A flicker of concern washed over Eric’s dark face.
“Rachel, he had no money. Where would he go?”
Helga had been listening to all this in troubled silence. Now she put down the coffeepot she was carrying and said abruptly, “Wait!”
She went into the kitchen and returned with a cookie jar.
“It is empty,” she announced. “There was nearly two hundred dollars in here. I was saving it to buy my sister an airline ticket so that she could visit me from Berlin. Now that there is no East or West—”
Rachel interrupted her with a curt wave of her hand, not interested in a modern history lesson.
“So he has enough money to get pretty far,” she said. She turned to her husband again, but this time the accusation had gone from her eyes. In its place was an imploring look. “Eric, what are we going to do?”
“Well, first we’re going to get the girls to the school bus,” Eric said.
“Don’t you want us to help look for Steven?” Tatiana asked.
“Oh, Tati,” Olivia said, “you know you can’t miss school!”
Tatiana snorted. She’d hoped something good would come of all this—at the very least, missing school for a day. Frankly, she didn’t want to look for Steven at all.
“I’ll walk with them,” Helga said.
When they had gone, Eric went on, “Now, I’m going to call the police—”
“No!”
Eric held up both hands.
“Rachel, this sudden police phobia of yours makes no sense,” he said. “If Steven’s run away, they’re our best bet to find him.”
Rachel’s expression turned almost maniacal. Her teeth were set hard and her eyes were very large as she hissed, “I-will-not-work-with-the-police!”
Eric studied her, unable to believe this was the soft-spoken, loving woman he’d known just a few days earlier. Again he asked himself what might have happened to her when she disappeared.
“Rachel, someone’s put this idea into your head,” he said in a gentle tone. “Think about it. You’ve never been afraid of the police before. Now, I don’t know if Steven has anything to do with this, but—”
“Of course he doesn’t!”
“Whatever,” Eric said, forcing himself to stay calm. He was already hatching a plan. “But Nina Blair disappeared, and now Steven is gone. There has to be a connection!”
Rachel’s face relaxed again, and tears started forming in her eyes. She pressed the sides of her nose with her thumbs before they could overflow.
“Eric,” she said in a very small voice, “what’s happening to me? I feel as if . . . as if a door has been opened in my life and there is nothing there but darkness. Steven has something to do with it. I don’t feel he’s the cause of it, but somehow I think he’s the only one who can bring light.”
“You’ve only known him a few days,” Eric said, “and you’ve known the girls most of their lives. Look, I’m no psychologist, but maybe Steven is a substitute for the baby we could never have.”
Rachel looked down at the red-and-white spectator pumps she had chosen to wear with her red suit. It had been a long time since they’d discussed their failed attempts to have a baby. They’d been tested and retested and had tried many methods, to no avail. Eric seemed to be fine, but the specialists couldn’t be certain about Rachel. There was something odd about her eggs, something they couldn’t describe. The bottom line was that the two of them were incompatible when it came to reproduction.
Eric put his arms around his wife. She shuddered once, letting out a long sigh, but she didn’t cry.
“We’re wasting time,” she said.
Eric nodded. “All right. I’ll make a call to Children’s Services right now.”
Rachel left the room and Eric turned to the phone.
“You’re saying that this child was registered with us?” a woman asked.
“Just last week,” Eric said. “I think it would help if I could talk to Kathy Mayer. Nina Blair handled the case, but Ms. Mayer—”
“I’m sorry,” the woman cut in, “I’m a little confused. No one by the name of Kathy Mayer works here.”
Eric frowned up at the clock, barely registering that he was nearly late for work.
“Maybe I’m mixing up the name,” he suggested. “Mayer or Meyer . . .”
“Not even close,” the woman said.
“But I spoke directly with her,” Eric said, “the day I went to pick up Steven.”
“Do you have a last name for Steven?”
“Sorry, no,” Eric said. God, was the world full of incompetents? How could they not know what was going on down there?