Free Time of Departure by Douglas Schofield

my eyes locked on Sam’s. When Terry finished, I said, “Thanks.… I’ll call you.… Yes, I definitely will. I’m with him now,” and hung up.
    â€œWhat?” Sam asked.
    â€œDo you want the latest development or the latest coincidence?”
    â€œUse your discretion.”
    â€œOkay. The latest development is that Terry brought in a consultant dentist, and she identified the smaller skeleton using dental records. As he suspected, it’s Amanda Jordan. But still no luck on Jane Doe.”
    â€œOkay.” He waited.
    â€œThe latest coincidence is that Terry called CID twice, asking them to find the missing girls’ dental records. While they were still searching through the boxes, Marc Hastings showed up at the morgue and handed him photocopies of the dental charts for six of the missing girls.”

 
    10
    It was getting late and I still hadn’t touched that stack of urgent messages and files on my desk. I’d been spending the past few hours rereading the eight missing person files Marc Hastings had left for me. In fact, I had read each file twice and committed their dismal chronology to memory:
    1. Ina Castaño —age 21—last seen on April 2, 1977. She left her mother’s home to work an evening shift at Denny’s and vanished.
    2. Constance Byrne —age 20—last seen on July 8, 1977. Her roommate told the police that Ms. Byrne’s car wouldn’t start, so she had decided to hitchhike to Cedar Key, an hour’s drive from Gainesville, to visit her mother. She never arrived.
    3. Catherine Brady —age 25—last seen on October 28, 1977. The third-year veterinary medicine student left her apartment to visit her boyfriend, who had been hospitalized after a motorcycle accident. She never arrived at the hospital.
    4. Patricia Chapman —age 24—last seen on December 24, 1977. The hospital phlebotomist disappeared after filling in for a coworker on a Christmas Eve 4 P.M . to midnight shift. Her car was still parked in the hospital’s staff lot.
    5. María Ruiz —age 23—last seen on February 13, 1978. The single mother of one lived in Hawthorne, but worked in a flower shop at a strip mall a few miles west of Gainesville’s city center. She disappeared after locking up the shop just after 9 P.M.
    6. Pia Ostergaard —age 30—last seen on March 1, 1978. The Miami journalist was in Gainesville to investigate the disappearances. She vanished on her way to meet a colleague for dinner at a restaurant near her hotel. The investigators suspected that she had been targeted for abduction because of her work.
    7. Victoria Chan —age 22—last seen on March 19, 1978. The UF coed left her apartment early one morning for a regular morning run and was never seen again.
    8. Amanda Jordan —age 24—last seen on April 22, 1978. Ms. Jordan worked as a bank teller. She vanished while walking a distance of three blocks from her mother’s residence in Newberry to the home of a girlfriend who was holding a bridal shower in her honor.
    I admit I choked a bit when I read the file on victim number 7. Victoria Chan had been jogging around Lake Alice, following, I imagined, the same route that I had retraced earlier that day.
    I sat at my desk, twirling a strand of my hair. Despite my misgivings—despite my smoldering hostility toward the man—I couldn’t stop thinking about the mysterious Mr. Hastings.
    I felt a jolt of pain. I was so engrossed in my thoughts, I’d twisted the strand of hair right out of my scalp. I cursed aloud and picked up the phone. I dialed the number I’d found on a Post-it note stuck to the last page of the magazine article. At my request, Eddie Carlyle had already checked the number, so I knew I was calling a cell.
    He answered on the first ring. “Hello, Claire. I’ve been expecting your call.”
    â€œI’m getting a little tired of being a foregone