Chris Mooney - The Missing

She grabbed another flashlight, the heavy-duty Mag-Lite, and laid it down on the kitchen floor, angling the light until she found what she was looking for – a series of wet latent footwear impressions.

'Sole pattern looks like a men's boot, around a size eleven,' Darby said. 'Looks like our man came in through here and left through here. You might want to check and see what LBC favors for footwear.'

'Anything else?'

'You're free to go.'

Banville bolted down the stairs. Darby went to work bracketing off the boot impressions with tape. When she finished, she placed evidence cones next to the best impressions, then grabbed her kit and umbrella and stepped into the rain.

Across the driveway, seated at a table behind the kitchen window at the next-door neighbor's house, was Carol's mother. Dianne Cranmore pressed a wadded-up tissue against her eyes as she talked to a detective writing in a notepad. Darby looked away from the mother's broken expression and hustled to the front door.

The busy street was lit up by flashing blue and white lights. Police were standing out in the rain, directing traffic and keeping the crowds of reporters behind the sawhorses blocking off the street. The entire neighborhood was awake. People were standing out on their porches and watching from behind windows, wanting to know what was going on.

Darby slipped a pair of disposable booties over her shoes and stepped inside the foyer. Her partner, Jackson Cooper, who was known to everyone simply as Coop, was hunched over a well-muscled young male dressed in a tight pair of black bikini briefs. The body was slumped at an awkward angle against the wall on the carpeted landing between the two sets of stairs. Blood had pooled under him, soaking into the carpet. Darby counted three shots – one in the forehead, two in a tight pattern on the cougar tattooed above the heart.

Coop pointed to the tight shot pattern on the teenager's chest. 'Double tap.'

'I'd say our guy's a trained marksman,' Darby said.

'If I had to guess, I'd say the boyfriend heard something and decided to come downstairs to investigate. He comes down these steps to check the front door, finds it locked, and on the way back up gets shot twice in the chest. Then he falls, lands here and gets one planted in the forehead to make sure he doesn't get back up.'

'Which means our guy is used to shooting in the dark.'

Coop nodded. 'No scratches on his hands or arms. He didn't get a chance to fight.'

'But his girlfriend did,' Darby said, and told him about the bloody handprint.

'What's Banville's take on this?'

'He's starting with the ex-husband angle.'

'Why add murder to kidnapping?'

'Who knows?'

'That doctorate in criminal psychology is really paying off for you,' Coop said. 'ID here?'

'Not yet.' Darby told him about the footwear evidence in the kitchen. 'I'm going to take a look around, and then we can do the preliminary walkthrough.'

Light gray carpeting covered the stairs and the tiny hallway leading to a spacious TV room with mint-green walls and a brown couch and a matching chair mended by strips of duct tape. The mother had tried to brighten the place up with decorative throw pillows, a good area rug and assorted knickknacks.

An archway separated the TV room from the dining room. On the table were several paperback romance novels by Nora Roberts and stacks of coupons. The two rooms had the stale, soiledwrapper feel of too much fast food and the fading odor of dope.

Stretching across the upstairs wall were dozens of pictures of Carol and her achievements. Here was one of Carol as a toddler holding a paintbrush. In another one, Carol was wearing Mickey Mouse ears at Disney World. An expensive-looking frame held a certificate from Belham High School for the distinction of being a straight-A student. Then another framed certificate, this one for her leadership abilities on the student council. Here was a framed watercolor of the ocean, a ribbon pinned on it. Carol had won first place in an art contest.

Carol's mother had hung the most prestigious awards and certificates at eye level outside her daughter's bedroom. That way, when Carol walked outside her bedroom door every morning and returned each night, she would always be reminded of her extraordinary talents.

Car doors slammed. ID, the section of the lab that dealt exclusively with crime scene photography, had arrived. Darby grabbed her umbrella and headed out.

She told Mary Beth Pallis about the body and the footwear impressions in the kitchen. After Mary Beth left, Darby examined the porch steps.

The only interesting item she found was a discarded matchbook at the bottom step. She placed an evidence cone next to it. She backed up and stared at the porch. It hung suspended above the ground by columns. Latticework, also painted white, covered the perimeter. To the left of the stairs was a small door. Inside were plastic garbage cans and recycling bins.

One of the garbage cans tipped over. A raccoon was in there, its eyes reflected in the flashlight -

'Oh my God.'

Darby opened the small door. The woman underneath the porch started to scream.

Darby dropped her flashlight. She didn't pick it up. She stood absolutely still, staring wide-eyed at the woman who was now pressing a garbage can against the doorway to prevent anyone from entering.

Patrolmen came running. One of them grabbed Darby roughly by the arm and yanked her away from the door. He reached inside to move the garbage can.

The woman's teeth, what few of them remained, sunk deep into exposed skin of his wrist. She twisted her head ferociously from side to side like a mongrel dog trying to rip free the last piece of meat from a bone.

'My hand! The goddamn bitch is biting my hand!'

Another patrolman moved in with a can of Mace. The woman saw it, let go of her bite and started knocking over the barrels and recycling containers as she screamed, scurrying back underneath the porch.

Darby pushed the patrolman away and slammed the porch door shut.

The patrolman holding the Mace said, 'What the hell you doing?'

'We're going to give this woman some breathing room to calm down,' Darby said. The first patrolman, his eyes tearing, grabbed the dangling meat of his bleeding wrist with a shaking hand. 'Go and help him.'

'All due respect, hon, your job is to -'

'Move everyone out of the driveway – and while you're at it, make sure the ambulance doesn't pull in with its sirens blaring.'

Darby turned and addressed the crowd of men who had gathered around her. 'Back up, I want everyone to back up now.'

No one moved.

'Do what she says.' Banville's voice. He emerged from the crowd, his black hair flattened by the rain.

The patrolmen moved out of the driveway. Banville stepped up next to her. Darby explained what she had seen.

'She's probably a crack addict,' Banville said. There's an abandoned house down the road where they all hang out.'

'Let me try and talk her out of there.'

Banville stared at the porch door, water dripping over his lumpy face. With his hangdog expression, he bore a striking resemblance to the cartoon character Droopy Dog.

'Fine,' he said. 'But under no circumstances are you to go underneath the porch.'

Darby put down her umbrella. Slowly, she opened the porch door. No screaming. She knelt in a cold puddle. The flashlight was still on and gave her enough light to see.

During a college history course, Darby had seen grainy black-and-white footage taken of prisoners inside Hitler's concentration camps. The woman underneath the porch had clearly been starved. Most of her hair had fallen out; what little remained was thin and stringy. Her face was incredibly gaunt, the cheeks sunken, the skin waxy and white. The only color came from the blood around her lips.