A coffee and tea service had been arrayed on the kitchen pass-through counter, and Harriet poured a cup of hot water and selected an Earl Gray bag from the basket of assorted teas.
"Want some?” she asked her aunt.
"No, if I drink anymore I'll be running to the bathroom all night."
Harriet was dunking her bag when the door to the fellowship hall opened a few inches and Aiden gestured for her to come out into the corridor.
"What are you doing here?” she asked, the smile on her face disappearing as she noted his worried expression. “What's wrong?"
"Carla's missing,” he said. “The daycare called me at work to say they were closing and she hadn't shown up to get Wendy."
Harriet cracked the door open again and signaled to Aunt Beth. Her aunt came into the hallway, and Aiden repeated his story.
"That's not right,” she said. “Carla would never leave that baby."
"That's what I'm saying,” Aiden said. “I came here to the daycare then had to go home and get a carseat. I'm just lucky my mom had one at the house from when my nieces were little. I got Wendy and then got hold of Carla's sister to babysit.” He was bouncing up and down on the balls of his feet, his left hand rattling the coins in his pocket.
"What about the police?” Harriet asked.
"I called, and she hasn't been gone long enough. They said they would keep an eye out, but without any idea of where she might have gone, they weren't hopeful. If Wendy had been missing it would be different, but for adults they have to consider that the person might have chosen to leave. She has to be missing forty-eight hours before the Foggy Point Police Department will take a formal report.
"I don't suppose there's any sign that her friend Terry showed up, is there?” Aunt Beth asked.
Aiden shook his head. “There's no sign of anything. No note, nothing out of place. I even looked in her room."
"And?” Harriet asked.
"Nothing. I can't even think where to start."
"Let's go talk to her sister,” Harriet suggested. “Maybe Carla said something to her that would give us some place to start."
"I'll stay here with Mavis,” Beth said. “I'll call when we're out of here and see if you've found her. There's no point calling the Threads for help until we have a starting point.” She went back into the Fellowship Hall, and Harriet had to trot to keep up with Aiden as he left the building and went to his Bronco.
"Let's drive by Terry's motel on our way back to your house."
"Okay, but I don't want to leave Wendy with Carla's sister any longer than we have to,” Aiden replied. Harriet felt a small twinge of jealousy at the way he spoke of Wendy as if she were his child.
He drove through a series of neighborhood streets where single-story houses nestled among Douglas fir trees and shore pines then onto a gravel roadway, taking a more direct route to Smuggler's Cove. Harriet was pretty sure she'd never been on some of these roads.
"Carla used to leave Wendy with her sister all the time,” she said eventually.
"Have you ever met the woman?” Aiden countered. “You might want to before you make any judgments. I'm not sure I'd trust her to take care of Randy."
"You're right, I haven't met her. I think she's a half-sister, not that that should affect her parenting skills."
Aiden guided the Bronco into an empty spot near Terry's motel room. The gray rental car sat at the end of the line of parking spaces that nosed into the sidewalk in front of the ground-floor rooms.
"Isn't that his car?” Harriet asked.
"It looks like the car we followed, but it's a pretty generic model for a rental. I'm sure every motel in town has at least one that looks similar to this one in its parking lot."
Harriet opened her door and jumped out before he could ask what she was doing. She stepped up to Terry's ground-floor room and rapped on the door. No one answered.
"If you're looking for soldier boy, he ain't here,” said a balding fat man carrying a bucket of ice cubes. “His room hasn't been slept in for a couple days."
"And you know this how?” Harriet said as she turned toward him.
"I'm the manager here,” he said and straightened as much as he could, given his bulging gut. “He ain't used the bed, he ain't left me a tip. Nada."
"Do you know where he is?"
"He don't check in with me. He's friendly enough if he's in his room while I'm cleaning, but he don't tell me his calendar. What he does do is pay in advance a week at a time. So long as his room's paid up, he can sleep wherever he wants."
Harriet found the thought of finding this greasy man, with clean towels over his arm, when you opened your motel room door expecting the maid sort of horrifying.
Aiden started to get out of the Bronco, but she waved him back. She thought of asking the manager to call her if he saw Terry, but she knew it would be a waste of time. Plus, she didn't want him to have her number.
"He's not here,” she said as she got back into the car. Aiden immediately backed out of the driveway and headed for his house.
The back door opened before he'd parked the car.
"Here,” Cissy said, coming down the porch steps, a bawling baby in her arms. She thrust Wendy into Aiden's arms before they could get into the house. “I gotta work the early shift.” She brushed past Harriet and got into her car.
"Her concern for her sister and niece is overwhelming,” Harriet said.
"That's what I was trying to tell you. I had to pay her in advance to get her to sit with Wendy while I came to get you."
Wendy began to whimper.
"It's okay, baby,” Harriet said in a soothing voice. Wendy reached out for her. She took the toddler and carried her through the kitchen and then up the stairs to Carla's room and the nursery. She bathed her and got her into her pajamas while Aiden fixed a bottle. Within a half-hour, they had the little girl asleep.
"Now what?” Aiden whispered as they tiptoed out of the room.
"We need to find Carla,” Harriet said. “My guess is that she's wherever Terry is."
"Any idea where that might be?"
"I'd like to go to Miller Hill Park and have a look at Foggy Point Fire Protection."
"Not by yourself, you're not,” Aiden said firmly.
"We can't leave Wendy alone,” she reminded him.
"Of course we can't.” He ran his hands through his hair and paced across Carla's sitting room.
Harriet pulled out her cell phone and started typing on the keypad.
"I'm texting Aunt Beth to see if she's done with Mavis yet. When she's free, I'll see if she can come stay with Wendy so we can go look for Carla.” She finished typing, and they sat in silence waiting for Harriet's phone to signal a return message.
Aunt Beth sent a reply a few minutes later.
"Almost done. Be right there."
Aiden pulled Harriet into his arms. “What would I do without you?"
"If you'd never met me, you probably wouldn't have a missing live-in housekeeper with a baby, for one thing."
"Yeah, but I also wouldn't get to run around in the middle of the night with a beautiful woman at my side searching for her."
"That's not funny."
Aiden kissed her gently on the lips and then let her go to begin pacing again. “I know,” he said. “I was trying not to think about it for a minute. I'm really worried about Carla."
"We better go downstairs and wait for Aunt Beth."
Aiden picked up the baby monitor from its base on the table outside Wendy's room.
"I got this thing for Carla because the house is so big, she can't hear it when Wendy wakes up from her afternoon nap.” He flicked a switch on the side of the blue-and-white unit and it emitted a static hum. He led the way downstairs.
Aunt Beth arrived a half-hour later, tapping gently on the back door.