Kevin O'Brien - Disturbed

“Molly?” Mrs. Nguyen said, getting back on the line.

“Yes, I’m here,” she said, grabbing a pen off the nightstand.

“Have you seen this woman take anything from house?”

“No, I haven’t, but then I can’t be sure,” Molly replied. “Do you have a phone number or e-mail for this Todd person?”

“I call him right now.”

“Well, could I call him, too? Please, Mrs. Nguyen, it’s important.”

“His name is Todd Millikan,” Mrs. Nguyen said. “425-555-8860.”

Jotting it down on the front page of her address book, Molly repeated the number out loud to make sure she heard it right past Mrs. Nguyen’s accent. “Is that right?” she asked.

“Yes. I call him right now.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Nguyen. If you get through to him, could you call me? He might not pick up for someone he doesn’t know. I’ll do the same for you if I get ahold of him.”

“Yes, yes, good-bye,” she said abruptly. Then Molly heard a click on the other end.

She clicked off and decided to wait a few minutes before calling Todd Millikan. With the address book in her hand, Molly stood up — remembering at only the last minute to take it slow. In her stocking feet, she walked out of the bedroom and down the front stairs. She could hear water running in the kitchen and the clattering of dishes and silverware. Trish was talking to her friend, Holly, in the kitchen. From the front hallway, she saw Erin napping on the family-room sofa.

Molly quietly opened the front door. The chilly November breeze whipped against her, but she stepped outside in her black funeral dress and stocking feet. The sky was overcast, and she felt a few raindrops as she padded to the end of the walkway. Clutching the address book to her chest, Molly kept her arms folded in front of her. Down the block, the windows in the Nguyens’ house were all dark. Natalie’s blue Mini Cooper wasn’t in the driveway.

Molly turned and headed back to the house again and found Trish in the doorway. Her friend Holly, a thin thirtysomething blonde with a Joan of Arc buzz cut and glasses, hovered behind her. They both gaped at her as if she was crazy. “Molly, are you all right?” Trish asked, glancing down at her stocking feet.

“I’m fine.” She nodded distractedly. “Did Chris and Elvis go out?”

“No, they’re downstairs, watching TV,” Trish replied. She and Holly stepped aside as Molly came into the house.

“Good. Everyone’s home, everybody’s safe,” she murmured.

Trish closed the door behind her. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

“Could I get you a plate of food?” Holly chimed in. “There’s plenty left over.”

Molly shook her head, and then, without thinking, she suddenly hugged Trish. “Listen, thank you so much for everything,” she said. “You’ve both been so terrific. I’m sorry I’ve been ill. . ” She pulled back. “Oh, and don’t worry, I’m not contagious. Anyway, thank you.” She nodded toward Jeff’s study. “I need to make a call, okay?”

Trish and Holly both nodded and seemed to work up smiles for her — as if she were someone on probation from a mental institution.

Molly ducked into Jeff’s study and closed the door. Rain tapped against the window, and it was dark enough that she had to turn on the lamp on his desk. Consulting the front page of her address book, she picked up the cordless phone and punched in Todd Millikan’s number. She counted four rings until a message clicked on.

“Hi, it’s Todd,” the recording said. “You’ve missed me, but you got my voice mail. You know what to do. Talk after the beep. Ciao for now.”

Beep.

“Hi, Todd,” she said into the phone. “My name is Molly Dennehy, and I live down the block from the Nguyens’ house on Willow Tree Court. I can’t get ahold of Natalie, and I’m kind of concerned about something. Could you please call me as soon as possible?”

Molly left her phone number, and then clicked off.

She gazed at Jeff’s computer monitor for a moment, and then reached for the mouse. She went to Google, typed in Jenna Corson, and clicked Images.

The response came back, “Did you mean Jenna Carlson?” And there were dozens of pictures of Jenna Carlsons, but not one picture of a Jenna Corson. Molly tried Facebook, and came up with a nineteen-year-old Jenna Corson at Marquette University in Milwaukee, and a fifty-two-year-old mother of five in Oakmont, Pennsylvania.

She glanced out the rain-beaded window at Rachel’s house next door. She needed to apologize to her — and she wanted to tell her about Natalie. But reaching for the phone, Molly hesitated. Instead of making the call, she went back to the computer keyboard and tried a new entry on Google Image: Rachel Cross.

Most of the results were for a singer/songwriter named Rachel Cross, and there were a lot of photos of purses called Rachel Cross Body Bags. Molly went through eleven pages with twenty Rachel Cross pictures per page, and she didn’t see her neighbor in any of the photos. She’d really hoped to find something, too. She still wanted to call her, but right now, she couldn’t afford to trust anyone.

She tried Jill Emory. After six pages of the wrong Jill Emory, pictures of Jill St. John started coming up. Molly refined the search, and typed in Jill Emory, Seattle Art Institute. At the bottom of the first page was a small photo of someone who looked very much like Darren’s mom, posing with another woman — at some formal occasion. Molly clicked on the image. Stepping Out in Style! Friends of the Arts Gala Fundraiser Nets $50,000 at Seattle Art Institute was the headline of the story — from 2007. Scrolling down past about twenty photos, Molly found the one with her neighbor, looking slightly slimmer in a black dress with a red satin jacket. All smiles, she posed with a pretty blond woman. The Art Institute’s Jill Emory chats with Keynote Speaker, Barbara Campbell, said the caption.

That cleared Jill.

She wished she knew Natalie’s last name — so she could try looking up her image. She kept glancing over at the phone, waiting for it to ring. She started sketching on the desk notepad — a cartoon of a woman. It looked a little like Natalie.

Molly suddenly put down the pen and opened the side drawer to Jeff’s desk, where she’d stashed the bill from his secret MasterCard account. She glanced at the charges for the La Conner Channel Lodge, the Palmer Restaurant, and Windmill Antiques & Miniatures.

La Conner was a little over an hour away by car.

Molly glanced at the crude cartoon she’d drawn on the notepad. Getting to her feet, she hurried up to her attic studio. She was a bit winded reaching the top step. She still hadn’t put away the yellow paint or cleaned up the mess. Molly ignored all the destruction as she retrieved her sketch pad and charcoals. She didn’t want to work up here. She needed to be in the front of the house, where she could keep an eye out for Natalie’s Mini Cooper should it come down the block. And she wanted to be near the phone in case it rang.

She brought the pad and charcoals down to Jeff’s study. Molly sat down and started to draw from memory a portrait of her neighbor, the woman who called herself Natalie.

As she worked on the drawing, Molly lost track of the time. She was trying to capture on paper Natalie’s fine, limp dark blond hair when she glanced up at the window. The rain was coming down harder, and it had turned dark out. She clicked the mouse on Jeff’s computer and checked the time: 4:11 P.M.

It had been three hours since she’d called the Nguyens and left that message for Todd Millikan. She phoned the Nguyens again. It rang twice before Mrs. Nguyen answered: “Hello?”

“Hi, Mrs. Nguyen, it’s Molly Dennehy calling again. I was just wondering if you were able to get ahold of Todd yet.”