Man Of The Hour. Patricia Kay

look. “That’s a good idea.” She opened her handbag to get her wallet.

      “Put that money away,” Kat said in her I-won’t-tolerate-any-argument voice. “What can I get you, Glynnis? Sandwich? Coffee? A Coke? A bottle of water?”

      “Just coffee.”

      “You sure?”

      “Yes, I’m sure.”

      “Okay. We’ll be back. See you later.” Kat took Michael’s hand. “Let’s go, slugger.”

      Glynnis followed them outside and watched as they walked away. The ache in her chest was so huge that it was hard to breathe. Michael looked so little and so vulnerable. Every instinct told her to run after them and snatch Michael back. She knew that was crazy. Nothing bad would happen to him in Kat’s care. After all, Kat was not a screwup. She’d never lost a child.

      Unlike you, who’ve now lost two.

      The dark thought, which had been trying to surface for hours, slammed into Glynnis with the force of a hurricane.

      Shaking, she stumbled back into the shop.

      Dan was halfway back to Corinne’s Closet when he saw his sister Kat and the March woman’s little boy walking toward him.

      “What are you doing here?” he said.

      “Glynnis called me.”

      “Glynnis?”

      “Have you met Michael, Dan? Michael, honey, this is my brother, Lieutenant O’Neill. And Dan, this is Michael. His mom is Glynnis Antonelli, my best friend. Michael, why don’t you go look at the puppies?” There was a pet store a few feet away. “I’ll just be a minute.” To Dan she said, “It’s okay if he goes over there, isn’t it?”

      If there had been people around, Dan would have said no. He sure didn’t want another kid going missing. But all the pedestrian traffic had been cleared out of the inner part of the mall, so there was no danger to Michael. “Sure, it’s okay.” Dan would keep one eye on him anyway. Once Michael was out of ear-shot, Dan said, “I thought her name was March.”

      “She goes by March. See, she married this March guy and it turned out he was already married. A fact he conveniently didn’t tell her. Which means they were never legally married at all.” 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