Five Days in Summer

walked through the garage and found the mudroom door unlocked.
    Sarah met him halfway through the kitchen. The sight of her son-in-law was clearly a huge disappointment; he wasn’t Emily. Sarah’s eyes squeezed back tears, which she tried to hide with hands worn by years of effort. She was shaking. She still wore her wedding ring.
    Will held her and she felt so frail in his arms. He rubbed her back and steeled himself against his ownurge to cry. They had no real information, no reason to assume the worst. He would not react as if Emily were dead. She was missing. That was all they knew.
    “Why don’t you get some sleep, Sarah?”
    “How can I? All I do is think.”
    “I’m going to the police station.” Will engaged her eyes. “I need you to get some rest so you can take care of the kids.”
    “Oh, but, Will, I can’t sleep.”
    “Do you have any of those sleeping pills left?”
    She nodded.
    “Take one now. They won’t be up for a few hours. You’ll be groggy but it’s better than not sleeping at all.”
    “I’m glad you came.”
    Her eyes were so rimmed with red that it looked as if a blood vessel had actually broken. Emily was her only child. All she had left, except for her grandchildren — and Will. He knew Sarah had distrusted him when they first met. It was one thing for Emily to be a musician — Sarah herself was a painter — but it was too risky for Emily to love an actor. Aspiring actor. He had once overheard Sarah refer to him as a waiter with such antipathy that to this day he still strove for her approval, even though he sensed she had long since relinquished herself to a deep affection for him. He had come through as her daughter’s husband and her grandchildren’s father, and they both knew it. Years had passed; they were family now.
    Will kissed Sarah’s forehead. “I’m going to talk to Detective Snow. I’m going to find out what’s happening. We’re going to find her, Sarah. I promise.”
    “But, Will—”
    “No, don’t go there. You’ll drive yourself crazy, Sarah, then she’ll walk in the door. Don’t do it. Okay?”
    “I’ll try to sleep.” She kissed Will’s cheek. “Have you eaten anything tonight?”
    “I’ll get something later. Don’t tell the kids I was here. I’ll think of what to say before I get back.”
    “Emily always knows when something’s bothering one of the children,” Sarah said.
    Will nodded. “She does.”
    “I’m a mother, too, don’t forget.”

DAY TWO

Chapter 3
    On the outside, it was one of the prettiest station houses John Geary had ever seen, especially in the peach light of six in the morning. Brick with New England white wooden trim. A vast green lawn separating it from Route 151. Surrounded by bountiful summer skies. He left his car in the visitors’ parking lot out front and walked up the loopy stone path to the main entrance. It was only the second time he’d come to pilfer the Mashpee Police Department’s files, too soon to park in the official lot in back.
    The station lobby was as plain as the front was pretty. It was like being introduced to a beautiful woman, only to find out nothing much went on inside. When it came to buildings, the well-worn old faithfuls worked best. In all his years at the FBI’s training campus at Quantico, Virginia, he’d learned the maze and savored his little basement office. It had held all his books and files accumulated over twenty-six years, and eventually a computer had linked him to the ever-evolving knowledge base of the Behavioral Science Unit. He’d entered as a middle-aged man, wrecked as a cop from the beat on Boston’s south side, a doctorate in psychology fresh in his pocket. He’d founded the BSU and honed criminal profiling to a science.Entered the years tunnel in his prime and came out the other end, old. What was retirement about, anyway? With his wife, Ruth, gone, it wasn’t fun.
    It was his old friend Roger Bell who had given him the idea to work on a book, researching and analyzing cold cases, trying to profile killers who had never been caught. It would keep his mind nimble, give him something to do. Bell had lured the Gearys here for retirement, then propped John up at Ruth’s funeral; she’d died of a heart attack just a month after they’d moved into their new house. Bell promised to read the book before Geary embarrassed himself with publishers. It was the least he could do, enticing him to the Cape just to end up a sorry old widower.
    Geary