Chris Mooney - The Missing

'By attacking Manning, Boyle made Manning an eyewitness who could turn around and pin it all on Slavick, when the time came.'

'And Boyle needed to keep Manning close to control the investigation,' Coop said. 'I'm thinking that's why they bombed the lab and the hospital. They could label it as a terrorist attack, allowing the feds to step in and take over the investigation.'

'Allowing Manning to pull the strings,' Banville added.

Darby nodded. 'Of course, we could be wrong. Unfortunately, the only two people who can answer any of these questions are dead.'

A cop poked his head into the room. 'Mat, you've got a phone call. Detective Paul Wagner from Montana. Says it's urgent.'

'Tell him to hold, I'll be right there.' Banville turned back to Darby. 'They did Boyle's and Manning's autopsies this morning. Manning was the one who entered your house. They found a hairline fracture on his left arm. I thought you'd want to know.'

Banville left them standing in the room full of missing women. Darby looked off at a board marked 'Seattle,' more pictures of missing women, more boards running down the long wall, each one crammed with pictures of missing women, some identified, some blank.

'Take a look at this one,' Coop said.

This board held the smiling faces of six missing women. There wasn't a state listed at the top. None of the women had names.

'Judging by the hairstyles and clothes, I'm guessing these pictures were taken in the eighties,' Coop said.

The woman with the pale skin and blond hair looked familiar for some reason. Something about the woman's face, Darby felt as though she knew her -

Darby remembered. The picture of the blond woman on the board was the same picture the nurse had given her – the one the nurse had found inside the clothes Sheila had donated. Darby had shown the picture to her mother. 'That's Cindy Greenleaf's daughter, Regina,' Sheila had told her. 'You two played together when you were kids. Cindy sent it to me one year in a Christmas card.'

Darby took the picture down from the board. 'I want to make a copy of this,' she said. 'I'll be right back.'

As Darby walked back through the corridors, searching for a color copier, she saw a patrolman escorting an older woman toward Banville's office.

No question the woman holding on to the patrolman's forearm was Helena Cruz. Mel and her mother both shared the same prominent cheekbones and the small ears that always got red when it was cold.

'Darby,' Helena Cruz said in a dry whisper. 'Darby McCormick.'

'Hello, Mrs Cruz.'

'It's Miss Cruz, actually. Ted and I divorced a long time ago.' Melanie's mother swallowed, fighting hard to keep the painful memories from reaching her face. 'Your name was on the news. You work with the crime lab.'

'Yes.'

'Can you tell me what happened to Mel?'

Darby didn't answer.

'Please, if you know something -' Helena Cruz's voice broke. She quickly regained her composure. 'I need to know. Please. I can't live with not knowing anymore.'

'Detective Banville can tell you. He's in his office. I'll take you there.'

'You know what happened, don't you? It's written all over your face.'

'I'm sorry.' I wish I could tell you how sorry I am.

Helena Cruz stared down at the tops of her shoes. 'This morning, when I arrived in Belham, I went by my old house. I hadn't been there in years. A woman was outside raking leaves, and her daughter was playing in the sandbox – it's still there, in the same corner of the yard where you and Mel used to play. The two of you used to sit there for hours when you were little. Melanie liked to make sandcastles, and you used to smash them. Only Melanie never got mad when you did it. She never got mad at anything.'

Darby listened to Mrs Cruz's voice strip away time, taking her back to late-night sleepovers with Melanie, back to weeklong summer vacations in Cape Cod. The woman speaking to her right now was the same woman who made sure Darby always wore enough sunscreen because of her pale skin.

Only that woman was gone. The woman standing in front of her was nothing more than a husk. The kindness had been sucked from her eyes. The look on her face was the same one Darby had seen in countless victims – filled with the pain and confusion about how the people you loved so fiercely could at any moment be ripped away from you through no fault of your own.

'I brought Mel up to be too trusting. To always look for the good in people. I blame myself for that. You try and do the right thing by your children, and sometimes you just… Sometimes it just doesn't matter. Sometimes God has his own plan for you, and you'll never understand it, no matter how much you try to, no matter how much you pray for an answer. I keep telling myself it doesn't matter because nothing can ever take away this kind of hurt.'

Darby had imagined this moment happening hundreds of times, had mentally rehearsed what words she would say and how Helena Cruz would react. Seeing the pain in her face, hearing the pleading desperation in her voice, brought back all those letters Darby had written when she was younger, that guilty part of her secretly believing that if she could take every awful thing she was feeling and put it into the right combination ofwords, she could somehow build a bridge across their mutually shared grief and, at the very least, come to a place of understanding.

She had ripped up each of those letters. The only thing Helena Cruz wanted was her daughter back. And now, after twenty-four years of waiting, she wasn't any closer to bringing her home.

'I don't know where Melanie is,' Darby said. 'If I did, I would tell you.'

'Tell me she didn't suffer. At least give me that.'

Darby tried to think of an appropriate answer. It didn't matter. Helena Cruz turned and walked away.

Coop dropped Darby off and headed home. She entered the kitchen, looking for her mother. The nurse said Sheila was out in the backyard.

Sheila was sitting near her old flower garden. The early evening air was cool and crisp as Darby trotted across the grass with one of the deck chairs. Sheila wore Big Red's Red Sox baseball cap and his blue down vest over a polar fleece jacket. A heavy wool blanket covered her lap and much of the wheelchair. She looked so incredibly frail.

Darby placed the chair next to her mother, in a patch of dimming sunlight. Spread across Sheila's lap was a photo album full of baby pictures. Darby saw a picture of herself as a newly born infant swaddled in a pink blanket and matching cap.

Her mother's eyes were bloodshot. She had been crying.

'I saw the news. Coop told me the rest.' Sheila's voice was quiet as she stared at the bandages on the side of Darby's face. 'How bad is it?'

'It will heal. I'm fine. Honest.'

Sheila grabbed Darby's wrist, squeezed it. Darby held her mother's hand and looked out across the backyard, at her mother's white bedsheets flapping in the early evening breeze. The clothesline was planted a few feet away from the basement door where Evan Manning – not Victor Grady – had entered over two decades ago.

Darby thought back to the day she found Evan waiting in the driveway. He was there to see how much she knew about what she had seen in the woods. Was Evan the one who had found the spare key? Or had Boyle cased the house earlier?

'Where have you been?' Sheila asked.

'I went down to the police station with Coop. Banville – he's the detective running the case – he called and said he found some pictures.' Darby turned back to her mother. 'The pictures were of Melanie.'

Sheila looked out across the yard. The breeze picked up, shaking the branches overhead and blowing the leaves across the yard.

'Helena Cruz was there,' Darby said. 'She wanted to know where Mel is buried.'