The bob became a decisive wag. “All gone,” said Rosie out of a hoarse throat, and although Justin had heard her apply this locution to lost toys or people departed on shopping errands it had a very final sound in combination with her tears. And the prints of high heels in the snow only went one way.
I don’t believe it, said Justin harshly to himself, but he picked up the child, unresisting, a strange piece of satin ribbon dangling from her fist, and looked first into the living room—empty, quiet, with a Christmas tree shining at him—and then went through the rest of the house, turning on lights with dread. Relief swarmed through him at the discovery, of Amanda’s wet calf pumps in her bedroom: She had changed into flat heels. The manicure scissors on the bed had obviously been used to carve out the object which Rosie clutched.
A washcloth was called for—the child’s face was a glistening embodiment of distress—but it would have to wait. Justin headed for the living room and the telephone, getting confirmation from Rosie on the way that there had been two men with Amanda. Had they hurt Amanda? He got a doubtful no.
The enigmatic-eyed dispatcher already had all the background information but events in this area would fall under a different jurisdiction. Justin called the sheriff’s department and went through the whole business again. Because of the lack of any sign of violence in the house the voice at the other end was inclined to be skeptical. Amanda was well over eighteen, and missing people were generally missing of their own volition although family and friends were reluctant to accept it.
Look, ” said Justin, his own voice hardening, “I know this girl, and she would never under any circumstances leave a child of two alone in a pitch-black house. To hell with this, give me the sheriffs home number and I’ll call him and after that I’ll call—”
He was told hastily to calm down. He repeated the description of the car registered to Jane Balsam, and added that if they had thoughts of sending anybody to the house he wouldn’t be there; he was going to try following the tire tracks himself, taking Rosie Lopez with him.
This led to strong official demurs. They didn’t know Justin, surely he would understand that, and in the absence of the parents or an official guardian the child should be placed under the care—
“Take me to court,” said Justin, and clapped the receiver down. His car would scarcely have had time to get cold, but he went rapidly back to Amanda’s bedroom for a blanket to wrap Rosie in, taking the pillow as well: Bundled up on the back seat, she might sleep.
A harried compassion made him spend fifteen seconds with washcloth and towel. Then, with a feeling of surrealism—Lucy Pettit’s apartment, Mrs. Balsam’s house, and now Amanda’s—he switched off the lights and carried Rosie out to his car. “Raggie,” she said surprisingly to him, exhibiting her peculiar trophy as he improvised her bed, and Justin, finally recognizing this as a companion piece to the knotted cloth in Mrs. Balsam’s guest room, said, “Raggie. Right;”
The tire tracks bore south, angling at times to keep away from a main road to the east. An occasional horse moved in a snowy field, the only break in the sleeping stillness. Justin shut his mind to everything but the earlier progress in his headlights, puzzled over a split-up into driveways fifty yards apart with no footprints in either place, continued following.
And arrived at a wide four-way stop, with some wild skidding evident. One vehicle had turned west, the other east. Which had carried Amanda?
“Where did he go, where has he taken that child?” asked Amanda fiercely. She had to school her voice so that it wouldn’t shake. To have been goaded about like an animal for all these hours and then lose Rosie completely—
“Making arrangements,” said Claude briefly. Clone at once, but blazing through Amanda’s brain like a rocket, was a sly and secretive tuck of the mouth corner she could see in the light from the dashboard. “We call him in ten minutes and he’ll tell you where to pick her up.” He consulted his watch, somehow elaborately. Get going.”
A night of instructions like repeated rasps; skin so subjected might begin gently to bleed. But for just a moment Claude had been entertained—at what? Scarcely his own situation, so it had to be hers.
Amanda put the car into gear, straining over this new element. He had mocked at Rosie’s rag, but that association had to be long gone. The rag, gripped with all the strength of which Rosie was capable when Amanda had been forced to give her to Dickens. Was it really likely that she would have dropped it, her sole comforter, in the course of the few steps to the front door?
Outside, Dickens had said loudly and furiously that he would “get it” upon Rosie’s wail—but she would have cried out if she were pinched suddenly, creating an excuse for the reopening of the door. Amanda had seen her clearly framed there, but what about the seconds when her attention had been distracted by Claude?
“Take a right,” he said beside her.
Amanda swung the wheel automatically, looking at the unmarked white road before her, coming up to something else in her own mind. Why, at this point, would Dickens have continued to burden himself with a child for whom he had only strong dislike and contempt when there was an obvious place to leave her? On the other hand, he had been carrying something when he walked so speedily around his truck, and in that short space of time there wasn’t—
Yes, there was. Amanda’s lined raincoat, hanging ready to his hand in the hall. Lightly crushed, carried just so, it would have passed in the dark for a human weight. Minutes ago at the
