S ixty-seven-year-old retired surgeon Dr. David Andrews did not know why he had felt so uneasy after putting his daughter back on the train to Manhattan where she was completing her junior year at NYU.

Leesey and her older brother, Gregg, had come up to Greenwich to be with him on Mother’s Day, a tough day for all of them, only the second one without Helen. The three of them had visited her grave in St. Mary’s cemetery, then gone out for an early dinner at the club.

Leesey had planned to drive back to the city with Gregg, but at the last minute decided to stay overnight and go back in the morning. “My first class is eleven o’clock,” she had explained, “and I feel like hanging around with you, Dad.”

Sunday evening, they had gone through some of the photograph albums and talked about Helen. “I miss her so much,” Leesey had whispered.

“Me, too, honey,” he had confided.

But Monday morning when he dropped her at the station, Leesey had been her usual bubbly self, which was why David Andrews could not understand the gnawing sense of worry that undermined his golf game both Monday and Tuesday.

On Tuesday evening, he turned on the 6:30 news and was dozing in front of the television when the phone rang. It was Kate Carlisle, Leesey’s best friend, with whom she shared an apartment in Greenwich Village. Her question, and the troubled voice in which she asked it, caused him to bolt up from the easy chair.

“Dr. Andrews, is Leesey there?”

“No, she isn’t, Kate. Why would she be here?” he asked.

As he spoke he glanced around the room. Even though he had sold the big house after Helen’s death, and she’d never been in this condo, when the phone rang, he instinctively looked around for her, her hand outstretched to take the receiver from him.

When there was no answer, he demanded sharply, “Kate, why are you looking for Leesey?”

“I don’t know, I just hoped…” Kate’s voice broke.