I glanced at my watch, a gesture that wasn't lost on her.

"I know you're in a hurry so I'll get to the point. Has Mother filled you in on Crystal's past?"

"I know she was a stripper before she married your dad."

"I'm not talking about that. Did she mentioned Crystal's fourteen-year-old daughter was born out of wedlock?"

I waited, wondering at the relevance. I leaned forward, not from avid interest, but because the whistles, bangs, and manic music from the television set were loud enough to cause permanent hearing loss. I watched Blanche's lips move, putting the sentences together belatedly like the subtitles on a foreign film.

"I'm not even sure Crystal knows who the father is. Then she married Lloyd somebody and had another child by him. That boy died when he was eighteen months old, an accidental drowning-this was four or five years ago."

I squinted. "And you think this is somehow connected to your father's disappearance?"

She seemed startled. "Well, no, but you said you wanted all the facts. I wanted to fill in the picture so you could see what you're up against."

"Meaning what?" A commercial came on, the sound ratcheted up a notch so the little children who lived across the street wouldn't miss the pitch for a vitamin-rich cereal that was supposed to look and taste like licorice.

Blanche was saying, "Doesn't Crystal's behavior strike you as odd?"

I was largely lip-reading by now and her comment had gone completely over my head. "Blanche, could we turn down the sound on the television set?"

"Sorry." She reached for the remote control and muted the sound. The silence was heaven. The children continued to sit on the floor, arranged in front of the set as though gathered around a campfire. Frantic images danced across the screen in colors so vivid they left an afterimage if I glanced away.

Blanche returned to her commentary. "I don't know about you, but Crystal doesn't seem at all distraught about what's happened. She's cool as can be, which seems inappropriate to me."

"It has been nine weeks. I don't think anyone can be distraught for that long. Defenses kick in. You manage to adjust or you go insane."

"I just think it's interesting that Crystal's never made a public appeal for information about Daddy. She's never offered a reward. She's never sent out any flyers. No psychics have been consulted…"

That caught me up short. "You think a psychic would help?"

"It wouldn't hurt," she said. "My friend Nancy's uncanny. She has this amazing, quite incredible gift."

"She's a psychic? Is that why she's offering to consult with me on the phone?"

"Of course. When I lost my diamond ring, she was able to pinpoint the exact location."

"How'd she do that? I'm really curious."

"It's hard to describe. She said she smelled something sweet. She saw glimpses of white, maybe something nautical. She did two separate… readings, for lack of a better word… and the images were the same. Then I realized the last time I remembered seeing the ring, I'd taken it off to wash my hands at the bathroom sink. I'd already searched that area half a dozen times. As it turned out, I'd set the ring in the soap dish and it was embedded on the underside of the soap, which is exactly what she smelled."

I said, "What was the white part? Was that the bathroom sink?"

"Not in that bathroom. The sink is hunter green in there, but the soap was white."

"Got it. What was the nautical part?"

Blanche's tone was defensive. "Not everything's literal. Some of the images she sees are metaphorical… you know, associative."

"Nautical… faucet water," I suggested gamely.

"The point is, Nancy's offered to consult with Crystal, but she refuses to cooperate."

"Maybe she doesn't believe in psychics."

"But Nancy's fabulous. I swear."

"How much does she charge?"

"Oh, she doesn't want money. Ordinarily, she does, but this is strictly out of friendship with me."

"Why does Crystal have to be involved? Can't Nancy do a reading and simply tell you what she sees?"

"She has to have access to the house so she can pick up on Daddy's vibes, his psychic energy. I took her over to his office and let her sit in his chair. She keeps getting this picture of him approaching a house and going through the front door. Then nothing. This has to be Crystal's beach property because she visualizes sand."

"Could be the desert."

Blanche blinked. "Well, I suppose it could."

"Anyway, go on. Sorry to interrupt."

"But that's it. She sees a door and then blank. Without Crystal's help, she can only go so far. We think he left the office and drove out to the beach house as usual, only something went terribly wrong. Of course, Crystal denies this. She claims he never arrived, but we only have her word for it."

"So you think she knows where he is and she's covering?"

"Well, yes," she said, as though surprised I'd ask. "Nancy can feel his presence. She gets the strong impression he's been hurt. He's definitely surrounded by darkness. She says he's trying to reach us, but something's holding him back."

"He's alive?"

"She's sure he's alive. She's very clear about that. However, she says there are some very negative forces at work. She says he's distressed because he doesn't know where he is. He's encompassed by this oppressive spiritual consciousness. She can feel his confusion, but that's as much as she gets. Nancy says Crystal's very connected to Daddy's plight. In fact, she probably caused it."

"How?"

"Well, she could have knocked him out and driven him away somewhere."

"And done what with his car? I don't mean to argue. I'm genuinely puzzled."

"There could have been two of 'em. She could have hired someone. How do I know? I'm just telling you… nothing would suit her better than to have him out of the way."

"Why? I mean, just for the sake of argument, let's say she had him kidnapped and he's being held against his will. What's her motive? Can't be money. There hasn't been a ransom note and no contact from anyone offering to make a deal."

Blanche leaned forward. "Listen. Before she married my father, she signed a prenuptial agreement, according to which she gets absolutely nothing if they divorce."

"Wait a minute. Back up. You still haven't told me how she intends to profit if she had him snatched."

"I didn't say she had him kidnapped. I said she knows where he is."

"What's that have to do with a pre-nup?"

"She's been having an affair."

"Your mother mentioned that as well. This is Glint Augustine?"

"Exactly. Now she wants her freedom, but she wants the money, too. If she tries to divorce him, she'll end up with nothing. The only way she benefits is if Daddy dies."

"Which, according to Nancy, he hasn't done yet."

"That's right."

"Why would she risk anything as blatant as an affair with her personal trainer? Wouldn't word get out?"

"He was her personal trainer; he's not now. Once she started screwing him, I guess they decided to discontinue the public aspects of their relationship. The rumors started flying in any event.".',". "How did you find out?"

"From Mother's friend, Dana Glazer. She and her husband have a house in Horton Ravine. Joel's one of Daddy's-"

"Employers. Yes, I heard about that."

"The Glazer property backs right up to Daddy's with just a little fence in between. They have a guest cottage back there, and Crystal asked if they'd consider renting it temporarily to a friend of hers. She claimed he'd bought a house he had to renovate and the work wouldn't be finished until early fall. This was back in January. Anyway, the Glazers don't use the cottage, so they decided, hey, why not? They asked eight hundred dollars a month, and the guy never batted an eye. Of course, once Dana realized what was going on, she was horrified. She found it thoroughly repulsive, which is why she hated having to tell my mom." V "Why'd she tell you?"