Nothing under the bed but a toy car and dust. Hurrying down the hall she looked in the bathroom, the linen closet, then searched in her own room. She searched the entire house, up and down, the firewood cupboard, the garage and studio, everywhere a child could hide. Had he gone outdoors, in the middle of the night?
Thinking of the two invaders who had escaped the police, she snatched up her coat from where she’d dropped it on the arm of a chair, made sure the gun was safe in her pocket. Turning on the yard lights, she locked the door behind her and hurried to her car, praying the little boy was there, curled down under the lap robe, asleep.
The car was empty. She popped the trunk lid, looked in. She searched the yard among the dark bushes, calling for him, yet certain that he wouldn’t be hiding out here in the cold, in the middle of the night. When she looked down the hill at Officer Brennan, he’d left his car, was headed up the sidewalk, looking around into the shadows, looking up at her, frowning.
It was Brennan who called the station to report the little boy missing.
39
HOW COULD HE be gone?” Kit said, looking down from the garage roof to where Maudie wandered the yard calling Benny. “He was in bed, asleep. Has she searched the whole house?” They watched Maudie hurry down the street and Brennan hurry to meet her. Their voices were faint, and Maudie sounded nearly breathless. They listened to Brennan call the dispatcher.
Kit said, “Could he be playing games, hiding from her?” “After there were cops all over?” Misto said. “Everyone running, lights swinging everywhere? Not likely. And if he woke scared and is hiding from those men, he’d have found a place in the house, not gone outside in the dark, alone.”
Kit began to shiver, looking down into the bushes and along the street, hopefully listening. There was no sound but Brennan’s voice, talking to the dispatcher, and the whisper of the far sea. “You don’t think someone took Benny?” Kit said in a small voice. “Kidnapped him? But how could they get him out of the house, how could anyone get him away, and we didn’t see them?”
“We can’t see the studio door from here,” Misto pointed out. “Only from the other side of the garage.”
“We’d have heard him,” Kit said. “We’d have heard Benny yelling.”
“Not if he was gagged,” the yellow cat said. “And we don’t know when he disappeared. Was it while the cops were still chasing those men? Or,” he said, “did they double back and take him?” Misto rose. “If they took him out through the studio, we can pick up their trail, we can follow them,” and he headed for the nearest oak, meaning to scramble down its broad trunk.
Kit started to follow him, then spun around and raced up across the roofs for the cottage, for the cell phone. Pawing the phone out from among the leaves, she hit the single button for the Damen house. Rock could track Benny faster, he was bigger, and she had to admit the Weimaraner could outrun even her, over long distances.
Wilma answered, sleepily, on the first ring.
“What are you doing at Clyde’s?” Kit said. “What …?”
“I’m not at Clyde’s, I’m at home,” Wilma said hesitantly. “You dialed wrong. What’s happened, what is it? You sound—”
“Benny’s missing, we think he’s been kidnapped,” Kit hissed. “I have to call—” and she broke off before Wilma could ask even one question.
DRAGGED OUT OF a deep sleep, Clyde stared at the ringing phone and then at the bedside clock. Twelve-thirty, and this was the second call since they’d tucked up for the night. He’d just drifted off after the last frantic ringing, so what the hell was this call about? Snatching the headset off the cradle to silence it, he lay staring at it, saying nothing.
Leaning across him, Ryan grabbed the headset. “What?” she said softly, looking at the caller ID. “What’s happened?”
At the other end, Kit said shyly, “I … I need to talk to Joe again.”
“Clyde will get him,” Ryan said, nudging Clyde.
“Hang on.”
Grumbling, Clyde swung out of bed, padded barefoot into the study, and shouted up at the cat door. “Get the hell down here! It’s Kit again. What am I, your damned answering service?”
Joe appeared on the rafter above, pushing in through his cat door. He paused, peering down over the rafter at Clyde.
“Get your tail down here.”
Dropping from the rafter to Clyde’s desk, Joe hit the speaker button on the office extension. Kit had already called him about the arrests, not more than an hour ago … “Another invasion,” she’d said, “… arrested Marlin Dorriss …” It’d been hard to believe that slick con was in jail, behind bars. As Kit described the action, all he could think was that somehow Dorriss was going to slip out of this. That by morning he would have lawyered up, would have brought in half a dozen slick attorneys, posted bail, and vanished, maybe never to be seen again. “It was Dorriss who kicked the door in,” Kit had said. “Dorriss and Jared are in jail, and—”
“Jared Colletto?”
“Jared. And they have a BOL out on Kent. Harper and two squad cars are headed for his house, and …” Despite Kit’s giddy excitement, he’d gotten most of the story, and then had scrambled back up to his tower, where he’d sat staring into the night debating what to do. Whether to hightail it down to the station and pick up the latest as officers and detectives began to return—maybe slip back into the jail and hear what the two prisoners, once they were alone, had to say to each other about the night’s adventure.
Except the two would be detained as far apart as possible, in the department’s small jail, so they couldn’t get their stories straight; maybe one would even be left up front, in the holding cell. And, at the scene, the action was over. The cops had left. Whatever had come down, Kit had witnessed. At last, yawning, he’d opted to wait until morning when more information would be at hand, when he could catch an early briefing in the chief’s office, if he timed it right. Curling up among his pillows, he’d gone back to sleep, had been deep under when the phone rang again, in the study, echoing in the bedroom inches from Clyde’s indignant ear, and then Clyde had shouted at him.
Now, as he crouched on the desk listening to Kit, she sounded so scared that she scared him. “Benny Toola’s missing, Maudie came running outside all frantic looking for him, searched her car and all around the yard calling him and then started down to Brennan where he was parked at Alfreda’s house and …” She paused, was silent for so long Joe thought the phone had cut out. “Here comes Kathleen’s car,” she said, “and two squad cars, they …”
By this time, Ryan and Clyde were crowded around Joe at the desk listening to Kit over the speaker, and Rock had piled off the love seat to push against them, wanting to be in on the action. When Kit paused, Ryan nearly shouted into the speaker. “Rock,” she said, “Rock can track him.”
“Yes,” Kit said. “That’s why I called. We—”
From the bedroom, Ryan’s cell phone rang, belting out a Dixieland beat. “Wait a minute,” Ryan said. “Hold on.” Hurrying into the bedroom, she snatched up her phone from the dresser. She was silent for a moment, listening. “Benny Toola?” she said, trying to sound surprised. “Oh, not Benny. What? Rock? Of course we can, we’ll be right there.”