Kat’s expression left no room for doubt about her feelings.
“Why do you call her Antonelli if she goes by March?”
“Because I refuse to acknowledge that bastard,” Kat said with that look he knew well, the obstinate one that said she’d made up her mind and nothing anyone else said was going to make a bit of difference. Of all his siblings, Kat was the most unbending when she felt she was right.
“How’s she doing?” he asked.
“She’s hanging in there. More important, how are you doing?”
“The investigation’s moving along. We’re searching all the stores. If we find her here, great. In the meantime, we’ll call in an Amber Alert, which will broadcast the details nationwide and alert all appropriate authorities.”
“Do you think there’s any chance the woman is still here somewhere?”
Dan shrugged. “That’s impossible to know. I hope she is, but if she isn’t, it’ll be hours before we know for sure, because it’s going to take time to do a complete search of all the stores. Hell, there are five anchor stores here. That alone is a massive job.”
“Oh, Dan, you’ve got to find Olivia. You’ve just got to. Glynnis has already been through so much. If something has happened to Olivia, it…it would destroy her.”
“Believe me, I want to find that child just as much as you do.”
Just then, the boy walked back to them. “I’m hungry, Aunt Kat.”
“I’m sorry, Michael.” Turning back to Dan, she said, “I promised Michael some food. That’s where we were headed.”
“You go on. And after you get your food, you can take it to the management office. They’ve got a waiting room there that’s a lot more comfortable than the little office at Corinne’s Closet.”
“But Glynnis is waiting for us at the store.”
“I’m going there now. I’ll get her and bring her to where you are.”
“Okay. See you in a little while.”
When Dan got to the store, he saw Glynnis March out front.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I couldn’t stand sitting back in that office one minute longer.”
Now that Dan knew more about her situation, he felt even worse for her. She was showing the strain of the past hour. It hurt to see the plea in her eyes, because he had no good news for her. “That’s okay. I actually came back to tell you that I thought it would be okay for you to come to the management office now.”
She looked stricken. “Oh.”
“That doesn’t mean you should give up hope. Or that we have. It only means that I don’t think your little girl will be brought back here. Just to be sure, though, that guard—” he inclined his head in the direction of the security guard standing nearby “—will stay here, even after the store is locked up.”
She nodded. “All right. Thank you.”
“Wait for me here. I’ll go in and tell the manager she can lock up.”
When Dan came back outside, she said, “Kat told me you’re her brother. When you introduced yourself, I was so frightened, I don’t think I even heard your name.”
He smiled. “It’s Dan. Dan O’Neill.”
“And I’m Glynnis, but you already knew that.”
“I wish we could have met under happier circumstances.”
“Me, too.”
They walked the rest of the way in silence. Dan wondered what was going through her mind. He hoped she wasn’t blaming herself, but he was afraid she was. He wanted to tell her that no matter how careful a parent was, things like this happened. He also wanted to tell her he understood how helpless she was feeling. But he knew neither would be a comfort to her, so he said nothing.
When they reached the management office, he ushered her inside, where Kat and the boy were already seated around the coffee table. The smell of french fries made Dan’s stomach grumble, and he realized he hadn’t eaten since breakfast. He glanced at his watch. Almost five-thirty. Soon everyone would be getting hungry and they would have to be fed. Dan had been prepared for this contingency and had asked several of the food venues to stay open for just that purpose. The men could eat in shifts; that way, the search could continue without interruption.
Dan left the women and the boy in the outer waiting area and walked back into the manager’s office, which he’d commandeered for his own. It was time to call each of his men to get a progress report.
After that, he would decide if they needed to call in any neighboring law enforcement personnel to speed things along.
He picked up the phone.
At eight o’clock, when the search for Olivia had been going on for more than four hours with no good news, Gregg and Sabrina finally arrived at the mall.
Glynnis broke down when she saw them. “Thank God you’re here.” She tried not to cry, but one look at her brother’s worried face and she couldn’t hold back the tears.
“I’m sorry, Glynnie. We went to Columbus,” Gregg said, folding her into his arms. “I wanted to meet with this possible new vendor and Sabrina wanted to finish up her shopping there.”
“We were just sick when we heard what happened,” Sabrina said.
“I’m just glad you’re here now.”
When she was calm, she filled them in on everything she hadn’t been able to say in her message. Throughout, Sabrina held her hand.
Glynnis loved Sabrina. Their relationship had been awkward in the beginning, because Sabrina was Ben’s daughter, and Glynnis hadn’t found out about her existence until Ben had died.
In fact, Sabrina was the one who came to Ivy to break the news—something Ben had asked her to do in a letter he’d left with his lawyer. That was tough on her. Her mother, Isabel—Ben’s only legal wife—was hysterical over Ben’s double life and mortified by the scandal it had caused in their little town. She would have felt completely betrayed by Sabrina if she’d known of her daughter’s involvement with her husband’s other family.
Sabrina had been put in a horrible position, which only became more difficult as she got to know Glynnis and the children, whom she’d immediately loved.
And then, complicating matters even further, she fell in love with Gregg. For a while, no one who knew the story thought it could possibly have a happy ending, but it did. In fact, Gregg and Sabrina were one of the happiest couples Glynnis had ever known. And not long ago, their happiness had become complete when, on their daughter Samantha’s christening day, Sabrina’s mother had forgiven Sabrina and the two had reconciled.
Isabel was remarried now, which was a whole other story.
Thinking back over the rocky road they’d all traveled, Glynnis knew they were
