And once again she hated the growing bustle of people outside. Normal lives untouched by a tragedy of this magnitude. The whole damn world should have frozen in its tracks.

  * * *

  GUY HAD WATCHED the flow of emotions across Valerie’s face. He wondered if she had any idea how much she betrayed, yet she could become totally impassive on the job. How many times a day did she have to lock away all her emotions in order to be a detective? As many as he did?

  Even here in this small town being a cop could get incredibly ugly. For all this was a friendly place where neighbors helped each other out, it was still full of human beings. And human beings could get downright horrible. Some of those smiles out there probably hid dark things: hatred, malice, envy, anger. There were even a few longstanding feuds, but these days they played out mostly in court, unlike past times when they might be settled with guns. Yet the surface around here remained tranquil and pleasant. Most of the time.

  Then there was the grapevine. Gossip was a popular activity in these parts. A way to fill some empty hours and maybe play a quiet game of one-upmanship. Like the game of telephone, however, stories stretched and changed along the way. It was usually harmless, but occasionally that grapevine would get clogged with maliciousness and outright lies. One thing was for sure—it was never silent.

  But on this matter, at least, the gossip had gone still. Which was interesting in and of itself. By now someone should have started a story about May or Chet. Some ugly tidbit that would grow as it spread. Maybe some little fact that got twisted. Maybe a fully made-up story.

  But nothing.

  That alone disturbed him. He had no doubt that Gage was right about it. His wife, Emmaline, was plugged into everything in the area. As the head librarian and daughter of a founding family, the Conards, she had deep enough roots to be in touch with it all. She’d know if there were any whispers about the Chamberlains.

  The lack of whispers might be speaking loudly. Did it mean no one harbored any ill will against the family? Or did it mean that for once nobody wanted to stir up any kind of trouble because a missing child was involved?

  If anyone knew anything that might be helpful but didn’t want to say it to anyone else, that would hinder the investigation.

  Valerie returned her attention to him. “Have the search parties quit?”

  “Not yet. The number of searchers has diminished, though.”

  “I’d expect that.” She frowned. “We’re losing precious time.”

  “Hour by hour,” he agreed. And so far they had no damn way of speeding this up. It twisted his gut into a knot when he looked at the problem that way.

  He noticed Valerie had begun to aimlessly fold a paper napkin, creasing it sharply. “What?” he asked. Her nervous habit. She’d done it yesterday.

  She looked up. “Huh?”

  He pointed to the napkin. “What’s troubling you apart from Lizzie’s disappearance? Because something obviously is. We’re not going to get anywhere if you hold anything back. Did you remember something that bothered you about the interviews we did?”

  She shook her head slowly. “No. Not exactly.” She bit her lower lip, worrying it. “The cop in me is probably getting too suspicious.”

  “Maybe. Share it anyway.”

  She suddenly looked stricken. To his surprise his own heart responded to her distress. God, he didn’t need that.

  She spoke at last. “What Chet and May both said about Lizzie crying when she’s taken from her mother?”

  “Yeah? The baby monitor had been shut down.”

  Valerie shook her head slightly, and her eyes reddened just a bit. “May should have heard her cry anyway.”

  Guy felt gut-punched. It took him nearly a minute to find his voice and when he did he had to clear his throat. “What do you mean?”

  “I could be wrong. God, I hope I’m wrong!”

  “But?”

  “But Lizzie’s room is right next to May’s. Those walls aren’t soundproofed. Lizzie cries loudly. Monitor or no monitor, May would have had to have been drugged not to hear her. Monitors aren’t for hearing from the next room but for being somewhere else in the house.”

  * * *

  VALERIE FELT SICK enough to vomit. She resumed folding the napkin, trying to focus on that one little bit of clarity. But the detective in her had fully wakened and she couldn’t ignore what she had just figured out.

  “That means one of two things,” she continued, her voice ragged with squelched emotions. “Either May was drugged somehow or someone did something else to get that child out of the house without crying.” She shuddered, unable to hold it all in.

  “Or...” Guy let the word hang. He knew he wasn’t going to state the unspoken part: that May had gotten rid of her own daughter.

  Chapter Six

  They left Maude’s together, climbed without a word into his Suburban and sat in silence for a century or two, or so it felt to Valerie.

  Her chest squeezed so tightly that Valerie doubted she would ever breathe again. Her stomach threatened to eject the food she had just eaten, and with the nausea came a cold sweat.

  Words finally burst out of her. “May wouldn’t hurt her. Absolutely would not! She adores Lizzie.”

  “She’s also a single mom with an ex who seems unable to accept the terms of the custody arrangement. Or maybe she’s being unfair to him, given his irregular hours. That bit sounded a little cruel to me.”

  Valerie hated to agree, but it had struck her that way, too. Did she want to deprive Chet of all contact with his daughter? Was she that angry and bitter? What had brought on that divorce? Something so ugly that May had never told her own sister?

  Guy spoke again after a minute or so. “You need to question her about that.”

  “I know,” Valerie answered, her voice thick. “I know.” She stared through the windshield at the offensive, sunny, normal street. “I’m beginning to wish I’d never insisted on getting involved in this.”

  Guy snorted. “As if you wouldn’t have been thinking like a detective anyway even if all you did was sit this out with May. You’re doing it right now even if it’s killing you.”

  Her hands clenched into fists. “I don’t know if I can do this, Guy.”

  “No one else can.”

  His words dropped into her like hot lava bombs. He was right.

  * * *

  GUY LEFT VALERIE at May’s house. She stood on the sidewalk, looking up at the large brick house, feeling almost crushed under the weight of what she needed to do.

  More anguish, fear and guilt than she could imagine lay inside that house, a lurking beast. No one, not even Aunt Valerie, could possibly experience the depth of pain that May was feeling.

  Now she needed to enter that house in a way that would only make May feel worse. Valerie hated herself.

  But it had to be done. Squaring her shoulders, seeking the stability and detachment that had carried her through some truly upsetting cases, she headed for the door. She felt like a high-wire walker with the gaping Grand Canyon beneath her. A misstep might hurt May, it might permanently damage their relationship, and she might fall to an internal death all her own.

  God, that was her beloved sister in there. Friends all their lives. The best of buddies, sharing everything.

  But maybe something hadn’t been shared this time. Something that might help find Lizzie.

  Or something that would damn her sister or Chet to eternal fire. She couldn’t believe it. She didn’t want to believe it, but for the next while she had to force herself to believe it was possible. Butterflies in the pit of her stomach fluttered so wildly it felt as if they were locked in some kind of battle.

  When she entered the house, she found May all alone. Her sister had curled up on the couch and was staring blindly into space.

  “May? Where’d everyone go?”

  May stirred only slightly. “I told them to leave,” she answered dully.

  “Why?”

  May’s voice rose and she sat up. “Because that damn cop was useless. She was sitting there by the hour with nothing to report. Because I can’t stand another person trying to tell me it’ll be all right.”

  Valerie shut up, letting her rant, awash in pain for her sister.

  “Because,” May continued, “I’ll scream if one more person offers me tea or coffee or pastry or some sloppy casserole. Because I want to scream every time someone tells me I need to eat something! I’m living in hell and I can’t stand anyone telling me that it’s going to be okay.”

  May drew a shuddery breath. “It’s not going to be okay. It’s not. My baby’s out there somewhere, all alone. Frightened. Maybe being mistreated. Maybe dead! And no one’s helping. No one!”

  Then May dissolved into wracking sobs, sobs that threatened to tear her apart. Valerie eased down onto the sofa beside her and wrapped her arms around May, holding her tightly, letting the storm tear at her sister.

  Helpless. God, she was so damn helpless and useless. And now she needed to ask questions, awful questions, questions that might tear May apart more. She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to steel herself from the minutes ahead.

  When May’s sobs began to ease because of fatigue, and she started to sag, Valerie asked quietly, “Where’s Chet?”

  “Where he always is,” May answered wearily. “With some patient who matters more than I do.”

  So no time with Chet was better than some time with Chet? But hadn’t that been the reason for the divorce in the first place?

  She stroked her sister’s hair. “But he went out with the search parties.”

  May’s voice strengthened, laced with fury. “Big deal. He took a week off when Lizzie was born. One lousy week. His partner couldn’t handle the patient load alone. She has a family to get home to. Chet covered evenings and nights for her all the time. But not for his family. So I had to handle it all alone. God, the people in this county must be breeding like rabbits!”

  “Did you have a problem with that before Lizzie was born?” Valerie couldn’t remember any complaints before then.

  May sniffled, drew back and grabbed a tissue from the nearby box to dab at her eyes. “I didn’t notice it as much. I had my teaching job. I was bringing home my work all the time. I was busy.”

  Valerie drew a breath. “So Lizzie changed all that.”

  “Of course she did. It’s different with a baby. I stopped working because I needed to take care of her and I didn’t want to be sending her to day care five days a week. I wanted to take care of my own baby, not let someone else do it.”

  Valerie nodded, taking it all in, feeling May’s words pierce her like knives. She steadied herself with a deep breath. She couldn’t afford to give in to her own anguish. Not now.

  May spoke again. “At first it wasn’t so bad. I was walking on air. Then it changed.”

  “How so?”

  May didn’t answer for a while, then: “I started to feel bad. Resentful. Dulled by it all. Chet said it was postpartum depression. He wanted to give me a pill for it. A pill! Like that would change anything about the situation. I was basically locked up in this house with an infinite sea of diapers and a kid who needed me all the damn time. Sure, friends would stop by, but conversation gets pretty dull when all you have to talk about is diapers and babies. And it left me feeling left out as they shared all their stories of the day.”

  Valerie took her sister’s hand and held it snugly, stating the obvious. “I can’t say I understand how it was for you.”

  May turned her head, looking at Valerie from wet eyes. “I loved Lizzie all the time, though. You need to understand. No matter how miserable I was feeling, I always loved her. I do love her.”

  “Of course.” Valerie had begun to feel she was swimming in unfamiliar waters and couldn’t find her footing. She didn’t know how to reach out. She’d never had to reach out to anyone in this state of turmoil. She was also getting a better idea of what May had been going through.

  May wiped her nose with the tissue. “Chet was here when he had the time, just like always. But I started to feel he wanted to get away from me. Like he was working more than usual just to escape my moods, to escape all the work involved. Maybe that wasn’t fair, but I began to believe it. Then came the colic.”

  Valerie waited. She wanted May to tell the story her own way.

  “Do you know anything about colic? It can go on for months. There’s no help for it. It lasts three or four hours at a time, usually, and you feel so damn helpless walking a screaming child you can’t help. Night after night. It seemed like it would go on forever.”

  “And Chet?”

  “He helped when he was here,” she said fairly. “But he wasn’t here very much. An awful lot of babies were being born during the nights. Then there were his office hours.” She sniffled again. “Do you think he was running away? Or having an affair?”

  Valerie felt shock all the way to her toes. Chet having an affair? That had never entered her head. He didn’t seem like the type. “Only Chet can answer that question,” she answered carefully.

  “Like he ever would. I demanded to know and he denied it all. Work was his everlasting excuse. If I was going to have to deal with it all alone, so be it. I divorced him. The only thing he fought me about was custody.”

  “How did you feel about the divorce?”

  “Free.” May wiped her eyes again and spoke fiercely. “He was no longer a problem for me. Whatever his reasons he was gone and, without worrying about what was going on with him, I started to enjoy Lizzie even more.”

  May fell silent for a while, her tears dried up, her breaths growing calmer. When she spoke again, she said, “He was rejecting me so I rejected him.”

  * * *

  EVENTUALLY MAY AGREED to eat something, to drink some coffee. Valerie found the refrigerator overflowing with well-meaning gifts of food. Plenty to choose from. Given May’s state her sister needed some hefty fuel to keep herself going, so Valerie chose some sweet, fatty pastries to go with the coffee. She carried plates and mugs for them both and placed them on the coffee table. This time May reached for the pastry without being prodded.

  But Valerie had gotten the clearer picture she’d needed. Roses hadn’t turned to ashes because anything had changed except May. She faced it squarely. May said she loved Lizzie, had never stopped loving her, but was that true?

  Given the situation and how May had come to feel about Chet, fairly or unfairly, the divorce made sense. She wondered about Chet’s version of events and whether she could get him to talk about it.

  When May ate half the pastry and appeared inclined to eat no more, Valerie asked gently, “Your life changed drastically with Lizzie but Chet’s didn’t.”

  “Exactly. That’s it exactly. Plus I didn’t feel I could trust him anymore.”

  It all made sense, Valerie thought as she watched May wipe her fingers and mouth on a napkin.

  But she was haunted by a memory. A woman she’d known years back had commented on a news story about a mother who’d killed her own son. There but for the Grace of God, she’d said.

  Valerie had asked her what she’d meant.

  The friend had looked at her and replied, You have no idea how far up the wall a kid can drive you, especially as they get older. I once got so angry, worn out and sick of the constant arguments that I had a vision of banging my son’s head against the wall. It shocked the hell out of me.

  Then the woman had added, The only difference between her and me is that one split second of clear thought.

  Well, Valerie had seen plenty of that during her years with the police. When that one split second of clear thought never came it resulted in horrific crimes. The pleas—I didn’t mean to do it. Too late.

  May could have missed that instant of clear thought. Some people did.

  Valerie again felt sick enough to throw up.

  * * *

  ON THE OFF CHANCE that someone they’d interviewed the preceding day might have remembered something, Guy went back to question some of the people. Besides, while he’d thought Valerie’s presence might loosen tongues, her being May’s sister, she might just as well have silenced people who didn’t want to criticize May in front of her sister. But he’d had that thought before and all that mattered was that it propelled him.

  He hoped he wasn’t wasting valuable time, but what other leads did he have?

  Besides, Valerie was doing the hard part, talking to her sister. He didn’t envy her that task at all. Much as he didn’t want to give the woman any props, he had to about this.

  His initial impression of her was changing. He no longer saw her as an interloper who looked down on him. She seemed determined to be professional. Neither had he noticed anything else that might indicate she was a bigot.

  Although a lot of people could succeed in concealing bigotry when it suited them, at least for a while.

  He shook his head at himself as he worked his way through the interviews again, briefer this time because he only needed to know one thing: if anyone had heard anything about enemies of the Chamberlains or something unflattering about either of them. He gently prodded them to think more closely.

  He got no further than he and Valerie had the day before, which frustrated him no end. There was nobody on this planet who didn’t have an enemy somewhere. The Chamberlains weren’t saints. No one was, at least among the living.

  He stopped by the command post again and found Connie Parish back on duty. The search teams had thinned out and the hope that they’d find the child anywhere in the vicinity had just about died.

  Which might be a good thing, he thought as he returned to the Chamberlain house. If Lizzie had been kidnapped—and it was beginning to look as if she had—then she might still be alive. It just widened the search area, though only God knew by how many miles.