Two Little Girls in Blue (27 page)

“Thank you, officer. I'll do that right away. Come on, Stevie.”

Angie leaned down and picked up Kathy, pressing her face against her jacket. She closed the door of the van and began to walk the block back to the mall.

“That cop is watching us,” she hissed. “I don't know whether it was smart to give him Linda Hagen's driver's license. He looked at me kind of funny, but on the other hand I'm registered at the motel under Linda's name. God, this is a mess.”

As soon as they were inside the mall, she put Kathy down. “Here, let me put that other shoe on. I'll stuff a handkerchief in it. You've got to walk. I can't carry you all over Cape Cod. Now we've got to find a place to buy a car seat.”

It seemed to Kathy that they walked forever. Then when they did find a store that sold car seats, Angie got
mad at the man there. “Listen, open it up for me,” she told him. “I'll carry it under my arm.”

“It will set the alarm off,” he told her. “I can open the box, but you'll have to leave the car seat in it until you're out of the store.”

Kathy could tell that Angie was getting very angry, so she didn't want to tell her that even with the handkerchief in it, the shoe had come off again. Then, on the way back to the car, someone stopped Angie. “Your little boy has lost one of his shoes,” she said.

Angie grabbed Kathy up. “The stupid clerk sold her the wrong size,” she explained. “I mean him. I'll buy him another pair.” She walked very quickly away from the lady who talked to them, then stopped, holding Kathy in one arm and dragging the car seat with the other. “Oh, God, that cop is still hanging around. Don't
dare
answer if he talks to you.” She got to the car and put Kathy down on the front seat, then tried to attach the car seat in the back. “I'd better have this right,” she said. She lifted Kathy around to sit in it. “Turn your head,” she whispered. “Turn it now. Don't look at him.”

Kathy was so scared of Angie that she began to cry.

“Shut up!” Angie whispered. “Shut up! That cop is watching us.”

She slammed the back door and got in the driver's seat. Finally they drove off. On the way back to the motel, she screamed at Kathy. “You said your name! You were doing that twin talk stuff! I told you to shut up!
I told you to shut up!
You could have made a lot of trouble.
Not another word. Do you hear me? The next time you open your mouth, I'll slap you silly.”

Kathy squeezed her eyes shut and held her hands over her ears. She could tell that Kelly was trying to talk to her, but she knew she must not talk back to her anymore, or Angie would hurt her.

When they got back to the room, Angie dropped Kathy on the bed and said, “Don't move a muscle or say a word. Here, have some more cough medicine. And swallow this aspirin. You feel hot again.”

Kathy drank the cough medicine and swallowed the aspirin and closed her eyes, trying not to cough. A few minutes later, before she drifted off, she could hear Angie talking on the phone.

“Clint,” Angie was saying. “It's me, honey. Listen, I'm kind of scared. People notice the kid when I'm out with her. Her face is all over the newspapers. I think you were right. I should have let her go home with the other one. What should I do about it? I've got to get rid of her. How should I do it?”

Kathy heard the sound of the buzzer, then Angie's scared voice trying to whisper, “Clint, I have to call you back. There's someone at the door. Oh, God, suppose it's that cop.”

Kathy buried her face in the pillow as the phone snapped shut. Home, she thought as she fell asleep. I want to go home.

O
n Saturday morning a wildly restless Gregg Stanford went to his club for a game of squash then returned to the Greenwich estate that was his wife's main residence. He showered, dressed, and ordered lunch served to him in the study. With its paneled walls, antique tapestries and carpets, Hepplewhite furniture and sweeping views of Long Island Sound, it was his favorite room in the mansion.

But even the perfectly cooked salmon served with a bottle of Château Cheval Blanc, 1st Grand Cru Classé neither relaxed nor comforted him. The seventh anniversary of his marriage to Millicent was next Wednesday. Their prenuptial agreement read that if they were either legally separated or divorced before that anniversary, he would receive nothing from her. If their marriage lasted past the seventh anniversary, he would irrevocably receive twenty million dollars even if they were to break up anytime after that.

Millicent's first husband had died. Her second marriage lasted only a few years. She had divorce papers served on her third husband only a few days before the seventh anniversary. I have four more days to go, he thought. Even in the beautiful room, he started to sweat at the idea.

Gregg was sure Millicent was playing a cat-and-mouse game with him. She had been traveling in Europe visiting friends for the past three weeks, but she had phoned from Monaco on Tuesday and approved the stand he took about paying the ransom. “It's a miracle twenty other children of our employees haven't been kidnapped already,” she'd said. “You showed good sense.”

And when we're out together she seems to enjoy being with me, Gregg thought in an effort to reassure himself.

“Considering your roots, it's a miracle how much polish you've managed to acquire,” she had told him.

He had learned to accept her barbs with a dismissive smile. The very rich are different. He had learned that since his marriage to Millicent. Tina's father had been rich, but he'd made his way up by the bootstraps. He lived extremely well but was a candle to a star when compared with Millicent's lifestyle. Millicent could and did trace her ancestry back to England before the
Mayflower
sailing. And, as she scornfully pointed out, unlike the hordes of impoverished well-bred aristocrats, generation after generation of her family had always had money, a great, great deal of money.

The terrible possibility was that Millicent had somehow learned about one of his affairs. I've been discreet, he thought, but if she found out about any of them, it would be the end of me.

He was pouring his third glass of wine when the phone rang. It was Millicent. “Gregg, I haven't been very fair to you.”

He felt his mouth go dry. “I don't know what you mean, dear,” he said, hoping the tone of his voice sounded amused.

“I'll be honest. I thought you might be cheating on me, and I simply could not tolerate that. But you've been given a clean bill of health so . . .” here Millicent laughed, “when I get back, how about celebrating our seventh anniversary and toasting the next seven?”

This time Gregg Stanford did not need to fake the emotion in his voice. “Oh, my dear!”

“I'll be back on Monday. I . . . I'm really quite fond of you, Gregg. Goodbye.”

He hung up the phone slowly. As he suspected, she had been having him watched. It was a stroke of luck that instinct had made him stop seeing any woman these past few months.

Now nothing could stand in the way of the seventh anniversary celebration. It was the climax of everything he had worked toward all his life. He knew that a lot of people were wondering if Millicent was going to stay with him. Even Page Six of the
New York Post
had run an item headlined
GUESS WHO'S HOLDING HIS BREATH?
With Millicent behind him, his position on the board was solidified. He would be first in line for Chairman and CEO.

Gregg Stanford looked around the room, at the paneling and the tapestries, at the Persian carpet and the Hepplewhite furniture. “I'll do anything not to lose all this,” he said aloud.

D
uring the past week, which felt interminable, it seemed to Margaret that Agents Tony Realto and Walter Carlson had become friends, although she never forgot that they were law enforcement officers as well. When they arrived today, the fatigue and concern in their eyes gave her a measure of comfort. She knew that to them, the failure to rescue Kathy was deeply personal as well as professional.

It's ridiculous to be embarrassed because I crashed last night, she thought, cringing at the memory of grabbing the arm of the manager of Abby's Discount. I know I'm grasping at straws.

Or am I?

Realto and Carlson introduced her to the man who was with them, Captain Jed Gunther of the Connecticut State Police. He's about our age, she thought. He must be pretty smart to be a captain already. She knew that the state police had been working round the clock with the Ridgefield police, going door-to-door, asking if anyone had seen strangers loitering in the neighborhood. She also knew that the night of the kidnapping, and the day after, they had taken clothing of the twins, and had searched the town and all the parks in the surrounding
area with their trained dogs, looking for any scent to follow.

With Dr. Sylvia following, she and Steve brought the investigators into the dining room—our “command post,” she thought. How many times in this past week have we sat around this table waiting for a phone call, praying that we'd get the twins back?

Kelly had brought down the matching baby dolls and teddy bears that were the twins' favorite toys. She'd laid them on doll blankets on the living room floor and was now setting up the play table and chairs for a tea party. She and Kathy loved to play together at serving afternoon tea, Margaret thought. Across the table, she exchanged a glance with Dr. Sylvia. She's thinking the same thing. Sylvia always asked the girls about their tea parties when we went to her office.

“How are you feeling, Margaret?” Agent Carlson asked sympathetically.

“I'm okay, I guess. I'm sure you heard that I went to the dress shop where I bought the birthday dresses and asked to speak to the clerk who waited on me.”

“She wasn't there, we understand,” Agent Realto said. “Can you tell us your purpose in seeking to speak to her?”

“Only that she said she had just waited on a woman who was buying clothes for twins and that it seemed peculiar that the woman didn't know their sizes. I just had the crazy thought that maybe someone was buying those clothes, anticipating kidnapping my children and . . . and . . .” She swallowed. “The clerk wasn't there,
and at first the manager wouldn't give me her cell phone number. I realized I was making a scene, so I ran out. Then I guess I just kept driving. When I saw a sign for Cape Cod, I came to my senses somewhat and turned around. The next thing I remember is a policeman shining a light in my face. I was parked at the airport.”

Steve drew his chair closer to hers and put an arm around her shoulder. She reached up and linked her fingers with his.

“Steve,” Agent Realto said, “you've told us that Kelly said the names ‘Mona' and ‘Harry' in her sleep, and that you are positive you don't know anyone with those names.”

“That's right.”

“Has Kelly said anything else that might be helpful in identifying the people who were holding her?”

“She said something about a crib, which gave me the impression that Kathy and she were kept in a crib. But that's all that really made sense.”

“What
didn't
make sense to you, Steve?” Margaret asked intently.

“Marg, honey, if I could only hope with you, but . . .” Steve's face crumbled, and tears welled in his eyes. “I wish to God I could believe there was even a
possibility
that she's alive.”

“Margaret, you called me yesterday and told me you believe that Kathy is still alive,” Carlson said.
“Why
do you believe that?”

“Because Kelly told me she is. Because at Mass yesterday
morning she said Kathy wants to come home, too, right now. Then, at breakfast, when Steve said that he would read a book to her, and pretend he was reading to Kathy, too, Kelly said something like, ‘Oh, Daddy, that's silly. Kathy is tied up on the bed. She can't hear you.' And a few times Kelly has tried to talk twin talk to Kathy.”