Silent Night by Mary Higgins Clark

the bag.
    She leaned way forward and peered into the car. “My goodness, is he wearing a St. Christopher medal? My dad was named after him and used to try to make a big deal of it, but my mom always jokes about St. Christopher being dropped from the calendar of saints. My dad says it’s too bad Mom wasn’t named Philomena. She’s another saint the Vatican said didn’t exist.” With a hearty laugh the young woman handed over the bag.
    As they drove back onto the highway, Brian opened his eyes. He could smell the hamburgers and the french fries. He sat up slowly.
    Jimmy looked at him, his eyes steely, his face rigid. Through lips that barely parted, he quietly ordered, “Get that goddamn medal off your neck.”
    *   *   *
    Cally had to talk to him about her brother and the missing child . After promising to be right over, Mort Levy hung up the phone, stunned. What possible connection could there be between Jimmy Siddons and the little boy who disappeared on Fifth Avenue?
    He dialed the lookout van. “You recorded that call?”
    â€œIs she crazy, Mort? She can’t be talking about the Dornan kid, can she? Want us to pick her up for questioning?”
    â€œThat’s just what I don’t want you to do!” Levy exploded. “She’s scared to death as it is. Sit tight until I get there.”
    He had to inform his superiors, starting with Jack Shore, about Cally Hunter’s call. Mort spotted Shore leaving the chief of detectives’ private office, was out of his chair and across the room in seconds. He grabbed Shore’s arm. “Come back inside.”
    â€œI told you to take a break.” Shore tried to shake off his hand. “We just heard from Logan in Detroit again. Two days ago a woman whose description matchesSiddons’s girlfriend got a ride from a private car service over the border to Windsor. Logan’s guys think that Laronde told her girlfriend about California and Mexico to throw them off her trail. The girlfriend was questioned again. This time it occurred to her to mention that she offered to buy Laronde’s fur coat because it wouldn’t be needed in Mexico. Laronde refused.”
    I never bought that Mexico story, Mort Levy thought. He didn’t relinquish his grip on Shore’s arm as he shoved open the chief’s door.
    Five minutes later, a squad car was racing up the East Side Drive to Avenue B and Tenth Street. A bitterly frustrated Jack Shore had been ordered to wait in the lookout van while Mort and the chief, Bud Folney, went upstairs to talk to Cally.
    Mort knew that Shore would not forgive him for insisting that he stay out of it. “Jack, when we were there earlier, I knew there was something she was holding back. You’ve scared her to death. She thinks you’d do anything to see her back behind bars. For God’s sake, can’t you look at her as a human being? She’s got a four-year-old child, her husband is dead, and she got the book thrown at her when she made the mistake of helping the brother she’d practically raised.”
    Now Mort turned to Folney. “I don’t know how Jimmy Siddons ties into that missing child, but I do know that Cally has been too frightened to talk. If she tells us nowwhatever she knows, it will be because she feels that the department . . . you . . . aren’t out to get her.”
    Folney nodded. He was a soft-spoken, lean man in his late forties, with a scholarly face. He had in fact spent three years as a high school teacher before realizing his passion was law enforcement. It was widely believed among the ranks that one day he’d be police commissioner. Already he was one of the most powerful men in the department.
    Mort Levy knew that if there was anyone who could help Cally, assuming she had in some way been forced to cover for Jimmy again, it was Folney. But the missing child—how could Siddons be involved in this?
    It was