Mark Acton shot off the couch and almost ran toward the door.
“I’ve got some things to follow up on, Mrs. Marshall,” Grant said, rising to his feet as the front door closed behind the real estate agent.
“And I’ve got a reporter from the Sentinel-Gazette coming over at ten,” Kara replied, her eyes fixing on the policeman as if daring him to ask her not to talk to the press. To his credit, he only nodded, and then she pressed a wallet-sized school photo of Lindsay into his hand. “She’s our only child,” she said. “Please — you’ve got to find her. I’m begging you.”
“She’ll be home,” Grant assured her, but she could see in his eyes that he wasn’t as certain as he’d been last night.
“Only if we find whoever took her,” Kara said.
Grant looked at her appraisingly, clearly taking her measure. Then: “I’ll be in touch.” He shook hands with Steve, who opened the door for him, and when the door closed behind him, the house again was quiet.
Too quiet, and too empty.
“No,” Kara said softly, “I’ll be the one in touch.”
Chapter Twenty-one
Everything about the place had changed, and though Claire Shields Sollinger knew exactly why it had changed — and when that change had come — she still wasn’t used to it. Until last Christmas, she’d always felt a sense of peace fall over her as she waited for the big estate gates to swing open. Today, though, her fingers tapped nervously on the steering wheel of her Range Rover as the gates moved back. She looked again at the newspaper on the seat beside her and firmed her resolve as Lindsay Marshall’s eyes seemed to look right into her own.
The crunch of the gravel on the quarter-mile-long driveway gave her no comfort as she approached the house, and as she pulled to a stop in front of the immense Tudor pile her great-grandfather had built, the title of a book she hadn’t read since her days at Miss Porter’s suddenly popped into her mind.
Bleak House.
That was what Cragmont had become. There was a melancholy air about the place that even the bright spring morning and the fresh breeze off Long Island Sound couldn’t wash away. It was as if the house itself somehow knew that for the first time in its history, it was occupied by a single resident.
A single, very unhappy resident.
She brought the car to a stop at the front door, and by the time she stepped out, straightened the skirt of her suit, and tucked the morning paper under her arm, the front door had opened and a figure had appeared on the porch. For a moment Claire felt a flash of optimism, but then realizing it wasn’t her brother on the front porch, her optimism faded.
“How is he today?” she asked, though Neville Cavanaugh’s dour expression had answered her question even before she asked it.
Neville, never long on words, shook his head gravely. “He spends all his time in the library these days, with the curtains drawn. He even sleeps there. I do my best, but…” The servant’s voice trailed off and he spread his hands in a gesture of helplessness.
Claire sighed heavily as she looked at her brother’s factotum, who was, as always, impeccably dressed. His long face reflected the sorrow every member of the family felt, but as she always did, Claire wondered if Neville truly felt the pain of Patrick’s loss, or whether he was merely playing the role of the devoted servant. Even after having known the man for most of her life, Claire had never warmed to him. Still, her father had trusted him, and so did Patrick, so now she carefully masked her antipathy. “Thank you, Neville. I don’t know what he’d do without you. How is his leg?”
“Completely healed,” Neville said. “Even the scars are beginning to fade, but he insists we put ointment on them every night. It’s as if he wants to keep them as wounds.”
“Is he eating?”
“Some soup last night.”
Claire took a deep breath. “Well, he’ll eat today. Would you bring us some coffee, please?” She strode to the heavy double library doors and knocked with what she hoped sounded like authority, then tried the handle. The door was locked. “Patrick? Patrick, it’s Claire. Open the door.”
Eventually, she heard noises from the room beyond. The lock clicked and the door opened a crack. The unshaven, pale face of her brother peered out at her.
Claire pushed the door open and walked into the darkened library, shaking her head at what she saw. Nothing — absolutely nothing — had improved since the last time she was here. She went to the windows and opened the heavy velvet draperies to let the bright morning sunlight flood the room. Patrick squinted, but raised no objection to the light. “Neville tells me you’re sleeping in here,” she said, and wrinkled her nose at the sour odor that hung in the room. “It smells like it.”
Patrick merely shrugged, and in the bright light of the morning sun, Claire realized how much he’d changed. A mere shadow of the robust brother who until a few months ago had still, even in his early forties, played the occasional raucous game of rugby with his friends. Now his thinning, sandy hair had gone as dull as his spirits. He appeared not to have shaved for a couple of days, and his linen slacks needed laundering, as did his polo shirt.
“I can’t sleep in our bedroom anymore,” Patrick said. He sat, sagging into one of the leather chairs that flanked an ornate chessboard. “I reach for Renee in the night and—” His voice caught.
Claire steeled herself against the whirlpool of her own grief. Renee had been like a sister to her, and her nieces— She distracted herself by opening the French doors and letting in the cool, fresh spring air. As she did, Neville arrived with a tray. Claire poured her brother a cup of coffee and sweetened it with enough sugar and cream to give him some instant energy.
As he took an almost reluctant sip, Patrick gazed out at the old boathouse that stood at the foot of the lawn that rolled from the house down to the Sound. “I’d be taking the girls sailing on a day like this,” he said, his eyes glistening with tears.
Claire moved around the room, folding the blankets and setting them on the table next to the door and putting the pillow on top of the pile. There would be no more sleeping in the library if she had anything to do with it.
Then she saw that all the family photographs had been turned to the wall. She turned to face her brother. “I don’t believe you’ve done this,” she said.
“I can’t look at them,” he replied, seeming to shrink even deeper into his chair.
Claire strode across the room, dropped into the chair across from her brother, and reached across the chess table to put a hand on his arm. “You can’t pretend they never existed, Patrick. The fire was a terrible thing — a horrible, tragic thing. And everybody feels it — everybody we know loved Renee and the girls. But the rest of us aren’t trying to shut them out. They loved you, and you loved them, but you can’t bring them back. Life goes on.”
Patrick finally met her gaze, and the pain in his expression tore at her heart. “I’ll never get over it.”
“You will,” Claire replied. “You’re not the only person terrible things have happened to.” She laid the morning newspaper on the table.
Patrick hesitated, then picked up the paper, flinching as he saw the picture of the girl on the front page.
“Her name is Lindsay Marshall,” Claire said. “I know her mother. Kara and I worked together on the town square renovation and a dozen other projects. Now her daughter is missing — either a runaway or she’s been abducted. Kara believes the latter.”
Patrick said nothing, but Claire could see his eyes scanning the article. She sipped her coffee, giving Patrick time to finish it. “When I saw this, I went to Kara's. Do you know what she was doing?”