Learning to Swim

IT FELT MORE THAN A LITTLE ODD TO BE CLIMBING OUT OF the Mercedes at the Tudor house I’d arrived at with the same man just over twenty-four hours ago. Like the old Bill Murray movie Groundhog Day, where you’re doomed to live the same day over until you get it right. Here we were again, this time bringing home the missing child.

Maybe this time everything would be fine.

The sound of our car doors closing behind us was sharp. I was acutely aware of our footsteps crunching against the flat stones of the driveway, of the leaves of the trees around us fluttering in the breeze. Paul was clinging to his father’s hand, with Dumond leaning over, speaking to him as they walked toward the house. The door opened and in the doorway I saw a spare sixtyish woman, gray hair pulled back, her entire body radiating anxiety. Paul pulled his hand free from his father’s and ran into her arms. She was mouthing his name, over and over. Her face broke and tears streamed down her cheeks.

So much for my notion that Dumond could have been involved with the nanny-turned-housekeeper. She looked up at us as we reached them. It was a mistake to come here, I thought. She was Paul’s life, past and future. I was the interloper.

Dumond spoke. “Elise, this is Troy Chance, who found Paul for us. Troy, this is Paul’s nanny, Elise.”

The woman released Paul and pulled me to her in a rough, hard hug. I sensed an enormous amount of emotion, so much she was barely keeping it contained. She didn’t say anything and didn’t look me in the face, but I knew it was because her feelings were so intense. She turned back to Paul and began chattering in rapid-fire French. They headed off together—toward the kitchen for cookies and milk, I supposed, likely the first line of treatment when lost boy returns home. I felt a pang of something uncomfortably like jealousy.

But this was his nanny, his father, his home. What I had given him had been great compared to being locked up in a room for months, but nothing like the life he was supposed to have.

When I turned to Dumond I saw something flicker across his face, and knew that what I was feeling was infinitesimal compared to his pain. Watching your long-lost son marching away with the nanny without a backward look must be the moment when you long to erase the long hours and late nights at work, wish for an Etch A Sketch moment when you shake the box, erase everything, and start over.

But now he had that second chance—with his son at least.

As their footsteps died away he spoke: “Elise has been with Paul since he was born.”

I made an Mmm noise to try to convey That’s great and I understand. He spoke again. “She’s always blamed herself for Paul being taken. She thinks if she had been there that day she could have protected him.”

I blinked, envisioning the tiny nanny trying to fight off kidnappers. “But she couldn’t have—”

“I know,” he said, picking up my bag. “But logic doesn’t come into it. I know all about that. Let me show you your room.”

Tiger and I followed him. We passed Paul’s room and reached a spacious room with large windows and sunlight streaming in. It had a queen-sized bed, light wood floors, and Shaker-style furniture. Just what I might choose if I earned ten times what I did. “I think this has everything you might need,” Dumond said, waving vaguely toward an attached bathroom. I could see it was equipped with hair dryer and bottles of lotion, like a fancy health spa.

“Make yourself at home,” he said. “If you need anything, ask Elise—you’ll find the kitchen to the left of the front foyer. I’m going to show Paul around the house, and we’ll have dinner in an hour or so.”

I’d assumed he would take Paul straight to the police station, but he’d planned that for after a visit to the doctor tomorrow morning. Dumond was, I think, used to getting his way. I sat on the bed and bounced once or twice: a firm mattress, just what I like.

Okay, this was awkward. But there’s no handy guide for introducing your motherless five-months-kidnapped son to a new life. Although maybe step one would be Have the person who rescues your son come home with you to help out.

I looked around the room. I like staying in guest rooms and hotels, nesting in miniature, setting up my things in a new space. I unpacked everything and set my laptop bag near the desk. This took about five minutes. I folded the comforter from the car beside the bed, where I could pretend Tiger would be sleeping instead of with me. She sat on it, watching me.

Sitting here seemed too Jane Eyre-ish, too much like a governess awaiting a summons. New Troy wouldn’t hide away meekly—she would open the door and step out of the room. So I did.

I passed Paul’s room and stifled the urge to unpack his bag of new clothes. Not my house, not my kid. This would have to be my inner mantra while I was here.

I wandered into the living room and dining room, which were tastefully furnished, but too austere for me. I perched on the leather sofa: comfortable, but cold. I wondered if Dumond’s wife had picked out this furniture. I saw nothing remotely personal: no piles of magazines, no photos, no knickknacks. But maybe they would be too-painful reminders of missing wife and child.

Then I found the library, which I loved instantly: built-in bookshelves, a fireplace of rounded stones, and stuffed sofa and chairs you could disappear in. I walked the length of the shelves, running my fingers along the spines of the books. They were new and old mixed in together—fiction, nonfiction, English, French. I saw a French version of The Count of Monte Cristo, a book I’d fallen in love with around age twelve.

So the house did have some personality—and presumably its owner did as well. Greatly cheered, I wandered on. I found the state-of-the-art kitchen I’d expected, with a marble-topped center island and rows of gleaming pots and pans overhead. Elise, busy at a mixing bowl, looked up.

“Troy,” she said, the r sound making it clear she was a native French speaker. “Your room is good, eh?” It’s the uvula, the little thing that hangs down the back of your throat, that lets French speakers make that trilling r. For us English-speakers, it just hangs there uselessly.

“Oh, yes, it’s great,” I said quickly. “It’s wonderful.”

“Would you like anything? A snack, something to drink?” she asked, setting the spoon down.

“No, no, I’m fine. I was just—Paul’s father told me to look around.”

“It’s a very nice house. It will be a good home for Paul.” Her next question caught me off guard. “Where Paul was, where Paul was kept, was it very bad?”

My throat tightened. I had no idea how much Dumond had told her about Paul’s captivity or what he wanted her to know. I sat on a stool before I answered. “I don’t really know. I mean … he told me only a little, but, no, I don’t think it was very nice.”

She dumped the dough on the countertop. “Paul will be happy here. He will forget the bad things.”

I didn’t know what to say. Yes, Paul probably would be happy here, but he would never forget the bad things. I saw her eyes were bright with unshed tears, and realized she knew all this. “Yes,” I said gently. “He will be happy here.”

She shoved at the dough. “Paul likes you.”

I shrugged. “I was the first person he met. I think he would have liked anyone.”

“No. He likes you especially. He told me you saved him.” Her voice broke. I blinked, my throat tight. She looked up from the dough she was assaulting, and somehow her look said We are in this together. I had rescued the child she loved.

I stood. Suddenly I wanted to see Paul and his father. “I think I’ll go find the guys.”

“They are up in Monsieur Dumond’s room, I think.” She nodded in the direction of the spiral staircase I’d seen yesterday.

At the base of the stairs I called out, “Hello?”

“Troy!” Paul answered. “Viens! Jouons à l’ordinateur.”

My sneakers squeaked on the metal steps. As I reached the top Dumond called out, and I could see the two of them in an attached room at the back of a large bedroom. I walked past furniture similar to that in my room, with darker bedding and a moody painting of a seascape. Then I was in an office with a built-in desk that stretched the width of the room. Paul was playing Tetris on a computer with a huge flat-panel monitor.

“Regardez, Troy,” he exclaimed, bouncing on his chair. “C’est mon jeu préféré!”

Dumond, in a chair off to the side, caught my eye. “Yes, Paul always liked playing this game on my computer,” he said. I watched Paul maneuver the colorful falling blocks as they came faster and faster, eyes intent on the screen, fingers poised on the keyboard. If you’re fast enough, you can line the blocks up into a tidy wall. One misstep, and your wall has holes you can never fill.

A discreet beep sounded from Dumond’s pocket, and he pulled out his phone and glanced at it. He excused himself and stepped out of the room.

When I turned back to Paul, a small silver-framed photo on the far end of the long desk caught my attention. I could see it was Madeleine, with a younger and smaller Paul laughing into the camera; she was laughing as well, one hand holding down that honey-blond hair to try to keep it from being blown in the wind. I felt abrupt nausea: it seemed I was trespassing, here in this room with this woman’s family.

A minute later Dumond reappeared. “I must make some business calls,” he said apologetically. I stood up quickly. “Perhaps—would you mind? Paul might like your help setting up his room.”

“Of course,” I said. “Paul, sweetie, let’s go unpack some of your things. Paul, viens avec moi, s’il te plaît.” His gaze was locked on the screen and the little falling blocks, but as soon as my words penetrated he flicked off the game and followed me. I wondered if he had always been this obedient, or if this was how an abducted child would act—a little too eager to please.

There was so much I didn’t know.





THE SUN WAS SENDING SHAFTS OF LATE-AFTERNOON LIGHT across Paul’s bedroom, seeming to welcome us as we stepped across the threshold. Paul walked around the room slowly, running his hand along each piece of furniture. He knelt beside one of the open boxes and began pulling out toys and inspecting them, as if greeting each one: Hello, this is Paul, and I am back. When he’d emptied the first box, he moved on to the next and began pulling out clothing.

I sensed another presence and turned to see Elise in the doorway. She smiled shakily. “I wasn’t …” she said in a low voice. “I wasn’t sure if any of his things would fit him. But we brought everything from Montreal.”

I flashed to an image of the two of them, father and nanny, packing Paul’s clothing and toys into boxes that might never be opened. Of course they couldn’t have gotten rid of them, just as they hadn’t been able to unpack them. Maybe years later they would have donated them or moved them to an attic. I wondered if Madeleine’s things were packed away as well, in boxes stashed in a closet in Dumond’s room.

“It’s okay,” I said softly. “It’s good he has them all, even if they don’t fit. Later he can get rid of things if he wants.”

The pain in Elise’s face was stark. “I have been with Paul since he was a baby,” she whispered.

“I know. I know.” My throat caught. She stared past me, tears welling, then murmured something about dinner and left.

Paul looked up. “How’s it going?” I asked. “Comment ça va?”

He nodded solemnly and turned back to the box of clothes. Next he opened a box of books and began to thumb through each one. The room was starting to look like a rummage sale in progress. I moved closer and gestured at the bookcase, and Paul began handing me books one by one to place on the shelves.

“How goes it?” Dumond asked from the doorway. I jumped.

“Salut, Papa, je mets mes livres sur l’étagère,” Paul replied, without looking up.

“No, I think it is Troy who is putting the books on the shelf,” Dumond said, smiling. “And I think it is only polite to speak English when Troy is here. Nous devrions parler anglais quand Troy est ici.”

Sitting back on his heels, Paul shook his hair out of his eyes and smiled at his father. “Okay, Papa. I try.” Surrounded by piles of clothes and toys, he looked like any child in a messy room. It seemed impossible he had been gone so long.

Paul returned to the box of books, rooting through it as if looking for something in particular. Dumond picked up a toy car, and idly spun one of the wheels. He watched his son stash toys in the closet, in a dresser drawer, but none in the big toy box. Maybe it was Paul’s way of defining his space. Or hiding his toys so no one could find them.

And then it was time for dinner.

We ate in the fancy dining room; Elise served but didn’t eat with us. It made me think of old Agatha Christie novels, where nearly everyone had servants. But no one objected when Tiger tucked herself neatly under the table.

Paul emptied his bowl of rich vegetable beef soup and ate two steaming, buttery rolls. Apparently Elise had been transferring her unused nanny energies to cooking. When the main course arrived—salmon, with broccoli—Paul stared at his plate, then looked up unhappily. He shifted in his chair.

“Paul, what is it?” asked Dumond.

“Papa, I cannot eat,” he whispered. “Je n’ai pas faim maintenant. Est-ce que je peux le garder pour plus tard?” A lone tear ran down his cheek.

A silent, frozen moment, broken by the rasp of Dumond’s chair on the floor, and then he was at Paul’s side, turning his son toward him and cupping his face in his hands.

“Paul, of course you can save it. There is no reason to be sad. Elise will understand that you are full,” he said, and repeated it in French. “Let’s take this to Elise in the kitchen and ask her to wrap it up for us.” He picked up the plate and led Paul toward the kitchen.

I picked at one of the rolls on my bread plate, appetite suddenly gone.

Dumond came back alone and sat down. “Elise is going to help him get ready for bed. I should have realized that he isn’t used to large meals. But I don’t understand why he was so upset.”

I twisted in my seat, figuring how to explain this. “He’s been gone a long time; he wants to please you.”

He frowned; he wasn’t getting it.

I tried again. “Look, the kidnappers made him think you didn’t want him. They probably told him you were angry with him or didn’t like him. They do that—tell kids their parents don’t want them, or that they’re dead.” I’ve read the grim articles; it’s hard to miss them.

Dumond shut his eyes. I imagined he was seeing Paul locked up, wondering why his father didn’t come rescue him. Because at six, you think your father can do anything.

“Does he believe I didn’t want him, that I wasn’t looking for him? That I wouldn’t have given anything to get him back?” His voice was harsh, a mix of anguish and rage.

I blinked back the moisture gathering in my eyes. “It’s what they told him,” I whispered. “That’s all he’s known for months. And kids always think that bad things that happen to them are their fault.”

Dumond sat for a long moment. “You have no children.” Not quite a question.

“No.” I wasn’t going to discuss my sisters’ children, needy kids at a shelter, other kids I’d known. Or tell him that I understood Paul a little better than he did right now, that the Paul he’d gotten back wasn’t the same child he had lost months ago and in some ways never would be again. Although maybe he knew.

He picked up his fork. “I’ll tell Paul those men lied to him, that I never stopped looking for him. And I’ll have the pediatrician recommend a therapist, psychologist, whatever he needs.” Dumond ate a few bites before speaking again. “And you, what did you think?”

I blinked. “What do you mean? Think about what?”

“When you located me. You could have telephoned me, you could have asked the police to contact me. Instead, you came to Ottawa.”

The salmon that had seemed so delicious suddenly was Styrofoam in my mouth. I swallowed with difficulty. “I didn’t know if I could trust you.”

He looked at me, eyebrows raised.

“I didn’t know … if you were involved somehow.” He looked shocked, and I wished I hadn’t decided to be this honest. “It can happen,” I blurted. “It has happened. People want out of their marriage, don’t want to pay alimony, whatever. They arrange to have a spouse gotten rid of, or kids, too.”

Dumond stared at me. “Look, I didn’t know you,” I said, my voice rising. “And my brother’s a cop; he tells me stories that would set your hair on end.”

We finished dinner with no more conversation. The broccoli was cold, but we ate it anyway. We skipped dessert and walked to Paul’s room, Tiger padding after us.

Paul looked well scrubbed, his damp hair combed neatly. He was wearing one of his new T-shirts with snug stretchy pajama bottoms Elise must have found among his old things. Pajamas were one thing I hadn’t thought of getting him, probably because I don’t own any—I sleep in a T-shirt and old gym shorts, or sweats if it’s cold. I gave Paul a hug.

“Sleep tight, cowboy,” I said. “I’ll see you in the morning. Je te verrai le matin.” He surprised me with a tiny kiss on my cheek.

Dumond replaced me at Paul’s side, tickling him and then leaning over and whispering in his ear. Paul smiled sleepily, happily. Dumond settled himself next to Paul on the small bed and looked up.

“I will stay until Paul falls asleep,” he said. I nodded and turned to go. He was Paul’s father; I was a pseudo-temporary-nanny. It was to be expected.

Dumond’s voice stopped me at the door. “Troy, thank you.”

I looked back at him, next to his son, the two dark heads close together: Paul’s eyes closed, angelically young and relaxed; Dumond looking tired, but at peace. Maybe I didn’t belong in this scene, but I had helped bring it about.





MORNING WAS A SEMBLANCE OF NORMALCY, OR AT LEAST what I assume is normal in a household with a small child and a housekeeper. We ate steaming oatmeal and French toast and sipped fresh-ground coffee, which was astoundingly better than the stuff I made with my paper-towel-drip method. I’d always been scornful of the allure of money, but I was fast seeing the advantages.

The dose of reality came when Paul perversely decided to wear some of his old clothes and squeezed into a snug long-sleeved polo shirt and jeans so tight he could barely fasten the top snap. Elise called me into his room and we consulted sotto voce, Paul close to sullen and looking mutinous. I knelt and put my hands on his shoulders.

“Paul,” I said, looking into his eyes, “these are nice clothes. But I think your papa will feel bad if you don’t wear some of your new things.” I repeated it in French, as best I could.

He looked dubious, then squirmed. The jeans had to be cutting off circulation around his small middle. His face brightened. “New pants, same shirt?” he asked, making his eyes wide.

I nodded. “That’s a very good idea,” I said, handing him a new pair of jeans. Elise and I stepped out so we wouldn’t witness his struggle to peel off the old ones.

Dumond blinked at the sight of the too-small shirt, Paul’s thin wrists showing, but just reached in the hall closet and pulled out a light jacket. “Get your jacket, Paul—va chercher ton veston,” he said matter-of-factly, and Paul ran back to his room for his new windbreaker. Dumond winked at me, and put his hand on Elise’s back, murmuring something near her ear.

In the crowded waiting room I read old copies of Ottawa magazine, learning more than I wanted to know about people I hadn’t known were Ottawans: Dan Aykroyd, Mike Myers, Alanis Morissette. I flipped through battered copies of Highlights for the Goofus and Gallant cartoon. Gallant was polite and good and neat; Goofus was sloppy and rude. But he had mellowed from the naughty fellow I remembered, and was now only mildly ill-behaved.

I was trying hard to ignore the fear churning inside me: that Paul had been sexually abused, which was why the kidnappers had kept him so long. I expected it was what we all feared. I was nearly desperate enough to pick up a copy of Marie Claire when they emerged, Dumond’s arm around his son’s shoulders, Paul sucking a lollipop. “A clean bill of health,” Dumond said. As Paul stepped into the elevator, Dumond moved closer, squeezed my shoulders lightly, and said the three magic words in my ear: No sexual abuse.

My face must have shown how much this had been eating at me, how I had needed to know. I hadn’t expected this insight and compassion from Dumond, which shows what a reverse snob I am. Because someone is rich and attractive and successful, apparently I think they can’t be human. Which made me feel pretty small.

As we drove to the police station my stomach was in knots. Now I’d have to explain officially why I hadn’t taken Paul straight to authorities.

Paul looked up from the backseat when we pulled into the underground parking area. Dumond turned off the ignition and twisted around to face him. “Paul, we are going to talk to the police so they can catch the bad men who took you,” he said, and repeated it in French.

Paul looked blank, a look I recognized as his hear no evil, see no evil face. When things are happening you can’t understand or don’t want to deal with, just shut down. It may not be the best way to deal with things, but it works. With a pang I realized the petulance over his clothes this morning had been the most normal six-year-old reaction I’d seen from him.

“It’s okay, Paul,” I added. “No one will hurt you, and your papa will be right there.”

Paul looked uneasily at me. Dumond forced a laugh. “Yes, the policemen will be very nice to you and if they are not I will bark at them, like Tiger. Arrrrf! Arrrrf!” Paul’s lips twitched. “And I will be there,” Dumond said as he swung the car door open.

God, we were winging this, I thought as we walked in, Paul clasping our hands. He was trusting us, but he was still scared, like a dog you’ve rescued from the animal shelter. Every time we went somewhere he was, I think, a little afraid he was going to end up back in his prison.



At the front counter Dumond asked for the detective he’d been talking to.

“What’s this in reference to, sir?” asked a policewoman in a crisp blue uniform, a slender black woman with precise British intonation. One of the things I like about Ottawa is the apparently seamless mix of nationalities and races. Although of course Canadians have their own biases.

“The kidnapping of my son, last year, whom we have now found.” Dumond was holding Paul’s hand firmly.

The woman blinked, probably wondering if a set of nutcases had just wandered in.

“Detective Jameson should be expecting us. I told him we’d be in this morning.”

Another polite blink, a polite smile. This woman wasn’t stupid. This was important, or at least more than she could handle. “Just a moment, please,” she said, picking up the phone and murmuring into it.

Almost as soon as she had hung up, a man appeared. His suit was rumpled without quite being wrinkled and his hair looked as if he had a habit of running his fingers through it. He shook Dumond’s hand, murmured a greeting, nodded at Paul. Then he turned to me.

“This is Troy Chance, of Lake Placid, New York,” Dumond said. “She found my son, Paul. Troy, this is Detective Jameson.”

His pale eyes assessed me, impersonally, coldly. My stomach did a loop-the-loop. Now I couldn’t ignore what I hadn’t verbalized even to myself: to a policeman’s brain, this didn’t look good. Because I hadn’t gone straight to the police, I must be involved. Cherchez la femme, so to speak. Only I was the femme, and here I was, walking straight into the spider’s web. To mix a couple of metaphors.

Jameson nodded at me, and led us down a hallway. He paused at an open door and said, “Miss Chance, if you’d wait here, please.”

I gave Paul’s hand a little squeeze as I released it, and knelt to give him a quick hug. “I will see you in a little while,” I told him. “Je te verrai bientôt.” He clung a half beat longer and tighter than normal. Just when I was starting to think I was going to have to pry him loose, Dumond gently tugged him away and swung him onto his hip, a comforting arm loosely around him.

“We’ll see you soon, Troy,” he said cheerily.

The room was as institutional as you’d expect: table, metal chairs, a bookcase with thick uninviting tomes, a cabinet with a fat padlock. I sat in one of the metal chairs. I fidgeted. I inspected my fingernails. I thought about trying the door. I considered getting a dusty book from the shelves and reading about Canadian jurisprudence.

This is the warm-up time, I figured, to get you ready to confess or so uncomfortable you’ll talk freely. But all I have to do is tell the truth, I reminded myself. I hadn’t done anything wrong—not much anyway.

The door swung open and two neatly dressed and crisply groomed men stepped in, one Caucasian and the other dark-skinned and shorter—Pakistani, I thought.

The basics were simple: name, age, citizenship, address, occupation. Although after I answered “freelance writer” to the job question, their pause prompted me to babble, “I write for magazines, mostly sports magazines, some airline ones, and I do some work for the local newspaper.”

“Do you live with anyone, Miss Chance?” This was the Pakistani policeman.

“Well, yes, I have several roommates.” Then I had to list them—and because Dave had just moved in I couldn’t remember his last name, so made something up rather than admit I didn’t know. Then their occupations, which sounded more than mildly bohemian even to me. Zach paints houses and does yard work. Ben is a waiter. Dave works at a sports shop. Patrick seems not to work at all, but has an amazing talent for scrounging free meals, free lift tickets, free concert passes. It probably didn’t help that right now all the roommates are guys. So much for sounding respectable.

“Is one of these men your partner?” the shorter man asked. They’d told me their names, but I’d forgotten them. I looked at him uncomprehendingly.

“Partner, boyfriend, lover,” snapped the other, in the first show of impatience I’d seen.

Okay, gloves off. I sat up straighter. “No. I’m dating Dr. Thomas Rouse, a professor at the University of Vermont in Burlington.”

I’d been incredibly naïve not to have realized I’d be considered a suspect. I’d expected to get reprimanded for not reporting the near-drowning right away—and figured the New York police could charge me with something—but none of this. Never mind that I’d thought of several horrible ways Dumond could have been involved; it was a shock that anyone could imagine equally grim scenarios for me. Me, whose worse crime is a tendency to jaywalk and reuse unpostmarked postage stamps.

The detectives were far more polite than, say, NYPD Blue detectives—no Andy Sipowicz screaming, threatening, or table-banging—but they were thorough. And tedious. Apparently if you ask a question enough times, ad infinitum, people eventually tire and tell the truth: Did you rob the bank? No. Did you rob the bank? No. Did you rob the bank? Oh, okay, I did. They kept asking the same questions over and over, particularly about the leap off the ferry.

You jumped off the ferry?

Yes, I jumped off the ferry.

Why did you jump off the ferry?

Because I saw Paul go in the water.

How did Paul go into the water?

Apparently someone threw him in.

You jumped off the ferry?

And of course they wanted to know why I hadn’t immediately gone to the police. There was no easy answer to this, and I wasn’t going to trot out sad stories of abused children I’d known or bad foster homes I’d heard about. No point in sounding like an Oprah show. So I stuck to the basics.

I was tired. We were cold, we were wet. I wanted to get home.

I wanted to let Paul get comfortable before we went to the police.

I thought it’d be better to find his father first.

As soon as I located his father, I went to see him.

I didn’t call his father because I was afraid he’d think it was a hoax.

I told my story, over and over. The policemen wrote down ferry schedules and names and phone numbers. They asked if I swam competitively, and I nearly laughed aloud, thinking of the Monday night triathlons. They were polite, but seemed to think it impossible to survive the chill waters of Lake Champlain as long as we had. They were probably right, but here we were, alive and well.

By now Elise’s hearty breakfast seemed a long way away. I was beginning to feel dizzy. “Could I have some coffee?” I asked.

They glanced at each other. “In a little while,” Tall Cop said.

Suddenly I’d had enough. I scooted my chair back from the table, and the skittering noise on the floor made them jump. “No,” I said, surprising even myself. “I would like it now. Coffee, double cream. And something to eat, please.”

They seemed taken aback by my defiance, but brought me coffee and a doughnut that tasted like a stale Krispy Kreme, a particularly greasy kind I thought you could get only in the South. I ate it, and drank the coffee with its awful fake creamer—this was Canada; they should be getting their coffee and doughnuts from Tim Hortons. Maybe they did, but kept the good stuff for themselves.

Then they started again, more insistently.

They asked more about how I made a living. What was my monthly income? No pension and retirement plan? Finally they went off, presumably to call Baker, consult Jameson or whoever was interviewing Paul, and check my bank account for fat deposits. Then back they came, to ask me the questions all over again, with various permutations. When had I met Philippe Dumond? Why had I disliked Madeleine? How much was I paid? I answered steadfastly and calmly, but I was beginning to understand how false confessions happen. Yes, yes, I did it all, just shut up and leave me alone!

For extra credit in university I’d taken a psychological test called the MMPI, the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory. Among the hundreds of questions were occasional bizarre ones, like Do you ever feel you have a band of intense pain around your head? or Have you ever had a desire to kill someone? Occasionally a question was repeated, to make sure you weren’t answering randomly, the examiner told me later. This felt like that test, but longer and more intense, and I couldn’t quit and go home whenever I wanted.

Suddenly something in me said, This has gone on long enough. Perhaps I hadn’t used the best judgment, but I had, after all, risked my own stupid life to save Paul. I straightened up. “Gentlemen,” I said, “I’ve answered all your questions, several times. Now I would either like to leave, or make a phone call.”

I refused to speak again. Perhaps, I thought as they left the room, I should have asked for a lawyer from the start. But it seems that only guilty people demand a lawyer right away. On Law & Order, anyway. I never once realized I could have called the U.S. embassy—it’s easy to forget Canada is a foreign country.



The door opened. Jameson walked in, expression blank, carrying a squat black telephone with cord dangling. He plugged it into an outlet in the wall, put it in front of me, and pulled out a chair and sat.

“The phone.” His voice was flat, his face expressionless.

He seemed to be daring me to ask him to leave. But I wasn’t in the mood to play games, and didn’t care if he overheard me. I pulled my card of important phone numbers out of my wallet, and hoped my brother would be at his desk.

I punched in the numbers. “Simon Chance, please. Troy Chance calling.” Because I was calling him at work, Simon would know it was important. Then I heard his voice: clear, decisive, hugely comforting.

“Troy, what’s up?”

“Simon, I’m at the city police station in Ottawa, Ontario,” I said. “I found a young boy in New York, who turned out to have been kidnapped. I returned him to his father here, and now police have been questioning me for several hours.”

Pause. Simon was remembering our earlier conversation. He’d be pissed off, but he’d forgive me. “Have you been charged with anything?”

“No. At least they haven’t said anything. But I’m tired and hungry and I’ve told them everything I know, and I want to leave.”

Another pause. “Is there someone there I can speak to?”

I held out the phone to Jameson. “My brother would like to speak to you.” His expression didn’t change, but he took the phone.

Having a brother who is a policeman, a young and undistinguished one in the States at that, shouldn’t make much of a difference, but it did. Simon spoke volubly and Jameson answered tersely, but when he handed me back the phone his manner wasn’t quite as cold.

“Troy,” Simon said, “listen, how soon do you need me there?”

“Look, Si, you don’t need to come up—”

“Where are you staying?”

“I’m with Paul, the boy, and his father, at their home here in Ottawa.”

A half-beat pause. “Give me the phone number there and I’ll call you with my flight information. I’ve got frequent-flyer points and plenty of use-or-lose vacation days. It won’t cost me a dime.”

I recited Dumond’s name and phone number. I owed Simon, and if that meant tolerating him swinging into Protective Big Brother mode, so be it. And to say that I was out of my comfort zone would be putting it mildly.

Jameson met my eyes as I clicked the receiver into place. “You can leave now, but we would like to talk to you again.”

“Fine. I’m not going anywhere.” I was exhausted.

On the way out of the room Jameson turned abruptly, pulled a card from his wallet, and scrawled across the back with a fat black pen. He handed it to me. “If you think of anything, call me. The office number’s on the front, home on the back.”

I blinked, confused.

He repeated, looking straight at me, “If you think of anything, if there’s anything I need to know.” I was too tired to try to figure out what he meant, and slid the card in my wallet.





DUMOND AND PAUL WERE WAITING ON THE THINLY PADDED chairs in the lobby, Paul playing with a little plastic figurine.

“You shouldn’t have stayed,” I told Dumond. I glanced at the clock on the wall—it was later than I had thought. “I could have called you or taken a bus.”

Dumond looked at me as if I’d said something incredibly stupid. Maybe I had.

“Troy, regardez, from McDonald’s,” Paul said, waggling the toy, a character from a recent animated movie. One more thing for him to catch up on—you can’t fit in with other kids without knowing every popular movie character, especially ones with Happy Meal status.

Dumond gave me that wry What’s a father to do? look. Hey, if my kid I hadn’t seen for more than five months wanted to go to McDonald’s, we’d go to McDonald’s. As we pulled out of the parking lot Dumond called Elise to tell her we were on our way.

“How was it?” he asked me, after he switched off the phone.

“Okay, just tiring.” I closed my eyes for a moment, aware that Paul could hear us. “And repetitious.” The car moved silently through the thickening traffic. I opened my eyes. “Oh, my brother, Simon, is probably flying up.”

“Your brother?”

“Yeah. He’s a policeman, in Orlando. I called him for some advice, and he decided he wanted to be here. Probably just for a day or two.” He didn’t press me. We were both tired. And hungry. Somehow I doubted Dumond had eaten anything at McDonald’s.

The smell of dinner cooking when we stepped into the house was enormously comforting. Paul threw himself to the floor to hug Tiger, then ran off to the kitchen to greet Elise. It would take him a long time to take all this for granted, I thought. If he ever did.

Dumond followed, I assumed to tell Elise the results of the visit to the doctor.

There were three of us now: father, nanny, rescuer, all here to protect and support Paul. Maybe there had been other supporters, back in Montreal, or maybe no one else had been let into the loop because of the kidnappers’ threats. Or maybe Dumond was the type of person who liked to march on alone—not that much unlike me.

Which was about all the insight I could handle for one day.



Elise had made a stew and homemade whole-grain bread, and served Paul small helpings he could easily finish. He was tired, eyelids drooping, and Dumond sent him off with Elise to get ready for bed.

When I went in to tell him good night, he was pink and fresh from his bath, and his hug was tight. Less than ten minutes later Dumond joined me in the library for dessert and coffee; Paul had fallen asleep in the middle of his bedtime story.

Dessert was homemade blackberry pie topped with whipped cream—the real stuff, not the gunk that squirts out of a can. I nearly groaned when the first mouthful hit my taste buds. We ate in silence until Dumond spoke. “So tell me about your brother.”

I finished my last smidgen of pie. “Simon—he’s a year older than me. He’s a little worried and he has some vacation days, so he wants to come up.” I didn’t want it to sound like Simon was suspicious of Philippe, although of course he was.

“If I had a sister, I’d do the same,” he said easily. “Of course he’ll stay here.”

“Thanks.” I was relieved. “If I know Simon, he’ll be here soon.”

“That’s fine. I have to take Paul back to the police station tomorrow to work with a sketch artist on pictures of the kidnappers.”

“He saw their faces?”

He nodded. “Apparently they wore bandannas when they came in his room, but he said if he lay on the floor and looked under the door he could see them across the room. And once the lock didn’t catch and he got out and saw them both briefly.”

I asked the question that had been nagging at me. “Are the police worried they may know he survived, and track him down?” I had found Dumond easily; they could, too.

He shook his head. “They doubt that anyone could have seen you rescue him because of visibility and the distance between the ferries. If we were still in Montreal, they might see that Paul is back. But here it’s not likely.”

Not likely wasn’t particularly comforting. And eventually word would leak out. Someone would ask Dumond about his family; Elise would let something slip. The kidnappers were presumably from Montreal, not outer space.

“Of course we can’t hide him away, but we’ll try to keep it quiet until the kidnappers are found,” Dumond said. “They wanted him to work on the sketch today, but I thought he’d had enough. He was tired and worried about you—he kept asking where you were.”

I made a face. “I was worried about me, too—they seemed to think I was involved. But all they had to do was call Baker or my roommates or even ask Paul. The worst part was the ferry—they had a lot of trouble believing I dived off the ferry.”

“Yes,” Dumond said, sipping his coffee. “That was the part I didn’t believe either.”

“That I dived off the ferry?”

“That you could see him that far away, that you could swim that far, that you’d take such a risk when you weren’t even sure it was a child.”

I looked at him wordlessly. He smiled, crinkling his face. “Paul tells us you appeared from nowhere to rescue him, like magic—he thought you were an angel, or a mermaid, like Ariel, except that you had legs instead of a tail. And now that I’ve met you and your dozens of roommates and your Baker friends, yes, I believe you would dive off a ferry because you might have seen a child fall in the water.”

It was hard to remember I had found this man intimidating. I grinned. “I don’t have dozens of roommates. Only four, sometimes five.”

“And all male.”

“Right now they are. Sometimes I get a female, but guys are easier. Messier, but easier.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Guys leave more stuff lying around and don’t wash their dishes, especially the younger ones,” I explained. “But women either want to be in charge or want to be friends. Or both.”

“What’s wrong with that? You’re friends with Zach.”

“Yeah, but with him it’s easy. If I come home and I’m tired and don’t want to talk, I go to my room and he doesn’t care if I ignore him. But a female roommate always wants to know what’s wrong and if you’re mad at her, or what’s going on.”

Dumond laughed. “Yes, well, you’ve captured the essence of marriage right there.”

As his laughter died away, we fell silent. For a moment, I had forgotten that this time last year he had had a wife and Paul had had a mother, and this seemed unforgivable.

He cleared his throat. “I haven’t properly thanked you. For saving Paul. For diving off the ferry and rescuing Paul like an angel mermaid,” he said, with a semblance of his former whimsy.

“Ça n’est rien,” I said. It’s nothing. No one could understand that I’d made no conscious decision to save Paul, that I’d followed a compulsion too strong to resist.

His eyes moved to mine. “You saved his life, at the risk of your own. You could have died. You both could have died.” We sat in silence. “And I am also sorry,” he added.

My confusion showed. “For what?”

“For yesterday, in my office.” I was still confused. He grimaced and reached toward me, touching his fingertips to my throat.

I had to refrain from leaping in my seat. His touch felt like a jolt of static electricity. I’d almost forgotten the incident in his office, and now I felt it all again: the crackling intensity, the frightening intimacy. I couldn’t speak or move. The air around us seemed to tighten. I could hear his breath, almost feel the rhythm of his pulse. He took my hand loosely, not quite holding it, not quite shaking it. It was a struggle to breathe normally. Remember this man is not your type, I told myself. Remember he recently lost his wife. Remember he is so far out of your league it isn’t funny. Remember, remember, remember.

I’d broken my habit of falling for unsuitable men. I really, really had.

“Don’t worry about it,” I said, speaking through lips that seemed to have thickened. “I’d have done the same to someone I thought had kidnapped Paul. Maybe worse.” My pulse was thudding. I pulled my hand gently away, breaking the spell. Cinderella back to earth.

“I should go,” I said. “It’s late.” His eyes flickered, stirred. He stood when I did, the connection broken as if it had never existed. We’d stepped back from the precipice we’d been on. Or at least I’d been on.

I walked down the hall, wondering with every step if being sensible was always the best thing. Maybe sometimes you should just grab at the brass ring without considering all the possible ramifications.

But when a small child was involved, you couldn’t.





I WAS SNUGGLED IN BED WITH TIGER AT MY FEET WHEN A thought swam into my consciousness and crystallized into something cold and unpleasant. Detective Jameson, the card he’d handed me, his saying, If you think of anything; if you need to talk to me.

Was he suggesting that Philippe was involved? And that I knew something about it?

It took a long time to get to sleep. Even on this really firm mattress.



At breakfast Philippe seemed perfectly normal. No sidelong glances, no taps on my arm to accentuate a point, no casual brushes against me. Whatever seemed to have sparked between us last night had been one-sided or momentary, or both. This was good, I told myself. Falling for Philippe Dumond would be insane. Look at what happened to Jane Eyre—although Mr. Rochester did have that small problem of secret-wife-gone-mad hidden away.

But I was, I realized, now thinking of Philippe by his first name instead of his last. And managing to completely forget Thomas back in Burlington, the sort-of boyfriend I’d never been able to make myself fall in love with.

I winked across the table at Paul, who responded with a wan smile. Yesterday would have been too much for any small child, I thought, let alone one who had been locked away all those months.

While we were finishing our coffee—I was fast getting hooked on this stuff—a phone rang distantly, and Elise appeared with a handset. “It’s your brother,” she said, smiling as she handed it to me. Count on Simon to have already charmed her.

“Troy, I’m on my way. I’m changing planes in Atlanta now.” He rattled off airline, flight number, and arrival time.

His tone dared me to complain, but I wasn’t going to. “Okay, I’ll be there,” I told him, and handed the phone back to Elise.

“Simon’s getting in late this morning,” I told Philippe, realizing as I said it that my car was still in the parking garage at his office.

“We have to leave soon; we could drop you off at your car, or Elise could take you closer to the time you need to leave.” Elise nodded, and Philippe added, “Elise, Troy’s brother will be visiting for a few days, and I thought we’d put him in the small study down the hall.” It seemed a bit lord-of-the-manor, but I was fast realizing that it was sort of a game the two of them liked to play.

“Would it be all right if I plugged my laptop into your modem upstairs?” I asked. My laptop is so old it doesn’t have built-in wireless, and my plug-in card had broken.

“Of course. But you’re welcome to use my computer.”

“I’d love to.” I’d been itching to get my hands on it since I’d seen it.

“I’ll get you set up.” He put down his napkin, and I followed him upstairs. As the computer booted up, he noticed my instinctive frown. “Yes, it’s been running a bit slowly lately, and freezing now and then,” he said.

“You probably just need to clear out the registry and defrag,” I said, and it was clear from his expression that I might as well have been speaking Greek. “I can do a few things that will help.”

He agreed, and handed me the pad of paper and pen I asked for before he left. I like to write down everything I do to computers, just in case things go wrong.

It was odd to be there alone, and I more than halfway wanted to drape something over the photo of Madeleine across the room. But as soon as I sat at the computer I relaxed. Someday, I told myself. Someday I’d treat myself to a powerful new computer with a beautiful big monitor.

First I set a Restore Point, which I named Just in case. To me System Restore is the most valuable function in Windows—if things go completely blooey, you just restore your computer to before things went wrong. But you do have to have a Restore Point set.

Next I ran a hardware system check, updated and ran the virus program, and downloaded and ran a free program called Advanced System Care to clear out spyware programs, fix broken registry links, and solve other problems. I deleted several unused applications running in the background; they could still be opened, but wouldn’t be needlessly soaking up RAM. I opened Outlook Express to compact the folders—me, I’d switched long ago to Mozilla Thunderbird—and noticed a second identity called Julia. An assistant? A girlfriend? House guest? Feminine alter ego? I pictured Philippe as a cross-dresser, and laughed out loud.

Defragging takes a while—it’s basically reorganizing stored data so it can be accessed more quickly—so I’d do that last.

What I wanted to do now was research.

First I ran a search for abducted children, and up popped page after page of children, abducted in the U.S., Italy, Japan, Belgium, Austria, and countries I’d never heard of. Some of the children had escaped or been rescued; most had not. It shouldn’t have shocked me that there were so many.

But I wanted specific knowledge, so I searched for psychological results child kidnapping. The screen flooded with child custody cases, so I searched again, this time excluding the word parental, then clicked through and started reading sections of books on Amazon.com.

In Kidnapped: Child Abduction in America, I read about the psychological power of kidnapper over victim, and learned it’s easier to track a stolen car than a stolen child. In Children Who See Too Much, I read about Californian children kidnapped on their way to summer camp in a school bus and buried underground for sixteen hours. Afterward the younger kids would hide whenever they saw a school bus, and had trouble imagining the future—something the author called a sense of foreshortened future or pervasive pessimism. Which seemed to be a fancy way of saying knowing the world is a scary place and not being sure tomorrow will come.

Of course Paul would be having some of these same feelings.

I wanted to download my emails, so I plugged my laptop into Philippe’s modem, and the first email to hit the screen was a Hi, Troy, hope everything is well from Thomas.

Crap. I didn’t want to face this now. But even I couldn’t disappear for days without explanation, so after a few false starts I wrote that I’d found a Canadian boy, returned him home, and was staying to help him settle in. Short and simple. Leaving out death-defying rescue, kidnapped from Montreal, and mother murdered. I also emailed my parents that I was out of town, in case they happened to call, which wasn’t likely. I didn’t mention that Simon was coming up.

And now it was time to go. I checked the route to the airport on MapQuest, set the hard drive to defrag, and went to tell Elise I was ready for her to drop me at my car.

Simon’s plane was six minutes late. He strode down the corridor briskly, a small black duffel and briefcase slung over his shoulder—no dorky roller bag for him. He was tall and thin like me, with a patrician nose like mine, unlike the button noses of our mother and sisters. He wore his dark blond hair in short curls that drove women crazy, and somehow innately knew how to choose clothes that looked good on him. Today he wore crisp black jeans and a cotton pullover.

I threw my arms around him and hugged, tighter and harder than usual. We were more of a hug hug pat pat kind of family on those rare occasions when physical contact was required. He pulled back to look at my face. “You okay?”

“Yep.” Of course you’re not going to announce in an airport corridor, I’m crazy about this intense little boy, the police seem to suspect me, and his father is … oh, never mind.

“Let’s get something to eat; I’m starving,” he said cheerfully.

“You’re always starving,” I told him, but drove to a Great Canadian Bagel. Because when you’re in Canada it’s just wrong to go to Burger King or Wendy’s.

Simon chose a carrot pineapple bagel with cream cheese, which seemed a revolting combination. But I put crunchy peanut butter in my oatmeal, so I guess I can’t judge. He let me elbow him aside to pay with loonies and toonies from my stash of Canadian change.

Because the one-dollar coin has a loon on the back, Canadians call it a loonie, so when the two-dollar coin came out it of course became a toonie—Canadians do have a sense of humor. They also figured out that people change only when they’re forced to. In the States, dollar coins failed because we didn’t have the sense to simultaneously phase out dollar bills.

“Tell me everything,” Simon said as we sat down.

I did, step by step, and he didn’t speak until I stopped. “You saw no one on the other ferry?”

I closed my eyes and took myself back there, on the deck, feeling the boat moving, seeing the small body fall toward the water. I almost shivered. I shook my head. “All I remember is seeing him falling. That’s it.”

Simon had his eyes narrowed, which meant his law enforcement brain was ticking. He’s as analytical as I am, but better at compartmentalizing it. He finished his bagel and was neatly folding the paper it came on.

“The Ottawa police are handling this?”

I nodded. “The Montreal police are officially in charge, but now they’ve pretty much handed the investigation off to the local guys. I know they can pull in the RCMP, especially if they think the child has been taken out of Canada, but in this case they apparently didn’t.”

“Do they think Paul was kept in Burlington?”

I shrugged. “I don’t think they know. He said most of the television he heard was in English, but that could be anywhere.”

Simon pointed at the menu board. I followed his gaze. “Bilingual,” he said succinctly.

It took a moment, and then I got it: the McDonald’s meals Paul had gotten while held captive. I said aloud what Simon was thinking. “If he was kept in Canada, the stuff printed on the box would be in both French and English.”

He nodded. I hadn’t thought to ask Paul this, but surely the police had.

“So do they have any leads?” Simon asked.

“Don’t think so. They tried to suggest I was involved, but after they talked to Paul I assume they gave up on that.”

“I’m sure Dumond is on their list—the first suspect is always the spouse. Plenty of people try to get rid of their spouse or ex-spouse and sometimes kids, too, in one fell swoop.”

I shook my head. “I was there when Philippe saw Paul for the first time in Saranac Lake, Simon. You can’t fake that kind of emotion.”

“Being crazy about his kid doesn’t necessarily mean he didn’t arrange to have his wife kidnapped. Maybe the kid wasn’t supposed to have been taken. Maybe the wife wasn’t supposed to have been killed. He could have set up a kidnapping, fake or real, and things went wrong.”

I must have looked aghast, because Simon softened his tone. “I’m not saying that’s what happened, just that those are possibilities. Does Dumond talk about his wife?”

“Not much,” I admitted. “Just the bare essentials.” I didn’t mention that there seemed to be no trace of her in the house; he’d see that soon enough.

“And the body was never found?”

I shook my head.

“Any other relatives in the picture? Girlfriend?”

I shook my head. “Not that I know of.”

“What about the nanny?”

“Elise? She’s Mary Poppins, only in her sixties, and French. She’s devoted to Paul; she’d never put him at risk.”

“They managed to keep this out of the news?”

“Yep.”

Simon drummed his fingers on the tabletop, thinking aloud. “The kidnappers got rid of the mother right away, because she was harder to keep captive—they’d probably planned to kill her all along. They kept the child to send proof of life, and demanded ransoms until Dumond stopped paying.”

“He couldn’t keep it up forever.” I knew I sounded defensive. “And by then he was convinced Paul was gone.”

“No, of course he wouldn’t keep paying, and they knew that. They just wanted to get as much money as possible. But then they kept Paul, what, a month or more after Dumond stopped responding?” He nodded toward the car, and as he dumped his trash I pulled out my keys. In the car he asked quietly, “Do you know if Paul was sexually abused?”

I shook my head. “The doctor said no.”

He thought. “Then who knows? They hid their faces, which means they hadn’t originally planned to kill him. Maybe they planned to sell him and it fell through. Maybe they were going to try for more ransom, but they thought police were closing in, so they dumped him.”

I winced.

“Definitely cold-blooded,” he admitted. “Especially when they’d kept him alive so long. Do the police think they may come looking for him?”

“Not unless someone learns that Paul is back. But they’re assuming the kidnappers were from Montreal.”

As I started the car he asked, “Do the folks know you’re here?”

“I emailed them I’m out of town, in case they call.”

Although we both knew they wouldn’t.

If not for Simon, I would happily have assumed I was one of those switched-at-the-hospital babies brought home to the wrong family. We were both unplanned—our sisters had been eight and ten when Simon arrived. But Simon was the male heir that completes the southern family, and he was attractive and outgoing and personable and more than competent at all the things he was expected to do: football and baseball, Scouts and Cotillion.

By the time surprise number two, me, arrived less than a year later, the baby novelty had worn off. Judging from the pointed reminders my mother made to new mothers, my conception had resulted from the belief that you can’t get pregnant while nursing. Apparently, you can.

If either Suzanne or Lynette had wanted a baby sister, let’s just say I wasn’t it. I hated the frilly, fussy clothing they and my mother chose—I buried one particularly hated outfit in the backyard—and instead snagged Simon’s clothes as he outgrew them. I wouldn’t play with Barbies and their pointy heels and tight outfits. I tagged around after Simon and his friends when I could, and read and rode my bike when I couldn’t. I didn’t do Cotillion. I didn’t do Junior Miss. I didn’t go to school dances or football games.

What I did was bury myself in books, discover bicycle racing, out-score everyone at my high school on the SATs, win a scholarship to Oregon State, and skip my senior year of high school. Which pissed off my family, who expected me to live meekly at home and go to Vanderbilt, where our father is a physics professor. But Vanderbilt reimburses part of faculty children’s tuition at other schools, and my scholarship and part-time jobs covered the rest. Otherwise, besides health insurance and occasional plane tickets home (and twenties my dad slipped me when my mother wasn’t looking), I’ve been supporting myself since I turned seventeen, soon after I arrived at university.

I don’t go back to Nashville often.

We drove in silence, Simon’s brain working on the case and mine wondering how this weekend was going to go. My brother had never visited me at someone else’s house, let alone in the aftermath of a kidnapping.

In the driveway I rolled down my window and punched in the code Philippe had given me. As we waited for the gate to open I could see Simon surveying the house.

A low whistle. “Nice digs, Sis,” he said, raising his eyebrows. I made a face. I hadn’t mentioned that Philippe’s income level far exceeded that of our usual circle of acquaintances. But kids and wives of poor people don’t often get kidnapped, I suppose.





ELISE CHATTED ANIMATEDLY AS SHE SHOWED SIMON HIS room, apologizing for its size, although it wasn’t exactly tiny. At least I didn’t get bumped from my room in his honor, which my family would have done.

Paul and Philippe arrived soon after, looking weary, Paul with a pinched look on his face. I automatically reached for him and hoisted him onto my hip, and just as automatically he rested his head on my shoulder. Philippe gave a tiny Gallic shrug that meant he didn’t know what was wrong, didn’t want to talk, or would tell me later. And I realized from a fleeting expression on Simon’s face that the three of us were acting very much like a family unit.

I made introductions, and Philippe and Simon shook hands with that slightly formal air guys have when they’re sizing each other up.

So you’re the suspicious policeman brother of the woman who rescued my kidnapped son.

So you’re the father of the kidnapped child whose wife was murdered and who my sister has known less than a week.

It’s tough enough to have family meet your friends in normal situations. Apparently I like to load the deck.

“Paul,” Philippe said, putting his hand on Paul’s shoulder. “I think Simon would like to see your room.”

“Maybe set up that racetrack in your closet,” I added, swinging Paul to the floor. “Simon likes those.”

“Sure,” Simon said, perfectly willing to pretend he adores toy racetracks. There’s a reason he can manage our family so well. Paul looked at us uncertainly, but when we smiled encouragingly he led Simon down the hall.

“Paul didn’t do very well with the sketch artist,” Philippe said once they were out of earshot. “He kept saying he didn’t remember what the men looked like, although they came up with something eventually. They had to coax and coax to get him even to look at the computer screen. And finally he started crying and wouldn’t stop.”

“I guess he just wants to forget about them.” It was, I figured, a normal reaction for a six-year-old.

“I know, but it’s frustrating, and I hate to see him so upset.” He grimaced. “I’ll ask the psychologist about it at his appointment this afternoon. I have to make some phone calls for work. Are you okay for now?”

I nodded, and headed down the hall to Paul’s room. Simon was on the floor operating a car and making sound effects from deep in his throat, with Paul lying on his stomach watching. They offered me a turn, but I declined, and watched them play until Elise called us for lunch.

Elise had outdone herself: crisp green salads and tiny delectable homemade pot pies with flaky crusts. Simon had no trouble eating despite the bagel he’d polished off not long ago.

“Do you know anything about home security systems?” Philippe asked Simon as he finished his pot pie.

“Sure,” Simon replied affably.

“Would you mind taking a look at mine?”

Simon nodded. This, I figured, was guy code to go off to talk—fine by me.

Philippe ran his fingers through his son’s hair as he passed. I looked at Paul and patted my lap. “Why don’t you come sit here awhile?” I asked, and he climbed up and curled against me. “Did you want to go with your dad and Simon? Veux-tu aller avec ton père et Simon?”

He shook his head. I rubbed his back rhythmically. “You know you’re going to go talk to someone this afternoon?”

“Mmm.”

“It won’t be like talking to the policemen. This will be a nice woman in a nice place, for no more than an hour, and you won’t have to talk if you don’t want to.” I translated into French.

Paul stirred. “Pourquoi? Why talk?”

“It might make you feel better. You might want to talk about things you don’t want to talk to us about. Maybe this person can help you not to worry about things—about the bad men.”

He said nothing. “You know you’re safe now,” I whispered in his ear. “Your papa won’t let anything bad happen to you.” He let out a long sigh and snuggled closer. I held tight, wishing I could make his world bright and clear again. Wishing the kidnappers would be caught and locked in a small room for a very long time.

After a few moments he squirmed around to look at me. “You go, too?”

“No, your father will take you. Seulement ton père. I’ll stay here with my brother, so he won’t get lonely. But you’ll be back soon. And maybe you could get your dad to get you an ice cream cone—un cône de glace.” His eyes brightened at the words.

When Philippe and Simon returned, Paul announced, “Papa, it is necessary that we buy ice cream,” and threw me a look that was almost smug. God, I loved this kid. I loved the spirit that had him working his dad for ice cream this soon after he got home.

Philippe laughed. “A conspiracy. Certainly, we can have ice cream when we go out, but Elise will be unhappy with me if you have no room for dinner.”

After they left I led Simon to the library, and he ran his fingers over the spines of the books, just as I had. “This is a nice place,” he said.

“Yeah, nice. More like stupendous. So what did you guys talk about?”

“Locks and things. He wants to make sure the house is safe, so I was telling him things to do, little changes to make.”

“So you just talked about locks?”

“Maybe not all. Maybe I asked him what his motives were toward my little sister.” I made a face. “Seriously, Sis, what’s going on?” His tone was somber.

“Nothing. Nothing at all. I’m here because of Paul. I found him, he trusts me, and Philippe thinks it will help him to have me here.” He gave me a look. “Simon, the man’s just gotten confirmation that his wife is dead. He’s just gotten his kid back. And look around.” I waved my arm. “People like him date movie stars or beauty queens, not someone like me.”

I said it without rancor, but Simon had been there in high school. Guys had liked me just fine when they needed help with calculus or English papers, but for dating they headed for the pert girls who wore makeup and knew how to toss their hair. Things had improved somewhat since then, but men still had a tendency to steer, like lemmings, toward glamour and a certain something I didn’t possess. I’d been out with Kate and her friends enough to know that when I was with them I was invisible to male eyes.

“Mmm,” he said, wisely not commenting. “How long are you going to stay?”

“It depends on how long Paul needs me and what the psychologist says. Probably until Paul gets into school, gets into a routine.”

Simon looked at me. “You aren’t his mother, Troy. And you can’t fix everything.”

“I know.” My voice cracked. “But I can’t … I can’t leave him yet.”

Simon started to reply as the speakerphone at the gate buzzed, and we could hear Elise scurrying to answer it. She appeared moments later, looking worried.

“What is it, Elise?”

“It’s a policeman. At least, he says he’s a policeman. He says his name is Jameson and he wanted to see Monsieur Dumond. I wasn’t sure if I should let him in.” She was wringing her hands, the first time I’ve seen anyone actually doing this.

I followed her. In the viewing screen I could see a dark car outside the entrance and a man behind the wheel who looked like Jameson. I motioned to Elise to buzz him in. He got out of the car, as rumpled as yesterday and now seeming quite irritated. Probably not at all what Elise thought a policeman would look like.

I swung the door open.

Jameson’s mouth tightened at the sight of me. “Miss Chance,” he said, without expression.

“Detective,” I replied, equally tonelessly. I’d have preferred open suspicion to this deadpan demeanor. “Philippe and Paul are out right now. Did you want—”

He interrupted, waving a large brown envelope. “I brought these sketches by for him.” His gaze swung behind me, where I could sense Simon was standing.

I stepped back awkwardly. “This is my brother, Simon Chance, from Florida,” I said. “Simon, this is Detective Jameson of the Ottawa Police Service, whom you spoke to on the phone.”

More hand-shaking, more male taking-measure. Elise, flustered that she’d left a genuine police officer waiting, herded us toward the library and brought glasses of iced lemonade on a heavy lacquered tray.

“When did you arrive?” Jameson asked Simon.

“Just flew in a few hours ago. Can you tell me how the investigation is going?”

A small shrug. Jameson sipped lemonade slowly, deliberately, and set the glass on a coaster. “We’ve sent the sketches to the Vermont and New York police, and of course the Montreal police and the RCMP. The Vermont and New York police both considered Miss Chance’s phone call a prank, although they did report it to the ferry offices in Burlington.”

I worked hard at not squirming.

“I was curious,” Simon asked. “The McDonald’s meals Paul got—were the bags or boxes printed just in English or also in French?”

For a beat I thought Jameson wasn’t going to answer, but he did. “He says it was English.” Which meant that Paul had been kept in the States, most likely in Vermont.

“No leads from the original investigation?” Simon asked.

Another shrug, which could mean No, nothing or Nothing I want to talk about. Jameson asked Simon about his work, and they slid into general police talk. I’ve overdosed on this brand of conversation around Simon and his law enforcement pals, so I tuned out and was thinking about Paul at the psychologist’s when Simon nudged my knee.

Jameson was speaking. “How long are you staying?” he asked me, almost exactly as Simon had.

“It depends on Paul,” I said automatically. “It depends on what the psychologist says.”

Something in my gaze must have satisfied him. He grunted slightly and stood. “Please give these to Monsieur Dumond.” He held out the envelope. “He can call me if he has questions.” He shook Simon’s hand, and then mine. His hand was unexpectedly rough, his grasp strong and brief. His eyes were pale, like wolf’s eyes. “You have my card.” It wasn’t a question. I nodded.

Simon looked at me after Jameson left. “What was that all about?”

“I think he thinks I’m going to have an epiphany and realize that I saw the kidnappers, or find out it was actually Philippe.”

He nodded at the envelope. “What’s that?”

“Sketches of the kidnappers.” Simon neatly lifted the envelope from my hands and was opening it before I could protest. “Simon, I don’t think—”

“Ahhh,” he said, smoothing the sketches out before him on the coffee table. “Your typical computer-generated sketches.”

I looked at them. My first thought was that they were of androids, because they didn’t look human. I’ve read that these sketches aren’t supposed to look like a specific person, but just remind you of someone enough so you’ll make the connection. But these looked especially strange, with dark brows, jutting jaws, thin mouths.

“Hmm,” Simon said, disappearing and returning with the sketch pad and soft pencils he carries in his briefcase. He drew quickly, with intense concentration, and I knew not to try to talk to him. Soon he had a collection of drawings of faces with softer jaws, longer noses, wavier hair, and other variations.

I got more lemonade and watched Simon, and finally he laid his pencil down. “There, we’ll see if Paul can tell us which ones are best.”

I looked at him.

“What?” he protested. “You know no one will ever be able to identify anyone from those other sketches.”

“I know. I just … it’s hard on Paul to look at these faces, to remember them.”

We heard a noise at the door, and Simon scooped up the drawings and tucked them inside his sketch pad.

Paul ran and hugged me, and shook Simon’s hand when his father prompted him. Philippe gave me a discreet thumbs-up as Paul hugged Tiger, telling us in a mix of French and English about his ice cream cone, pink like the one he had in Lake Placid, a very small one, so he could eat dinner and keep Elise happy. I followed Philippe to the kitchen, where he poured himself a glass of water.

“Paul was quite comfortable with the woman. We met together first, and then he met with her separately. Apparently he opened up quite a lot.”

“Philippe, I …”

As my voice trailed off he looked up sharply. I started again. “Detective Jameson brought by copies of the sketches for you. But Simon has drawn some others—if, that is, you think Paul can handle looking at them. To pick out the best ones.”

He thought about it. “I think he can. He told the psychologist about the men, and how he wants them to be put in jail. Let’s ask him.”

Paul surprised me by agreeing, and sat on my lap as Simon brought out the sketches, his only sign of agitation the tightness of his small fingers on my arm. He looked over the first set with great deliberation, one after the other, and then pointed at one. “Comme ça,” he said. “With a thing on the face.”

Simon whipped out his pencil. “A thing? Like this?” He penciled in a small dot.

“More,” Paul insisted, and when the dot grew to resemble a good-sized mole, Paul nodded. In the second set of drawings, he pointed decisively at the fourth one. “Plus de cheveux,” he said critically, and Simon smoothly penciled in longer hair.

“How about colors?” Simon asked, and I translated. Paul pointed to the hair: “Noir. Et le nez, rouge.”

“Paul has colored pencils in his desk,” I murmured, and Philippe went to get them. Simon broke open the pack and began to add color, penciling in reddish veins on the nose, coloring the hair, and making changes as Paul directed, first on one picture and then the other. Philippe watched. At last Paul closed his eyes.

“Je suis fatigué,” he said crossly.

“So you should be tired.” I hugged him. “You’ve done a lot of work today. And you’re probably hungry, too, because it’s nearly dinnertime.” I lifted him off my lap and took him off to wash for dinner.

After dinner Philippe put on a Jim Carrey movie about lost pets and jungle animals. To me it seemed painfully juvenile and not at all funny, but the guys found it hilarious, even my intelligent, discerning, artistic brother. I went off to bed, leaving the three of them chortling at the movie.

I had planned to read, but couldn’t keep my eyes open. I knew Simon would be soaking up everything there was to take in here, and wouldn’t talk to me about any of it until just before he left on Sunday. In some ways Simon is very predictable, which can be annoying, but also comforting.

It meant I could stop trying to second-guess everything and could switch off the part of my brain that kept nattering questions at me: What is Jameson thinking? Why does Paul never mention his mother? Why does no one talk about Madeleine? Why did Philippe choose to move to Ottawa?

At least for now.