“Searchers have looked everywhere between here and the Davis farm,” Miss Anderson revealed. “Unless the child is found by noon, it will be necessary to broadcast a general alarm. And that’s certain to bring unfavorable attention to the Home.”
“Is there any chance she could have been kidnaped?” Penny asked thoughtfully.
“Not the slightest,” was the prompt reply. “Adelle took most of her clothes with her. It’s a plain case of a runaway, but most annoying at this time.”
Penny ate a hasty breakfast, and then remembering her appointment with Jerry, drove to the Holloway Cooperative. The buildings were of modern concrete construction, located three and a half miles from Riverview in the heart of the truck farming district.
Jerry Livingston had not yet arrived, so Penny waited in the car. Soon his coupe swung into the drive and pulled up alongside Leaping Lena.
“Sorry to be late,” he apologized. “I was held up at the office.”
Knowing that her father would have told Jerry about Adelle’s disappearance, Penny inquired regarding the latest news.
“So far there’s not a trace of the child,” the reporter answered. “Your father’s sore at himself for promising not to carry the story. It may develop into something big.”
Penny walked beside Jerry to the entrance of the cooperative plant.
“No one seems to worry much about Adelle,” she remarked. “The institution people are afraid of unfavorable publicity, Dad’s alarmed about his story, while you and I are just plain indifferent.”