Right to Life

"Maybe he's just weirdo, I dunno. Didn't answer me right away. Something not right, maybe."

"Which one?"

"Bald guy with the beard in the blue windbreaker. With the sign says PRO CHOICE IS NO CHOICE. Right there."

Greg looked at him. Middle-age man with thinning hair, parading in a rough circle between two older women.

"Okay. Talk to him again. Get his name, address, phone number. If you can, see that he sticks around a while but go easy. I'm going to take a walk with Mr. Glover, see if we can spot her on the street."

"Will do."

"Have you got a photo of her? Of Sara?"

He dug it out of his wallet. It was his favorite shot, taken on summer vacation a year before on the streets of Jamaica, Vermont, the Jamaica Inn's garlanded white porch in the background. She always hated having her picture taken and was wearing a goofy smile because of that but to him both then and now she looked lovely, her long hair swirling around her face. He had snapped and snapped her that day out of pure, almost adolescent pleasure, until she practically had to scream to make him quit.

She studied the photo and handed it back to him. "She's very pretty," she said. "We'll start with your car. Maybe she went looking for you for some reason. Where'd you park again?"

"Down on 67th."

She began walking slowly downtown. He matched her pace.

"This is crazy," he said. "People don't vanish."

"No, sir. They don't," she said. "I think we'll find her."

Of course they would, he thought. There had to be some normal explanation. Maybe the doctor was right. Maybe Greg didn't know her as well as he thought he did. Maybe she was sitting in a restaurant a block or two away over coffee, wondering if she should go through with this after all, mulling it over on her own.

She never breaks appointments at the last minute and she's never late. She's not secretive and she's never lied to me and she's not a coward.

No. Something's wrong.

You damn well know something's wrong.

He felt the unreality of it all wash over him and for a moment he felt dizzy, almost as though he were about to faint. Twenty minutes ago he was looking for a place to park, an empty meter, pummeled by guilt at what they were about to do. Now he was walking along peering into storefronts, at people coming out of doorways, pedestrians passing, the pour and turmoil of New York. Srching for a glimpse of her. Walking at what seemed to him a crawl when what he wanted to do was run, look everywhere at once. Police in his life all of a sudden while he'd never had pvious occasion to say ten words to a cop. And this cop, this brisk and nonsense young woman like a lifeline to him now, his only potential link to Sara. He felt a sudden incredible dependency, as though his life had just spun out of his hands and landed into hers, a stranger's.

His heart was pounding.

People don't just vanish. Not unless they want to. Or unless somebody helps them.

Whether they wanted to or not.

TWO

Sussex, New Jersey

12:30 p.m.

She woke in dark and panic.

Her first thought was that they had buried her alive.

That she was in a coffin.

She was lying on her back against rough unfinished wood, thick wood planks to the left of her, to the right of her, so close that she could barely raise her arms to feel that – yes, there was more rough wood above, she could smell it. Pine. There was a pillow beneath her head and that was all. Panic raced through her like a breath of fire. She had never been aware of being afraid of tight spaces but she was very afraid of this one.

She balled her hands into fists and pounded. She heard the pounding echo and knew she was in a room then, in some kind of box, some kind of room and not underground – at least not buried underground thank god – because there would be no echo if that were so but the panic didn't recede any. She could hear her own fear in the wildness of her heartbeat. She screamed for help. She pounded and kicked at the lid of the thing and side to side at firm unyielding wood and it hurt, they'd removed her shoes and stockings, she was barefoot and it was only then that she realized that her skirt and blouse were gone too, she was wearing only her slip and panties. And that fact too was terrifying.

Why? she thought. What am I doing here?

What do they want with me?

It was cold.

She was not underground but it must have been some kind of basement she was in because it was summer, the day was warm and yet in here it was cold.

Where was she?

She was crying. The tears went cold on her face the moment she shed them. Gooseflesh all over her body.

She kicked harder. Kicked until her feet were sore and maybe bleeding and then kicked and pounded again. Her breath came in gasps through the sobbing.

Calm down, she thought. This isn't doing any good. Think. Control yourself, dammit. Concentrate.