Leigh (31 page)

“I don’t know. There are many possibilities. I’m still hoping that she’s just lost—that she thought she could get home by
herself or was mad at you for being late and started off and got lost.” He kissed her hair once, twice. “Kids do stupid stuff
like that all the time. It’s what causes gray hair in parents.”

Leigh nestled her face into the crook of his shoulder. She wished she could put stock in this theory, but she didn’t. Carly
wouldn’t have left the dance-studio entrance. That wasn’t like her. And even if she had, too many things could happen to a
lost child that strayed into certain parts of New York City. But Leigh didn’t voice this. Nate hadn’t, and maybe he wasn’t
just being kind—maybe he’d be right.

“You know, I’ve been thinking all night what feels familiar about this place, and I’ve finally put it together. Did you have
your daughter here in this apartment?”

“Yes.” She gazed up at him, wondering what his point was.

“I was here that night. Didn’t a policeman bring your sister or cousin here from the bus station?”

Leigh stared at him. “That was you?”

He nodded. “Life’s strange sometimes, isn’t it?”

Too strange.
Not knowing what to say in response, she glanced over his shoulder and glimpsed the clock.
I can’t think about the past right now, only Carly. “
I didn’t realize the hour,” she apologized. “You should go home. You’re on duty tomorrow, aren’t you?”
Please don’t leave me. I need you.

“I’ll rest on your couch,” he said without hesitation. “I gave this number in case anyone gets a lead. And I don’t want you
here without me.”

She gazed up into his honest blue eyes. What would she be doing now if he hadn’t come? He was the answer to the prayers she’d
uttered. She wrapped her arms around his neck and pressed herself closer to him. “Thank you,” she murmured, “thank you.”
Thank you, God, for sending Nate.

The long, sleepless night finally ended. Leigh paced the apartment, feeling like the living dead. Blinking herself awake,
Kitty got up from the recliner and made a fresh pot of coffee. Breathing in its aroma, hoping it would lift her, Leigh carried
a cup to the front window that looked out over the street she’d come to love. She thought of Nancy, who now lived in Colorado.
Of how ten years ago, Leigh had run
here
to Nancy’s apartment building and away from Maryland, from Trent Kinnard.

She’d prayed all night long, but God wasn’t under any obligation to her. She’d ignored him for the last twenty years. She
recalled the morning after Carly had been conceived, recalled wandering among the gravestones, seeking forgiveness. She didn’t
feel like she’d found any that day. Was that God’s fault or hers?

* * *

Nate watched Carly standing at the window, her spine straight, but her head bowed. Would they find her daughter in time? He
didn’t want to think of the terror her little girl could be enduring right now, didn’t let himself think of what someone might
be doing to her. He always understood that he walked in a fallen, wicked world, but he never got used to it. Evil swept into
a person’s life, and nothing was ever the same.
God, protect this good woman and her child.

He walked up behind Leigh. His hands claimed her shoulders. “Don’t give up hope. I haven’t.”

She reached up and placed one of her soft hands over his. “I’m trying. But I just don’t feel like I deserve… anything.”

“You haven’t mentioned much of Carly’s father,” Nate said cautiously, sensing he was tiptoeing into forbidden territory, “just
that he couldn’t be involved. But are you sure he couldn’t have kidnapped her?”

“Carly was conceived in a one-night stand with a married man ten years ago. We have not kept in touch.”

He winced inside at her flat recital. How much pain did that emotionless tone hide? It was as if she were saying to him, “You
might as well know what kind of tramp I am.”

“He must have had,” Nate said evenly, “a really good line to get you into bed.”

She glanced over her shoulder at him. “What?”

“You’re not the kind of woman who does one-night stands. I knew that the first time I met you.”

“You’re that good a judge of character?” She lifted one brow. Mocking him or herself?

“Yes, I am. A cop learns to size people up in an instant. And I’ve been a cop for over twenty years. I wouldn’t have lasted
that long if I hadn’t learned how.”

She stared down into her mug. “He did have a good line, and I didn’t know he was married.”

“And you’ve never made a mistake like that again.”

She nodded with a sober chin and turned back to the window.

“I’m not married.” He massaged her shoulders. “And I don’t do one-night stands. Just so you know.”

She made no response.

“I’ll do everything I can to find her.” He squeezed her shoulders tight, letting her feel his resolve through the strength
of his grip.
God, let us find Carly. Soon.

Leigh stiffened.

He wondered why.

Then she stepped away from him and turned to the kitchen. “Aunt Kitty, Grandma Chloe, and my mother are down front. It looks
like Uncle Thompson drove them. I think it’s his car.”

“I’m glad your family has come,” Nate said, but he wondered why she’d stiffened when she’d realized her family had come and
why her voice had changed subtly. How, he couldn’t say, but he’d heard it. Why wasn’t she happy to see them? Had they rejected
her for having an illegitimate child?

“I have to go on duty today,” he said. “I should be leaving now.”

She looked up into his face as if she was foundering at sea, and he’d just yanked a life preserver out of her reach.

Again, he gripped her shoulder. “I won’t stop the search for Carly. And unless she’s found earlier, at 4:00 p.m. you need
to come in to the precinct and fill out the missing person’s report. Or we still might get a ransom note.”

Nodding, Leigh wondered if he’d noticed that her already low spirits had nosedived when her mother had come. The buzzer from
below sounded, and Kitty spoke into the inter
com in the kitchen. With a heart of concrete, Leigh went to the apartment door and opened it.

Regal with a crown of silver hair, Grandma Chloe was the first through the door, and she threw her arms around Leigh. Over
her grandmother’s shoulder, Leigh saw her mother and then Uncle Thompson enter. Leigh braced herself for her mother’s words.
She’d blame this on Leigh’s poor mothering, her irresponsibility.

But the condemnation didn’t come. When Chloe released Leigh, Bette folded her into an embrace. “I’m so very sorry, honey.
Is there any word?”

Leigh couldn’t speak. It struck her that her mother was in her mid-sixties now. But it still surprised Leigh to see her striking
mother with salt-and-pepper hair and faint lines around her eyes. And as Leigh lingered with her arms around Bette, her mother
felt a bit too thin to her. And frail, frailer than Chloe. Dory was overseas with the Peace Corps. Bette was alone.

“What’s being done?” Uncle Thompson, now in his early fifties, kissed Leigh and then went to kiss Kitty’s cheek.

“This is Nate Gallagher.” Leigh stepped back from her mother, fighting an onrush of tears. Having family come tapped into
a deep well of emotion.

Over the past decade—in spite of her grandmother’s repeated invitations—she and Carly had stayed away from Ivy Manor for so
long, not wanting to “bring shame” on the McCaslins and the Sinclairs.
I allowed that to keep Carly from knowing Ivy Manor. God, please give me another chance to he a better mother.
Gooseflesh rose on her arms and she folded them around herself. “Nate’s been working on a story with me. He’s a NYPD detective.”

“I’ve talked to all your stepfather’s old contacts at the Bu
reau,” Bette said, looking Nate over in detail. “Have you received a ransom note?”

“No,” Nate answered for Leigh, “I’m glad to hear you’re using your contacts. I’ve had my friends in the NYPD and state police
working on this
unofficially
since last night.” He glanced at his wristwatch. “I’ve got to run. I’ll just have time to shower at home and change for work.”
He patted Leigh’s arm and hurried out with a wave of his hand.

Leigh wanted to stop him, but she remained silent.
What would I have done without him?

Smiling, Kitty took Thompson’s arm. “Why don’t you walk me home so I can do the same?”

“Sure, Kitty.” Thompson led her toward the door. He turned back. “Call us if anything develops.”

Leigh hadn’t seen them together very often, but when Thompson came, Kitty always wore the same special smile, one that was
hard to analyze. But it reminded Leigh of how a person looked when she opened a lavish and completely unexpected gift.
Oh, God, give me hack my daughter.

When the door closed, Leigh faced her mother and grandmother. “Thanks for coming so quickly. It’s… been awful.”

Both of them put their arms around her in a three-way hug. “God is still in control,” Chloe said. “We’ll have to trust Him
to keep our little Carly safe.”

Bette nodded but didn’t look very convinced. Her expression said, “Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition.” But aloud, she
said, “I’ll pour us some coffee.”

Watching her mother head toward the kitchen, Leigh realized that she was already holding a mug and took a sip of the lukewarm
brew. “Sit down, Grandma.”

“I’ve been sitting for hours.” Chloe took off her scarf and coat and hung them on the crowded hooks by the door. Leigh
looked at the assortment of mufflers and jackets hanging there—many of them Carly’s—and nearly burst into a fresh round of
tears. She breathed deeply and sipped her coffee instead.

Bette handed Chloe a mug and then sat down on the sofa with her own. “Tell us,” she said in a completely businesslike tone,
“how this happened.”

Pacing, Leigh went over the story of how she’d been delayed in picking Carly up from dance.

“You saw Mary Beth again?” Bette looked surprised. “And she’s working at a mission for drug addicts?”

Leigh finally perched on the arm of the chair across from the sofa. “I know what you mean. I was so shocked. That’s why time
got away from me.”

“That’s very understandable.” Chloe paused, still standing behind the sofa. “You must not feel guilty. Carly should have been
perfectly safe—”

The downstairs buzzer sounded again. Leigh hurried to the intercom. The voice she heard surprised her. She pushed the button
to unlock the door downstairs. “It’s Minnie and Cherise.”

“Oh, yes,” Chloe said, “I called them last night so they could be praying. Drake and Ilsa are away in California at Sarah’s
grandson’s bar mitzvah.”

Bette opened the door and the two women plus Cherise’s youngest son, a toddler, came in and were greeted with hugs and kisses.
“Cherise arrived yesterday for a visit to do some shopping and to let me have some time with my youngest great-grandbaby,”
Minnie explained. “My husband and Frank Three are in Georgia helping take care of the house and kids while Cherise is here.
Now tell us what’s happening and what we can do.”

Before Leigh had a chance to reply, the buzzer sounded
again. Within moments, Mary Beth was there, introducing her husband, Chet. Cherise clung to Mary Beth, weeping tears of joy.
Leigh watched her two oldest friends—Cherise, whom she saw rarely but who called often, and Mary Beth, who’d disappeared over
fifteen years ago. She contrasted Mary Beth the 1968 hippie with the woman here now. In spite of her grieved manner this morning,
Mary Beth had never looked more content. Her husband, Chet, was tall and thin and had kind brown eyes.

Why did this reunion have to happen now when her heart was so choked by Carly’s disappearance she could feel nothing else?
Friends and family had gathered around Leigh even if they couldn’t do anything. Why had it happened like this—the joy and
the heartbreak at the same time?

Leigh glanced at the clock. It was just after 8:00 a.m. Mentally, she counted out the hours that still had to pass before
she could file an official missing person’s report. Eight hours. Eight more grueling hours.

She gazed at her mother, who was holding Cherise’s youngest on her lap. She’d expected recriminations and blame from her mother,
but she’d received none. Was it possible this might finally bridge the chasm that had opened up between her mother and her
ten years ago when Leigh had insisted on keeping Carly instead of giving her up? Did she have to lose her daughter to regain
her mother?

The phone rang much later that night, sending a shock wave through her. In Leigh’s dimly lit living room, Nate was asleep
in the recliner. Chloe and Bette were asleep in the bedrooms, and Leigh was lying on the sofa trying to rest her body if not
her mind. She picked up the phone on the end table on the second ring. “Hello,” she gasped.

“Leigh, it’s Frank.”

“Frank.” Her heart thumped and then slowed again. How long had it been since she’d heard his voice on the phone? That November
day in 1963 flashed in her mind—the day he’d said that she attracted him like no other. “Hi,” she said, gripping the receiver.

“I waited to call you until everyone here was asleep, and I hoped you’d be alone…”

“Everyone here is asleep, too,” she whispered.

“Leigh, I can’t tell you how I wish this hadn’t happened. We’re all praying for Carly along with our church here. I wish I
could be there with you. But I can’t leave…”

“I know.” He was stationed in Georgia and had three children.

“Cherise says there’s a NYPD detective helping out. She thinks he’s… he might be interested in you.”

Leigh didn’t know where this conversation was going. What did Frank want her to say?

“I hope he is,” Frank murmured in that velvet voice of his that she’d never forgotten. “You’ve been alone too long, Leigh.
I want you to find someone good who will love you like you ought to be loved.”

Because you couldn’t let yourself love me} “
I’m not thinking about that now,” she said, speaking close to the receiver. “I can’t think of anything except my little girl.”