Shakespeares Christmas Page 0,24

in past me to switch on a light.

I pulled the drapes shut all the way and turned to him, sliding out of my black jacket as I turned. He was wrapped around me before I had my arm out of the second sleeve. We undressed in stages, interrupted by the long making out that Jack loved. He was fumbling in his suitcase with one hand for those little square foil packages, when I said, "Christmas present."

He raised his eyebrows.

"I got an implant. You don't have to use anything."

"Oh, Lily," he breathed, closing his eyes to savor the moment. He looked like a Boy Scout who'd just been given the ingredients for S'mores. I wondered when he would work out the other implications of my gift. Then Jack slid on top of me, and I quit caring.

We were wrapped in the bed together an hour later, having finally pulled down the spread and the blanket and the sheets. The sheets, at least, looked clean. One of Jack's legs was thrown across mine, securing me.

"Why are you here?" I asked. This was when Jack liked to talk.

"Lily," he said slowly, taking pleasure in saying it. "I was going to come to see you here. I did think you might need me, or at least that seeing me might help." One long finger traced my spine as I lay facing him, my face tucked in the hollow of his neck. To my horror, I could feel my nose clog up and my eyes fill. I kept my face turned down. A tear trickled down my cheek, and since I was on my side it ran into the curve of one nostril and then underneath. So elegant.

"And then Roy called me. You remember Roy?"

I nodded, so he could feel my head move.

I recalled Roy Costimiglia as a short, stout man with thinning gray hair, probably in his late fifties. You could pass him six times on the street and never remember you'd seen him before. Roy was the detective with whom Jack had served his two-year apprenticeship.

"Roy and I had talked over supper one night when Roy's wife was out of town, so he knew I was seeing a woman who had originally come from Bartley. He called because he'd been given one more lead to run down in a case he's had for four years."

I surreptitiously wiped my face with a bit of sheet.

"What case is that?" My voice did not sound too wobbly.

"Summer Dawn Macklesby." Jack's voice was as bleak and grim as I'd ever heard it. "You remember the baby girl who was kidnapped?"

And I felt cold all over again.

"I read just a little of the update story in the paper."

"So did a lot of people, and one of them reacted pretty strangely. The last paragraph of the article mentioned that Roy has been working for the Macklesby family for the past few years. Through Roy, the Macklesbys have run down every lead, checked every piece of information, every rumor, that's come to them for the past four and a half years ... ever since they felt the police had more or less given up on the case. The Macklesbys hoped there would be some response to the story, and that's why they consented to do it. They're really nice people. I've met them. Of course, they've kind of disintegrated since she's been gone ... the baby."

Jack kissed my cheek, and his arms tightened around me. He knew I had been crying. He was not going to talk about it.

"What response was there to the story? A phone call?"

"This." Jack sat up on the side of the bed. He unlocked his briefcase and pulled out two pieces of paper. The first was a copy of the same article I'd seen in the newspaper, with the sad picture of the Macklesbys now and the old picture of the baby in her infant seat. The Macklesbys looked as though something had chewed them up and spit them out: Teresa Macklesby, especially, was haggard with eyes that had seen hell. Her husband, Simon's, face was almost taut with restraint, and the hand that rested on his knee was clenched in a fist.

The second piece of paper was a picture from the local elementary school memory book, last year's edition; "The Hartley Banner" was printed, with the date, across the top of the page, page 23. The picture at the top of the page, below the heading, was an enlarged black-and-white snapshot of three little