Where Are the Children? by Mary Higgins Clark Read Free Book Online Page A

just in time to hear the bulletin.
    A shadow of an old pain crossed his face. Nancy Harmon . . . Priscilla's daughter. After fourteen years he could still see Priscilla so clearly: the slender, elegant body; the way she held her head; the smile that came like quicksilver.
    She had started working for him a year after her husband's death. She'd been thirty-eight then, two years his junior. Almost immediately he began taking her out to dinner when they worked late, and soon he realized that for the first time in his life the idea of marriage seemed logical and even essential. Until he met Priscilla, work, study, friends and freedom had been enough; he'd simply never met anyone who made him want to alter his status quo.
    Gradually she'd told him about herself. Married after her first year in college to an airline pilot, she had one child, a daughter. The marriage had obviously been a happy one. Then on a trip to India her husband had come down with viral pneumonia and had died within twenty-four hours.
    'It was so hard to take,' Priscilla told him. 'Dave flew over a million miles. He brought 707's down in blizzards. And then something so totally unexpected ... I didn't realize people still died of pneumonia
    Lendon never did meet Priscilla's daughter. She had left for school in San Francisco soon after Priscilla had come to work for him. Priscilla had talked out her reasons for sending her so far away. 'She was growing too close to me,' Priscilla had worried. 'She's taken Dave's death so hard. I want her to be happy and young and to get away from the whole climate of grief that I think is closing in on us. I went to Auberley and met Dave while I was there. Nancy had been with me to reunions, so it isn't as if it's too strange to her.'
    In November Priscilla had taken a couple of days off to visit Nancy at college. Lendon had driven her to the airport. For a few minutes they had stood in the terminal waiting for her flight to be called. 'Of course you know I'll miss you terribly,' he'd said.
    She was wearing a dark brown suede coat that showed off her patrician blonde beauty, 'I hope so,' she said, and her eyes were clouded. 'I'm so worried,' she told him. 'Nancy's letters are so down lately. I'm just terribly afraid. Did you ever have a feeling of something awful hanging over you?'
    Then, when he stared at her, they both began to laugh. 'You see why I didn't dare mention this before,' she said. 'I knew you'd think I was crazy.'
    'On the contrary, my training has taught me to appreciate the value of hunches, only I call it intuition. But why didn't you tell me you were so worried? Maybe I should be going with you. I only wish I'd met Nancy before she left.'
    'Oh, no. It's probably me being a mother hen. Anyhow, I'll pick your brains when I get back.' Somehow their fingers had become entwined.
    'Don't worry. Kids all straighten out, and if there are any real problems, I'll fly out over the week-end if you want me.'
    'I shouldn't bother you . . .'
    An impersonal voice came over the loudspeaker: 'Flight Five-six-nine now boarding for San Francisco ..."
    'Priscilla, for God's sake, don't you realize that I love you?'
    'I'm glad ... I think ... I know ... I love you too.'
    Their last moment together. A beginning ... a promise of love.
    She had called him the next night. To say that she was worried and had to talk to him. She was at dinner with Nancy, but would call as soon as she got back to her hotel. Would he be home?
    He waited all night for the call. But it never came. She never got back to the hotel. The next day he learned about the accident. The steering apparatus of the car she'd rented had failed. The car had careened off the road into a ditch.
    He probably should have gone to Nancy. But when he finally got through to where she was staying, he spoke to Carl Harmon, the professor who said he and Nancy were planning to marry. He sounded perfectly competent and very much in charge. Nancy wouldn't be returning to Ohio. They had