“You’re on the phone, I take it?” Will asked Eaton, who nodded. “In a few minutes I’ll want you to brief me about the status of the search. Right now I want to talk to the family.”
Eaton nodded, and vanished into the living room. Will looked at Molly, Ashley, Mike, and Sam sitting limply at their kitchen table, and felt a pang for the Ballard who wasn’t there. Then he took off his coat and suit jacket and loosened his tie, and sat down on the bench beside Molly.
“Tell me what happened,” he said.
They did, singly and together, their voices sometimes dropping to a shaky whisper and sometimes faltering altogether as they described waking up that morning to find Susan gone.
That was all they knew, really. She’d gone to bed the night before just like always, and when they woke up the next morning she was gone. Even Ashley, with whom she shared a room, had heard nothing. Her initial assumption, when she awakened to find the other twin bed empty, was that Susan had simply gotten up early to go downstairs.
“Was there any sign of a break-in?” Will asked.
They all shook their heads.
“The doors were all locked, and the alarm was on,” Molly said. “That’s what I don’t understand: How could Susan simply disappear from a locked house?”
“It seems impossible,” Ashley said. “But that’s what happened.”
Will had a moment of blinding revelation. He looked at Mike, to find the teen was eyeing him nervously.
“You go out last night, Mike?” Will asked.
Molly shook her head. “We all stayed in. Ashley and Mike were studying, Sam did homework and watched TV, and Susan was practicing for her p-play.” Her voice broke on the last word.
“Mike?” Will asked again.
Mike nodded.
“Same way?”
Mike nodded again. His siblings stared at him.
“What time did you get in?”
“Around one-thirty.”
“You were out last night?” Molly asked. There was a high-pitched quaver to the words that worried Will. Molly was an emotional wreck over this, Will knew. He was surprised she’d managed to hold herself together as well as she had.
“Hush,” he said in her ear. This was not the moment to scold Mike for anything he might or might not have done. They had to get at the truth if they wanted to help Susan.
He said to Mike, “You locked the window and turned the alarm on when you got in, right?”
Mike nodded.
“Did you notice anything out of the ordinary? Was Susan in her bed?”
“I never even looked in on Susan. Why should I? I locked the window and turned on the alarm and went to bed.” Mike’s chin quivered. Will realized that the tough teenager with the ponytail and the earring was on the verge of tears. “It’s my fault, isn’t it? Whoever took Susan came in the window, didn’t they?”
“It’s not your fault. You didn’t know it was going to happen,” Will said. “And in a way it’s a help. At least we can pinpoint the time she was abducted with a good degree of accuracy. What time did you leave the house?”
“Around eleven-thirty,” Mike said.
“So we have a two-hour window of opportunity where someone could have entered the house and taken Susan. In order to have hit that, somebody had to know you snuck out at night through the window. One of the friends you meet, maybe, or someone they told. I’ll want a list of your friends. Or it could be that somebody has been watching the house pretty closely. Did you pick last night at random? Or do you usually go out on Wednesdays?”
“I’ve been going out most Tuesdays and Wednesdays for a couple of months, except when you and I had our deal.”
“Yeah.” Will could tell from Mike’s expression how much their deal had meant to him. Will felt bad about leaving the kid high and dry, and thus his response was gruff. But now wasn’t the time for apologies or explanations.
“What deal?” Molly asked, looking from Mike to Will. Then, to Will, “Did you know he was sneaking out nights?”
“I caught him at it, and we agreed that if I coached him in basketball he wouldn’t do it anymore,” Will said briefly. “But then I left.”
“Yeah,” Mike said, the single word bitter.
Will put aside his guilt to concentrate on the more important issue. “You didn’t tell the police about going out the window? Or whoever took your statement?”
Mike shook his head. “I told them I was in bed.”
Will frowned. Mike looked scared.
“I didn’t want Molly to find out,” Mike said. He seemed very young suddenly, more like a little boy than a teenager. His chin quivered again, and he glanced at Molly. “I know I’m a lot of trouble, and I worry you a lot, and now it’s my fault that S-Susan’s been kidnapped.”
Tears welled into his eyes. He covered his face with his hands and began to sob.
“Mike,” Molly said, getting up to go to him. She leaned over him, hugging his shoulders. “It’s not your fault. You didn’t know it was going to happen. None of us did.”
Looking at the two nearly identical dark heads so close together, Will felt another shackle binding him to them tighten around his heart. He cared for them, both of them. All of them.
Maybe he’d better start believing in forevers after all.
“Is Mike going to get in trouble for lying to the police?” Ashley asked in a small voice. Both Molly and Mike glanced up to hear the answer.
“I’ll take care of it,” Will said.
He stood up, found a glass in a cabinet, and poured himself some milk. When he glanced back at the table, Mike had himself under control again. Molly was still on her feet with a hand on Mike’s shoulder.
Under the pitiless glare of the overhead light, her skin was so pale it was almost translucent. Her eyes were huge, dark, and weary. She was so tired she was swaying on her feet.
“Bed,” Will said firmly. “For all of you.”
45
An hour later, Molly was in bed. She lay on her side with Ashley, who had flatly refused to stay in the room she shared with Susan, snuggled against her back. Her sister’s breathing told her that she had finally fallen asleep.
Molly felt she would never sleep again.
She turned over onto her back, murmuring another of the endless prayers she had said since she had figured out that Susan was really, truly gone. The words were a chant now, running ceaselessly through her head: Please, God, bring her back. Please, God, let her not be hurt, or scared. Please, God, she’s only eleven years old.
Moonlight filtered through a gap in the curtains. Molly got out of bed and went to the window, parting the curtains so that she could look out. Overhead, the moon glowed, round and full and yellow. Under the circumstances, it was almost obscenely bright and beautiful.
The night was alive with shadows. Wind blew through the trees. The stand of hawthornes and sycamores where she had last made love with Will formed the horizon to the south. Their peaked tops swayed against the cloud-dappled darkness of the sky. To the east was the fence, with the rolling fields beyond. To the west was the road, a glinting black ribbon curling away into the night.
Somewhere out there was Susan. Was she close, or had she been bundled into a car and driven far away?
It was cold now, dropping into the thirties tonight for the first time all year. Molly put her hand against the windowpane; it felt like ice.
Molly thought of Susan out there somewhere, pictured her little sister cold and frightened, and choked back a sob. Susan, she thought. Oh, Susan. Then she said her prayer again.
She couldn’t stay in bed. The thought of sleeping was absurd. She had to do something—but what? Searchers had already combed the yard and nearby fields. Will said they would be back tomorrow with dogs. Will said everything that could be done was being done. Will said she should sleep, because she would need every bit of strength she could muster for whatever lay ahead.
Will said. Will said.
Thank God for Will.
Molly turned away from the window and padded barefoot across the hardwood floor. Opening her bedroom door, she started down the hall. Then she remembered there was a strange man in the house: Eaton. She was wearing a white Winnie-the-Pooh sleepshirt with a picture of the fat bear on the front above the motto Honey forever! She turned and went back into her room, rummaging through her closet by touch until she located the pink toweling-cloth robe she rarely wore. Pulling it on, tying the belt around her waist, she headed back down the hall.
The kitchen light was on, drawing her like a moth. Will and Eaton sat at the table, deep in earnest conversation. Will had the inevitable glass of milk in front of him, while Eaton had coffee. The girls’ room was theirs for the night, though it was obvious at a glance that neither of them had yet been to bed. Will had removed his tie and unbuttoned the top few buttons at his neck, but he wore the same trousers and shirt he had arrived in. Eaton still wore his suit.
What was it with these FBI men and their suits?
“Miss Ballard. Did you want something?” Eaton saw her first and got clumsily to his feet. Assigned to the Lexington office, he was young, maybe thirty, maybe a little more, with dark hair nearly as short as Will’s and a lean, intelligent face. Molly knew he admired her, had seen it in his eyes from the time he had first arrived on the scene a half hour or so after she called Will. The knowledge barely registered. She was accustomed to men admiring her.
“Some coffee maybe. I couldn’t sleep.” Both men watched as Molly padded toward the counter, finding a cup and pouring herself some coffee from the pot one of them—Eaton, probably, since Will never drank it—had already made. When her cup was full she turned around to face them, leaning back against the counter as she sipped the steaming brew.
“Have you heard anything?” Molly knew the answer even before Will shook his head. Of course if he had heard anything he would have told her.
“We’re pursuing every avenue available to us, Miss Ballard. We’ve filed your sister’s vital statistics with NCIC—that’s the National Crime Information Center—and it’s been wired to every police department in the country. We have the guys at VICAP—the Violent Criminal Apprehension Program—running a check to see if they can turn up any leads. They’ve got a national computer database capable of comparing missing persons cases from across the country to see if there’s any connection. By tomorrow we should know if there’s a match.”
“Oh, dear God,” Molly said, her gaze flying to Will as the enormity of the task before them suddenly sank in. People went missing all over the country all the time; the government had a database full of names and statistics from all fifty states. Susan was only one of—how many? Thousands? More? “It’s just like what happened to Libby Coleman. Susan’s not coming back, is she?”
Her voice cracked. Her hands shook so badly that coffee sloshed over the side, burning her fingers. She set the cup down on the counter.
“Susan’s not going to be like Libby Coleman,” Will said, getting to his feet and moving toward her. He stopped abruptly, standing in front of her. His hands flexed by his sides; Molly got the impression that he was making an effort not to touch her. She looked up at him. He was close, so close she could see the bristle of five o’clock shadow on his cheeks and chin. His eyes were very blue, very intense, and his jaw was hard and set. “We’re going to find her. We’re putting everything we have into the search, and we’re going to find her.”
“Oh, God,” Molly said, closing her eyes and leaning her forehead against his chest. She thought he hesitated a moment, but then his arms came around her, warm and strong and comforting, to pull her close.
She had missed being in Will’s arms.
“Libby Coleman?” Eaton questioned from behind them.
“I’ve got somebody on it,” Will said over his shoulder. “It’s another missing persons case in the area. Thirteen years old. We’re checking for similarities.”
So Will had already remembered Libby Coleman. Molly felt herself relax a little. Will wouldn’t overlook something like that. Will was thorough, he knew his job, and he was smart. If anyone on earth could be trusted to find Susan, it was Will.
The scrape of the picnic table bench moving over the linoleum floor told Molly that Eaton was getting to his feet.
“I think I’ll go to bed,” he said. Molly realized from his tone that Eaton was being discreet. She should move out of Will’s arms, she supposed, both to alleviate Eaton’s discomfort and to save Will from further embarrassment before his fellow agent. But she badly needed him to hold her, and she couldn’t bring herself to pull away.
If Will was embarrassed, he gave no sign of it. “I’ll be up later,” he said. Retreating footsteps told Molly that Eaton was gone.
Except for Pork Chop, snoozing outside the front door, she and Will were alone.
Her arms slid under his jacket and around his waist. She felt something brush her hair, and wondered if it was his lips.
“I missed you,” she said into his shirtfront.
Will’s arms tightened around her. “I missed you too.”
“If it weren’t for Susan, you wouldn’t be here.” Molly had to keep reminding herself of that. She wanted him so badly, not just for now, but for keeps.
Will didn’t say anything to that. The tacit acknowledgment hurt. Molly rested against him for a moment longer, then pulled out of his arms to lean back against the counter.
“It’s almost two a.m.,” he said, studying her. “You need to get some sleep.”
Molly shook her head. Sleep was impossible. “I can’t. Every time I close my eyes I think of Susan. I wonder if she’s hurt, or cold—I know she’s scared …”
“Torturing yourself doesn’t do Susan any good,” Will said firmly. “Do you have any sleeping tablets in the house?”
Molly shook her head.
“Do you feel like talking?”
Molly thought about it, and nodded.
“Okay, you got it. You lie down on the couch and rest, and we’ll talk. I never have told you much about my son, have I?”
“Or your wife,” she said. Just saying the word caused Molly a pang. She didn’t like to think of Will with a wife, even one who had been dead for fifteen years.
“Come on.” He headed for the living room, pausing to turn out the kitchen light and collect a quilt from the closet under the stairs. By the time Molly had been settled to his satisfaction, she was stretched full-length on the couch. The quilt was wrapped around her cocoon-fashion, and she had a pillow under her head.
Will sat on the floor near her head, his back leaning against the couch, his knees bent and his arms resting on his knees. When Molly turned on her side, her nose almost touched his shoulder. His face was very close.
“So tell me about your son and your wife,” she said. Will had not turned on a lamp. They were alone in the dark with just enough moonlight filtering in through the curtains to turn the blackness to gray. As her eyes adjusted, Molly could see the curve of Will’s ear, the jut of his chin, the straight line of his nose. He turned his head to look at her. She could see his mouth, unsmiling now, and his eyes.
“Kevin—my son—is at college at Western Illinois. He’s eighteen, a freshman. He’s a great kid, good at athletics, makes good grades, nice-looking, nice manners. Until August he lived with me, and stayed with Debbie’s parents or my parents when I had to go out of town. Since he’s been gone, I’ve been kind of at loose ends. Surprising how much life one fairly quiet kid can add to a house.”
“Is that why you were so nice to the kids? Because you were missing your son?” Molly asked.
Will moved his shoulders in what Molly took for a shrug. “I liked them. I like them. They’re good kids. Even Mike.”
“Underneath it all,” Molly said, smiling a little. She curled closer to him, so that her chest rested against his back and her chin touched his shoulder. “Debbie—was that your wife’s name?”
He nodded. “Yeah.”
“Tell me about her
.”
Will was quiet for a moment. Then he said, “We met in college. We dated, started going steady. She got pregnant, we got married. Kevin was born. Two days after his third birthday she was killed in a car accident. He was in the car with her, but he wasn’t hurt. Thank God he was in the back, in a car safety seat.”
“Just the facts, ma’am?” Molly said softly. “What was she like? Did she have dark hair or blond? Did you love her?”
“She had brown hair and blue eyes—Kevin looks like her—and she laughed a lot. She was a jock, good at all sports, a killer at tennis. She was her parents’ only child, a little spoiled but she knew it and could joke about it. When Kevin was born, she adored him. And yeah, I loved her.”
At something in his voice, Molly cuddled closer, resting her cheek against his shoulder in silent sympathy. He glanced at her, then made a sound that was not quite a laugh.
“When she died I never thought I would love a woman that way again. But you know what? Time changes a lot of things. I remember what she looked like—hair color and so forth—but I can’t really picture her in my mind anymore. She’s just a shadow, a laughing shadow. Sometimes I think the boy who was married to Debbie died with her. The man that boy grew into is someone entirely different.”
“I know what you mean,” Molly said, because she did. “When I think about my mother now, all I remember is things like she loved chocolate ice cream and yellow dresses. I can’t really picture her face. It’s almost like she never existed at all. I feel guilty sometimes, but that’s the way it is.”
“Mike told me about her, a little.”
“Did he?” Molly’s mouth twisted wryly. “I had no idea Mike was such a blabbermouth. I know he told you about—how she died. I heard that one. What else did he tell you? That she was manic-depressive? That sometimes she was the greatest mom in the world, and sometimes she just seemed to forget about us? That she had terrible taste in men, and when she was in love—she fell in love a lot—she’d take off and leave us at the drop of a hat?”
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