Chloe’s eyelids flew open. “I’m not sleeping, Grandma!”
“So you aren’t.”
“Did I fool you, Grandma?”
“Utterly and completely.”
“What’s utterly mean?”
“It means completely.”
Chloe’s brow wrinkled. “So, I fooled you completely and completely. That’s silly.”
“I guess you’re right, Chloe. You’re too smart for me!”
Under the blanket, Chloe squirmed. “Will the bad man who took Timmy away take me away, too?”
I smoothed back her hair. “Oh, no, sweetheart. We will watch you every minute. He won’t get you.”
“Will the bad man steal Jake?”
“No, he won’t.”
Chloe seemed to be considering what I had said, then surprised me by asking, “Can I live with you forever, Grandma?”
“Don’t you think your mommy and daddy will miss you?”
“Mommy’s sad all the time.”
“We’re all sad, Chloe.”
“That lady was sad, too.”
The hair stood up on my arms. “What lady?”
“The lady at the ice cream store. She said I had pretty hair. She said she used to have a little girl like me, then she got sad.”
“Did the lady work at the store?” I asked, struggling to control the quaver in my voice.
“Nuh-uh.”
“What did the lady look like?” I asked, all the while thinking, This is ridiculous. Lots of people stop to talk to children in stores. I’d been known to make coochiecoochie-coo noises to children in shopping carts myself from time to time. Nothing unusual about that. But nothing about our present circumstances was the least bit usual, so I decided to press Chloe for information about this mysterious lady. “Do you remember what the lady looked like, Chloe?”
Chloe turned onto her right side, hugging her doll. “Like a lady.”
“Was she an old lady or a young lady?”
“She was real old, like Mommy.”
I suppressed a smile, hesitating to think what age bracket that must put me in, and moved on. “What color hair did the lady have?”
“Brown.”
“What color were her eyes?”
“Dunno. She had sunglasses on.”
“Was she fat, or was she skinny?”
“Skinny, like you, Grandma.”
The little scamp got points for that, at least!
“Who else was with you in the ice cream store, Chloe?”
“It was Ben and Jerry’s,” Chloe said. “I got chocolate with sprinkles.”
“Yum yum,” I said. “Were Timmy and Jake with you at Ben and Jerry’s, Chloe?”
“Uh-huh. And Daddy.”
“Did your daddy talk to the lady, too?”
Chloe’s head wagged vigorously from side to side on her pillow. “When Daddy brought me my ice cream, the lady went away.”
“I see.” I tucked an errant strand of hair behind her ear. “Thank you for telling me about the sad lady.”
Chloe hugged her doll tightly under her chin. “Missy is sad, too.”
I kissed my granddaughter on the forehead. “Good night, Chloe.”
Chloe thrust her doll out. “Missy wants a kiss, too.”
I planted a kiss on Missy’s porcelain cheek. “Good night to you, too, Missy. See you in the morning.”
I was halfway to the door when Chloe piped up again. “Grandma!”
“What, sweetie?”
“You forgot our prayers!”
In the subdued light from the bedside lamp, I hoped Chloe wouldn’t notice me flushed with embarrassment. “Silly me.”
I tiptoed past Jake and sat on the edge of Chloe’s bed, resting my hand on the quilt where it covered my granddaughter’s knees. “Let me hear your prayers, then, Chloe.”
Chloe squeezed her eyelids shut, laced her fingers together, tucked her hands under her chin and began to pray.
“Jesus, tender shepherd, hear me,
bless thy little lamb tonight;
through the darkness, be thou near me,
keep me safe till morning light.
And God bless Mommy, and Daddy, and Jake, and
Timmy, and Grandma, and Grandpa, and Coco.”
Chloe took a deep breath, then squeezed her eyelids even more tightly together. “And tell Timmy I’m not really mad at him for chewing the fingers off my Barbie. Amen.”
“Well done, Chloe,” I said, and hurried into the hallway so she wouldn’t see me cry.
When I got myself together, I left the children’s door ajar, made sure the antique Mary Had a Little Lamb nightlight was burning on the table in the hallway, then wandered downstairs, feeling increasingly uncomfortable. The woman who spoke to Chloe at Ben and Jerry’s could mean nothing. Or it could mean everything.
I rejoined Paul and Ruth in the kitchen and told them about my conversation with Chloe. “I think I should call Agent Crisp about this woman, don’t you? Especially in light of what the profiler said at the press conference this afternoon.”
“Absolutely,” Paul agreed.
“Do you think Crisp will want to interview Chloe?”
Paul nodded. “If she doesn’t, she’s not worth what they’re paying her.”
“I wonder if Chloe will be able to tell Amanda Crisp anything she hasn’t told me?”
Paul smiled. “The FBI has people who are experts at interviewing children, drawing information out of them. At least they always seem to do so on Law and Order.”
Ruth chimed in. “I’d mention it to Emily and Dante first, though. I’m assuming the FBI needs the parents’ permission when they interview a child.”
“Right,” I said. “And there’s always the chance that Dante himself noticed something unusual about this woman. He might not have been so blind as Chloe thinks.”
Once again I felt cold fingers of doubt creep along my spine. What if Dante had known the woman in the ice cream shop? What if he were in cohoots with her? I shivered and checked the clock. It was almost ten o’clock, time for Cross Current to begin. “Should I call now or wait until morning? I don’t want to wake anybody up.”
Paul scowled. “The FBI is working Timmy’s case 24/7. Why would you consider waiting even for a single minute?”
Paul was right, of course, and I was an idiot. While he and Ruth migrated to the living room, I used the telephone in the kitchen to contact Amanda Crisp on her cell phone and report directly to her what my granddaughter had told me. I detected a reassuring note of optimism in Crisp’s voice when she said that, indeed, the FBI had a child abuse unit specially trained to work with children, and she would encourage Dante and Emily to arrange for an appointment for them to talk with Chloe.
When I got back to the living room, Paul was aiming the remote at the cable box, scrolling down to Channel 4.
Aside from Erika’s interest in the program, we still hadn’t the slightest clue what the show was about. We’d kept the television turned off until the kids went to bed, so if NBC had been running any trailers about Cross Current that night, we’d missed them. Earlier, I’d checked the TV listing in the newspaper, but it provided no hints whatsoever to what person or institution Mitch Harmon would be skewering that evening.
Our wineglasses had miraculously refilled themselves, however, so we were prepared for anything.
Paul patted the spot next to him on the sofa. I sat there, curled my feet up under me, and endured the final five minutes of some ridiculous reality show before the Cross Current theme music began.
“Good Evening. This is Cross Current, and I’m Mitch Harmon. Several months ago we reported to you that the Internet has opened doors for pedophiles and child predators to enter, uninvited, into the privacy of our homes. Not only are children being lured into traveling to meet a person in the physical world whom they’ve met online, but pedophiles are traveling to our children! And it’s happening worldwide.”