Two Little Girls in Blue by Mary Higgins Clark

trailed off. I didn’t know I was going to say that, she thought. Why did I say that? There had been a reason for everything, but she couldn’t remember it. It was something about the pajamas.
    Mr. Geisler and Steve and Franklin Bailey were answering questions. So many questions. Suppose the girls were watching them. I must talk to them, Margaret thought. Interrupting a reporter, she said abruptly, “I love you, Kelly. I love you, Kathy. Very soon, I promise, we’ll find a way to bring you home.”
    As the cameras focused on her, Margaret became silent, forcing back the words that had almost escaped her: There’s a connection I’ve got to make! There’s something I’ve got to remember!

16

    A t five o’clock that afternoon, Franklin Bailey’s neighbor, retired Judge Benedict Sylvan, pounded on his door. When Bailey yanked it open, a breathless Sylvan blurted out, “Franklin, I just received a phone call. I think it’s from the kidnapper. He’s going to call you back at my house in exactly three minutes. He said he has instructions for you.”
    â€œHe has to know my phone is monitored,” Bailey said. “That’s why he’s calling you.”
    The two men rushed across the wide lawns that separated their houses. They had barely reached the open door of the judge’s home when the phone in his study rang. The judge raced ahead to grab it. Gasping for breath, he managed to say, “Franklin Bailey is with me,” and handed the phone to Bailey.
    The caller identified himself as “The Pied Piper.” His instructions were brief and explicit: by ten A.M. tomorrow morning, C.F.G.&Y. was to be prepared to wire seven million dollars to an overseas account. The remaining million dollars in ransom was to be ready for delivery. It must be in used fifty- and twenty-dollar bills, and their serial numbers must be non-sequential. “When the wire transfer goes through,further instructions will be issued for delivery of the cash.”
    Bailey had been scribbling on a pad on the judge’s desk. “We must have proof that the girls are alive,” he said, his voice tense and unsteady.
    â€œHang up now. In one minute you will hear the voices of the Two Little Girls in Blue.”
    Franklin Bailey and Judge Sylvan stared at each other as Bailey returned the phone to the cradle. Moments later it rang. When he picked it up, Bailey heard a child’s voice saying, “Hello, Mr. Bailey. We saw you on television this morning with Mommy and Daddy.”
    A second voice whispered, “Hello, Mr. . . .” But her words were interrupted as she began to cough, a deep racking cough that echoed in Bailey’s head as the line went dead.

17

    A s the Pied Piper was giving instructions to Franklin Bailey, Angie was pushing a cart through the aisles of the CVS drugstore, shopping for anything she thought might keep Kathy from getting any sicker. She’d already tossed baby aspirin, nose drops, rubbing alcohol, and a vaporizer into the cart.
    Grandma used to put Vick’s in the vaporizer when I was a kid, she thought. I wonder if you’re still supposed to do that. Maybe I’d better ask Julio. He’s a good pharmacist. When Clint sprained his shoulder, whatever he gave me for him did the trick.
    She knew that Lucas would have a fit if he thought she was buying any baby products. But what does he want me to do, let the kid die, she asked herself.
    She and Clint had watched the interview on TV this morning when the guy who was head of Steve Frawley’s company promised to pay the ransom money. They had kept the kids in the bedroom while the program was on because they didn’t want them getting all upset by seeing their mother and father on television.
    That turned out to be a mistake, because after the program, the Pied Piper had phoned and insisted they get a recording of the kids talking to that Bailey guy asthough