The Missing

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.

Dia

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.

Terry Mastrangelo was a single mother.

Dia

Was Carol’s mother the intended target?

Granted, Dia

Dia

Across from the bed was a cheap bookcase holding framed pictures of Carol as a baby. Two shelves were crammed with paperback romance novels plucked from library book sales. The books and trinkets on the bottom shelf were coated with dust – except for the three black leather-bound albums. Those had been moved.

Had Dia

Darby snapped on a pair of latex gloves and settled on the carpeted floor to examine the bottom shelf.

Mounted underneath the shelf, tucked in the far corner so it was safely out of view, was a small black plastic box half the size of a sugar packet. Sticking out of one side, a quarter inch in length, was an ante

A listening device.

Grabbing the penlight from her shirt pocket, Darby lay on her back and examined the black box. It was secured to the wood by a Velcro mounting strip. No wires, so it was most likely battery operated.

There were devices on the market that could be turned on and off remotely to save battery power; some were voice activated. They all had different transmitting ranges. What she needed to know were the specifications of this device.

Darby leaned in closer, hoping to find the manufacturer’s name and model number. She didn’t see it. The manufacturer’s stamp was most likely located on one of the sides flush against the wood, or on the back of the unit. In order to find it, she’d have to tear the device away from the Velcro strip. There was no way to do that quietly.

And if he’s listening right now, he’ll hear it and know we’ve found the listening device.

Darby stood up, legs fluttering, and hustled back to search Carol’s room again.

Chapter 26

Darby found a second listening device underneath Carol’s bed, mounted against the frame. Like the first device, this unit had been placed in such a way that she couldn’t find the manufacturer’s name or model number.

Two listening devices. She wondered how many more were inside the house.

Here was something else to think about: If Carol’s abductor had taken the time to install listening devices inside the house, was he was also monitoring police radio and cell phones? They sold police sca

Coop was in the kitchen. She caught his attention, pressed a finger to her lips, then wrote what she had found on his clipboard.

He nodded and started to search the kitchen. Darby went outside.

Bloodhounds and their handlers were searching the woods, their barks echoing through the pleasantly warm air. Standing on the front porch, she dialed Banville’s number and watched a man limp his way over to a telephone pole and use a staple gun to tack up a leaflet holding Carol’s picture. She wondered if Carol’s abductor was sitting in his car right now, listening.

Darby remembered the monitoring equipment the feds had used in a case she and Coop had worked on last year. The equipment was big and bulky. If Carol’s abductor was using similar equipment, it would need to be placed in something like the back of the van.

Banville picked up.

‘Where are you?’ Darby asked.

‘On my way back from Ly