Man of the Hour

She didn’t answer for a long moment. When she did, her voice was resigned. “All right, I’m sorry I pushed you. If you don’t want to talk about it, I won’t make you.” She climbed into bed and reached for her reading glasses.

“Don’t wait up,” he said and then went out to the entryway closet, where he donned his heavy jacket and gloves. After letting himself quietly out the back door, he headed down the driveway, all the while reassuring himself that he was right not to consider the worst.

The police would find Olivia. Dan O’Neill was a good cop. He was doing all the right things.

They had to find her. Nothing less was acceptable.

Sabrina was right about one thing, though. His sister had suffered enough. For a long time, Gregg had been furious with Ben March. If the older man hadn’t already been dead, Gregg would have cheerfully strangled him with his bare hands for what he’d done to Glynnis.

But in the past year—mainly since Samantha was born—he’d gotten past his anger and started moving toward some semblance of understanding.

Gregg knew it couldn’t have been easy for Ben to live with Sabrina’s mother all those years. Even now, when she was supposedly happily married to her longtime love, she was a hard woman to be around.

It always amazed Gregg that Sabrina—who was one of the warmest women he’d ever known—could have been born to Isabel March, who, on her warmest day, was closer to the Arctic Circle than to the equator.

For Sabrina’s sake, he was friendly to Isabel, but he’d never love her, although he was glad she and Sabrina had a decent relationship again.

But even though he understood Ben better now, he still couldn’t completely forgive him for what he’d put Glynnis through. Those days after he’d died, when Glynnis had found out she was not legally married to him and that he had another wife and an adult daughter, had been tough. But the worst days had come later, when all the well-wishers were gone and Glynnis had to face everyday life with two small children on her own. At least Ben had left the children well provided for.

As Sabrina had said, Glynnis was a strong woman. She’d proven that by everything she’d overcome: their parents’ death, a disastrous relationship when she’d been in college, having to give up the baby that resulted from it, and then Ben’s death and the truth about their marriage. A weaker woman might have broken. Glynnis hadn’t. Throughout, no matter how much she was hurting, she’d gone on and made the best life she could.

This, though, could destroy her.

Gregg was so lost in his thoughts he didn’t realize a car had pulled alongside him until he heard his name called. Turning, he recognized his cousin Steve’s dark blue Ford Explorer.

“What’re you doing out walking this late?” Steve said when Gregg came around to the driver’s side to talk to him.

“I needed some air. You just coming home from the restaurant?” Steve had been Gregg’s assistant for the past two and a half years and Gregg now wondered how he had ever managed without him.

“Yeah.”

“We have a good night?”

“Real good. From seven-thirty on, all the tables stayed filled.”

Gregg nodded. The first few years he’d owned Antonelli’s, it had been touch and go as to whether he’d make it. The odds were against him; he’d always known that. Start-up restaurants didn’t have a good track record. But with a combination of hard work and luck, he’d made Antonelli’s into one of the most successful restaurants in the area.

“I take it there’s no news,” Steve said.

“No.”

“Geez, Gregg, I’m sorry. Is there anything Maggie and I can do?” Maggie also worked for Gregg as first assistant to the chef. She and Steve had met at the restaurant, fallen in love and married a little over a year ago. Now she was pregnant with their first child.

Gregg didn’t answer for a moment. He couldn’t. He was all too aware of just how bad the situation was and how much worse it might get. “Pray,” he finally said. “Pray hard.”

“Yeah,” Steve said softly. Then, “You want a ride back to the house?”

“Thanks, but I’m not ready to go back yet.”

“Okay. You sure you’re all right?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. You go on. Maggie’ll be waiting.”

Steve smiled. “All right. You comin’ in tomorrow?”

“I don’t know. We’ll see.”

“Well, don’t worry about us. We can manage if you want to stay with Glynnis. Everybody’s torn up about this, you know.”

“Yeah, I know.” Glynnis had spent a lot of time at the restaurant since Ben had died, and the employees had pretty much adopted the kids. He smiled thinking how Jeff, their pastry chef, always let the kids roll out leftover dough and Trish, who was training to take Maggie’s place as their sous-chef, taught Michaael to chop carrots.

Gregg watched as Steve drove off, then he headed toward the park. Since he didn’t normally go to the restaurant before ten, in nice weather he always took Samantha to the park in the morning before he left for work. Many times, he’d included Olivia in their excursions, picking her up before Glynnis left for the school and then dropping her at her day care center on his way to the restaurant.

Samantha adored her older cousin. The two little girls always had a great time together, and Gregg enjoyed watching them. From the time of their birth, he’d been a surrogate father to Glynnis’s children, and he knew they’d always occupy a special place in his heart.

Reaching the park, he walked down the main path to the pond and his favorite bench. As he’d known it would be, the park was deserted. It was too cold for lovers and too late for joggers. There weren’t even any homeless people there, because last year, in cooperation with half a dozen businesses, the city had opened a shelter.

Locating the bench he’d come to think of as his, Gregg sat and pensively looked out over the pond. Moonlight shimmered across its dark, quiet surface. None of the lily pads or ducks that dotted the pond during the daytime were visible. He smiled, thinking how the girls loved those ducks. Whenever they came, they brought bread or crackers or popcorn to feed them. Samantha would squeal whenever one of them came too close, but Olivia wasn’t afraid of them. She’d let them eat out of her hand if Gregg would allow it, but he was always afraid they might accidentally bite her, so he insisted that she put the food on the ground.

Soon the pond would freeze and the ducks would migrate somewhere warmer, but they always came back in the spring.

From somewhere across the pond, he heard the low, mournful who-who of an owl. The sound caused his chest to tighten.

Livvy. Where are you?

He felt so completely useless. If only he could do something to help. But what? What?

He thought about Samantha sleeping peacefully in her crib. Sabrina, probably lying awake in their bed worrying about him. Glynnis, frightened and sleepless in her house.

All of them needing him.

So what was he doing here?

He should be home with his wife and child. He should try to get some sleep so that he’d be better able to help Glynnis tomorrow.

Getting up, he began to run and didn’t stop until he saw the welcoming lights of home.

Glynnis never did go to bed. Kat tried to make her, but she refused. She did change into an old pair of green velour sweatpants and a matching sweatshirt and put thick socks on her feet so she wouldn’t be cold. But she spent the night curled up under an afghan on one of the love seats in the living room, and Kat spent the night on the other one.

As the night passed, Glynnis was aware of every sound. The ticking of the grandfather clock in the entryway. The hum of the refrigerator and the occasional clunk as the ice maker spit out its new supply of cubes. The distant drone of traffic on the interstate that cut through downtown. The wail of a siren somewhere in the distance. The rattle of the overhanging branches of the big maple tree in the side yard against the roof.

All so ordinary. The sounds of a normal night in a normal world. Only this wasn’t a normal night or a normal world. Any world where some stranger could grab a child and walk off with her was a nightmare world.

Glynnis just prayed the nightmare would be over soon. That Olivia would be restored to her, safe and sound.

Where was she tonight? Was she warm? Safe? Was that woman taking care of her?

Glynnis’s eyes filled with tears.