Randy’s education to think of. So I’ve learned to cook. Feeling brave? I make a mean Stroganoff.”
“Fine,” Lucy decided. The idea of spending a quiet evening with Jim was suddenly very appealing. Then she said, “Jim? When you mentioned Randy’s education just now, were you.… Do you really think we’re going to find him?”
Jim hesitated for a moment, forcing himself to maintain a cheerful façade. “Who knows? I know what Sergeant Bronski thinks, and I know what the statistics are, and I don’t have any more of an idea than you do as to what to do next So, I suppose, we should accept the fact that he’s gone. But deep down inside I don’t believe he ran away either. I believe in you, Lucy, and if you think someone took him, then someone took him. If you think he’s alive, then he’s alive. And if you think we’ll find him, then we’ll find him. So I guess I better not spend his college money yet, had I?”
Lucy felt her eyes tearing, and made no move to wipe the dampness away. Instead, she reached out and tentatively touched Jim’s hand.
“Thank you, she whispered.”
Their eyes met, and then suddenly Jim winked. “And on Monday, you get down to CHILD and find out what they did with our son. Okay?”
Silently, Lucy nodded.
Chapter 15
THE GLASS-AND-STEEL MONOLITH that housed the offices of CHILD rose up out of the heart of the city like a great impersonal tombstone. The faceless people within it would continue their endless sojourn, year after year, until one day they would finally leave their offices and begin their “golden years,” unaware they had spent most of their lives within a spiritual graveyard. As Lucy Corliss approached its expressionless façade on that unusually muggy spring morning, she felt as though she already knew what would happen inside.
Nothing.
The people at CHILD, she was sure, would be reflections of the building in which they worked—efficient, featureless, bland, and, in the end, impenetrable. Still, she had to try.
The elevator rose swiftly and silently to the thirty-second floor, and when its doors slid open, Lucy was confronted with a wide corridor stretching away in both directions. At the end of the hall was a pair of imposing double doors. Behind those doors lay the CHILD offices. Steeling herself, Lucy opened the doors and slipped into a mahogany-paneled reception room containing a small sitting area—empty—and a desk behind which sat a cool blonde who appeared to be cut from the same die as morning talk-show hostesses. Lucy approached the desk, but the receptionist, talking softly on the telephone, held up her hand as if forbidding Lucy to get too close. A moment later she hung up the phone and turned on her smile.
“May I help you?”
“I’d like to see Mr. Randolph. Paul Randolph?”
The receptionist, who neither wore a name badge nor had a nameplate propped helpfully on her desk, looked doubtful.
“I’m afraid Mr. Randolph is very busy.”
“I have an appointment,” Lucy said firmly.
The receptionist frowned. “With Mr. Randolph?”
“That’s right,” Lucy replied, her original sense of intimidation turning rapidly to irritation. “My name is Lucy Corliss. If you’ll just tell me where his office is—” But the receptionist was already on the phone, talking softly to someone hidden in the depths of the offices. Then she was back to Lucy, smiling brightly.
“If you’ll just take a seat, Mrs. Corliss? It’ll just be a minute, and I’ll be happy to get you some coffee while you wait.”
But Lucy didn’t want coffee. She simply wanted to sit for a minute and savor her tiny victory over the cool blonde. The blonde, however, saw fit to ignore her.
A moment later a much older woman strode into the reception room and offered Lucy her hand.
“I’m Eva Phillips, Paul Randolph’s secretary. We’re so sorry to keep you waiting, but you know how things can be.”
She ushered Lucy through the offices, chattering amiably all the way, and finally showed her into a large corner office dominated by an enormous desk. Behind the desk sat a man who was obviously Paul Randolph.
He was in his indeterminate forties, his face smooth and handsome in a bland sort of way. His sandy hair was thinning, and, to his credit, he made no attempt to hide that fact. He rose to greet Lucy, and as he came around the end of his desk, he moved with a lithe grace that Lucy had always associated with old money, private schools, and summers on the Cape. When he spoke,