Measure Of Darkness

“You want to know what he looks like?”

She shakes her head. “I know what he looks like. I want to know if you know what he looks like.”

“You know… Oh, I get it. You happened to notice when he visited Professor Keener, is that it?”

“I’m waiting, sugar.”

“Okay, what he looks like. Here goes. Well, for starters, he’s a hunk, big and lean and tall. Way over six foot—I mean, I barely come up to his shoulders, you know? Soulful eyes. And a cute little salt-and-pepper chin beard.”

Mrs. Nadeau nods along with the description. “You had me at hunk, sugar. That’s our boy. I saw him ringing the bell over there last week and my first thought, I wish he was ringing the bell over here, you know what I mean? No offense, but your man is tasty.”

As you may have noticed, I’m rarely at a loss for words, but that pretty much stops my tongue. Mrs. Nadeau notices my discomfort and reaches out to pat my hand. “Wispy little thing like you, I’m guessing he really is just a friend. Don’t look so worried, these things take time.”

Wispy? I’m wearing what I call my librarian glasses, Target clothing and a cloth handbag, going for the nonthreatening mousy look. But wispy? Really?

“Man like that, he’d want a woman with some meat on her bones,” Mrs. Nadeau says. “Somebody with a little bounce in her jounce. But he may come around. You just hang in there.”

When my power of speech finally resumes, I say, “Yesterday morning, when it happened, did you notice anything wrong?”

Mrs. Nadeau explains that because of her allergies—she’s allergic to cats, why is that no surprise?—she takes an antihistamine before bed and sleeps, in her words, like a dead dodo bird. Therefore she has no awareness of what happened in the early hours, or who might have murdered Joseph Keener.

“The sirens woke me. That’s the first I knew something was wrong. The cops wouldn’t tell me what happened, but when I saw that body bag coming out I knew it was bad. The worst. The poor, poor man. I wonder who’ll get the house.”

On my way out the narrow driveway, I stop to take a gander at the dead man’s backyard. And there, partially obscured by fallen leaves, is a child’s sandbox, covered with a plastic turtle lid. Looks like it hasn’t been used in a while, but that fits with what the cat lady said, and as far as I’m concerned proves beyond doubt that a child once played here.

A little boy, missing.

Chapter Ten

Promises to Keep

Kidder loops the big brass padlock over his index finger and shows it to the woman he thinks of as New Mommy.

“You’ll be safe,” he says in his teasing, wheedling way. “It’s a finished basement with a kitchenette, full bath, a nice pool table and a big-screen TV. Plenty of room for the kid’s keyboard. It’s not like you’ll be locked up in a dungeon.”

“The basement is fine, but why do we have to be locked in?” she says. Seated on a divan, the little brat clinging to her side.

“Because your boyfriend said so, that’s why.”

“He’s not my boyfriend.”

“Whatever you say.”

“Shane saved my life once. I owe him.”

“That’s sweet. Down you go.”

The boy has tucked his head into her hip, averting his face. She strokes his hair, tries to calm him, but the kid picks up on her nervous tension and avoids making eye contact with Kidder. Nothing new there, the brat has never liked him.

“I need to speak to Shane,” the woman pleads. “I want Shane to tell me why we have to be locked into the basement whenever you go out. It’s not like I’m going to run away.”

“I told you, it’s for your own protection. You and the kid. I’m a bodyguard, I’m guarding, and that’s really all you need to know. Those were his instructions and I intend to follow them to the letter.”

“This isn’t right,” she mutters.

Kidder squats so that he’s at eye level. His predatory grin has all the warmth and welcome of a chilled ice pick. “This is not a topic for discussion,” he says softly. “The word comes down from the big guy, we obey. End of story.”

“But why—”

Kidder puts a finger on her mouth, feels her trembling inside. “Sssh,” he says. “You’re going to play in the basement for a while, isn’t that right? You and the kid will be nice and cozy, safe as churches. I’ll be back this evening, we’ll have pizza, maybe watch a movie.”

The touch of his fingertip is like a button shutting off her resistance. Less than a minute later he snaps the padlock on the hardened steel door of the secure room in the cottage basement, heads for his vehicle and is soon exiting the gated estate. A few miles west of the rocky coastline, this scenic road will intersect a major highway. Until then he makes sure to keep just below the speed limit. It would be very awkward if one of the local cops pulls him over, wants to see what he has defrosting in the trunk.

Yikes.

Kidder feels content with his purpose—this new, last-minute assignment is going to be fun. Challenging but fun. He glances at Google Maps in his lap and thinks happy thoughts.

Chapter Eleven

Where It Gets Complicated

I return to the residence walking on air.

Alice Crane, Super Investigator, able to successfully interrogate reluctant neighbors, discover leaf-obscured sandboxes and enter tall buildings in a single bound. Okay, the neighbor wasn’t exactly reluctant, but still, it was my idea and I came away with an eyewitness account that proves beyond doubt, to me at least, that Joseph Keener was the father of a small child. Considering the circumstance, I shouldn’t feel this happy—a kid is missing, what is there to be happy about?—but the success of the mission makes me want to punch the air and shout yes! just like they do in the movies, only Mrs. Beasley might see me and throw a stale muffin at my head. Not that her baked items ever last long enough to go stale, but you get the idea.

Be cool, girl. Like it’s all in a day’s work.

Right, right, let me give it a try. Trying, trying. Nope, never happen. I’ll never be cool. Not unless cool involves shouting, “I did it! I did it!” while bounding up the stairs to the command center.

Only to find the big room hushed and empty.

For one horrible moment I imagine that the mysterious assault team returned in my absence, abducting everyone but me. And then light footsteps come padding along the hallway carpet and boss lady pokes her head inside the door.

“You screamed?” she says, and beckons me to follow.

She and Teddy have been hunkered down at his main computer terminal, all agog over some new spy program developed by our young software genius.

“It’s so simple that it’s almost beautiful,” boss lady enthuses, acting very much like a proud mother. “And it’s functioning perfectly.”

“Simple also means limited,” he reminds her. “We can look but not touch.”

“It’s a kind of invisible, undetectable window into their system,” Naomi explains, attempting to share. “Planted by Jack’s operative at Keener’s company, QuantaGate.”

“More like a reflection of a window,” Teddy corrects. He manages to look embarrassed and pleased at the same time. Then, as if to deflect attention away from his fauxhawked self, he goes, “Alice? Um, what happened out there?”

“Oh, nothing much. Just proved that the dead professor had a kid, that’s all. With a mysterious Chinese lady.”

That finally gets their attention.