Chris Mooney - The Missing

The woman started crying. 'Please. Please don't.'

The mugger whispered something Darby couldn't hear. They're so close, she thought.

Stacey had decided to take a look, too. She moved closer to Darby.

'What's going on?' Stacey whispered.

'I don't know,' Darby said.

A car was heading up Route 86. The headlights formed a pair of eerie white circles that were now sliding and bouncing across the tree trunks and the sloping ground full of rocks, leaves, and downed tree limbs and branches. Darby heard music – Van Halen's 'Jump,' David Lee Roth's voice growing louder along with the worrisome voice in her head telling her to look away, look away now. God knows she wanted to, but some other part of her brain had taken control, and Darby didn't look away as the headlights washed over her, David Lee Roth's booming voice singing to go ahead and jump, and she saw a woman dressed in jeans and a gray T-shirt kneeling by a tree, her face a deep, dark red, eyes wide and fingers desperately clawing at the rope tied around her throat.

Stacey jumped to her feet and knocked Darby backward against the dirt. A rock smacked the side of her head hard enough that she saw stars. Darby heard Stacey pushing her way past branches, and when she rolled onto her side, she saw Mel running away.

Next came the dry crack of branches and twigs snapping – the mugger was coming toward them. Darby scrambled to her feet and ran.

*

Darby caught up with Stacey and Mel at the corner of East Dunstable. The closest pay phones were the ones around the corner from Buzzy's, the town's popular convenience store, pizzeria and sub shop. They ran the rest of the way without talking.

It seemed to take forever to get there. Sweating and out of breath, Darby picked up the phone to dial 911 when Stacey slammed down the receiver.

'We can't call,' Stacey said.

'Have you lost your goddamn mind?' Darby shot back. Behind her fear was a severe and growing anger directed at Stacey. It shouldn't have come as a shock that Stacey had pushed her aside and run off. Stacey always put herself first – like last month, when the three of them made plans to go to the movies only to have Stacey cancel at the last minute because Christina Patrick called and invited her to some party. Stacey was always doing stuff like that.

'We were drinking, Darby.'

'So we won't tell them.'

'They'll smell the beer on our breath – and you can forget about chewing mint gum or brushing your teeth or gargling with mouthwash, because none of that works.'

'I'll risk it,' Darby said, and tried to yank Stacey's hand away from the receiver.

Stacey wouldn't let go. 'The woman's dead, Darby.'

'You don't know that.'

'I saw the same thing you did -'

'No, you didn't, Stacey, you couldn't have seen the same thing I did because you ran away. You pushed me aside, remember?'

'It was an accident. I swear I didn't mean -'

'Right. As usual, Stacey, the only person you care about is yourself.' Darby ripped Stacey's hand away and dialed 911.

'All you're going to get is punished, Darby. Maybe you won't get to go down the Cape with Mel, but your father won't -' Stacey stopped herself. She was crying now. You don't know what goes in my house. None of you do.'

The operator came on the line: 'Nine-one-one, what is the nature of your emergency?'

Darby gave the operator her name and described what had happened. Stacey ran behind one of the Dumpsters. Mel stared down at the hill where they used to go sledding as kids, her fingers touching each of the charms on her bracelet.

An hour later, Darby was walking back through the woods with a detective.

His name was Paul Riggers. She had met him at her father's funeral. Riggers had big white teeth and reminded Darby of Larry, the slimy next-door neighbor from Three's Company.

There's nothing here,' Riggers said. 'You kids probably scared him off.'

He stopped walking and shined his flashlight on a blue L.L. Bean backpack. It was unzipped all the way and she could see the three Budweiser cans lying inside the bottom.

'I take it that's yours.'

Darby nodded as her stomach flipped and squeezed and flipped again, as if it were trying to tear itself away to find a place to hide.

Her wallet had been removed from her backpack. It was now lying on the ground, along with her library card. The money was gone, and her learner's permit, printed with her name and address, was missing.

Darby's mother was waiting for her at the police station. After Darby finished giving her statement to the police, Sheila had a private talk with Detective Riggers for about half an hour and then drove Darby home.

Her mother didn't talk. Darby didn't get the sense Sheila was mad, though. When her mother got this quiet, generally she was just deep in thought. Or maybe she was just tired, having to pull double shifts at the hospital since Big Red died last year.

'Detective Riggers told me what happened,' Sheila said, her voice dry and raspy. 'Calling nine-one-one – that was the right thing to do.'

'I'm sorry they had to call you at work,' Darby said. 'And I'm sorry for the drinking.'

Sheila put her hand on Darby's leg and gave it a squeeze – her mother's signal to let Darby know everything was okay between them.

'Can I give you a piece of advice about Stacey?'

'Sure,' Darby said. She had an idea what her mother was going to say.

'People like Stacey don't make good friends. And if you hang out with them long enough, at some point they'll end up dragging you down with them.'

Her mother was right. Stacey wasn't a friend; she was dead weight. Darby had learned the lesson the hard way, but the lesson was learned. As far as Stacey was concerned, good riddance.

'Mom, the woman I saw… Do you think she got up and ran away?'

'That's what Detective Riggers thinks.'

Please God, please let him be right, Darby said to herself.

'I'm glad you're okay.' Sheila squeezed Darby's leg again, only this time it felt harder, the way you grip something to keep from falling.

Two days later, on a Monday afternoon, Darby came home from school and found a black sedan with tinted windows parked in her driveway.

The door opened and out stepped a tall man wearing a black suit and a stylish red tie. Darby spotted the slight bulge of a sidearm under his suit jacket.

'You must be Darby. My name is Evan Manning. I'm a special agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation.' He showed his badge. He was tanned and handsome, like a TV cop. 'Detective Riggers told me about what you and your friends saw in the woods.'

Darby could barely get the words out. 'You found the woman?'

'No, not yet. We still don't know who she is. That's part of the reason why I'm here. I'm hoping you can help me identify her. Would you mind taking a look at some pictures?'

She took the folder and, with a sense of falling, opened it to the first page.

The word MISSING ran across the top sheet. Darby looked at a Xeroxed picture of a woman wearing a nice string of pearls over a pink cardigan sweater. Her name was Tara Hardy. She lived in Peabody. According to the information printed under her picture, she was last seen leaving a Boston nightclub on the night of February 25.

The woman in the second picture, Samantha Kent, was from Chelsea. She had failed to report to her shift at the Route 1 IHOP on March 15. Samantha Kent had a painfully toothy smile and was the same age as Tara Hardy. Only Samantha was heavily into tattoos. She had six of them, and while Darby couldn't see any of them in the picture, the description and location of each of the tattoos were listed.

Both women, Darby sensed, carried the same desperate quality as Stacey. You could see it in their eyes, that bottomless need for attention and love. Both women had blond hair – just like the woman from the woods.