I hesitated. “Marla, it has to have occurred to you that this baby—Matthew—came from somewhere.”
“I told you where he came from. The woman who came to my door.”
“But she had to get Matthew from someplace, right? Someone had to give him up for you to have him.”
She was nonplussed. “It must have been someone who couldn’t look after him. They asked around and realized I could provide a good home for him.” She offered up a smile that seemed as innocent as Matthew’s.
I didn’t see the point of pursuing this any further. At least not right now. I said, “You sit tight. I’ll be back in a minute.”
I got out of the car, pocketing the keys, and took in 375. The structure was newer than many on the street, suggesting an older house had been torn down and this built in its place. Well landscaped, two stories, double garage, easily five thousand square feet. If anyone was home, there was probably a high-end SUV sitting behind that garage door.
I went to the door and rang the bell. Waited.
I glanced back at the car. Marla’s head was bent down as she talked to the baby. About ten seconds had gone by without anyone answering, so I leaned on the doorbell a second time.
Another twenty seconds went by. Nothing. I got out my phone, reopened the app that had brought up the phone number for the Gaynors, tapped the number, and put the phone to my ear. Inside the house, I could hear an accompanying ring.
No answer.
Nobody home.
I heard a car approaching and turned around. A black four-door Audi sedan. It turned, quickly, into the driveway and stopped within an inch of the closed garage door, the brakes giving out a loud, sharp squeal.
A slim man in his late thirties, dressed in an expensive suit, jacket open, tie askew, threw open the door and stepped out.
“Who are you?” he snapped, striding toward me, his keys hanging from his index finger.
“I was looking for Rosemary Gaynor. Are you Mr. Gaynor?”
“Yeah, I’m Bill Gaynor, but who the hell are you?”
“David Harwood.”
“Did you ring the bell?”
“Yes, but no one—”
“Jesus,” Gaynor said, fiddling with his keys, looking for the one that would open the front door. “I’ve been calling all the way back from Boston. Why the hell hasn’t she been answering the goddamn phone?”
He had the key inserted, turned it, and was shouting, “Rose!” as he pushed the door open. “Rose!”
I hesitated a moment at the front door, then followed Gaynor inside. The foyer was two stories tall, a grand chandelier hanging down from above. To the left and right, a dining room and living room. Gaynor was heading straight for the back of the house.
“Rose! Rose!” he continued shouting.
I was four steps behind the man. “Mr. Gaynor, Mr. Gaynor, do you have a baby, about—”
“Rose!”
This time, when he called out her name, it was different. His voice was filled with anguish and horror.
The man dropped to his knees. Before him, stretched out on the floor, was a woman.
She lay on her back, one leg extended, the other bent awkwardly. Her blouse, which from the collar appeared to be white, was awash in red, and ripped roughly straight across near the bottom.
A few feet away, a kitchen knife with a ten-inch blade. Blade and handle covered in blood.
The blood, Jesus, it was everywhere. Smudged bloody footprints led toward a set of sliding glass doors at the back of the kitchen.
“God oh God Rose oh my God Rose oh God!”
Suddenly the man’s head jerked, as though something horrible had just occurred to him. Something even more horrible than the scene before him.
“The baby,” he whispered.
He sprang to his feet, his pant legs stained with blood that had gone thick and tacky, and ran from the kitchen, trailing bloody shoeprints in his wake. He nearly skidded on the marble flooring in the foyer as he turned to run up the stairs.
I shouted, “Wait! Mr. Gaynor!”
He wasn’t listening. He was screaming: “Matthew! Matthew!”
He tore up the stairs two steps at a time. I stayed by the bottom of the stairs. I had a feeling he’d be back in a matter of seconds.
Gaynor disappeared down a second-floor hallway. Another anguished cry: “Matthew!”
When he reappeared at the top of the stairs, his face was awash with panic. “Gone. Matthew’s gone. The baby’s gone.” He wasn’t looking at me. It was as if he were speaking more to himself, trying to take it in.
“The baby’s gone,” he said again, nearly breathless.
Trying to keep my voice calm, I said, “Matthew’s okay. We have Matthew. Matthew is fine.”
He glanced back over his shoulder, out the front door that remained wide-open, to my car parked at the curb.
Marla had remained in the backseat, Matthew still in her arms. She was looking at the house now instead of him.
No expression on her face whatsoever.