“Right. We’ll check.”
Duff hung up, wild-eyed.
“Who was that? The police?”
Duff nodded. “Sort of.”
Mrs. Yates began to cry a little.
Duff nervously walked out on the porch. If they had seized her — if they had taken her away — who were “they”? Why had they done any such thing? Where had they taken her?
There could be a reason. Weeks before, unsatisfied by his effort to convince the FBI that something was happening, she had gone to see Higgins without telling him. Since his return from New York, Duff hadn’t exchanged confidences with Eleanor or anyone else.
Higgins had forbidden that. It was possible that Eleanor had found out something so final, so telling, that she’d been— What?
“They” wouldn’t mind killing a girl. “They,” perhaps, were working to kill millions of people. You couldn’t even think, rationally, of what “they” might be planning.
Duff paced back and forth on the porch. It was a warm evening, but not so warm as to explain the sweat that burst on his brow, soaked his shirt. Only fear could explain that.