LITMIR.BIZ

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in the dark? Just the two of you? You were gone for a couple of hours, if I remember correctly,” Ryan said, nodding.

      And then he winced, one of his many suppositions reforming into more of a certainty. “Boy, now that explains it. I see it all now. You spoke together, and eight weeks later my sister picks up and takes off for parts unknown—at least to you—after spending those weeks avoiding you like the plague. Must have been some conversation.”

      “Yeah. Yeah, it was,” Matt said, going back over to the papers on the table, gathering them up, stacking them neatly. “So was the talk we had the morning after the first one, right before she told me to go to hell. Since I figure I’ve been there ever since, maybe she’ll think I’ve done enough penance and will talk to me again. Now, are you going to tell me where she is, or am I going to have to tell you things you damn well don’t want to know?”

      Ryan leaned back against the wall, looked at his friend, saw the naked pain in his usually bright-blue eyes. “I’m going to be honest with you, Matt, because you’re my friend, and because you probably should be warned. One, Jessica doesn’t want you to know. That’s a given. Two, Allie does want you to know. Now, if neither of those two facts scares you straight back to hell, I’ll tell you where my sister is, okay? The rest is up to you.”

      Starting to figure it out, are you? I thought you would.

      Now, more about me. It’s dark in here, but warm, kind of cozy. And I like the way her heart beats. Slower than mine, but steady, reliable.

      I only wish she didn’t cry at night.

      I’m the one that’s supposed to do that, just not yet. First I get to kick her, and maybe give her heartburn. It’s a lousy job, but somebody has to do it—it’s in all the books. Just so she remembers I’m here, and that she’s not alone.

      Gee, I wonder how much bigger I have to get before I can suck my thumb….

       Chapter Two

       O cean City was a study in contrasts. Billed as the nation’s greatest family resort, it was a full-time city in its own right all year-round. But, in with the homes and schools and churches of an everyday town, there were hotels and motels enough for many summer visitors, while the majority of vacationers rented modern condos by the week or the month.

      Old homes had been torn down, sacrificed in the name of building the most house possible on the least amount of land, so that the long streets were lined curb to curb with tall, ultramodern condos with fantastic views of the Atlantic Ocean.

      Stuck here and there sat stubborn old summer homes that had not given way to progress, small clapboard houses with knotty pine signs over the front door with names like Seaside Heaven or Bill’s Dream burned into the wood.

      And then there were the grand old homes of some of the first summer residents, built long ago, even before World War II. These homes near the northern end of the island were more dazzling in their age and design than the most innovative three-floor condo built on stilts and decorated with huge round windows that looked out at the ocean.

      The Chandler home was one of these grand old dames. Designed as a Cape Cod, with the third floor built up so that there could be three extra bedrooms under the eaves for visitors, the house was huge, the clapboard painted a bright white. Dark green canvas awnings with white scalloped edges sat on top of each and every window and was duplicated in the large canopy over the huge cement back porch.

      Evergreens lined the half-acre grass lot, along with a dazzling living fence of pink and blue hydrangeas that boasted platter-size blooms all summer long. Built-in sprinklers picked up their metal heads twice each day and watered this oasis of green in the middle of sand and cement. A curved driveway led to a separate four-car garage built off to one side, and the rear of the home had a slightly elevated and spectacular view of the ocean that, all by itself, put the value of the home in the millions.

      Not that the Chandlers would ever consider selling what had been their summer paradise for six decades.

      This was a home that could be picked up and re-deposited in Allentown, or any other northeastern town, and fit in as if it had been built on the spot. A solid house. An ageless design, with nothing of the modern about it except for the renovated kitchen and baths, and the addition of air-conditioning.

      With two living rooms, a formal dining room, a book-lined study, five bedrooms on the second floor furnished in cherry woods and oriental carpets, the Chandler house was an anomaly in this resort town, one of about two dozen bastions of a bygone era, and it was lovely enough to make a person weep.

      Which wasn’t why Jessica Chandler was sitting on the porch, her feet resting on a chintz-covered foot-stool as the sun rose on another perfect late-July day in this summer paradise, crying into her wholesome glass of milk.

      She was so alone. So very alone. Rattling around in this great, empty house she had believed a natural refuge. But it wasn’t. It was just a reminder of how alone she was, how alone she would always be, how empty her life had become.

      “Because I’m a great big idiot,” she said out loud before swilling down the remainder of the milk, then making a face at the empty glass. “A great big idiot who hates milk,” she amended, as she could at least be honest with herself. After all, who was here to hear her?

      Nobody.

      And that was her problem. She’d told the family to leave her alone, and they’d actually done it.

      For a lot of families, this would make sense. You ask something reasonable, and they respond reasonably.

      But her family? Her grandmother? To let Jessica walk away, actually help her pack…and then not phone her every day, visit her twice a week, ask her a million and one questions? Her grandmother wouldn’t even bother to make up lame excuses for her calls, her visits. She’d just barge in, plant herself in one of the high-back wicker chairs on the sunporch, and say, “Well? Ready to talk yet, or am I going to have to beat it out of you?”

      No. Jessica knew it just didn’t compute. She shouldn’t be alone, even if she’d said she wanted to be alone.

      And here she’d always believed her family loved her.

      Just showed you how wrong you could be.

      Allie was probably all wrapped up in Maddy and Joe, who must be back from their honeymoon by now. After all, even millionaires who owned their own computer software companies had to go back to work sometime, didn’t they? Of course, they’d be living right next door to the family home in Allentown, and Allie was probably tripping over there every day, poking her surgically perfect nose into Maddy’s business until both she and Joe threatened to put a For Sale sign in the yard…but at least Maddy and Joe had somebody paying attention to them.

      Why, for all the family knew, she could be lying on the kitchen floor with a broken hip, unable to reach the phone and slowly starving to death. She could have been carjacked on the way down the Atlantic City Expressway, and never even made it to Ocean City. Had they thought of that? Huh? Huh?

      No. They couldn’t have thought of that. Because no one had called, not in a whole week. Seven days. Seven nights.

      She was all by herself. Completely by herself.

      That’s what being the middle child got you, Jessica decided, heading for the kitchen, letting the old wooden screen door slam shut behind her. Overlooked. Forgotten. Especially if you were a good child, never giving anyone a problem, never making waves, never even thinking about getting into trouble.

      She eyed the refrigerator, knowing she had plenty of healthy salad-makings in the bottom crisper drawer. Then her eyes slid to her left, to the smaller freezer door of the side-by-side appliance, knowing that she had a half gallon of double-Dutch chocolate ice cream nestled inside. Calling to her. Singing to her.

      “It’s a milk product, right?” she reasoned with herself as she headed for the wall of white-painted wooden cabinets and retrieved her favorite bowl from childhood—the one with Pebbles Flintstone on it. “It’s

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