3

Laura stepped inside the door to Mildred's house and wrapped her arms around the older woman. "I am just so scared," she admitted.

"Honey, Gracie is much stronger than you might think. That girl has wit and you know she'll be just fine. Now what is it that we need to talk about?"

Laura stepped into the brightly-lit living room and took a seat on the cushy couch. "I found some sketches in Gracie's sketchbook this evening when I took it from the porch. She must have found a picture that I tore apart way back when and started drawing from it. Look," she said as she pulled the folded sketch from her purse and handed it across the coffee table to Mildred.

"Wow, I knew she could draw, but…this looks just like the Boss."

"Do you…do you think he found out about her?" she blurted out as she sat back against the flowered couch. "I can't believe I'm doing this. I never used to be like this; even right after Gracie and Luke were born. Why can't we find her?" Laura asked with obvious frustration.

"Look, she's only been missing for a little over seven hours, right? If I didn't know her, I'd say just what the officer said; she probably ran off and forgot about time. But I do know Gracie and since I know it isn't in her personality to do that, all we can do is try to figure out what happened," said Mildred as she handed the sketch back and turned the switch on a lamp next to the end table.

Before Laura could get another worry off her chest, the shrill ring of the phone cut into the conversation. Mildred hesitated, then made a move for the receiver. "Hello?" she answered pleasantly, just as though nothing was wrong.

"Mildred?"

"Bos…I mean, hello?" she asked with a quick glance at Laura to make sure she hadn't noticed that she had almost said Boss. Laura glanced at her questioningly, then mouthed, "Who is it?"

"Salesperson," she mouthed back. Then, "Could you possibly call back in about five minutes?"

"Mildred, is anything wrong?" he asked.

"Oh, yeah, you bet. Five minutes."

She placed the phone back on its hook carefully, trying not to give herself away. She never had been any good at lying to Ms. Holt though. "A salesperson at eight thirty p.m.?" Laura asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Yes. We're familiar on a personal level. Friend of a friend type of thing. Listen, you go home, make some calls just to make sure one last time that Gracie is not at a friend's house and then call me later. No matter what time," she reaffirmed, all the while giving Laura a gentle push towards the door.

Laura nodded unhappily. "My mother insisted on coming over to help out tonight anyway, so I guess I'll go talk her out of it," she commented with a grim look on her face.

Mildred sighed when she shut the door and Laura went down the brick walkway towards her car. When the phone again rang, she hurried to pick it up. "Boss?"

"Mildred, how many times have we gone over that? Call me Harry now. What was that about earlier?"

"I was talking to a friend. You're not calling on schedule." she reprimanded, easily changing the subject.

"Nice tactics," he said with a grin. "I know. But I have to ask you a few things." Their 'schedule,' as they called it, was the phone call one of them made each week on Sunday evening to catch on the week, almost mother to son.

"Shoot."

"I recently received a rather chilling phone call from a man from my past, Sean O'Rourke. However, he didn't state his purpose except that he had something that would make me squirm, a girl named Grace."

Mildred held back a theatrical-like gasp. She took a deep breath. "Did he mention who Grace was exactly?"

"No, and that's the strange thing. He compared her to his daughter Maryn, a little girl I knew when I was back in Ireland. He blames me inadvertently for her death. It was actually his fault, but he still blamed me, I suppose, because he couldn't take the fact that he had killed his own pride and joy. He adored that little girl," he mused quietly, sadness overtaking him. His first time speaking out with even that little bit of information would be the hardest he told himself. "But he also said that Grace was the same age as Maryn when she died. Do you know who this Grace might be perhaps?"

"This was never supposed to slip past my lips," she said with a sigh. "But it's important, right? Of course," Mildred said as she answered her own question. "Grace is Ms. Holt's daughter, eleven years old, and she's been missing for over seven hours."

Unsure of how to react, Harry simply stated, "Is she my daughter?" When silence received him at the end of the phone, he said again, this time in a firmer voice, "Is she my daughter?"

Always having been a softy when it came to Harry, Mildred felt a crack in her wall, causing the entire thing to crumble. "I'm not at liberty to say," she stated weakly.

"Mildred. This could be important. Sean's going to keep contacting me with information about Grace. This could mean finding her unharmed before too long. If you won't tell me, then give me Ms. Holt's phone number," he insisted.

"I don't know if that's such a good idea. She's really very stressed right now for the obvious reason."

"Mildred. Look. I need to know," he reiterated. "Do I have a daughter?"

"Yes."

The one simple word rang over and over again in his ears while his head swam with thoughts of an unknown little girl. "And she's," he stopped for a moment to clear his throat. "She's eleven now?"

Mildred could hear the hurt in his voice, could almost picture the pained look that was sure to be worn in his beautiful eyes, and the sad smile plastered across his face to try and hide it all. "Yes. Harry," she said softly, "I'm sorry I didn't tell you. Ms. Holt swore me to secrecy. She always said she would tell you someday…but I guess someday wasn't here yet. If it helps any," she added in the brightest fake voice she could muster, "Gracie knows Michael isn't her dad. And she found an old picture of you in the attic which she's been drawing you, her, and Ms. Holt from," she added hurriedly, hoping he would concentrate on Gracie's artistic talents rather than the mention of Michael.

"I think it's best if we talk about Grace and this Michael person later. As much as I'm curious to find out, I'd rather bring her home safely now and learn later. I need Laura's number."

"Oh, I don't know…I still don't think it's a very good idea for you to call her right now. I could get in some serious trouble with her," she warned nervously.

"I think it's past time that we talk. Apparently we have some things to talk about," he said with irony dripping from his voice.

Mildred sighed uneasily as she stood and moved towards her desk where her phone book lay untouched. Without opening it, she recited the number and then finally hung up the phone. When the house was quiet again and she was left alone with her thoughts, Mildred began to revive the old memories from the days Remington Steele had been the most famous detective in Los Angeles and his unidentified associate had been head over heals in love with him.

She reached under the small lamp table next to the couch and opened the drawer. Inside was one medium-sized plain white photo album with a minimal amount of photos for the seven years it should have covered. Mildred flipped open the first page of the scrapbook and broke out into a smile immediately, recalling the exact place they had been and just how angry both of them had been at each other.

It was this way until Mildred got to the last picture of them together, the only copy of the photo that was still intact, being that Laura had ripped it in half, taking the half with Harry and her arm and leaving Harry with herself and his arm. It was the same crumbled half-photograph that Gracie had found in the attic and probably the most sentimental one of the entire bunch.

When she was finally able to turn the page, she came across pictures of Gracie as a newborn and her firsts of everything: her first step, first word, first day of pre-school, her stint as a flower girl when Laura had married Michael, her first time holding her little brother, and just about every happy and sad face the child had ever made. Gracie was so dear to Mildred's heart, probably because she was just as Mildred could have imagined Harry must have been like at her age.

But as she sat back against the couch and curled up with an afghan, Mildred could only hope and pray that her 'grandchild' would find her way home safely. And the more that she thought about it, she prayed that her 'kids' would do the same.