Mary Clark - Where are the children?

Ray stared into the fireplace. 'It's cool in here,' he said. 'A fire will feel good.' His eye fell on the cameos on the mantelpiece that Nancy had painted of Michael and Missy when they were babies. He swallowed over the stinging lump that suddenly closed his throat.

'I don't think you really need a fire in here now, Ray,' Jed said quietly. 'I asked you to step in here because I want you to tell Nancy to get dressed and come with us to the station house.'

'No… no… please…' Chief Coffin and Ray whirled to face the archway leading into the room. Nancy was standing there, one hand leaning against the carved oak archway for support. Her hair had dried, and she had pulled it into a bun caught loosely against the nape of her neck. The strain of the past hours had turned her skin a chalky white that was accentuated by the dark hair. An almost detached expression was settling into her eyes.

Dorothy was behind her. 'She wanted to come in.' Dorothy's voice was apologetic.

Now she felt the accusation in Ray's eyes as he hurried over to them. 'Ray, I'm sorry. I couldn't make Her stay inside.'

Ray pulled Nancy against him. 'It's all right, Dorothy,' he said briefly. His voice changed and became tender. 'Honey, just relax. Nobody's going to hurt you.'

Dorothy felt the dismissal in his tone. He had counted on her to keep Nancy away while he spoke to the Chief, and she couldn't even do that much. She was useless here – useless. 'Ray,' she said stiffly. 'It's ridiculous to bother you about this, but the office just phoned to remind me that Mr Kragopoulos, who wrote about the Hunt property, wants to see it at two o'clock. Shall I get someone else to take him up there?'

Ray looked over Nancy 's head as he held her firmly against him. 'I don't give a damn,' he snapped. Then quickly he said, 'I'm sorry, Dorothy. I would appreciate it if you showed the place; you know The Lookout and can sell it if there's real interest. Poor old Mr Hunt needs the money.'

'I haven't told Mr Parrish that we might be bringing people in today.'

'His lease clearly states that we have the right to show the house at any time with simply a half hour's telephone notice. That's why he has it so cheap. Give him a call from the office and tell him you're coming.'

'All right.' Uncertainly, Dorothy waited, not wanting to go. 'Ray…'

He looked at her, understanding her unspoken wish but dismissing her. 'There's nothing you can do here now, Dorothy. Come back when you've finished at The Lookout.'

She nodded and turned to go. She didn't want to leave them; she wanted to stay with them, sharing their anxiety. Ever since that first day when she'd walked into Ray's office, he'd been a lifeline for her. After nearly twenty-five years of planning her every activity with Kenneth or around Kenneth's schedule, she'd been so rootless and. for the first time in her life, frightened. But working with Ray, helping him to build the business, using her knowledge of interior decorating to spark people to buy the houses, then invest in renovating them, had filled so much of the void. Ray was such a fair, fine person. He'd given her such a generous profit-sharing arrangement. She couldn't have thought more of him if he'd been her own son. When Nancy had come she'd been so proud that Nancy trusted her. But there was a reserve in Nancy that didn't permit any real intimacy, and now she felt like an unnecessary bystander. Wordlessly she left them, got her coat and scarf and went to the back door.

She braced herself against the wind and sleet as she opened it. Her car was parked half-way around the semi-circular back driveway. She was glad she didn't have to go through the front drive. One of the networks had a television van parked in front of the house.

As she hurried towards her car, she saw the swing on the tree at the edge of the property. That was where the children had been playing and where Nancy had found the mitten. How many times had she herself pushed the children on that swing? Michael and Missy… The awful possibility that something might have happened to them -that they might be dead – gave her a terrible choking sensation. Oh, please, not that… almighty and merciful God, please not that. She'd joked once about being their surrogate grandmother, and then the look of pain had been so unmistakable on Nancy 's face that she had wanted to bite her tongue off. It had been a presumptuous thing to say.

She stared at the swing lost in thought, unmindful of the wet sleet stinging her face. Whenever Nancy stopped in the office, the children made a beeline for her desk. She tried to always have a surprise for them. Just yesterday when Nancy had come in with Missy, she'd had tollhouse cookies she'd baked the night before as the special treat. Nancy had been on her way to look at drapery material, and Dorothy had offered to mind Missy and pick up Michael from kindergarten. 'It's hard to select material unless you can really concentrate,' she'd said, 'and I have to pick up some title-search papers at the courthouse. It will be fun to have company, and on the way back we'll get some ice-cream, if that's all right.' Only twenty-four hours ago…

'Dorothy.'

Startled, she looked up. Jonathan must have cut through the woods from his house. His face was deeply creased today. She knew he must be nearly sixty years old, and today he looked every bit of it. 'I just heard about the Eldredge children,' he said. 'I've got to talk to Ray. Possibly I can help.'

'That's nice of you,' Dorothy said unsteadily. The concern in his voice was oddly comforting. 'They're inside.'

'No trace of the children yet?'

'No.'

'I saw the article in the paper.'

Belatedly, Dorothy realized that sympathy was not being offered to her. There was a coolness in Jonathan's tone, a reproof that clearly reminded her that she had lied to him about having known Nancy in Virginia. Wearily, she opened the door of her car. 'I have an appointment,' she said abruptly. Without giving him time to answer, she got in and started up the engine. It was only when her vision blurred that she realized that tears were swimming in her eyes.

The clatter of the helicopters pleased him. It reminded him of the last time, when everyone for miles around the University had fanned out looking for the children. He stared out of the front window overlooking the bay. The grey water was caked with ice near the jetty. Earlier the radio had spoken of gale warnings and sleet or rain mixed with snow. For once, the weatherman had been right. The wind was whipping the bay into angry whitecaps. He watched as a flock of gulls flew unsteadily in a futile effort to make headway against the wind.

He carefully consulted the indoor-outdoor thermometer. Twenty-eight degrees out there now – a drop of twenty degrees since the morning. The helicopters and search planes wouldn't be up much longer in this. There wouldn't be many searchers out on land either.

High tide was seven o'clock tonight. At that time he'd take the children up through the attic to the outer balcony they called the widow's walk. The water at high tide covered the beach below, broke furiously against the retaining wall and then, sucked by the violent undertow, rolled back to sea. That would be the time to drop the children… over… down… They might not be washed up for weeks… But even if they were found in a few days, he'd prepared for that. He'd given them only milk and cookies. He wouldn't be fool enough to feed them anything that would suggest that a person other than Nancy had fed them a real meal after breakfast. Of course, hopefully they'd be beyond analysis when they were found.

He chuckled. In the meantime, he had five hours: five long hours to look at the floodlights that were being set up near Nancy 's house and the lake; five hours to be with the children. Even the boy, come to think of it, was a beautiful child… such soft skin, and that perfectly formed body.