Do we have to do this right now?" he asked. "I mean, he's missing, Leo's missing, right now, and we're just standing around talking."

"I assure you, Mr. Gardener, we're doing everything we can," Detective Morris said with quiet authority. "We're putting out an APB and an Amber Alert right now, and uniformed officers are on their way to canvas this building, and the entire block.

"We'll find your son," she told Henry and Mouse. "So? School? Problems there?"

Mouse nodded, wiping her tears as they sat once more in the living room. Happy came to sniff worriedly at her, and Mouse scratched her head as she spoke. She told the detectives about the scuffle at school.

"And here? Was everything okay here?"

Mouse and Henry looked at each other. "A few months ago, Henry yelled at Leo about something, and Leo's been a little standoffish ever since then," Mouse said.

"So he's been unhappy lately?" Detective Morris reiterated, taking a few notes of her own.

Mouse nodded wordlessly, fresh tears spilling over. "Please," she entreated. "He's only five years old, he's just a baby, and he's out there in freezing weather in nothing but his little pajamas and slippers." Mouse felt like she was losing her mind. The thought of Leo, only wearing SpongeBob, wandering around Manhattan on this blisteringly cold morning, was unbearable.

"He couldn't have just left," Henry said. "He's never been out of the apartment alone, ever."

"Are you saying he's incapable of leaving?" Detective Chen asked, pen pausing over his notebook. "That he wouldn't know how to get the door open, use the elevator, all that?"

Henry shook his head. "I'm sure he could, Detective, I just can't believe he would. He's not what you call adventurous."

"So last night he went to bed early, of his own volition? Was this usual?"

Mouse and Henry shook their heads. "Like we said, he was upset about what happened at school yesterday," Mouse said.

"So you picked him up from school after the altercation with the boy, brought him home, then you didn't leave for the rest of the day, is that right?

"And he went to bed early, and that's the last time you saw him?

"And how was he about your pregnancy?" Detective Morris asked, gesturing toward Mouse's belly. "Was he happy about that? Sometimes an older child can be jealous about his place being usurped--"

"He was happy," Mouse said firmly.

Detective Chen put his phone down. "Apparently Leo was in the hospital recently," he told his partner. "Broken arm, dislocated elbow? And he was hospitalized last summer, as well?" His voice phrased it like a question, but he continued before Henry or Mouse could answer. "Nearly drowned in the harbor."

Detective Morris absorbed this information for a moment, then turned to Henry and Mouse. "How did he break his arm? Did it happen at school or here?"

"I was just getting to that," Mouse said, leaning into her husband. "Leo's been upset about something these last few months, and he's been reluctant to talk to us about it. He wet his bed, and didn't want to wake us up, so he tried to get clean sheets by himself and pulled the shelving out of our linen cupboard and fell."

"And you two? Any trouble between the two of you lately?"

Henry and Mouse just stared, too shocked to answer.

"Come on," Detective Chen encouraged. "New marriage, new baby, anxious little kid? You're telling me there was no strain, everything was fine?"

"I resent the implication," Henry answered.

"Henry--" Mouse began, but Henry interrupted her.

"No, Mouse! Can't you see what they're saying? That things were bad here, that we were having trouble, and maybe we're responsible for this?" His eyes narrowed as a new thought occurred to him. "Or are you insinuating that we actually did it? That we hurt Leo or something, and this is our sick way of trying to cover it up?"

Mouse sat up, horrified. "You don't think--you can't possibly think we would hurt our child?" she asked, incredulous.

"No one is saying you hurt your child, Mr. Gardener," Detective Morris assured him. "We have to ask, that's all."

Mouse stood up, unable to sit any longer. "I'm going out to look for him," she announced. "I can't just sit here and do nothing while Leo's out there enduring god knows what."

"I would advise against that, Mrs. Gardener," Detective Chen told her. "Unless you have some specific places to look, places you think he'd go? You should tell us, and let us check them out."

But Mouse shook her head. "He's never been out alone," she said helplessly, her voice rising on the last words. "He wouldn't know where to go."

She turned to her husband, tearing at his heart with her eyes, the expression on her face. "Henry, what are we going to do? Where could he be? How could he just leave?"

Henry shook his head, not knowing how to respond. He didn't want to believe it but he had to. Sometime in the night, his five year old son, who weighed forty-five pounds, had left their apartment wearing only his pjs and slippers, and simply disappeared.

🌼🦁🌼🦁🌼🦁

Up in the penthouse, Pete Santangelo was feeding his one-year-old son Finn his breakfast when he heard the house phone buzz in the foyer. This meant that someone in the lobby wanted to talk to them.

"Daisy, could you get that, please?" he called to his wife. "I'm a bit busy here," he added, grinning at his son, who was busy making some kind of nouveau artwork in his high chair with his oatmeal and fruit.

Daisy dashed to the foyer and picked up the phone, and Pete could hear her end of the conversation from time to time.

"Oh? Oh, no, how terrible!"

"Last night? No, nothing like that."

"How old is he? Oh god, his parents must be frantic!"

"Of course, of course, anything you need. Someone will be here all day."

Pete heard his wife hang up the phone just as he was cleaning up his boy and his demolished breakfast. He looked questioningly at his wife when she entered the kitchen.

"Where are the girls?" she asked, looking around.

"Clio is on the computer out there, Francie is reading on the sofa, and Lottie and Brina are playing 'E.T.'," Pete supplied. E.T. was their name for playing house in their closet, like when Drew Barrymore's character had hidden E.T. in her closet during the movie.

Daisy nodded, abstracted.

"Why? Who was that on the phone?" Pete questioned. "It didn't sound like a delivery."

Daisy shook her head. "Apparently a little boy who lives in the building has gone missing," she told her husband. Again, she looked around to make sure her girls weren't listening. "I don't want to scare them, you know?"

Pete nodded agreement.

"I guess he just disappeared in the night, Pete, wearing only his pajamas, can you imagine?"

"Which boy? Do we know him?"

Daisy nodded again, picking up Finn and dropping a kiss on his head. "The little guy with the poodle-shepherd looking dog? Young mom, pregnant? And the really hot dad."

"Right," Pete acknowledged with a grin in Daisy's direction. "I've waved in the lobby."

"So that was Mr. Benevides asking if we'd give the police permission to search the apartment. I said yes, of course." Daisy was taking Finn's pjs off, so she could put his clothes on him. "I guess everyone in the building has given permission, though technically they didn't have to, not without a search warrant or whatever?" Daisy shrugged. "I don't exactly get it, but the police should be here within the hour. They're going floor by floor, so we'll be close to last."

She turned to Pete, holding Finn, who was now wearing only a diaper. "Can you imagine what they must be going through?" she asked Pete.

He leaned in and kissed his wife, then his son. "No," he said. "I'd be losing my mind if one of the girls were missing, veramente," he added.

Lottie entered the kitchen and went straight to the refrigerator, grabbing some apples and cheese. "I promise we won't leave cores or wrappers in the closet," she told her parents with a sunny smile as she left.

"Five is so young," Daisy said. "And it's freezing out. Where in the world could he be?"