Silent Night

someone he saw take your wallet.”

Catherine nodded. “I’ve been thinking the same thing. It’s the only answer that makes sense.”

“Michael tells me that last year Brian stood up to a fourth-grade kid who shoved one of his classmates.”

“He’s a gutsy kid,” Catherine said. Then the import of what the policeman had said hit her. He thinks that if Brian followed whoever took my wal let, he may have confronted that person. Oh God, no!

“Mrs. Dornan, if it’s all right with you, I think it would be a good idea if we tried to get cooperation from the media. We might be able to get some of the local TV stations to show Brian’s picture if you have one.”

“The one I carried is in my wallet,” Catherine said, her voice a monotone. Images of Brian standing up to a thief flashed in her mind. My little boy, she thought, would someone hurt my little boy?

What was Michael saying? He was talking to the cop Ortiz.

“My grandmother has a bunch of pictures of us,” Michael was telling him. Then he looked up at his mother. “Anyhow, Mom, you gotta call Gran. She’s going to start worrying if we’re not home soon.”

Like father, like son, Catherine thought. Brian looks like Tom. Michael thinks like him. She closed her eyes against the waves of near panic that washed through her. Tom. Brian. Why?

She felt Michael fishing in her shoulder bag. He pulled out the cellular phone. “I’ll dial Gran,” he told her.

9

In her apartment on Eighty-seventh Street, Barbara Cavanaugh clutched the phone, not wanting to believe what her daughter was telling her. But there was no disputing the dreadful news that Catherine’s quiet, almost emotionless voice had conveyed. Brian was missing, and had been missing for over two hours now.

Barbara managed to keep her voice calm. “Where are you, dear?”

“Michael and I are in a police car at Forty-ninth and Fifth. That’s where we were standing when Brian… just suddenly wasn’t next to me.”

“I’ll be right there.”

“Mom, be sure to bring the most recent pictures you have of Brian. The police want to give them out to all the news media. And the news radio station is going to have me on in a few minutes to make an appeal. And Mom, call the nurses’ station on the fifth floor of the hospital. Tell them to make absolutely sure that Tom isn’t allowed to turn on the TV in his room. He doesn’t have a radio. If he ever found out that Brian was missing…” Her voice trailed off.

“I’ll call right away but, Catherine, I don’t have any recent pictures here,” Barbara cried. “All the ones we took last summer are in the Nantucket house.” Then she wanted to bite her lip. She’d been asking for new pictures of the boys and hadn’t received any. Only yesterday Catherine had told her that her Christmas present, framed portraits of them, had been forgotten in the rush to get Tom to New York for the operation.

“I’ll bring what I can find,” she said hurriedly. “I’m on my way.”

For an instant after she finished delivering the message to the hospital, Barbara Cavanaugh sank into a chair and rested her forehead in her palm. Too much, she thought, too much.

Had there always been a feeling haunting her that everything was too good to be true? Catherine’s father had died when she was ten, and there had always been a lingering touch of sadness in her eyes, until at twenty-two she met Tom. They were so happy together, so perfect together. The way Gene and I were from day one, Barbara thought.

For an instant her mind rushed back to that moment in 1943, when at age nineteen and a sophomore in college, she’d been introduced to a handsome young Army officer, Lieutenant Eugene Cavanaugh. In that first moment they’d both known that they were perfect for each other. They were married two months later, but it was eighteen years before their only child was born.

With Tom, my daughter has found the same kind of relationship with which I was blessed, Barbara thought, but now… She jumped up. She had to get to Catherine. Brian must have just wandered away. They just got separated, she told herself. Catherine was strong, but she must be close to the breaking point by now. Oh, dear God, let someone find him, she prayed.

She rushed through the apartment, yanking framed photographs from mantels and tabletops. She’d moved here from Beekman Place ten years ago. It was still more space than she needed, with a formal dining room, library, and guest suite. But now it meant that when Tom and Catherine and the boys came to visit from their home in Omaha, there was plenty of room for them.

Barbara tossed the pictures into the handsome leather carryall Tom and Catherine had given her for her birthday, grabbed a coat from the foyer closet, and, without bothering to double lock the door, rushed outside in time to press the button for the elevator as it began to descend from the penthouse.

Sam, the elevator operator, was a longtime employee. When he opened the door for her, his smile was replaced by a look of concern. “Good evening, Mrs. Cavanaugh. Merry Christmas. Any further word on Dr. Dornan?”

Afraid to speak, Barbara shook her head.

“Those grandkids of yours are real cute. The little one, Brian, told me you gave his mom something that would make his dad get well. I sure hope that’s true.”

Barbara tried to say, “So do I,” but found that her lips could not form the words.

“Mommy, why are you sad?” Gigi asked as she settled onto Cally’s lap.

“I’m not sad, Gigi,” Cally said. “I’m always happy when I’m with you.”

Gigi shook her head. She was wearing a red-and-white Christmas nightgown with figures of angels carrying candles. Her wide brown eyes and wavy golden-brown hair were legacies from Frank. The older she gets, the more she looks like him, Cally thought, instinctively holding the child tighter.

They were curled up together on the couch across from the Christmas tree. “I’m glad you’re home with me, Mommy,” Gigi said, and her voice became fearful. “You won’t leave me again, will you?”

“No. I didn’t want to leave you last time, sweetheart.”

“I didn’t like visiting you at that place.”

That place. The Bedford correctional facility for women.

“I didn’t like being there.” Cally tried to sound matter-of-fact.

“Kids should stay with their mothers.”

“Yes. I think so too.”

“Mommy, is that big present for me?” Gigi pointed to the box that held the uniform and coat Jimmy had discarded.

Cally’s lips went dry. “No, sweetheart, that’s a present for Santa Claus. He likes to get something for Christmas, too. Now come on, it’s past your bedtime.”

Gigi automatically began to say, “I don’t want to…,” then she stopped. “Will Christmas come faster if I go to bed now?”

“Uh-huh. Come on, I’ll carry you in.”

When she had tucked the blankets around Gigi and given her her “bee,” the tattered blanket that was her daughter’s indispensable sleeping companion, Cally went back to the living room and once again sank down onto the couch.

Kids should stay with their mothers … Gigi’s words haunted her. Dear God, where had Jimmy taken that little boy? What would he do to him? What should she do?

Cally stared at the box with the candy-cane paper. That’s for Santa Claus. A vivid memory of its contents flashed through her mind. The uniform of the guard Jimmy had shot, the side and sleeve still sticky with blood. The filthy overcoat-God knew where he’d found or stolen