"Yes." My voice shook. "No."
She waited patiently till I found the words to tell her that Patrick was missing.
"Why don't you come here and wait for Sam," she said. "He should be back soon. Come over and I'll fix you some breakfast."
"Thank you, no."
"A cup of tea," she offered. "Tea or coffee or juice."
I blinked back the tears. It was tempting to run to her, sit in her kitchen, drink her tea, and have a good cry, but I wasn't that kind of girl. At least, I hadn't been till now.
"Thank you, but another friend is expecting me," I said, then gave her the name and number of the bed-and-breakfast. "I'll try to call back. It's Sam's playoff game tonight, isn't it? I know he has to get ready for that," "First, he has. to know you are safe," she said. "If he could talk to you, Kate, he'd feel better. If he saw you, he'd feel more assured. Me too."
"I–I'll be in touch," I said, and hung up. It was bad enough to fall for a guy, without liking his mother, too.
I grabbed my coat and headed out, glad for the long walk to the shop on High Street. The stiff March breeze blowing up from the water helped clear my head. It seemed to me there were two possibilities: Patrick had run away, or he had been abducted.
If he had run away, where would he have gone? A seven-year-old couldn't walk far and would head for a place familiar to him. I remembered when I was eight and had run away from home-all the way to our next-door neighbor. Perhaps Patrick was just beyond the estate boundaries. Perhaps he had tried to walk to school; given the tension and fighting at home, school may have become a safe haven for him.
It seemed odd, however, that no one had spotted a young child walking alone and questioned the situation, though he could have fallen asleep beneath some bushes, somewhere out of sight. When I got to the shop I'd leave another message for Sam, asking him to gather a group of friends and search the area around the estate as well as the route between the estate and school.
If Patrick had been kidnapped, it had to be by someone who had easy access to him, someone on the estate who could silently remove him from the house. Had the anger and envy within the family finally boiled over? It seemed absurd for any of them to think they could get away with harming Patrick, but then, murder had happened before at Mason's Choice and no member of the family had been charged. I refused to think about that possibility-Patrick had to be alive. I made myself focus on the question of where he might have been taken.
The Eastern Shore, with its large rural stretches, had a million places to hide a child. If Robyn had done it, someone she knew through the horse business might have a barn or shed, some isolated building that could be easily secured. If Brook, a friend might have his own place now and hide Patrick there. I didn't know where to begin if Mrs. Hopewell had taken things into her own hands; I couldn't imagine her having friends or family. If Trent had done it? It came to me when I turned onto High Street: Why not the Queen Victoria, the hotel where his friend, Margery, was manager?
I mentioned this as soon as I saw Joseph, who was standing before a table of hardware, preparing to work on a lamp.
He shook his head. "Too many people would recognize Trent and would wonder why Patrick was with him."
"Not if he showed up at three A.M.," I argued, "wrapped in a winter scarf, hidden under a hat, and carrying a sleeping child bundled against the cold. He could have sedated Patrick and brought him in a back entrance with the help of Margery."
Joseph played with the lamp's switch, then sorted
2 through his tools. His deliberate movements calmed me. "Trent is too cautious to take risks like that."
"It's unlike him," I admitted. "He isn't first on my list, but it won't hurt to check the hotel while I figure out where else to look."
After leaving another message with Sam's mother about searching the area between Mason's Choice and Patrick's school, I paged through the shop's phone book, then rang up the Queen Vic.
"Mr. Westbrook's room, please."
"I'm sorry," the desk clerk replied, "that room is not accepting calls. May I take a message?"
I stared at the phone's mouthpiece, surprised at succeeding. Joseph, noticing my silence, set down a tool and took several steps closer.
"I said, may I take a message?" the clerk repeated.
I thought quickly. I have a delivery for Mr. Westbrook at the Queen Victoria Hotel. What room is that, please?"
"I'm sorry, we don't give out that information. You may leave the delivery at our front desk, and we will be happy to take it to his room."
I thanked the woman, then set the phone back in its cradle.
"He's there?" Joseph asked, incredulous.
"Someone named Westbrook is, but the person isn't accepting calls."
"I guessed wrong. I never would have thought-" I interrupted him. "It could be that Trent keeps a room there simply to be with Margery. In any case, we are supposed to leave our delivery at the front desk, and they will be happy to take it up to his room."
"What delivery is that?"
"Something large enough that, when they see it, they won't really be happy to take it up themselves. Something ugly enough that they won't be much happier about keeping it in the lobby."
Joseph smiled. "So they will give us the room number, wanting us to deliver it." His hand swept the air, indicating all the merchandise in the shop. "So much to choose from."
I surveyed the items around us, then spotted it in the corner. "Yes, oh yes!"
An hour later, Joseph and I, breathing hard, leaned a large painting wrapped in brown paper against the hotel's front desk. Carrying the artwork, which was as tall as Joseph and as long as a sofa, through the elegantly furnished lobby of the Queen Victoria hadn't been easy. The desk clerk greeted us coolly and, at our request, studied the store tag from Olivia's. The date and time of delivery, as well as the name of the hotel, were printed clearly on it; the customer's "signature" was unreadable. Joseph and 1, afraid a delivery for Mr. Westbrook would raise too many questions, had decided on a different strategy.
"The writing on this tag is illegible. I can't possibly help you," said the clerk, a twenty-something man with a fake British accent. He looked past us, as if he thought we might go away.
I rested both arms on the counter, not planning to go anywhere but upstairs. "I remember the customer coming into our store. We spent quite a bit of time discussing Olivia's fine selection of paintings. I am certain I would recognize the name if I saw it again."
The clerk pursed his lips and refused to take the bait.
"Perhaps if you looked at the registry," Joseph suggested.
"No one," said the clerk, "is allowed to look at the list of guests. May I help the next in line, please."
"I think it began with 'S,'" Joseph continued, propping his elbow on the counter, occupying more space. "I hope it's Superman. This masterpiece must weigh a hundred fifty pounds."
"'S'? I thought it was 'M.'" I could hear the people who were waiting behind us shifting their belongings.
"I must ask you to step aside," the clerk said to us.
"But we have to deliver this," I replied.
"Step aside, please. You may use the public phone if you would like to contact the store for the necessary information." He cocked his head, indicating that he was addressing the guest behind us. "Yes, sir. Thank you for waiting so graciously.'' I stepped aside-slightly. "Perhaps we should leave the painting here, Joseph. Surely the purchaser will recognize it."
"I'm sure of only one thing," Joseph responded, "I'm not lugging it back to the shop."
Though this was part of our script, Joseph wasn't acting; he had sweat profusely during our effort to get the painting in and out of his S.U.V.