No Place Like Home by Mary Higgins Clark Page B

decided.
    â€œGeorgette, I want to apologize.” Henry Paley was standing at the door to her office.
    Georgette looked up.
    Before she could answer, Paley continued: “That is not to say I didn’t mean every word, but I apologize for the way I said it.”
    â€œAccepted,” Georgette told him, then added, “Henry, I’m taking Celia Nolan to see the farmhouse on Holland Road. I know you were there last week. Do you remember if the key to the storage closet in the basement was there?”
    â€œI believe it was.”
    â€œDid you look in the closet?”
    â€œNo. The couple I took out were obviously not interested in the house. It was too pricey for them. We stayed only a few minutes. Well, I’ll be on my way. Goodnight, Georgette.”
    Georgette sat for long minutes after he left. I always said I could smell a liar, she thought, but what in the name of God has Henry got to lie about? And why, after he viewed it, didn’t he tip me off to the fact the house is sure to move fast?

16

    A fter she had viewed the vandalism on Old Mill Lane, Dru Perry went straight back to the Star-Ledger office and wrote up the story. She was pleased to see that her picture of Celia Nolan fainting had been picked to run with it.
    â€œTrying to put me out of business?” Chris, the newspaper’s photographer who had rushed to the scene, asked jokingly.
    â€œNo. Just lucky enough to be there and catch the moment.” That was when Dru had told Ken Sharkey, her editor, that she wanted to do a feature story on the Barton case. “It’s absolutely perfect for my ‘Story Behind the Story’ series,” she said.
    â€œAny idea where Barton is now?” Sharkey asked.
    â€œNo, not a clue.”
    â€œWhat will make it a real story is if you can track Liza Barton down and get her version of what happened in that house that night.”
    â€œI intend to try.”
    â€œGo ahead with it. Knowing you, you’ll findsomething juicy.” Ken Sharkey’s quick smile was a dismissal.
    â€œBy the way, Ken. I’m going to work at home tomorrow.”
    â€œOkay with me.”
    When she had moved from Washington five years earlier, Dru had found the perfect home. A small house on Chestnut Street in Montclair, it was a reasonable commute to the Star-Ledger in Newark. Unlike people who bought condos and town houses to avoid landscaping and snow-plowing problems, Dru loved tending her own lawn and having a small garden.
    Another plus was that the train station was down the block, so she could be in midtown Manhattan in twenty minutes without the hassle of driving and parking. Dru, a film and theatre buff, went there three or four evenings a week.
    Early in the morning, comfortably dressed in a sweatshirt and jeans, coffeepot plugged in beside her, she settled at her desk in the office she had created in what would have been a second bedroom for most people. The wall in front of her desk was covered with a corkboard. When she was writing a feature story, she tacked all the information she downloaded from the Internet on it. By the time she had completed a “Story Behind the Story” feature for the Sunday Star-Ledger, the wall was a jumble of pictures, clippings, and scrawled notes that made sense only to her.
    She had downloaded everything available aboutthe Liza Barton case. Twenty-four years ago, it had stayed in the news for weeks. Then, as with all sensational stories, it had quieted down until the trial. When the verdict was released, the story hit the headlines again. Psychiatrists, psychologists, and pseudo–mental health experts had been invited to comment on Liza’s acquittal.
    â€œRent-a-Psychiatrist,” Dru mumbled aloud as she read the quotes attributed to several medical professionals who agreed that they were gravely concerned by the verdict and believed that Liza Barton was one of those children capable of planning and executing a