Where Are the Children? (where Are the Children, #1)

On a gray November day on Cape Cod, an unnamed man watches Nancy Eldredge through a telescope from The Lookout, an old captain's house on a bluff overlooking the bay. For six years, he has rented the top-floor apartment through her husband's real estate office. He has sent an article to the local newspaper exposing Nancy's true identity, timed for her thirty-second birthday. That same morning, he plans to take her children.

Nancy is living under a false name. Seven years earlier, as Nancy Harmon, she was convicted in California of murdering her two small children, Peter and Lisa. The conviction was overturned due to juror misconduct, and the District Attorney could not retry her because Rob Legler, the key prosecution witness, had deserted the Army and disappeared. Nancy dyed her hair, adopted her mother's maiden name, and moved to Cape Cod, where she married Ray Eldredge, a local realtor. They have two children: five-year-old Michael and three-year-old Missy.

That morning, Ray proposes celebrating with Dorothy Prentiss, his office manager and the only person on the Cape who knows Nancy's past. Nancy sends the children to play on the swing, helps Missy into her red angora mittens, and goes upstairs to change the beds.

The man drives to the dirt road behind the Eldredge property with two syringes. He injects both children and carries them to his station wagon. One of Missy's mittens catches on the swing chain. By ten past ten, he is at Wiggins' Market buying milk, maintaining his routine.

Nancy picks up the weekly newspaper and discovers an article exposing her identity. She burns the paper and runs outside, at first screaming the names Peter and Lisa before correcting herself. Finding the swing empty with Missy's mitten caught on it, she races to Maushop Lake, convinced her children have drowned as Peter and Lisa did. She plunges into the icy water and collapses on the shore, glimpsing a man in the woods before losing consciousness.

Ray and Dorothy find Nancy on the beach, shivering and incoherent. Chief Jed Coffin of the Adams Port police questions her; Nancy recounts putting the children outside, seeing the article, burning it, and running to the lake. Coffin is hostile, feeling the Eldredges deceived him.

Retired lawyer Jonathan Knowles, who is writing a book about controversial criminal trials, reads the article and recognizes Nancy. He realizes that Dorothy, who had previously told him she knew Nancy from childhood in Virginia, lied to protect her. Studying the trial transcript, he finds Nancy's testimony troubling: She was blank and dreamlike, as though sedated. In Boston, psychiatrist Dr. Lendon Miles hears the news. He was once in love with Nancy's mother, Priscilla, who died in a car accident while visiting Nancy in California. Priscilla had called Lendon the night before, saying she urgently needed to talk. Lendon drives to the Cape.

At the Eldredge house, Jonathan volunteers as Nancy's legal counsel, and Lendon offers to administer sodium amytal, a sedative that can help recover suppressed memories. Jonathan reveals a critical finding: The article described the Harmon children's sweaters as having "an unusual white sailboat design," a detail investigators deliberately withheld. Only Nancy or the kidnapper could have known this, meaning the article's author was likely involved in the original murders.

Under the sedative, Nancy recounts meeting Professor Carl Harmon, her first husband, who gave her pills that left her perpetually exhausted. She says her mother's car accident was no accident, associating a grease stain on her dress with Carl's hand on her shoulder. She describes a controlling marriage: Carl kept her drugged, called her his "little girl," and touched her and the children inappropriately. On the day Peter and Lisa vanished, Carl had hurt Lisa. Nancy left the children in a car at a shopping center and returned to find them gone. She reports seeing Rob Legler at the lake that morning.

At The Lookout, the kidnapper watches the search. When the children wake, he tells Michael his mother "went to God" and promises Michael will join her tonight. He begins undressing Missy but is interrupted when Dorothy calls about bringing a buyer. He binds the children and hides them in a closet. Dorothy shows the property to John Kragopoulos, a restaurateur. John notices the telescope aimed at the Eldredge house and a scent of baby powder. In the garage, Dorothy finds a red smile-face mitten but assumes it fell from her own car and pockets it.

After the visitors leave, Michael, who did not drink all the sedative-laced milk, breaks free and runs downstairs. The tenant, Courtney Parrish, falls while chasing him and bolts the doors, trapping Michael in the dark house. Michael hides behind a couch. Meanwhile, Rob Legler's story emerges: After years hiding in Canada, he came to blackmail Nancy but arrived at the property that morning to find her running outside screaming. Caught by police, he describes seeing a station wagon leaving the property's dirt road.

Other evidence converges at the police station. The Wigginses, owners of Wiggins' Market, report that Parrish stole baby powder that morning, and the Keeneys, a local family, bring their seven-year-old son Neil, who reveals that a heavy man resembling Carl Harmon paid him to pick up a letter for J. R. Penrose, the article's pseudonymous author.

At home, Nancy recalls that Carl, whose death was reported as a drowning suicide, had a secret terror of water covering his face. She realizes he could not have killed himself that way: Carl may still be alive. Then the phone rings. Michael says, "Mommy, please come and get us. Missy is sick." The line goes dead. Dorothy suddenly connects the mitten she found at The Lookout with the baby powder and Parrish's nervousness. She pulls the mitten from her pocket and tells Nancy the children are there.

Nancy grabs the key and drives into the storm while Dorothy goes for Ray and the police. Her car crashes on the icy hill, and she runs to The Lookout on foot. On the top floor, she finds Parrish putting a plastic bag over Michael's head. "Let go of him, Carl!" she cries, recognizing her first husband despite his altered appearance. She tears the bag away. Carl grabs Missy and flees to the widow's walk, a narrow railed balcony at the roof's peak, holding the child over the railing. The railing cracks under his weight. As he falls, he releases Missy. Nancy catches Missy by the hair, and Ray, arriving with police, pulls them to safety. Carl falls into the surf below.

Carl is pulled from the water alive but dies after confessing: He murdered Peter and Lisa, killed Nancy's mother by sabotaging her rental car's steering mechanism, wrote the article, and kidnapped Michael and Missy. John Kragopoulos, who had returned to The Lookout on a suspicion and been knocked unconscious by Parrish while trying to save Michael, is expected to recover. The children are found unharmed.

That evening, the family gathers with those who helped. Jonathan reassures Dorothy that bringing Kragopoulos to The Lookout inadvertently delayed Carl and saved Missy's life. Ray teases Nancy about birthday presents, suggesting she let her hair grow back to its natural red-gold. Nancy holds her sleeping daughter and feels, for the first time, true peace.