“Why not? He always liked it before.” He did, but Nick felt better having her visit in the house, where he knew what was going on. And then he realized that if he refused, she'd probably tell the boy, and then he'd be the bad guy with his son.

“All right, all right.” He'd send the bodyguard along, although he knew he had nothing to fear. She was biding her time until the court date, buying out F.A.O. Schwarz to impress their son. But it still made him feel better to have the guard along.

She showed up promptly at two o'clock on Saturday afternoon, in a bright red dress and a matching hat and white gloves, looking innocent and very pretty.

“Hi, sweetheart, how've you been?” She chirped at Johnny like a little bird, Nick thought to himself as they left. She had even had the forethought to wear flat shoes. He went back into his library after they left. He had some work to do. They were getting enormous contracts from Washington now, tied in with the new Lend-Lease program that had finally gone through in March. Nick had even gone to Washington twice to watch them lobby for the bill, and he was pleased with the results. It created an enormous new workload for him, but it tripled his income too. Burnham Steel was doing very well thanks to the war in Europe.

And he had almost gotten halfway through his stack of work when there was a pounding on his door and suddenly the bodyguard flew in, still breathless. He had run all the way home from the zoo. He looked at Nick with wild eyes now, his gun still in his hand.

“Mr. Burnham … Johnny's gone.” The man's face was deathly pale, but Nick's was more so as he jumped up.

“What?”

“I don't know what happened … I don't understand … they were right there, next to me, and she wanted to show him something near the lion's cage, and suddenly they were running … and there were three men. They had a car parked on the grass. I ran like hell, but I was afraid to fire and hurt the boy. …” Suddenly there were tears in the man's eyes, he liked the boy and he liked Nick, and he had failed dismally. “Christ … I don't know what to say …” He looked bereft and Nick took the guard's shoulders in his own powerful hands and shook him like a little child.

“You let her take my son? You let her—” He was almost incoherent with rage, and he had to fight to hold himself back. He threw the man against the desk then, grabbed the phone to call the police, and then called Greer at home. His worst fear had come true. His child was gone, God only knew where. The police arrived in less than half an hour, and Greer just on their heels. “She kidnapped my son.” He spoke in a trembling voice, and the bodyguard filled them in as Nick turned to Ben. “I want him found and I want her put in jail.”

“You can't do that, Nick.” Ben's eyes were sad but his voice was calm.

“The hell I can't. What about the Lindbergh law?”

“She's his mother, that's not the same thing.”

“Markham isn't. He's behind all this. Goddamn—” Ben touched his shoulders with a quiet hand.

“They'll find the boy.”

“And then what?” There were tears in Nick's eyes and his chin trembled like a child's. “I lose him in court? Goddamn it, isn't there any way I can keep my son?” And then he went upstairs and slammed the door to his own room, and he dropped his face into his hands and began to cry softly.





She followed the news over the course of the next two months, and still Johnny had not been found, and the news was grim everywhere.