Free The Missing by Chris Mooney Page B

case.’
    ‘We’re conducting a thorough investigation.’
    ‘Which is police talk for “I’m not telling you jack shit.” My daughter is missing. My daughter. Doesn’t that mean anything to you people?’
    ‘Mrs Cranmore, we’re doing everything we can to find –’
    ‘Please, please, please don’t start in with that again. That’s all I’ve heard over the past twenty-four hours. Everyone’s working real hard, everyone’s chasing down leads – yes, I know all about it. I’ve answeredall your questions, and now it’s my turn. You can start by telling me about the woman you found under my porch.’
    ‘I suggest you talk with Detective Banville –’
    ‘What about when my daughter’s dead? Will someone talk to me then?’
    Dianne Cranmore’s voice cracked. She clutched the picture of her daughter tightly against her chest.
    ‘I understand how you’re feeling,’ Darby said.
    ‘You have kids?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘Then how can you stand there and say that you can understand what I’m going through?’
    ‘I guess you’re right,’ Darby said. ‘I can’t.’
    ‘When you have kids of your own, the love you’ll feel for them… It’s more love than your heart can ever hold. Like it’s going to burst inside your chest. That’s what it feels like. It feels a thousand times worse when you’re wondering if they’re hurt and calling out for you to come help them. Only you don’t know that. All you people, this is just a job for you. When you find her dead, you all get to go home. What do I get? Tell me, what do I get?’
    Darby didn’t know what to say, felt she should say something.
    ‘I’m sorry.’
    Carol’s mother couldn’t hear her. She had already turned and walked away.

Chapter 18
    Sheila’s nurse, Tina, was busy putting together a tray of food when Darby stepped into her mother’s kitchen.
    ‘How is she doing?’
    ‘She had a good day. A lot of her friends called to say they saw you on TV. I saw it, too. Going underneath the porch was very brave.’
    Darby thought back to the day her mother delivered the news of the diagnosis, the way Sheila held her, arms steady and tough as steel, while Darby broke down.
    The doctor had found the mole during a routine checkup. The Boston surgeon took out a good chunk of the skin cancer from her arm and many of her lymph nodes. He couldn’t reach the melanoma that had already settled inside her lungs.
    Sheila had refused chemotherapy because she knew it wouldn’t help. Two experimental treatments had failed. Now it was just a matter of time.
    Darby dropped her back-pack on the kitchen chair. Stacked near the back door were two cardboard boxes full of carefully folded clothes. She spotted a pink cashmere sweater. Darby had boughtthe sweater for her mother this past Christmas.
    Darby pulled out the sweater and was pierced by a memory of her mother standing in front of Big Red’s closet. It was a month after the funeral. Sheila, holding back tears, had touched one of his flannel shirts and then pulled her hand back as though something had bitten it.
    ‘Your mother cleaned out some of her closets today,’ the nurse said. ‘She asked me to drop them off at St. Pius on my way home. For their fundraiser.’
    Darby nodded. Packing up the clothes, she knew, was her mother’s way of trying to help ease her through her grief.
    ‘I’ll drop them off,’ Darby said.
    ‘Are you sure? I don’t mind.’
    ‘I drive by St. Pius on my way to work.’
    ‘Before you drop off the clothes, you may want to go through the pockets. I found this.’ The nurse handed Darby a picture of a pale, freckle-faced woman with blond hair and striking blue eyes taken at what appeared to be a picnic.
    Darby had no idea who the woman was. She put the picture on her mother’s tray. ‘Thanks, Tina.’
    Sheila was sitting up in bed, reading the new John Connolly mystery. Darby was glad for the soft lighting from the two lamps. It made her mother’s face look less gaunt, less