Stolen in the Night by Patricia MacDonald

by what her brother had just said. “Bosworth? What about Chief Fuller?”
    “He’s not the chief anymore, Tess.”
    “He’s not?”
    Jake shook his head. “He had some health problems. He had to retire.”
    “Oh no,” said Tess. “I was hoping he would be here. He was so…good to us.”
    Jake shrugged. “That was a long time ago.”
    Tess nodded and lapsed into silence as they rode along. The newspaper offices were
     in a relatively new building several blocks past Main Street. The building had its
     own parking lot, which was now overflowing with television news vans and people with
     sound and video equipment milling around, their cables crisscrossing the lot. A crowd
     of curious onlookers had gathered outside of the plate-glass façade of the Record ’s offices.
    “Don’t talk to anybody,” Jake said as he pulled into a parking space at the edge of
     the lot. “Just keep your head down and hang on to me.”
    Tess nodded. Together they picked their way through the milling crowd to the door.
     A few people called out questions to them, but Jake’s jaw was set. “’Scuse us,” he
     said, leading with his shoulder and pressing his way through the crowd. Tess did as
     he had told her and kept her head down. She wondered if they were going to be exiled
     at the back or even outside of the room, where the press conference was taking place,
     but as Jake managed to reach the door of the conference room, a murmur went through
     the crowd and immediately Tess heard a voice saying, “Let these people through. Stand
     aside. Let them through.”
    Tess kept her eyes down and clung to a corner of Jake’s buffalo-check shirt as someone,
     whom she could not see, escorted them to a pair of seats toward the front. As they
     went past the rows of chairs filled with onlookers, she could see the head table where
     all the lights and microphones were set up. Seated at the table was Governor Putnam,
     looking official in a gray suit and a red tie. He was talking with the man she had
     met at the airport, the publisher, Channing Morris. Chan was wearing a white shirt
     and tie today and leaned against the table, his arms crossed over his chest.
    At the other end of the table, on the governor’s right, was Edith Abbott conferring
     with a man whom Tess assumed was her attorney. Edith was a tall, sinewy woman with
     frizzy, brown hair and glasses. She was wearing a purple polyester suit that swam
     on her bony frame and had an improbably large white corsage pinned to the lapel, as
     if today were Easter or Mother’s Day. She appeared to be Lazarus Abbott’s sole supporter.
     As promised, there was no sign of his stepfather, Nelson, in the room.
    Edith’s attorney, athletic-looking and dressed in pinstripes, had a square jaw and
     a handsome, unlined face, but his perfectly groomed hair was prematurely silver. He
     was listening intently as Edith spoke rapidly, unceasingly into his ear. For a moment,
     he looked in their direction and his impassive, porcelain-blue eyes met Tess’s cool
     stare. Their gazes locked for an instant and Tess felt an unexpected jolt of sexual
     electricity pass between them. Upset by her own response, Tess blushed. She felt as
     if she had, in that moment, consorted with the enemy. She quickly looked away.
    She turned her gaze across the aisle to a ruddy-faced man with reddish hair cut into
     an old-fashioned crew cut and a brushy auburn mustache. He was wearing a navy blue
     police officer’s uniform with a tie that was too tight for his fleshy neck. He sat
     stiffly, drumming his fingers impatiently on the taut crown of his hat, which he held
     in one hand.
    “That’s the new chief,” Jake said, indicating the police officer she was looking at
     across the aisle. “Rusty Bosworth.”
    “He looks kind of…impatient,” Tess observed.
    “He’s a bully,” said Jake. “I never liked him. He’s Lazarus Abbott’s cousin, you know.”
    “You’re kidding,” said Tess, staring at the