The Missing

Chapter 74

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.