They would end up apologizing to each other, Mom crying, Dad anguished and angry at himself for upsetting her.
I wasn’t going to make a second mistake by trying to justify myself. Instead I said, “Mom, listen to me. Since we haven’t found Mack by now, he’s not worrying about my threat. Look at it this way. You’ve heard from him. You know he’s alive. He sounds downright upbeat. I know you hate sleeping pills, but I also know your doctor gave you a prescription. So take one now and get some rest.”
I didn’t wait for her to answer me. I knew I couldn’t do any good by staying with her any longer because I was angry too. Angry at her for railing at me, angry at Mack, angry at the fact that this ten-room duplex apartment was too big for Mom to live in alone, too filled with memories. But she won’t sell it because she doesn’t trust that Mack’s annual telephone call will be bounced to a new location, and of course she reminds me that he had said one day he would turn the key in the lock and be home . . . Home. Here.
I got back into bed, but sleep was a long way off. I started planning how I would begin to look for Mack. I thought about going to Lucas Reed, the private investigator whom Dad hired, but then changed my mind. I was going to treat Mack’s disappearance as if it had happened yesterday. The first thing Dad did when we became alarmed about Mack was call the police and report him missing. I’d begin at the beginning.
I knew people down at the courthouse, which also houses the district attorney’s office. I decided that my search would begin there.
Finally I drifted off and began to dream of following a shadowy figure who was walking across a bridge. Try as I would to keep him in sight, he was too fast for me, and when we reached land, I didn’t know which way to turn. But then I heard him calling me, his voice mournful and troubled. Carolyn, stay back, stay back.
“I can’t, Mack,” I said aloud as I awakened. “I can’t.”
2
Monsignor Devon MacKenzie ruefully commented to visitors that his beloved St. Francis de Sales Church was located so close to the Episcopal Cathedral of St. John the Divine that it was almost invisible.
A dozen years ago, Devon had expected to hear that St. Francis would be closed, and he could not in honesty have contested the decision. After all, it had been built in the nineteenth century and needed major repairs. But then as more apartment buildings went up in the area and older walk-ups were renovated, he had been gratified to see the faces of new parishioners at Sunday Masses.
The growing congregation meant that in the past five years he had been able to carry out some of those repairs. The stained-glass windows were cleaned; years of built-up soil removed from the murals; the wooden pews sanded and refinished, the kneeling benches covered with soft new carpeting.
Then, when Pope Benedict decreed that individual pastors could decide to offer a Tridentine Mass, Devon, who was proficient in Latin, announced that henceforth the eleven o’clock Sunday Mass would be celebrated in the ancient tongue of the Church.
The response stunned him. The Mass was now filled to overflowing, not only with senior citizens but teenagers and young adults who reverently responded “Deo gratias” in place of “Thanks be to God,” and prayed “Pater Noster” instead of “Our Father.”
Devon was sixty-eight, two years younger than the brother he had lost on 9/11, and uncle and godfather of the nephew who had disappeared. At Mass, when he invited the congregation to silently offer their own petitions, his first prayer was always for Mack and that one day he would come home.
On Mother’s Day, that prayer was always especially fervent. Today, when he returned to the rectory, there was a message waiting for him on the answering machine from Carolyn. “Uncle Dev—he called at five of three this morning. Sounded fine. Hung up fast. See you tonight.”
Monsignor Devon could hear the strain in his niece’s voice. His relief that his nephew had called was mixed with sharp anger. Damn you, Mack, he thought. Haven’t you any idea what you’re doing to us? As he tugged off his Roman collar, Devon reached for the phone to call Carolyn back. Before he could begin to dial, the doorbell rang.
It was his boyhood friend, Frank Lennon, a retired software executive, who served as head usher on Sundays and who counted, itemized, and deposited the Sunday collections.
Devon had long since learned to read people’s faces and to know instantly if there was a genuine problem. That was what he was reading in Lennon’s weathered face. “What’s up, Frank?” he asked.
“Mack was at the eleven, Dev,” Lennon said flatly. “He dropped a note for you in the basket. It was folded inside a twenty-dollar bill.”
Monsignor Devon MacKenzie grabbed the scrap of paper, read the ten words printed on it, then, not trusting what he was seeing, read them again. “UNCLE DEVON, TELL CAROLYN SHE MUST NOT LOOK FOR ME.”
MARY HIGGINS CLARK is the author of twenty-five suspense novels; three collections of short stories; a historical novel, Mount Vernon Love Story; and a memoir, Kitchen Privileges; and is the coauthor with Carol Higgins Clark of four suspense novels: Deck the Halls, He Sees You When You’re Sleeping, The Christmas Thief, and Santa Cruise. More than eighty million copies of her books are in print in the United States alone, and her books are worldwide bestsellers.
By Mary Higgins Clark
Where Are You Now?
I Heard That Song Before
Two Little Girls in Blue
No Place Like Home
Nighttime Is My Time
The Second Time Around
Kitchen Privileges
Mount Vernon Love Story
Silent Night/All Through the Night
Daddy’s Little Girl
On the Street Where You Live
Before I Say Good-bye
We’ll Meet Again
All Through the Night
You Belong to Me
Pretend You Don’t See Her
My Gal Sunday
Moonlight Becomes You
Silent Night
Let Me Call You Sweetheart
The Lottery Winner
I’ll Be Seeing You
All Around the Town
Loves Music, Loves to Dance
The Anastasia Syndrome and Other Stories
While My Pretty One Sleeps
Weep No More, My Lady
Stillwatch
A Cry in the Night
The Cradle Will Fall
A Stranger Is Watching
Where Are the Children?
By Mary Higgins Clark and Carol Higgins Clark
The Christmas Thief
He Sees You When You’re Sleeping
Deck the Halls
Santa Cruise
We hope you enjoyed reading this Simon and Schuster eBook.
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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2005 by Mary Higgins Clark
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This Pocket Books paperback edition April 2008
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ISBN-13:
978-1-4165-7955-7 (print)
ISBN-10: 1-4165-7955-9
ISBN: 978-0-7432-8260-4 (eBook)