“I caught the red-eye back last night, and when I arrived home, Lonnie was still out on his shift. Valentina is supposed to be here, with Robin, getting ready for school. I checked her bed and she hasn’t slept in it.” Her voice was ragged with panic. “She’s not with you?”
“No. Where’s Robin?”
“Same thing, gone. My God, if something happened to them while I was away, I’ll never forgive myself.”
“Slow down, let’s talk this through. Did anyone see them leave?”
“The police are here now and are reaching out to the doormen on the street to find out. Lonnie’s on his way home. He’s the one who suggested I try you.”
The police. The seriousness of the situation hit Sadie hard. Her niece and the babysitter had vanished in the night.
She tried to come up with ideas of where to find them as she ran the five blocks to the brownstone, frantically wondering who could have taken them. And why?
It was New York—anything was possible.
Robin was too small to be a caretaker. Sadie had known that right away, and should have told Lonnie so. How could a tiny person like that protect another tiny person? If they had been kidnapped, they would’ve been easy pickings.
When she arrived, Lonnie and LuAnn were sitting on the couch, ashen-faced, as two policemen asked them questions.
Lonnie rose and hugged Sadie. “I’m so glad you’re here.”
“Any news?”
He shook his head. “The cops have been through both Valentina’s and Robin’s rooms, and found no sign of foul play. It’s like they just disappeared.”
“Have you checked the hospitals?”
“We have.” A policeman introduced himself—Sadie didn’t catch his name—and started asking questions about Valentina, if she had difficulties at home, if she might have run away.
“She’s only six,” said LuAnn. “Of course not.”
Lonnie put a hand on her knee. “They have to ask.”
Sadie spoke up. “What about Robin? Is there family of hers you should call?”
“I looked through her things for an address book or something like that, but no luck,” said LuAnn. “She said she was from somewhere in Massachusetts, I remember.”
Another policeman appeared at the front door. “One of the doormen down the street who worked a double shift said he saw them last night, around five thirty. He’s worked there for years, knew Valentina by name. He said Robin walked by first, and the little girl followed a little later and waved at him. He didn’t notice them return, but he could have been busy helping residents if they did.”
“Hold on, they didn’t leave together?” asked Lonnie.
“The doorman figured they were, even though the girl passed by a few moments later. Like she was hurrying to catch up.”
Strange. Lonnie and LuAnn exchanged a look.
“Was anyone else with them?” asked Sadie.
“Not that he recalls. He also said that they weren’t carrying suitcases or anything.”
“Maybe they went out for ice cream and something happened,” LuAnn suggested tearfully.
Out there, anything could have happened. Two young kids, so easily picked up, picked off.
Sadie couldn’t sit still. She asked the cop for permission to go into Valentina’s room.
Valentina had always been neat, with everything in its place. Sadie walked over to the small vanity, where the nail polish bottles were all lined up in a row, in the order of the rainbow. Her heart broke at the thought of this little girl out somewhere strange, lost and alone. They had to find her, make sure she was safe, protect her. Sadie shouldn’t have gone to London and left them. Maybe she would have been here when the kidnappers came, and stopped it. And poor LuAnn. How horrible for her to come home to an eerily empty house.
She opened the closet door, where Valentina’s clothes hung—mostly varying hues of purple and pink, her favorite colors—her shoes paired up on the floor below. The bookcase was overflowing with books and games and silly knickknacks, including a jewelry box with a ballerina who twirled about when opened. Inside was one of Pearl’s rings. A pearl, of course, which brought tears to Sadie’s eyes.
Valentina’s favorite games were stacked up on the bottom shelf: Connect Four, Clue, a box of Uno cards.
Sadie glanced back at the closet. Up on the top shelf, high above the clothes, sat the box for Operation, Valentina’s favorite game of all time. The last time they’d played it was with Pearl, when the game had descended into tears and chaos. Sadie had promised to get new batteries, but then forgotten.
Odd that it was on the top shelf. Valentina was too short to have placed it up there easily, not without having to pull over a chair to stand on.
Sadie lifted it down and placed it on Valentina’s bed. Inside, the buzzer still didn’t work.
Something was off, though. The cardboard piece where the goofy patient lay on his back, staring at her with alarm, was worn and bent along one side. She didn’t remember it looking this beat-up before. Like it had been removed and then replaced. Maybe Valentina had been curious as to how it worked, or tried to replace the batteries herself. But then how did it end up hidden away in the top of the closet?
She pried off the top of the operating table. Underneath lay a folded piece of paper. Old paper, brown and crinkled at the edges.
She unfolded it and dropped it on the bed, like it was on fire.
“Lonnie!”
He and LuAnn came rushing in.
“Look.”
They stared down at the page, where Shakespeare’s face stared right back.
“Is that the page that was stolen?” asked Lonnie. “The one you told me about?”
“Yes. From Shakespeare’s First Folio.”
By now, the policemen had joined them. Sadie explained about the missing page, then turned back to Lonnie. “Why on earth would Valentina have this?”
“I have no idea.”
In fact, the children’s game was the perfect hiding spot. But not for Valentina.
“How much do we know about Robin?”
Lonnie’s eyebrows knitted with concern. “That she worked as a nanny for those twins we saw in the park. I called her references and checked them out.”
That was easy enough to fake—just ask a friend to make up a story. “Was Robin here last night, when I called from London?”
Lonnie nodded. “I was in the kitchen, I’m not sure where she and Valentina were, exactly, but they were both here in the town house.”
Sadie tried to recall what she’d said to Lonnie. She’d definitely filled him in on the details of her conversation with Miss Quinn. About how the Tamerlane was somewhere deep in the library. And how she suspected that meant the apartment. “Could Robin have been listening in on the extension?”
“I suppose. But why would she?”
“Lonnie, think back. Is there a chance that she would listen to our weekly check-in calls, when I told you about what was going on at the library?”
“Again, I have no idea. What are you getting at?”
“We have to go to the library. Now. LuAnn, you stay here in case they return in the meantime.”
LuAnn rose. “No, I want to come with you.”
Lonnie took her hand in his. “Please stay, so one of us is here if they do come back.”
Reluctantly, LuAnn relented.
Sadie grabbed her coat and made one call before they left, to Nick. His answering machine picked up, but she left a message telling him it was urgent and to meet them at the library.
She hadn’t seen the danger, and it turned out that it had been right in front of her.
“I’m sorry, Ms. Donovan, I can’t let you in.”
The burly security guard at the library’s side entrance put up his hand, but couldn’t quite meet her eyes. She’d brought the man a cup of coffee a couple of times a week since she’d begun working there, and almost felt sorry for him, having to keep her out on Dr. Hooper’s orders.