Steal Away (A Novel of Suspense)

By Katharine Clark

Children’s book illustrator Rachel Stark is living every parent’s nightmare: her nine-year-old son, David, has been snatched off the street in broad daylight with no apparent motive, his red bicycle left lying on the side of the road. Now, already bearing the strain of a troubled marriage, Rachel must channel every ounce of strength into a desperate search for David.
Complicating everything are Rachel’s recently divorced sister, a bombshell who conceals explosive secrets; an icy, by-the-book detective, infuriating in his professional detachment; Rachel’s own lawyer husband, Stephen, who believes he can manage the situation through bullying and logic; and a deceptive “saint” from the Missing Child Foundation, who harbors his own hidden agenda.
Through it all there is David, crying out to be found. But are Rachel’s visions of her terrified child something real or the cruel trick of a mother’s heart consumed with love and fear?
“Beautifully written and heartwrenching... Searingly memorable.” New York Times bestselling author Tess Gerritsen
“This first-rate thriller... moves convincingly to its cliffhanger conclusion.” Library Journal

• Language: English
• Publisher: ePublishing Works
• Release date: Nov 5, 2011
• ISBN: 9781614171546

Book preview

Steal Away

by

Katharine Clark

Published by: ePublishing Works!

www.epublishingworks.com

ISBN: 978-1-61417-154-6

Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior permission of the copyright owner.

Please Note

This is a work of fiction.  Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

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Copyright © 1998, 2011 by Katharine Clark

Cover and eBook Design by eBook Prep  www.ebookprep.com

Thank You.

To every mother who has gotten up in the night to listen to her child breathe.

Acknowledgments

Thanks go, first of all, to the four people who made this book happen: my husband, Ken Cohen, for encouraging me to write; my friend, Justin Scott, who helped me find the story; and my agents, Robert Levine and Danny Baror, who treated me and the book with such respect and generosity. Mere thanks are inadequate for the gratitude I feel. Thanks to my editor, Leona Nevler, who believed in the book and sent me, gently but firmly, back to rewrite time after time. I'm glad she did. And thanks to all the people who helped along the way with reading, inspiration, advice and expertise: Jack Nevison, Nancy McJennett, Diane Woods Englund, Robert Moll, Susan Pollack, M.D., Sgt. Tom Le Min, Christy Bond, Christy Hawes, Peter W. Rogers, Brad Lovette, Ilse Plume, and my sons, Jake and Max Cohen. I have been well advised. Any mistakes are my own.

The Taking

It wasn't a long ride from the school to his house, but David had played baseball at recess and after lunch and he was tired. He was ready to kick off his sneakers, take off his socks, and curl up on the window seat in the kitchen while his mom fixed him a snack. She'd promised peanut butter cookies today and she'd better not forget. Not that she forgot a lot of things, but sometimes, if she got wrapped up in her work, she'd forget what time it was and, just be starting his snack when he got home.

He lifted his head and sniffed the wind, wondering if he was close enough yet to smell something if she was baking. He hadn't liked what they served at lunch and he was hungry. His front tire hit a pothole. He skidded, nearly fell, and regained his balance, getting off far to the side to let the car behind him pass safely. His mom was always nagging at him to get way off to the side when cars came. It was hard to hear with his helmet on, but he didn't take it off. A lot of the kids did, when they thought they wouldn't get caught, but David had just started taking long rides and he didn't feel safe without it.

The car didn't pass. It slowed down until it came to a stop beside him. The woman inside rolled down her window and leaned out. David edged farther away from the van. His mother had given him at least a million lectures about strangers. David, the woman said, something awful has happened to your mother and your father. You're in great danger. You've got to come with us.

David just stared. He'd never seen her before in his life. She was older than his mom and she looked nervous and not very friendly. He looked toward the front of the van. Was there room to get past it and ride away? No. That was silly. Cars could go a lot faster than bikes, even though he could ride very fast. He'd have to go into the woods. He didn't like the idea. The woods were scary, especially if you were alone, and they were full of mosquitoes.

The sliding door on the van's side slid open. David, the woman repeated, using his name like she knew him, I'll explain it all to you once we're on our way. You've got to come with us. You can't go home. A very bad man who didn't like something your daddy did as a lawyer came and hurt your daddy and your mommy and he's waiting at your house to hurt you. Now jump in. Hurry!

David edged closer to the van. She sounded serious, worried. But she hadn't given him the password and he was never to go with anyone who didn't know the password. He waited.

The woman looked annoyed. Come on. Hurry up. She looked nervously over her shoulder. David didn't move. Oh, for heaven's sake, David, rutabaga.

It was okay then, he thought. What about my bike?

We'll take the bike, too. Come on!

A man in the van reached out his hand. David took it, was lifted off his feet and into the van. The heavy door slammed shut behind him and he heard the click of a lock. The man jumped behind the wheel and the van drove off, the wheels spinning loudly through the gravel as the van turned around and headed back the way David had come.

Hey. Wait! What about my bike?

There was no time. Someone was coming. It might have been him. We'll get you another one, I promise. The woman sounded sad, like she really had wanted to bring the bike.

His new bike. Brand-new. He bit his lip, not wanting to seem like a baby crying over his bike, but he watched it until he could see the shiny red no longer. There was a pebble in his shoe. He untied it, took it off, shook the pebble out. His hands were trembling too much to re-tie the laces. He left the shoe sitting on the seat beside him. Is my dad all right? he asked.

The woman shook her head. I'm sorry, David, she said. I didn't want to tell you this way... She did look sorry.

Is this the way back to the highway? the man interrupted.

Yes, the woman said sharply. David, your dad and your mom are...

She looked at the man but he wouldn't meet her eye. David filled the silence with all his worst imaginings and then she confirmed them. Dead, David. They're both dead. I'm so so sorry. She reached back with a wrinkled hand and patted his knee. Carefully, like she was not used to children.

She must be wrong, he thought. In a minute she'd probably explain what she really meant. He distracted himself by thinking about happy things. When he looked out the window, he saw that they were almost to the place where the kid in his mom's stories, Cedric Carville, had thrown all those things out of the car. He picked up his shoe. Hefted it. Flexed his arm muscles. As they whirred around the curve, he opened the window and threw his shoe at the sign, watching the red sneaker spin end over end, landing just a few feel short. Not bad! A few more tries and he'd be able to hit the sign.

Oh, David! That was a stupid thing to do, wasn't it? the woman said. Now you've only got one shoe.

David looked down at his foot and back at the woman. She was trying to smile but didn't look very friendly. Sorry, he muttered, lowering his eyes. Where are we going? Where are you taking me?

Far away from here, she said. Someplace where you'll be safe. Where no one can find you.

Will my grandma be there?

The woman shook her head.

My aunt Miranda?

She shook her head again.

Why not? David asked. Why did they send you? I don't know you.

Because they knew you'd be safe with me. She tried to smile again and he thought she meant to be reassuring. The bad man will be watching for you. He'll be watching your grandmother and your aunt Miranda.

David didn't feel safe at all, even though the woman had known the password. He thought about jumping out the door but the van was going very fast and he'd heard awful stories about what happened to children who fell out of cars.

Will my aunt Miranda come and get me, then?

Of course she will, when it's safe. Until then, we're going to pretend you're someone else and you mustn't let anyone know who you really are. The bad man will be looking for you. Are you hungry? I have some nice homemade cookies.

David thought he was too scared to eat anything, but when the woman handed him a big chocolate chip cookie and a cup of juice, he found he could get them past the lump in his throat. She seemed pleased to see him eat and smiled the way grown-ups do when children are being good. But David wanted his mother and he wanted to go home. He sat wondering what to do next, but before he could think of anything, his eyes closed and he fell asleep.

Farewell, thou child of my right hand, and joy!

-Ben jonson, On My First Son

Chapter 1

She was going to be late again, Rachel thought, stepping on the gas. She couldn't make peanut butter cookies without peanut butter and brown sugar, and she couldn't be home baking if she was at the store buying supplies. There wasn't even enough time to get the cookies in the oven before David got home. He'd give her one of those looks, both irritated and understanding, that seemed so odd coming from a nine-year-old. Odd unless you knew how much he was like his father. Her husband, Stephen, was always giving her long-suffering looks. A woman who lived on sufferance, that's what she was. Always teetering on the verge of failure, clinging to the cusp of competence.

A shiny red bike lying at the side of the road caught her eye. Someone had a bike just like David's. Some kid biking home from school who'd stopped to explore the woods near the old pine tree. Maybe to climb the pine. It was the kind of tree that invited climbing with its well-spaced, sturdy branches. It took a kind of revenge, though, by daubing climbers generously with pitch. David had ruined more than one good pair of pants that way. Usually when he was with his best friend, Tommy. Tommy was the kind of kid the term daredevil was made for.

She snapped on the signal and whisked into the yard, grabbing the grocery bag and running for the door. In the distance, she could hear the muted roar of the bus. She hurried into the kitchen, vaguely aware of how silly she looked in her workout wear. She usually took it off the instant she finished class, but today she hadn't had time. They all dressed like this, the women in the suburbs. She didn't feel like one of them, but she knew she looked the same, a peculiarly gnome-shaped creature, body rounded and squared off by the bulky sweatshirt, perched on skinny little black Lycra legs.

She grabbed a bowl and stuck in the beaters. Threw a stick of margarine into the microwave to soften. Pushed the button and hurried to the window as the bus roared around the curve, passed the driveway without stopping, and disappeared into the trees. Hey, wait a minute, she said aloud, rushing out the door and down the long driveway. Halfway down, feet churning, the arm that wasn't holding a mixing bowl waving, she remembered. David hadn't taken the bus. He'd gone on his bike. The bike she'd seen lying on the roadside.

Something felt wrong. David had just begun to be allowed to ride his bike to school. He wouldn't stop off without permission. He'd come straight home, then go out again after asking her. He was a cautious, methodical child, not a willful one like Tommy. But he and Tommy had planned to ride together. Maybe Tommy had persuaded him to stop. Only she hadn't seen Tommy's bike, just David's. Unbidden, Rachel's feet were moving faster, carrying her down the driveway. She left the mixing bowl by the mailbox and hurried along the road until she reached the bike.

She cupped her hands and called David several times, listening each time for an answer. Waiting without breathing. She walked to the base of the tree, cupped her hands again, and called up. She had a soft voice; she had to work at being loud. She circled the tree, staring up into the dark branches. There was no one there. She walked back into the woods, calling as she went, heedless of the damage she was doing to her pristine white shoes, shoes that normally never touched ground outside the gym itself. A knot of panic grew in her chest and her footsteps got faster as she plunged deeper into the brush.

This was silly. David didn't like the woods. He might go in with Tommy, just to show how brave he was, but the woods scared him. He didn't like small, enclosed spaces, didn't like the feeling of things closing in on him. She hurried back to the street, walked a few hundred feet in either direction, calling. Crawled down the bank and peered into the culvert, shouting his name. Her voice echoed back to her, hollow and metallic over the gurgling of the water, but no voice answered. Heart pounding, she climbed up the bank and looked up and down the empty road.

Maybe she was panicking over nothing. She didn't know that the bike was David's. His helmet wasn't there. Besides, David loved his new bike; it was the pride of his life. He wouldn't leave it lying in the gravel like that. He'd probably stopped off at Tommy's, so excited by being a big boy who could ride his bike that he'd forgotten to ask for permission. She ran home and called Carole.

Carole, she gasped, cutting off the drawled hello. It's Rachel. Did David stop off there on his way home?

Nope. I meant to call you and apologize. I forgot they were going to ride their bikes today, and I didn't wake Tommy in time. He took the bus. While I've got you on the phone, can I get your recipe for that cucumber salad? We're having some people from—

Can I call you back? Rachel interrupted.

Is something wrong?

David... he didn't come home. I've got to call the school. Talk to you later. Rachel disconnected and called the school. While she fretted on hold, pacing a loop as large as the phone cord would let her, the secretary found a teacher who remembered seeing David set out with all the other riders just before the buses left. Was he wearing his helmet? Rachel asked.

I'll check, the woman said doubtfully, probably immediately consigning Rachel to the realms of the hyperanxious, one of those lunatic mothers who's always calling to keep track of her child's every move.

Rachel waited an eternity before the woman returned and confirmed that David had been wearing his helmet. An eternity during which she began to imagine awful things had happened to him. She thanked the woman, grabbed her keys, and began driving slowly down the street, retracing the route that David would have taken. There was no one. Not a power walker, not a jogger, no in-line skaters swooping gracefully as dragonflies. Where the hell were they? Why wasn't anyone out when she needed to ask if they'd seen David? They were always out when she wanted the road to herself.

She turned around in the schoolyard and drove slowly home again, peering down side streets and into driveways, until she came back to the spot where the bike lay. Her hands were shaking and she couldn't quite remember how to breathe. She stopped the car and sat there, hands gripping the wheel. He had to be somewhere. There had to be some reasonable explanation for this; she just hadn't thought of it yet. He wouldn't go off somewhere without telling her, not unless someone had made him go. Unless he'd gone with another friend?

She picked up the car phone and called Carole again. Carole? There's no sign of him. Can you ask Tommy if he might have been riding with someone else? Someone he might have gone home with?

Hold on. She heard Carole calling Tommy, heard the snap in Carole's voice that was her own fear being transmitted.

Carole's answer hit her like a gut punch. He says David was hurrying home because you were going to make cookies. He wants to know what's going on. Should I tell him?

Yes. No. I don't know. I don't think so. Ask him if he saw David from the bus.

She waited, straining to hear the mumbled voices, and then Carole was back. He says they didn't pass David along the way. But they wouldn't, if he set out ahead. The bus has to go all around that loop. He didn't come home?

No. There's a bike... I'm sure it's his... lying by the road near that big pine they like to climb... but there's no sign of David.

You'd better not waste any time, Rach. If he's been taken, the sooner the police get on it, the better.

Taken?

Well, you said he wasn't in the tree or in the woods. And anyway, Mister Know-It-All is standing right here behind me and he says no way would David leave his bike just lying anywhere.

Rachel thought she might be sick. Carole, I've got to go.

Wait, is there anything—

Gotta go, Rachel repeated, and broke the connection. Sat shaking in her car with her awful thoughts closing around her like a gray blanket. Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God. She whispered it over and over like a mantra. Oh please, dear God, don't let him be... Her mind skipped over the words she couldn't say, couldn't even bring herself to think. Oh please God! No! David was her life.

She picked up the phone again and called Stephen, the red bicycle on the gravel in front of her car gleaming in the gray afternoon light. He grabbed the phone, didn't let her get past an anguished Stephen before he interrupted.

Can't it wait, Rach? I'm right in the middle of—

David's missing. He didn't come home from school.

Instantly, she had his attention. How long?

Not long. I thought he was on the bus... He was on his bike... I got home and the bus went by and then I remembered I'd seen a bike down the road. She was dithering and Stephen hated dithering. She gulped some air, drowning in her panic, and tried to be coherent. Maybe twenty or thirty minutes.

Call Carole. He's probably over there. She could sense him turning away, imagined him picking up his pencil and turning to his papers.

I did, Stephen. I already called her. He's not there and he's not at school and he's nowhere along the route.

Did you look in his room? Maybe he got past you and you didn't notice.

I didn't. How stupid of me. I'll go check right now. I'll bet he's there. He probably came in while I was out looking for him. Relief flowed through her. I'll call you back.

I'll hold on while you go check.

I'm not at home.

Then where the hell are you?

Down the road... by his bike... where he left it lying by the road.

Lying? Like in the dirt lying? Not on the kickstand?

Yes. Lying, like it was dumped there in a hurry.

There was a silence on Stephen's end, disturbed only by the pounding of her heart. He'd never do that, Stephen said. Call the police. I'm coming home.

A tidal wave of panic, unleashed by Stephen's confirmation of her worst fears, rolled over her. It took four tries to start the car and then she was so shaky she drove like a drunk the short distance to their driveway. She left the car with the doors open, sprinted for the inside phone, and dialed 911.

My child... my son... he's missing, she told the man who answered. Behind her, the microwave beeped to remind her of the forgotten butter.

He asked her name and address, David's name and age, and a few brisk questions. I wouldn't worry too much, ma'am. He's probably just off exploring. He'll turn up any minute. You'll see.

But I am worried. You don't know him. He's not the kind of boy who—

All boys go wandering, the man said cheerfully. They just forget about the time and...

Through the fog of her panic, she realized he was brushing her off, that he wasn't going to help her. Not my son, she interrupted. He'd never go off and leave his brand-new bike lying in the dirt like that. Someone has taken him and we need your help right now!

Now, ma'am, please, calm down, the man said. If it will make you feel better, I'll send an officer over to talk to you.

It would make me feel better, Rachel said, imagining David's frightened face peering at her from some stranger's car, imagining her only child in the grip of some unknown man, "if you would take this seriously. If you would sound a little bit concerned."

I'll send someone, ma'am, he said in his police dispatcher's dispassionate voice. If you'll give me your address. She gave it and he disconnected.

She stood a while, holding the bleeping receiver while the microwave cried at her like an unmilked cow, the mechanical world crying out for attention. The best way to forestall panic was to do something, anything to occupy her mind and keep out the awful thoughts. Call the neighbors. She tried them all. No one had seen anything. Everyone was sorry they couldn't help. And still no Stephen and no police. She'd finish the cookies. She turned on the oven and got out some baking sheets. Wait. She hadn't looked up stairs. Stumbling in her hurry, she rushed up the stairs and into his room, hoping, praying to find him there bent over a book. It was dark and empty, the only sound the bubbling from the fish tank.

She shut the door quickly on the emptiness and hurried downstairs to silence the microwave. She measured out a cup of sugar. Went to dump it into the bowl. Couldn't find the bowl. But she must have gotten out a bowl. Maybe she was losing her mind. Better her mind than her child. She couldn't bear that. Not again. Then she remembered. She'd left the bowl out in the yard. As she rushed to the door, something rustled by her ear, something in her hair. She snatched at it, dashed it to the floor, hoping it wasn't a bug. A leaf. She put a cautious hand up to her head, felt the leaves and sticks, and looked in the mirror.

She looked like a lunatic. Her face and shirt were streaked with mud and stained green from rushing through the bushes, from crawling around the culvert. Looking down, she saw that her shoes were green and muddy. Stephen would be upset, she thought, and then, who the hell cares. She opened the door and would have raced down the driveway to the mailbox, but there was a big man standing there, a cold-faced, red-haired stranger, holding her missing bowl.

Lost something? he asked.

Numbly, she took the bowl and tucked it under her arm. Yes. My child. I've lost my child. It hurt to say the words.

Detective Gallagher. May I come in? His voice was gravelly and cautious. She knew instantly that there would be no comfort coming from this man. Over his shoulder she watched the Lexus coming up the drive, watched Stephen get out, his face set and terrible. She knew he was holding back the same fears she was feeling, holding them back and determined to master them. Stephen had little patience with weakness, with fear. Except when it was David's. There, through some resource that Rachel had never understood, he always found the patience and gentleness he needed.

She ran toward him, her arms out, seeking some reassurance that things would be all right. He stopped and stared at her. Rachel, for heaven's sake, have you looked in a mirror? Have you seen yourself? He sidestepped and headed toward Gallagher and the house.

I wasn't thinking about me. I was thinking about him, she said, but Stephen wasn't listening. He'd shaken Gallagher's hand and was leading him inside. Rachel turned to follow and ran into an impenetrable truth, standing like a barrier between herself and the door. This was really happening. This wasn't her vivid imagination or an excess of worry. Not a dream or an irrational fear. While she was at the store buying sugar and peanut butter and listening to an old lady's complaints, someone had come along and snatched her child. Taken her son. Her David.

She collapsed on the step like a puppet whose strings are cut, arms folded tightly around her body to keep the pain from blowing her apart. Tears poured down her face, but she couldn't cry out or even sob. The horror of it stunned her into silence. She could only crouch there like some helpless animal while the realization pierced her like a thousand swords. This was really happening. David was gone.

Rachel. Hurry up! We're waiting, Stephen called.

Heavily, gravid with grief, with fear, with the burden of a thousand maternal imaginings filling her mind, she pushed herself up and headed not inside, but down the driveway, down the road toward David's bike, toward her last tangible link to her son. She approached it carefully, as though an inanimate conglomeration of metal parts could be sensitive, and stood staring, her hand outstretched, reaching to touch it, to put her hand where David's had so recently been. It shimmered before her blurry eyes, proud and red.

Don't touch that, please, ma'am. Gallagher stepped between her and the bike so abruptly she stumbled backward. She hadn't heard them coming.

Stephen caught her arm roughly and set her on her feet. What do you think you're doing, Rachel? Come inside. The detective needs to talk to both of us, he said.

Rachel looked up into his tight, fierce face. He must be so scared, she said.

Stephen's face softened and she saw the fear that matched her own. He put a supporting arm around her. He must be. But don't worry, Rachel. We'll find him. We've got to find him. Together they went inside to talk to Gallagher.

She was Rachel,

weeping for her children.

- Melville, Moby Dick

Chapter 2

Rachel knelt on the cold spring ground, oblivious of the damp, of the ubiquitous New England pebbles poking her knees, of the harsh wind that tore at her clothes, and stared at Jonah's headstone. She stretched out a thin hand, brushed away the leaves that clustered at its base, and read the words again: Jonah Stark, infant son of Rachel and Stephen, born November 12, 1983, died April 17, 1984. He would have been twelve now. Looking at the world through Stephen's eyes, getting ready for baseball season, for no child of Stephen's would be allowed to grow up without a baseball in his hand.

His hand. She looked down at her own hands, long, slender, bony. On a good day, when she was feeling all right about herself, she might call them artistic. She stared at her fingers and remembered the pressure of Jonah's tiny fingers curling around them, clinging. She closed her eyes and felt it still, after all these years, the surprisingly strong grip of those little fingers. Strong but briefly, before the disease had begun to weaken his muscles and waste him away.

Werdnig-Hoffman's, the doctor had declared, not meeting her eyes. Not looking at Stephen. His own pain at the news he was forced to deliver so great, she'd felt an urge to comfort him even as her own heart was breaking. Such a big, cold Teutonic name for something afflicting a little baby. Jonah would not be sick, the doctor had explained. He would go on being a cheerful, social baby. He would smile and interact and want to play. He would not be sick, but he would be dying. Growing gradually weaker until his lungs failed. Jonah hadn't wanted to die. He'd clung to life with astonishing tenacity, fought as valiantly as any hero in the history of the world. It had been his courage, almost more than his dying, that had shattered her heart.

I've got some sad news for you, baby, Rachel said, patting the place where she thought his little belly might be. It's more than three weeks now since your brother David disappeared. Vanished without a clue, without a witness, without a trace. Like an alien abduction. Three weeks is twenty-one days. Five hundred and four hours. Thirty thousand two hundred and forty minutes. You know how people in solitary confinement sometimes keep track of time by making notches in things? I'm making notches in my soul. I've got a notch for every one of those minutes. Thirty thousand notches, Jonah. I've got a soul like corrugated cardboard by now. When I rub my mind over it, I can feel all the bumps.

Against her will, for she'd vowed she wouldn't cry, Rachel felt the traitorous tears sneak out, rolling hot down her icy face. She dashed them away with the back of her hand. These tears are for your brother, David, but I've cried a river over you, too, Jonah, she told him. Not a trickle, a rivulet, or a stream, but a river. You were the best of babies. And I have not let you be forgotten. I've faithfully imagined your life. You would have been musical, I think. Remember how you used to try to wave your arms to Beethoven? And vocalize? Mingling your little baby sounds with his—

She broke off and looked around, knowing how odd she would seem to an outsider. The look was almost a formality. No one ever came here. To other parts of the graveyard, yes. She'd passed them on her way here, little family groups, talking and tending as she did. But Jonah was tucked away in a lonely corner among people who hadn't been loved, where no one pulled the weeds and no one planted flowers. She was sorry for them, yet grateful. It meant that this was a place where she could be sure of being alone, a place where she didn't have to pretend, where she still was allowed to be sad when the world believed she should have gotten over it by now.

Certainly that's how Stephen felt. He hadn't said so. Not in words. Stephen didn't need to use words. His body language was enough. It was there in the tightening of his lips, in the arch of his eyebrow, in the way he'd spot her teary eyes and trembling lip and sigh and turn away from her, making an elaborate show of finding his place or straightening his paper. When she answered his questions about what she'd done during the day, she always omitted trips to the graveyard from her account. Not that she came here much anymore. Stephen's disapproval—everyone's disapproval—had been too painful. Now it was mostly on the dates of his birth and death, or when a particularly acute pain hit her. Otherwise, she visited him in her head.

It wasn't just visiting Jonah he seemed to disapprove of, either. It was remembering Jonah. So she never mentioned that she'd seen a boy running or laughing or calling to a friend who looked like Jonah would have, or that she had heard his voice. When she woke up with that terrible pain inside her, the pain she knew wasn't a major body system gone wrong but just a knot of pent-up grief, she kept it to herself.

They never mentioned Jonah. In the silence between them, it was as if he'd never been. Sometimes she wondered how Stephen felt, wondered if he ever talked to Jonah or imagined Jonah, as she did, but she was afraid to ask. Whatever Stephen still thought or felt about their dead baby was locked away in a box like Kryptonite.

A clump of daffodils, late here in this dark and shady corner, appeared when she pulled the leaves away. Poet narcissus. They would open soon and spill their perfume over this sad, empty place, like a writer reading to an empty hall. But Rachel would know. She'd come and sit and smell them, and tell Jonah they were blooming. Her mother, who knew that she came here and talked to Jonah, kept urging Rachel to go get some help.

She patted him again. This is something you never got to see, in your little life, but before an egg is laid... while it's still inside the chicken, the shell isn't hard, like we're used to. It's thinner and rubbery and translucent and you can almost see the yolk and white inside. My grandmother used to let me hold them sometimes, when she was cleaning a chicken. They're so fragile, like the egg is wrapped in paper. She swept back a strand of the long hair that had blown into her face. That's how I feel right now, Jonah. Like my outer wrapping is so fragile people can look through it and see my insides. I've got no hard shell left, baby, and now that David's gone, I'm afraid someone's going to push so hard they'll break right through and the last of me will leak out and I'll be gone.

The tears fell harder. Some busy little internal crew, manning the pumps, was trying to drain her dry and stop this interminable crying. She fumbled in her pocket for a tissue, pulling out a handful of anonymous junk. A bunch of Legos. David left them everywhere. Some Magic cards. A lollipop without its wrapper, coated with pocket fuzz and sand. Some ancient prizes from Happy Meals. A chocolate-smeared Dunkin' Donuts napkin. A paper clip. A pocket-sized pencil from a miniature golf range. A tiny silver goblet belonging to a tiny medieval knight. No tissue.

Rachel blew her nose and wiped her eyes on the chocolate-smeared napkin, and shoved it angrily back into her pocket. She held the Legos out toward the headstone. I don't understand anything anymore. He's here. David is here. In my pockets and in my car and all over the house and in my head and yet they can't find a trace of him anywhere. How can someone simply disappear? How can they? Oh, little baby, Stephen says it's all my fault.

She leaned forward until she was almost lying on the grave, the grass prickly against her cheek, the smell of the earth filling her nose. All my fault, she repeated. For not being there. But who ever would have thought... But that was sort of a lie. Mothers worried about their children all the time. Hardly a week went by without at least one heart-stopping moment. And yet. And yet. What good had it done? She leaned back, absently picking up some of last year's leaves, blackened now, and limp, and letting them blow away from her fingers.

She wiped her face with her sleeve, staring in surprise at the muddy streaks her tears had made. She couldn't go back to the house looking like this. Couldn't bear the way they'd stare at her with those prune faces that read as clearly as TelePrompTers, Poor, crazy Rachel. She searched the other pocket for a tissue, pulled out a pair of David's gloves, and quickly put them away.

I'm hopeless, she said. Your mom is hopeless. No good mother leaves home without tissues. It's in the rule book somewhere. But tissues... Her voice caught on a sob, staggered, and went on. Tissues are the least of it, Jonah. Your mother keeps losing children. No good mother does that.

She sat back on her hip, legs curled to one side, arms folded across her chest. "I looked so funny when they arrived. You would have

Reviews for Steal Away (A Novel of Suspense)

[upstairsgirl · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This might be the best of Kate Flora's books - she's always excellent at keeping you guessing, but here she's just superb, leaving key questions unanswered until the end, suggesting perfectly plausible answers that keep the reader from seeing the real culprit until the denouement. The characters - even the ones you just can't like - are all compelling, and there's exactly the right amount of crazy. This is Flora's only standalone novel, and the only one of her novels that's not a murder mystery. It's rather less gory and grisly than her other novels, but it's just as good if not better. She's an under-recognized and under-appreciated author of mystery fiction, but you should check her out if you have the chance.

[ridgewaygirl · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I didn't love this story about a woman whose son is abducted. The writing is able enough, the plot moves along quickly, but the characters were badly drawn and unsympathetic. The main character, Rachel, is a frustrating choice for a protagonist. It's all about her. There is no topic that does not revolve around her and in her eyes life is so, so unfair, the people around her are all unfeeling creeps who do not feel things in the special, better way that she feels things. Rachel also loves playing the victim. In one scene, a cluster of people, including her husband, stand in the kitchen, discussing what to do next, and she sits at the counter and mournfully wonders why they don't include her. And I think, "because you can't be bothered to get up and walk six feet over to where the conversation is taking place, you big booby." Nothing can happen that doesn't hurt her more than anyone else. She focuses on how bad she feels that she has no time to ponder the fear and pain of her own son. Arghh.The other characters are lightly drawn, so that we are never given any insight into why they are behaving that way, the plot, which starts well, descends into implausibility. The book began well, and with a better plot and a more believable heroine, this book would be quite readable.