Free The Blackstone Chronicles by John Saul

from which it had come.
    “How could she do that?” she asked the doll, which she’d sat on the dresser so it was leaning up against the wall, exactly as if it were watching what she was doing. “Doesn’t she realize you’re going to need all these things?” Taking a small sweater out of the box, she shook it out, then held it up against the doll. “Still a little big, but in a few months it will fit perfectly, won’t it? What could she have been thinking of?” Still talking to the doll, Elizabeth folded the sweater and put it in the drawer next to the bottom, with all the other sweaters. When the box was empty and all the baby clothes were back where they belonged, she picked up the doll and carried it to the crib, where she carefully tucked it under the comforter and kissed it softly on the cheek.
    “Time for a nap,” she whispered. “But don’t you worry. Mommy will be right here.” Settling into the blue rocking chair next to the crib, Elizabeth softly began crooning a lullaby.
    From the open doorway to the hall, unnoticed by her mother, Megan watched.

Chapter 8
    “S omething’s wrong with Mommy,” Megan announced as her father came through the front door. She was sitting on the bottom step of the hall stairway, her face stormy. “She took Sam.”
    “Your doll?” Bill asked, “Why would she do that?”
    “I don’t know,” Megan replied. “And she got mad at Mrs. Goodrich too. Real mad.” Then she saw the paper bags tied with red ribbon, and got up. “Is that for me?”
    “One bag’s for you,” Bill told her, “and one’s for your mother, and one’s for Mrs. Goodrich.” He gave her one of the little bags of chocolate Kisses. “You can have one now. Then we’ll put the rest away for later.”
    “Mommy shouldn’t get any,” Megan said. “If I were bad, you wouldn’t let me have any.”
    Bill knelt down so his eyes were level with his daughter’s. “Honey, Mommy isn’t being bad. She’s just very, very sad right now. And if she took your doll, I’m sure there’s a good reason.”
    Megan shook her head. “She just wanted it. But Sam wants to be with me.”
    “I’ll tell you what,” Bill said. “I’ll go up and talk to Mommy, and see if I can find out why she took Sam. Okay?” Megan nodded, her hand disappearing into the bag, emerging with a fistful of Kisses. “Only one now,” Bill said. “You can have another after lunch. And we’ll save the rest for later.”
    Megan hesitated, calculating the odds of getting herway if she begged for more of the candy right now. Reluctantly, she dropped all but one of the chocolates back in the bag. As her father started up the stairs, though, she quickly sneaked another one, and then a third.
    Bill headed for the master bedroom, expecting to find Elizabeth either in bed or lying on the chaise. But the room was empty. Then, through the open door to the bathroom, he heard the soft creaking of the antique rocker in the nursery. Why would Elizabeth have gone in there? Since the miscarriage, even he hadn’t been able to bring himself to go into the room they’d been preparing for the new baby. And for Elizabeth, going into the nursery had to be agonizing. Yet something had drawn her into it.
    He crossed the bedroom and stepped into the connecting bathroom. Though the door opposite him stood ajar, he could see little of the room beyond. And now in addition to the creaking rocking chair, he could hear Elizabeth, quietly humming a lullaby.
    He pushed the door to the nursery farther open.
    Elizabeth was seated in the chair. Her back was to him, but he could see that she was holding something in her arms.
    Something to which she was humming the quiet song.
    “Elizabeth?” he asked, starting toward the chair.
    The rocking stopped, as did Elizabeth’s humming. “Bill?”
    He bent over to kiss her on the cheek, but pulled back abruptly.
    In her arms, wrapped in the soft pink and blue woolen blanket they had bought only a week earlier, was