Chris Mooney - The Missing

Panic flared and then, oddly, disappeared. And as strange as it sounded, she still felt sleepy. The last time she had felt this exhausted was last summer, at Stan Petrie's all-weekend party down in Falmouth where they drank all night and played touch football all day at the beach.

Carol wondered about the food again. Was it drugged? The sandwich had left a slight chalky taste in her mouth – it had tasted funny even when she was eating it – and some time later, after the man with the mask shut the door, she had grown real tried, which surprised her. She shouldn't be tired. She should be wide awake with fear, but she could barely keep her eyes open. And she needed to pee again. Badly.

She crawled out from underneath the cot, stood and immediately swung her right hand out, feeling for the wall. There it was. How many steps until the wall ended? Eight? Ten? She staggered forward, blinking, eyes wide open in the darkness that wouldn't go away. This must be what a blind person felt like.

She found the toilet and sat down. For no reason at all, she saw the desk in her room with its window view of the ugly street and the trees with their beautiful leaves having turned gold, red and yellow. She wondered what time it was, whether it was day or night. Was it still raining?

By the time she flushed, Carol felt better. Awake. Now she had to deal with the fear.

Carol knew she had to come up with a plan. The man who had brought her here would be coming for her again. She couldn't fight him off with her hands. Maybe there was something in here she could use – the bed. The bed was made with these steel rods. Maybe she could try and dismantle it, grab one of the rods and use it as a bat and knock him unconscious.

Carol felt her way through the darkness, thinking about the person who was trapped down here with her. She hoped to God it was Tony. Maybe Tony was awake, wandering around his room right now, looking for something to use to defend -

Carol bumped headfirst into something solid, a scream escaping her lips as she stumbled backward, almost tripping.

Not a wall, it definitely wasn't a wall, didn't have its hard, rough flatness. What was it then? Not the sink either. This was something new and different. What was it? Whatever this thing was, it was blocking her path.

A tiny green light glowed in the darkness, directly in front of her.

The man with the mask was standing behind a camera.

The flash went off, the bright white light piercing her eyes. Blinded, Carol stumbled back. She bumped into the sink, tripped and fell to the floor.

Another flash.

Carol crawled away, bright spots of lights dancing and fading in front of her eyes. Another flash and she bumped her head against the corner of the wall. She was trapped.

Darby drove out early the next morning, while it was still dark.

Half a dozen patrolmen were busy redirecting the traffic on Coolidge Road in order to accommodate the swelling numbers of state police cruisers, unmarked detective cars and news vans that were clogging up the streets near Carol Cranmore's house. Small armies of volunteers were gathered, getting ready to canvass the neighborhood with fliers bearing Carol's picture.

Darby's attention turned to the state troopers holding the leashes of search and rescue dogs. She was surprised to see them. Because of statewide budget cuts, search and rescue dogs weren't ordinarily called out to the scene of missing or abducted people.

'I wonder who's picking up the tab for the dogs,' Coop said.

'The Sarah Sullivan fund, I bet.' Sarah Sullivan was the name of a Belham girl who was abducted from the Hill several years ago. Her father, Mike Sullivan, a local contractor, had set up a fund to cover any additional expenses related to a missing person's investigation.

Darby had to wait for the cops to move the blockades out of the way. When she turned the corner, the crowds of reporters and TV crews saw the crime scene vehicle and descended on them, shouting questions.

By the time they finally reached the house, her ears were ringing. Darby shut the front door and placed her kit in the downstairs foyer. The copper smell of blood grew stronger as she climbed the stairs.

Dianne's bedroom was in the same neat, tidy condition as it had been the other night. One of the dresser drawers was half open, as was the closet door. On the floor was a safe, one of those portable fireproof models people used to store important documents.

Carol's mother had probably come here to pack-up some clothes while the house was being processed as a crime scene. Darby remembered standing in her own bedroom, packing up clothes for her stay at the hotel while a detective watched from the doorway.

Darby stepped into Carol's room. A gold, predawn light was visible through the windows. She looked at the surfaces covered with fingerprint powder, trying to tune out the sounds of dogs barking and reporters shouting questions over the constant blaring of car horns from Coolidge Road.

'What are we looking for, exactly?' Coop asked.

'I don't know.'

'Good. That should help us narrow down our search.'

The teenager's clothes hung on wire hangers inside the closet. A few shirts and pants were marked with the kind of stickers and price tags often used at thrift stores and yard sales. The shoes and sneakers were arranged in two neat rows by the season: the summer sneakers and sandals in the back, and in the front row, the fall and winter boots and shoes.

The window set up by the desk overlooked a chain-link fence and the neighbor's yard with its clothesline stretched from the back porch to a tree. Below, in the overgrown weeds, was a wooden ladder half-buried in the dirt. Crushed beer cans and cigarette butts littered the ground. Darby wondered what Carol thought of this view, how she managed to push it aside so it wouldn't get to her.

The top of the desk was clean and neat. An assortment of colored pencils was organized in glass jars. The middle drawer contained a decent charcoal sketch of her boyfriend reading a book in the brown chair from downstairs. Carol had left out the duct tape in the drawing.

The folder underneath the drawing held magazine and newspaper clippings of biographical profiles of successful women. Carol had underlined several quotes in red ink and made notes in the margins like 'important' and 'remember this.' Written on the inside of the folder, in black marker, was a quote: 'Behind every successful woman is herself.'

A three-ring binder contained articles on beauty secrets. The section marked 'Exercise' was devoted to dieting tips. For inspiration, Carol had pasted a picture of an extremely thin quasi-celebrity wearing big, round sunglasses.

'As fun as this is, I'm not much use to you up here. I'm going to take a look at the kitchen again. Holler down if you find anything.'

Carol's bedding had been stripped and bagged. Darby sat on the sagging mattress and looked out the window at the television cameras. She wondered if Carol's abductor was watching.

What was she looking for, exactly?

What common trait did Carol Cranmore share with the other missing women?

Both Carol and Terry Mastrangelo were average-looking at best. In her picture, Terry had a frumpy, exhausted look Darby had seen in lots of single mothers. Carol was five years younger, a senior in high school. She was the better looking of the two, razor thin, with sharp blue eyes set against pale, freckled skin.

No, it wasn't a physical attraction; Darby felt sure of that. The trait these two youngwomen shared was something beyond the surface, something she couldn't see.

The problem was that Darby didn't know Carol beyond the framed pictures on the hallway and the pieces of evidence collected in bags – she didn't know Terry Mastrangelo at all. At the moment, both women were snapshots frozen in pictures.