Vanishing Act Read Free

palm-sized, ragged red circle. “Because,” he finally informed me in a determined voice, “for once I want to do the right thing.”

Chapter 2
    T he story Bryan Hayes told me sitting there at the table with his legs wound around the chair’s metal ones was an old one, one I knew well. His father had died soon after Bryan was born, leaving his mother to raise two kids by herself. She’d gotten a job in a store selling dresses, and when she couldn’t meet the bills that way, she’d worked as a waitress two nights a week. To all intents and purposes she was never around, a fact Bryan had hated and felt guilty about hating. He’d resolved the dichotomy by blossoming from a quiet, well-behaved boy into a full-time pain in the ass, playing Cain to Melissa’s Abel. There’d been calls from teachers, visits to the principal, fights in school, shoplifting, a stolen car. In short, the usual JD litany.
    Although Bryan didn’t come right out and say so, it was obvious to me he felt finding his sister was his shot at redemption, his chance to make up for all the grief he’d caused his mother. He’d spent the months since her disappearance hoping Melissa would turn up. But time was running out. His mother was in the hospital, chained to her bed by wires and tubes, begging him to find out what had happened, and he had given his word that he would.
    â€œMaybe it’s stupid,” he said, giving me a wan smile. “But I don’t want to break another promise.”
    I made a sympathetic noise and waited for him to continue.
    Bryan drained the last of his beer and carefully put the glass back down on the table. Then he leaned forward. “I know this kind of stuff is expensive and I don’t have a lot of money, but my mom gave me some.”
    â€œSo she knows you’re here?”
    Bryan nodded. He took his wallet out of his pocket and handed me a small wad of new-looking bills. “There’s four hundred in there. I can give you another four hundred next week.”
    â€œFine.” I unzipped my backpack and stuffed the money inside. I’d gotten over feeling guilty about charging for my services a while ago. If Bryan had gone to one of the private investigators listed in the phone book this would have cost him thousands.
    â€œAren’t you going to count it?”
    â€œShould I?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œOkay.” I left my backpack on the table. “Now that that’s out of the way, why don’t you show me your sister’s picture.”
    Bryan handed me a copy of the same flyer I’d seen on my walk over to the Yellow Rhino. “Here,” he said, smoothing the wrinkles out of the piece of paper with the flat of his hand before handing it to me.
    I studied it again. According to the stats at the bottom of the page, Melissa Hayes was nineteen years old, five feet five inches tall, weighed 128 pounds, had hazel eyes and light brown hair, and was last seen wearing jeans, a plaid flannel button-down shirt, a navy jacket with a leather collar, and a pair of sneakers. She had no visible scars or other identifying marks. What the poster didn’t say was that she had her brother’s smile and the shape of his chin.
    As I studied the photograph, I couldn’t help thinking that three of the children who had gone missing in the area in the last two years had come to a bad end, but they’d been much younger. The odds of a happier ending for a nineteen-year-old girl were considerably higher. I held on to that thought as I went back to looking at Melissa’s picture. In it she was leaning against a tree trunk. A small blue colonial with white shutters figured in the background. Her arms were crossed over her chest. She was wearing jeans and a T-shirt and she’d tied a green shirt over her shoulders. The day must have started off cool and warmed up. Her hair was long and parted on the side. Her smile was bright, her