“What’s going on?” Lisa moaned.
“Somebody’s snooping around outside. I called the police. You can go back to sleep.”
“No way.” Lisa scrambled out of her sleeping bag. After pulling on sweats, they tore down the stairs and waited for the police to show up.
“Could you tell who it was?” Lisa asked as they watched a squad car creep toward them. A spotlight illuminated houses and yards as the officer cruised by.
“I didn’t get a good look at him.” An image of Doug flashed through her mind. Jennie dismissed it. Doug may not be the greatest guy in the world, but that didn’t make him responsible for every criminal activity in town.
The officer turned off the searchlight and pulled up to the curb in front of Jennie’s house. Jennie and Lisa met him halfway up the walk.
“Hello, again.” Robert Beck, the officer who’d investigated Nick’s first disappearance, glanced at his note pad. “You reported seeing a prowler?”
Jennie explained what she’d seen.
“He’s probably long gone by now. You two go back inside. I’ve called for backup. We’ll have another look around and let you know if anything turns up.”
When another officer arrived they went out on foot.
“Want some hot chocolate?” Lisa asked.
“Sure. Might as well. I can’t go back to sleep.”
“I’m surprised our moms are still asleep. My mom wakes up if I turn over.”
“Yeah. Mine too. I’m kind of glad.” Jennie took a pan from the lower cupboard near the stove while Lisa got the milk. “They looked really tired.”
They’d just heated the milk when Michael and Uncle Kevin walked in the back door. Judging from their rumpled appearance and the circles under their eyes, they’d neglected their own advice and had been out all night. Jennie offered them the hot chocolates she and Lisa were fixing.
“Thanks.” Uncle Kevin patted her shoulder. “What I need is coffee—hot and strong.”
“I’ll make it,” Jennie offered. She didn’t ask them if they’d found anything. Didn’t have to.
The men sat at the table with Lisa, while Jennie measured out the coffee, poured water into the reservoir, and turned it on. Instead of sitting at the table, she hoisted herself onto the counter. When Michael asked about the police cars out front, Jennie told him about the prowler. She’d just finished when someone knocked on the back door.
“Just came back to tell you we have a suspect,” Beck informed Jennie and the others when he came in. “Found him sitting on the back steps of one of the houses across the street. Took off running when he saw us.” Beck shook his head. “When we caught him he tried to tell us he lived there and had locked himself out.”
“Who is he?” Jennie asked.
“A punk kid—new in the neighborhood. Got a record as long as your arm. Name’s Doug Reed.”
Guilt tore at Jennie’s reserve. Had she been too quick to call the police? Doug had become a friend of sorts, and Jennie didn’t want to make things worse for him. Still, if he’d been snooping around … “I met him the other day. He does live there. His mom works nights.”
“You say he has a record?” Uncle Kevin sounded upset.
“Word is he was recently released from a correctional facility up north,” Beck offered.
“What did he do time for?” Michael asked.
“Auto theft.” Beck stepped back toward the still-open door. “Well, I’d better be going. You folks take care.”
Michael stopped him. “Officer, do you think he had anything to do with our missing boy?”
“I wouldn’t speculate on that. But you can be sure he’ll be questioned about it.”
When Officer Beck had gone, Kevin sank back in his chair. “Does your mother know about this Reed kid?”
Jennie nodded. “We talked about it yesterday.”
“The police should have questioned him immediately,” Michael said. Uncle Kevin agreed. It seemed strange having her previous suspicion of Doug voiced by someone else. She’d pretty much ruled him out as a suspect. Now the possibility crept back in and with it a feeling she couldn’t grasp. Part of her wanted to jump to Doug’s defense. He’d seemed concerned and had even offered to help. Yes, Jennie reminded herself, then he backed out. Face it, McGrady, you don’t know Doug all that well.
“Jennie?” Michael asked. “What is it?”
She shifted her gaze from his shirt collar to his eyes. He looked worried—of course he did. They all did. “I … you don’t really think Doug … I mean—he has a record, but he’s not a …” The dark thoughts were too terrible to say out loud.
“Doug didn’t have anything to do with Nick’s disappearance,” Lisa insisted, giving Michael and her father a hostile look. “If the court thought he was dangerous, they wouldn’t have released him. Nick just wandered off. I know we’ll find him, just like we did before. Maybe he’s asleep somewhere and pretty soon he’ll wake up and come home. He’ll wonder what all the fuss was about.”
Her reasoning wasn’t quite right. Criminals did get out of prison. Jennie could have argued the point but didn’t. Lisa knew the truth as well as she did.
Uncle Kevin took a deep breath, looked at Michael, then into his coffee cup. “Of course Nick is okay. We’ll find him.” He took a sip and set the cup back down.
Lies, a voice in her head thundered. Maybe they were all kidding themselves, but thinking anything else was simply not an option. People just didn’t go around hurting cute little kids like Nick.
Kevin and Michael left the kitchen, saying they needed a couple hours of sleep. After they’d gone, Jennie sipped at her lukewarm cocoa. Frustration dug into her like a wood tick. She plunked her cup down and shoved it to the center of the table. “We’re wasting time just sitting here.” Jennie barely recognized the hard-edged voice that escaped her throat. “We should be out there looking. I’m going to walk around the block. Maybe we missed something.”
Lisa rubbed her eyes and yawned. “It’s still dark.”
“Fine. You can stay here. Go back to sleep if you want,” Jennie snapped. “I’m going out.” Hostility oozed through her like molten lava. Jennie grasped the back of her chair, staring at her white knuckles. What is going on with you, McGrady? You blew up at Mom last night. Now you’re doing the same thing to Lisa. She took a deep unsteady breath. “Lisa, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to snap at you. I just feel so … I don’t know … helpless, I guess. And scared. I have to keep going. Part of me wants to cry—another part wants to bash everyone’s head in. It’s hard to explain.”
“Hey, it’s okay. You’re worried. You have a right to be upset.” She glanced down at her cup. “I’m scared too, Jennie. I couldn’t bear it if anything happened to Nick.”
Jennie released the back of the chair. “I’d better go.”
“Do you think it’s safe? Maybe we should wait until morning.”
“It is morning. It’ll be light soon.” Jennie pushed her chair back and stood. “Are you coming?”
“Sure. I guess. I’m not going to let you go out there alone.” Lisa rinsed their cups and left them in the sink. While Lisa went to the bathroom, Jennie slipped upstairs to retrieve their tennis shoes and socks and waited for Lisa on the front porch. The morning air smelled crisp and fresh.
The sun had begun its ascent, tossing hues of yellow and orange into the predawn sky. Lisa emerged from the house and sat down in one of the white rattan chairs to put her socks and shoes on. Jennie straddled the railing beside her, staring at the spot where she’d last seen Nick. “I wonder where they are.”
“Who?” Lisa asked as she finished tying her shoes. They left the porch and started down the walk.
“The Stuarts. Mom and I thought Nick was there, but when I went to get him, they weren’t home. They still aren’t home.”
“You think they might have Nick with them?”
“We keep coming back to that. It’s a possibility, I suppose, but Mrs. Stuart would never just take Nick—not without talking to Mom.” Jennie stopped in front of the Stuarts’ house.
“Could Nick have told them your mom had given him permission?” Lisa asked.
“I don’t know. To go for ice cream or to the store maybe, but they’ve been gone too long for that. It’s been twelve hours.”
“Nick could have stowed away,” Lisa suggested. “He could have hidden in the backseat or something.”
“They would have seen him by now and called. Anyway, that doesn’t make sense.”
“None of this makes sense.” Lisa kicked a pebble from the sidewalk into the street.
Jennie grabbed Lisa’s arm. “Wait. I just thought of something. Maybe Nick is in the house. He could have been playing in a closet or something and got stuck or locked in. Mr. and Mrs. Stuart may have taken off, not knowing he was there.”
“It’s possible, isn’t it? Are you going to call the police and have them check the house?”
Jennie chewed on her lower lip. “I don’t know. I think they’d have to get a search warrant and that could take hours. Nick could be hurt or something. Maybe I could just go in and look around.”
“You mean break in?”
“No. Mom has a key. They usually ask her to water plants and pick up mail when they’re gone. They didn’t do that this time. I wonder why?”
The windows of the Stuart home faced east, reflecting the rising sun. Was it a sign? With renewed hopes as high as her heart rate, Jennie told Lisa to meet her in the backyard, then returned to her own house.
The Stuarts’ key was hanging on a peg just inside the back door on the wall above the telephone. Good old organized Mom. She always insisted on hanging the keys there. Being involved with a neighborhood watch program, Mom had keys to three of the neighbors’ houses. The Stuarts, the Whites, and the Murrays. And all of them had a key to the McGrady house.
Jennie grabbed the key with the tag that read “Stuart—back door” and raced across the lawns to where she’d left Lisa.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” Lisa asked. “I mean, like … what if we get into trouble?”
Jennie twisted the key into the lock, turned it, and pushed the door open. “We won’t. Trust me.” Warm, stale air greeted them. Having been there numerous times to babysit Hannah, Jennie knew the house nearly as well as her own. It was newer and smaller than Jennie’s, not as many nooks and crannies to hide in.
“Let’s start with the garage,” Jennie said. Making an abrupt left at the kitchen sink, she opened the door to the double-car garage. Dark rust-colored stains marred the otherwise clean concrete floor. Someone had recently sprinkled on the stuff her mom used to absorb oil leaks. Shelves and hooks lining the wall kept everything neatly stored. Jennie closed her eyes trying to remember what she’d seen there before. She opened them and stared at a blank space along the back wall. “Bikes,” she said, walking toward the area where they normally hung. “They always keep their bikes on these hooks when they aren’t using them.”
“Maybe they’re on vacation.”
Jennie shook her head. “They’d have told Mom. And besides, both cars are gone.” Going back into the house, Jennie left Lisa to search the main floor while she went upstairs to check the bedrooms. The doors were all closed except for the master bedroom. A twinge of guilt trickled through Jennie as she opened the closet doors. Jennie ignored it. The his and her walk-in closets held nothing but the usual clothes, shoes, and accessories—a place for everything and everything in its place, as Mom would say. Anne Stuart separated her clothes by type. Evening dresses on one end, followed by church clothes, and so on, ending with casual shirts and slacks. Several gaps toward the casual end, along with the missing bikes, seemed to confirm the vacation theory. But why hadn’t they told anyone?
Chuck Stuart’s closet left Jennie with the same impression, though it was more difficult to tell since he had less closet space and fewer clothes. She was about to move down the hall to Hannah’s room when she spotted Lisa coming up the stairs. “Find anything?”
Lisa shook her head. “No, but they sure are neat. Can you believe it? Even the laundry is all caught up.”
“You should see their closets,” Jennie said as she walked into Hannah’s room. “Whoa. Talk about contrasts.” The small room reminded Jennie of a doll house. Puffy Priscilla curtains adorned the windows and a pair of pink ballet slippers hung above the bed next to a large framed pastel of a ballerina. That’s where the doll-house look ended.
Toys and clothes were strewn all over the floor. Three of the drawers in Hannah’s white dresser had been pulled out.
“This is really strange.” Jennie peered into the closet. “Most of her clothes are gone.” She dropped to her knees. “I don’t see her dolls. Hannah keeps a big suitcase full of dolls in here.”
Jennie heard footsteps on the stairs. Panic exploded in her chest like gunfire. She pulled Lisa into the closet and yanked the door closed.