Stephen White - Missing Persons

How had she lost her cell phone? Venetian security thought that was her business.

Had she left the casino at all? Her business.

What else had Raoul accomplished by midnight Colorado time?

He’d called all the hospitals in a ten-mile radius of the Strip, searching for even the barest hint that his wife might have been treated or admitted that evening. He’d learned nothing that helped.

He’d called the Las Vegas police, seeking any indication that the local authorities had crossed paths with someone who even vaguely resembled his description of Diane. He’d learned nothing. He’d called American Express to see if he could get a list of charges she’d put on her card in the previous twenty-four hours. A supervisor would speak with him in the morning.

He’d tipped the concierge at the Venetian a hundred bucks to find a twenty-four-hour copy shop that could blow up and print a hundred copies of the photograph of Diane that he kept in his wallet.

She promised him that the prints would be waiting for him before breakfast.

“I eat early,” he’d told her, suspicious of her promise.

“I stay up late,” she’d replied with a smile.

“It’s the suite,” he explained to me. “They must have run my credit report. I think she’s hoping I’m a newly calved whale.”

The midnight call from Raoul had awakened Lauren. I didn’t see any advantage to be gained by alarming her into having a fitful night’s sleep, so I’d explained, benignly, that Diane was in Vegas and that Raoul hadn’t heard from her, that he was worried, and he’d called to see if I’d talked to her since early that evening.

Had I? My wife wanted to know. I had not, I told her, not since early evening. I kissed her, and murmured that she should go back to sleep.

Over coffee in the morning, I explained the rest of the mess to Lauren, obliquely highlighting the slippery ice of the confidentiality hazards that were out in front of me, and specifically including the fact that before we’d hung up the night before, Raoul had reminded me that he wanted to know which patient’s mother Diane had spoken with the previous day. Lauren, of course, knew nothing about my patient Bob and his odd connection to the Millers’ neighbor, Doyle. And she certainly didn’t know that the patient’s mother that Diane wanted to see in Vegas was Mallory’s mother, Rachel.

“What do you think about Diane not calling?” Lauren asked me as I was kissing her and Grace good-bye before leaving for my office.

“I’m worried. It’s not like her.”

“There’s probably an explanation,” she offered.

“I hope you’re right. But I can’t think of what it might be. Diane’s a stay-in-touch kind of person.”

“She’s always been unpredictable.”

“About some things, yeah. Not about staying in touch. About that she’s as reliable as sunrise.”

She kissed me again. “If Raoul doesn’t hear from her by midday, let me know, and I’ll see if there’s anything I can do. Maybe somebody knows somebody in the DA’s office in Las Vegas. Okay?”

“Thanks.”

“Sam might be able to reach out, too,” she added. “He might have cop contacts out there.”

And what, I thought, was I going to tell Sam about the Millers and Bob and Doyle and Hannah Grant that might entice him to reach out to cop colleagues in Las Vegas? “Maybe she’ll call,” I said, not quite believing that she would.

I unlocked the front door of the building, flicked on the lights in the waiting room, and started a small pot of coffee in the tiny kitchen. At 7:43 the red light that indicated that my first patient had arrived for her 7:45 appointment flashed on in my office.

It was time to go to work.

Raoul had my pager number. I’d told him to use it as soon as he knew anything about Diane and that I’d call him back as soon as I could.

Lunchtime came and I didn’t hear from him. I tried his cell phone. My call was routed to voice mail; I left a message asking him to phone me with news immediately.

Nothing.

Midafternoon I went through the same routine with the same result. Just to be certain that my bases were covered, I left an additional message on Raoul’s hotel room voice mail at the Venetian.

Nothing.

When 4:45 came around and the red light on the wall in my office flared on, I found myself becoming alarmed that almost an entire workday had passed with no news about Diane. My level of concern for her was approaching ten on a ten-scale.

I walked down the hall to get Bob. My apprehension about the session was high. I had almost convinced myself that Bob really did know something important about Mallory.

Bob wasn’t sitting in the waiting room. No one was.

My first reaction? Who flicked the switch that had turned on the red light?

I checked my watch. Four forty-four.

I waited a minute. Four forty-five. Had Bob ever before been late for therapy? Maybe once or twice, but his absence from the waiting room was certainly an anomaly. Had he forgotten that we’d made this appointment the day before? How could he have? Given the drama in front of my house at dawn, I was sure Bob would have remembered his usual appointment time.

I flicked off the switch that illuminated the red light and returned down the hall to check my calendar and my voice mail. I was still thinking that Bob would show up any minute.

I was wrong.

Five o’clock came and went, then five fifteen, and finally five thirty, the time that Bob and I would usually be finished with his session.

The reality was that patients missed scheduled appointments all the time. If I had a busy week I could usually count on at least one no-show among my patients. Sometimes patients forgot their appointments and that was that; other times patients spaced out their appointments and the fact that they’d forgotten was ripe with therapeutic meaning. Sometimes life intervened. An injured child, a traffic accident, a late flight.

But Bob? He’d never missed a scheduled appointment. Never.

I thought about the midnight-blue box with the Kinko’s logo that was sitting in the file cabinet near my desk. Bob had said, “Don’t read it yet. I’ll tell you when.”

After he’d handed it to me I thought I’d said, “I’ll see you tomorrow then.”

I thought Bob had replied, “Sure.” Was it possible that Bob had known he wouldn’t be showing up for this appointment? With most patients, I would have simply packed up my things, gone home, and not given the missed session another thought. But Bob wasn’t most patients: Bob was Doyle’s friend, and Bob knew Mallory.

Bob thought he knew what Mallory had been thinking. Bob had been next door the night that Mallory had disappeared. Bob had written a story about Mallory’s disappearance. Bob thought Mallory was scared.

I had a copy of what he had written.

But he’d told me not to read it.

Powered by the pair of fresh batteries that I’d installed that morning, the pager on my hip vibrated with irritating insistence. The number that flashed on the screen was for Raoul’s cell.

I dialed immediately. “Raoul, it’s me: Alan.”

“I’m ready to kill these people. Tell me something: Does Nevada have the death penalty? I think I’m becoming a proponent.”

“Which people?”

“Take your pick. The Las Vegas police. The fascists in Venetian security. Even the damn minister at the Love In Las Vegas Wedding Chapel. He might be first.”

“What?”

“I gave the housekeeping manager two hundred more bucks to look for Diane’s calendar in her room. It wasn’t there, but she let me see the notepad by the telephone. Diane was visiting wedding chapels. She wanted to talk with somebody named Rachel at a wedding chapel. She had a list of them on the notepad. I visited all three. Love In Las Vegas was the most promising.”