headed for his house.
The back door opened before he'd parked the car.
'Here,” Cissy said, coming down the porch steps, a bawling baby in her arms. She thrust Wendy into Aiden's arms before they could get into the house. “I gotta work the early shift.” She brushed past Harriet and got into her car.
'Her concern for her sister and niece is overwhelming,” Harriet said.
'That's what I was trying to tell you. I had to pay her in advance to get her to sit with Wendy while I came to get you.'
Wendy began to whimper.
'It's okay, baby,” Harriet said in a soothing voice. Wendy reached out for her. She took the toddler and carried her through the kitchen and then up the stairs to Carla's room and the nursery. She bathed her and got her into her pajamas while Aiden fixed a bottle. Within a half-hour, they had the little girl asleep.
'Now what?” Aiden whispered as they tiptoed out of the room.
'We need to find Carla,” Harriet said. “My guess is that she's wherever Terry is.'
'Any idea where that might be?'
'I'd like to go to Miller Hill Park and have a look at Foggy Point Fire Protection.'
'Not by yourself, you're not,” Aiden said firmly.
'We can't leave Wendy alone,” she reminded him.
'Of course we can't.” He ran his hands through his hair and paced across Carla's sitting room.
Harriet pulled out her cell phone and started typing on the keypad.
'I'm texting Aunt Beth to see if she's done with Mavis yet. When she's free, I'll see if she can come stay with Wendy so we can go look for Carla.” She finished typing, and they sat in silence waiting for Harriet's phone to signal a return message.
Aunt Beth sent a reply a few minutes later.
'Almost done. Be right there.'
Aiden pulled Harriet into his arms. “What would I do without you?'
'If you'd never met me, you probably wouldn't have a missing live-in housekeeper with a baby, for one thing.'
'Yeah, but I also wouldn't get to run around in the middle of the night with a beautiful woman at my side searching for her.'
'That's not funny.'
Aiden kissed her gently on the lips and then let her go to begin pacing again. “I know,” he said. “I was trying not to think about it for a minute. I'm really worried about Carla.'
'We better go downstairs and wait for Aunt Beth.'
Aiden picked up the baby monitor from its base on the table outside Wendy's room.
'I got this thing for Carla because the house is so big, she can't hear it when Wendy wakes up from her afternoon nap.” He flicked a switch on the side of the blue-and-white unit and it emitted a static hum. He led the way downstairs.
Aunt Beth arrived a half-hour later, tapping gently on the back door.
'I'm sorry you had to come over here so late,” Aiden said.
'Heavens, boy, it's not your fault. We're all concerned about Carla and Wendy. You two go. Find Carla. I'll be fine here. I'm going to go upstairs so I'll be close if Wendy needs anything.'
'Thank you,” Harriet said and hugged her.
Aiden repeated the sentiment and hugged Beth before guiding Harriet back out to the Bronco.
'Let's go up to the park and have a look, and if we don't see anything, I say we go down to the factory and check it out,” Harriet said as she buckled her seatbelt.
Aiden drove down the long driveway and again began the series of turns onto back roads and alleys that cut a direct path across the peninsula and up Miller Hill to the park.
'If Carla or Terry is up here, they must have come on foot,” Harriet said as she looked around the empty parking lot.
'Unless they hid their vehicles.'
'Somehow, I can't see Carla doing that unless she found Terry and he helped her.'
Aiden pulled a camouflaged optics case from behind his seat and got out. “Let's see if we can see anything at the factory from here,” he said, and took out a pair of high-powered binoculars. “My dad used to hunt with these.'
They crept to the rock they'd hid behind when they had followed Terry. Aiden's father's hunting binoculars were much stronger than the ones Terry had shared with them the last time they'd been up here. Aiden handed them to Harriet after he'd looked, sweeping the lenses from right to left across the whole factory below. Harriet repeated the process.
'Wow,” she said. “It almost looks abandoned.'
'You'd think there would at least be a night watchman's car in the parking lot.'
'Let's go down and have a closer look.'
'We can try, but if no one's working, the gate might be locked.'
'What gate?'
'The one that's always open. It goes across the road when you first turn onto the property.'
They returned to the truck and drove to Foggy Point Fire Protection. As Aiden had feared, the gate was locked.
'Can we climb over?” Harriet asked.
'We could. We could also get arrested for trespassing. Besides, as we saw from above, the place is locked up tight. I don't know about these guys, but the night shift at my parent's factory worked Sunday through Thursday, so I guess I'm not surprised they aren't open.'
'Okay,” Harriet said with a sigh. “Let's go back to your house and see if Carla has shown up. If not we can figure out where to go from there.'
This time he took the usual route home. “Looks like we've got company,” he said as they came up the drive and passed three cars parked along its edge.
'Aunt Beth must have cracked and called the Threads,” Harriet said. “That first car was Robin's and the one closest to the house is Lauren's. I'm not sure who the other one is.'
'Apparently, the police won't take a missing person report on Carla until she's been gone forty-eight hours,” Aunt Beth was saying to Robin, Lauren and DeAnn, who were sitting around the kitchen table when Aiden and Harriet walked in.
'What car is she driving?” Robin asked.
'One of my mom's,” Aiden replied, “One of the Mercedes sedans.'
'You didn't give it to her, did you?” Robin pressed.
'I gave her permission to drive it, if that's what you're getting at,” Aiden said. A hard edge was creeping into his voice, but Robin didn't back down.
'Report it stolen,” she said.
'It's not stolen. I just told you, she has permission to use it while she's working for me.'
'Report it stolen,” Robin insisted, this time holding out her cell phone.
The muscle in Aiden's jaw twitched as he clenched his teeth in an effort to control his anger.
Harriet put her hand on his arm.
'Aiden,” she said, “Listen to Robin. They won't look for Carla till she's missing for forty-eight hours, but if you report that your car has been stolen, they'll start looking for it right away. If we find the car, we'll either find Carla or we'll have a starting point.'
He pulled his own phone out of his pocket and dialed the Foggy Point Police Department non-emergency phone number.
'They said they'll start looking immediately,” he said after he ended the call.
