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the seat of her jeans. “All right. You start here. I think I’ve got some empty boxes in the garage.”
    “Fine.” Marijke stood.
    “Wait a minute,” said Nora. “Do you suppose the killer and the kidnapper might have been looking for something?”
    “Like what?”
    “I don’t know. But the investigators said there seemed to be a struggle—footprints up and down the stairs.” She rubbed her chin, thinking. “What if killing my mother wasn’t the only thing they came for? And we still have no idea why they’d take Rose.”
    “Nora, maybe you’re just grasping at straws.”
    “But what can it hurt? We’re going to pack up all of this stuff, anyway—why not search for a clue?” Possibilities rushed through her mind. “Something my mother had that they needed? Something that could give us insight into why this nightmare happened?”
    Nora thought she saw Marijke bite her lip. “We have to pack up everything, anyway, and if we do a thorough job, who knows what we’ll come up with?”
    “There must be a link between my mother’s bizarre murder and that man on the floor. But what?” Her eyes now fixed upon Rose’s bassinet, a cruel reminder that pierced right through her.
    Marijke returned to the couch and motioned for Nora to sit, but Nora remained standing, energized by her theory. “Look, the police searched the house, but how much time did they really spend looking? Their objective was physical evidence, not motive. And one guy said he could tell by the footprints that two people went upstairs. Maybe that’s what we should focus on.”
    Marijke shrugged. “If the FBI and all those policemen can’t find a connection, how can we?”
    Nora felt excitement for the first time since that terrible evening. “Look, we’re going to search every nook and cranny of this house. We’ll go inch by inch until we find something—anything—that might shed light on the murder.”
    “Nora, even if we do find some motive, how will that help us find Rose?”
    “Because the two have to be linked. Mom was Dutch. The forged Dutch passport, the Dutch money on the killer—these aren’t coincidences. Maybe the accomplice panicked, grabbed Rose and then ran away, not thinking of the consequences.”
    “But even if we find out why your mother was killed, how will that explain why his accomplice would risk kidnapping Rose? And why wouldn’t he already have called demanding a ransom?”
    Nora saw Marijke react to what must have been Nora’s look of disappointment. “But,” said Marijke kindly, “anything is worth trying at this point.” She stood. “Tell me what you want me to do.”
    Nora hugged her, the most positive reaction she had mustered since that awful day. She went to the kitchen counter and picked up a pad of paper and a pen. She chewed on the plastic cap, her brow furrowed. Then her eyes cleared and she wrote furiously on the pad. She tore off two pages and handed one to Marijke.
    “Here’s a list. You start in Mom’s bedroom. I’ll look downstairs. Even if we don’t find anything, it will give me something to do instead of sitting by the phone going crazy.”
    Marijke glanced at the page Nora had handed her. “What am I looking for?”
    Nora shrugged. “I don’t really know. Anything. Old papers or letters, documents, something hidden away. If there’s anything at all, it won’t be sitting out in the open. I’ll start down here with the oldest files in my father’s study. Who knows where they would hide things?”
    Marijke stood and folded her arms. “Nora, do you really think they would have kept incriminating documents?”
    “Maybe not, but what else can we do but try?”
    “ Vooruit! I will begin.” She disappeared down the hall.
    Four hours later, Nora, still sitting on the study floor, looked at the cardboard boxes now packed with books, files of financial papers and tax returns, small Delft Blue plates and figurines. The sad detritus of over thirty years—all she had left of