Two Little Girls in Blue by Mary Higgins Clark Read Free Book Online

had sent over. Then, while Steve waited with FBI Agent Carlson to learn the outcome of the C.F.G.&Y. board meeting, she slipped upstairs to the twins’ bedroom.
    It was the one room they had fully decorated before they moved in. Steve had painted the walls pale blue and tacked down a final-sale remnant of white carpet over the shabby floorboards. Then they had splurged on an antique white four-poster double bed and a matching dresser.
    We knew it was silly to buy two single beds, Margaret thought as she sat on the slipper chair that had been in her own bedroom as a child. They would have ended up in the same bed anyhow, and it was one more way to save money.
    The FBI agents had taken the sheets, blanket, quilt, and pillowcases to test for DNA evidence. They had dusted the furniture for fingerprints and taken the clothing the twins had worn after the party to be sniffed by the dogs that for the past three days had been led by Connecticut State Police handlers through the nearbyparks. Margaret knew what that kind of search meant: There was always the chance that whoever took the twins had killed them immediately and buried them nearby. But I don’t believe that, she told herself. They are not dead; I would know it if they were dead.
    On Saturday, after the forensic team was finished and she and Steve made their plea to the media, it had been an emotional outlet to come upstairs and clean their room and remake the bed with the other set of Cinderella sheets. They’ll be tired and frightened when they come home, Margaret had reasoned. After they come back, I’ll lie down with them until they’re settled.
    She shivered. I can’t get warm, she thought, even with a sweater under a running suit, I still can’t get warm. This is the way Anne Morrow Lindbergh must have felt when her baby was kidnapped. She wrote about it in a book that I read when I was in high school. It was called Hour of Gold, Hour of Lead.
    Lead. I am leaden. I want my babies back.
    Margaret got up and walked across the room to the window seat. She bent down and picked up first one and then the other of the shabby teddy bears that were the twins’ favorite stuffed animals, hugging them fiercely against her.
    She looked out the window and was surprised to see that it was beginning to rain. It had been sunny all day—cold, but sunny. Kathy had been starting with a cold. Margaret could feel sobs beginning to choke her throat. She forced them back and tried to remind herself of what FBI Agent Carlson had told her.
    There are FBI agents searching for the twins—dozens of them. Others are going through the files at the FBI headquarters at Quantico and investigating anyone who has any kind of record for extortion or child abuse. They are questioning sex offenders who live in this area.
    Dear God, not that, she thought with a shudder. Don’t let anyone molest them.
    Captain Martinson is sending policemen to every house in town to ask if anyone saw anybody who might have seemed suspicious in any way. They’ve even talked to the Realtor who sold us the house to find out who else may have been looking at it and would be familiar with the layout. Captain Martinson and Agent Carlson both say there will be a break. Somebody must have seen something. They’re putting the girls’ pictures on flyers and sending them out all over the country. Their pictures are on the Internet. They’re on the front page of newspapers.
    Holding the teddy bears, Margaret walked over to the closet and opened it. She ran her hand over the velvet dresses the twins had worn on their birthday, then stared at them. The twins had been wearing their pajamas when they were kidnapped. Were they still wearing them?
    The bedroom door opened. Margaret turned, looked at Steve’s face, and knew from the vast relief she saw in his eyes that his company had volunteered to pay the ransom money. “They’re making the announcement immediately,”