Stolen in the Night Read Free Page B

England.
     Normally, on a trip to New Hampshire, she would have worn her work clothes—a roomy
     canvas coat with lots of pockets, jeans, and muck boots. Out in the field, she dressed
     for speed and comfort. She worked as a cinematographer on a team she’d joined when
     she’d been an intern in film school that made documentaries for cable and public television.
     She enjoyed everything about her team and her work, including the fact that she could
     buy most of her work wardrobe from Eddie Bauer. But on this particular trip, she felt
     as if she needed to look slightly more businesslike.
    There was a crash from the direction of the living room. Tess’s heart leapt.
    “What was that?” she called out as she rushed to the doorway.
    Erny, looking worried, was holding two ragged-edged porcelain triangles that had once
     been a square plate depicting an ancient map of the world. She kept the plate on display
     on the table behind the sofa.
    Tess took the pieces from Erny and looked at them ruefully. She had bought that plate
     in a Paris flea market long ago and had always treasured it. But life with a child
     had taught her that mishaps were commonplace, and that it was a mistake to become
     too attached to breakable belongings. “What happened?” she asked.
    “I was hugging Sosa and he ran away from me and jumped over the table,” said Erny.
     “He didn’t mean to break it, Ma.”
    “I know,” said Tess with a sigh. She placed the pieces carefully on the mantel over
     the fireplace. “Maybe we can glue it back together.”
    “I’ll get the glue,” Erny cried hopefully.
    “Not now. We have to go. When we get back.”
    “Sosa’s just scared of being alone. Jonah’d better take care of him,” Erny muttered,
     smacking his fist into his palm.
    “He will. His mom will make sure he does. Come on. Grab your bag.” She forced herself
     to adopt a lighthearted tone for Erny’s sake. “We’ve got places to go and people to
     see.”
    Erny, rarely downcast for long, shouldered his backpack and shot the handle on his
     suitcase. “I’m ready.”
    Tess smiled back at him. “Vámanos!”
    The driver helped them put their luggage in the trunk and they piled into the backseat
     of the cab. “Dulles, please,” said Tess, naming the airport.
    Erny pressed his nose to the window, gazing out at the familiar street. As the car
     pulled away from the curb, Tess looked back at their Georgetown home. It was a true
     city house—a two-story neo-Colonial brick town house in the middle of a block of similar
     attached houses with multipaned windows, buttercream trim and window boxes, wrought-iron
     stair rails, and marble steps. There was a tree in front, and Erny’s school was only
     two blocks away. Tess had bought the house using her share of the proceeds from the
     documentary team’s first sale to HBO. When she’d bought the house, she’d been twenty-three
     and single and had just wanted privacy and a home of her own. The house had proved
     to be both a good investment and later an indispensible asset when Erny came into
     her life.
    She’d met Erny when the team was shooting a documentary about grandparents forced
     to become parents for their grandchildren. Erny’s grandmother, Inez, had lost her
     single daughter to drugs and the street. The identity of Erny’s father was unknown.
     From the first day of shooting, Erny, who’d been five at the time, showed an irrepressible
     interest in everything the team did. He attached himself to Tess and asked her a million
     questions about the camera. Erny’s grandmother, though infirm and poor, adored her
     grandson and protected him fiercely, and the segment about them was among the most
     touching in the film.
    Several months later, when the film was cut and ready to be aired, Tess called Inez
     to invite her and Erny to a screening. She learned then that Inez had died suddenly,
     and that Erny now was in foster care. Tess immediately arranged to visit Erny at