“Privacy’s not much of an issue right now,” he told her. “But thanks.”

“All set?” Regan touched Mitch on the arm as she came into the room.

“Yes.” He nodded. “We’ll catch up with you later,” he said to T.J. and Lorna.

“Good luck with Danielle,” Regan called over her shoulder.

“Thanks.” Lorna waved from the kitchen doorway.

After Mitch closed the door behind them, she turned to T.J. and said, “We have at least an hour before we have to leave. Is there anything else you need to do before we meet with Danielle?”

He shook his head. “No. Do you?”

“I have to check my computer, see if any of my clients have emailed me. Once I take care of that, though, I’m clear for the day.” She had finished rinsing the cups and dried her hands on a red-and-white towel, which she folded and placed on the counter.

“You go ahead, then. If you don’t mind, I’ll step outside and walk around for a while.”

“Just don’t wander too close to the yellow crime scene tape on the other side of the field and get yourself arrested.”

“I’ll try to behave myself.”

Lorna turned on her computer and pulled up that morning’s emails. She had questions from one client on some account payables, and an email from another client who wanted to arrange a meeting before the end of the month. She responded to both and turned off the laptop, then went outside and looked around for T.J. He was nowhere in sight.

She walked past the barn and stood on the edge of the field, one hand shielding her eyes from the bright early-afternoon sun. No T.J.

She called to him, but there was no response.

Lorna turned to go back to the house to search for her cell phone-she could always call and ask where he was-when she noticed the barn door was open. She went inside and called his name.

“Down here.” The voice was faint and far away.

“Down where?” She frowned, looking around. Then she remembered. “Are you in the wine cellar?”

“Yes. Come on down.”

“What are you doing down there?” she asked as she found the door to the steps ajar, and started down.

“Just looking around. Is it all right?”

“Sure. I don’t mind. It’s just a little creepy and dim.”

“It wouldn’t be if you replaced the lightbulbs once in a while,” he teased, pointing to the electric lamps set into the wall on either side of the long narrow room. “A few still have a little life in them. How long has it been since anyone was down here?”

“Melinda and I used to play here,” she told him. “The small room back there”-she pointed past him-“used to be our secret place. We would go there to get away from her brother and his friends. Sometimes she hid in here from her mother. Gran said Uncle Will had planned to use that as the tasting room for his winery, but of course he never got that far.”

She was following T.J. through the cavernous room, with its stone walls and low ceiling, past the empty oak barrels Uncle Will brought from France in anticipation of the first vintage. T.J.’s shadow disappeared through an arched doorway into the darkened room beyond.

“Is there a light in there?” she asked.

“I’m looking. Give me a second.”

A long minute later, a faint light began to glow. In the dim light a round table with four tall chairs were visible in the center of the room.

“I found a candle and some matches,” he told her. “I’d expect that the electric lines ran back here as well.”

“They did. But we used to prefer the candles.”

He turned to look back at her and she shrugged.

“Like I said, this used to be our secret place, mine and Melinda’s. Like a secret clubhouse. We came down here a lot. We’d talk or hide out, sometimes we’d bring snacks and spend a whole day. It was so nice and private. We always felt we could say anything down here.” She folded her arms across her chest and wandered into the room. When she got to the back corner, she stopped and knelt.

“Our blankets are still here,” she said. “We used to spread them out on the floor and lie on them to read or have picnics or whatever. Sometimes, in winter, it would be cold, so we’d wrap up in them to keep the chill off.”

She stood with her blanket in her hands, then opened it up.

“Hard to believe I was small enough to wrap this around me and still have plenty left to make a little bed out of it.” She held the blanket up for T.J. to see, then refolded it. “We would sneak matches and candles so that we didn’t have to use the electric lights. For some reason, we thought no one passing through the barn would see the candlelight, but the lightbulbs would shine like beacons.” She laughed. “So much for the logic of a couple of nine-year-olds.”

Lorna paused, then walked around the room, her eyes on the floor.

“What are you looking for?” T.J. asked.

“Melinda’s blanket. It doesn’t seem to be here.”

“Where should it be?”

“It should have been over there, with mine. We used to fold them up as small as we could, and hide them in the back corner, so no one would find them.”

“When was the last time you were down here?”

“When I was nine. I was never too keen on being down here alone, and we-Melinda and I-had sworn to never tell anyone else about our secret place. I never did. I guess I always thought someday she’d come back, and I didn’t want to have to tell her I’d shared our secret.”

“So no one else knows this place is here?”

“Oh, sure, my sister knows. My brother. Probably some of his friends knew it was here, though they all seemed to spend more time over at the home of one of the other boys, who had horses. They all liked to play cowboys when they were younger. So much more authentic when you had a horse to ride.”

“And your sister?”

“Wouldn’t have been caught dead down here.” Lorna laughed. “Spiders, other crawly things. Maybe some with fur and tails. Not Andrea’s cup of tea.”

“You didn’t mention it to the police? Or to your parents?”

“No. I didn’t,” she said somewhat sheepishly. “I should have. As an adult, I know that. But as a child, I couldn’t have broken that promise.”

She wandered around and peered in all the corners.

“Still looking for the blanket?” T.J. asked.

“Strange that it’s not here.”

“Maybe she took it,” he suggested.

“Took it where? It was here the day before she disappeared. We were down here, practicing lines for the school play. We had the blankets on the floor, right there.” She pointed to the middle of the room.

“If she needed a place to hide, would she have come here?”

“What are you getting at?” Lorna asked. “What are you thinking?”

“The theory all along seems to be that Melinda was abducted from the field that night. Maybe she wasn’t taken away by someone else. Maybe she ran away. What do you think?”

“I can’t imagine where she would have gone.” Lorna frowned.

“Maybe she came in here to hide, then left when the excitement died down out in the field.”

“But hide from what?”

“That’s a good question.” T.J. stood in the doorway, his hands on his hips. “Would she have had any reason to hide from her mother that night?”

Lorna shook her head. “No. I already told you, my mother washed her dress so that no one could tell it had gotten dirty. She would have been able to smuggle it into the house, it wouldn’t have been difficult. She wasn’t afraid to go home.”

“Maybe something happened between your house and hers that night, something that made her want to hide.”

“Jason might have known. But of course, we can’t ask him.”

“Fritz didn’t mention anything out of the ordinary that night,” T.J. reminded her.

“I think we need to talk with the others who were there with him. Matt, Dustin… Fritz’s brother, Mike. He was around later.”

“Well, let’s go back into the house and look up some phone numbers, make a few calls,” he suggested. “I want to speak with all of them as soon as possible.”