Cut to the Bone. Joan Boswell

led them into a small foyer that opened directly into an apartment that was the mirror image of Hollis’s. The door might have been open when Crystal came home, but nothing untoward appeared to have happened in the hall. The pictures hung on the wall, the rug lay on the floor, and a bowl of keys sat on a demi-lune table. Only rhinestone-encrusted sunglasses lying on the floor were out of place.

      The three stopped.

      There was no evidence that Mary’s departure had been involuntary. And how would her kidnapper have evaded the police, who had checked everyone entering and leaving the building and garage since Hollis reported Sabrina’s murder?

      Crystal had told them Mary’s vehicle was gone. But there was no law against leaving the garage. Perhaps a very cool customer could have risked forcing a woman into her own car and driving out, but Hollis had trouble visualizing a man hustling Mary out of the building into the garage, hitting her on the head, and sticking her in the trunk.

      The security tapes recorded activities in the garage. The police possessed them. Surely they would have noticed? And what of the unidentified tenants? Who and where were they?

      “Nancy Drew would see if anything suspicious has happened in the rest of the apartment,” Jay said, barging ahead of them.

      “Jay, wait. Let me go first. We don’t know what happened here,” Hollis said and again led the way.

      First they forged into the combined living and dining room. A sectional dark green velour sofa, wood-and-glass coffee table, two folding chairs, two standard lamps, and a large old-fashioned TV on a stand were undisturbed. On the wall over the sofa a large poster that reproduced a classic photo of an American 1930s woman sharecropper standing in a doorway added a depressing note. On the opposite wall another poster of an Indian chief in full regalia dominated the room. Venetian blinds covered the windows. A utilitarian room with nothing to indicate a struggle.

      In the dining area a bridge table with four folding chairs pulled up to it, a brown laminate china cabinet, a white particle board bookcase stuffed with books, and a treadmill filled the space.

      Hollis didn’t know what signs to look for, but it wouldn’t hurt to learn more about Mary. She squatted in front of the bookcase. Many books on Aboriginal history and law. A neatly alphabetized section on addictions. A few novels and cookbooks. An eclectic mix. A worn book with a soft green cover lay horizontally on top of the others. Hollis removed it. The Song My Paddle Sings, a well-thumbed collection of Pauline Johnson’s poetry. Interesting. If she had time she’d come back and look through the volumes to see if Mary had annotated or folded and inserted relevant articles between the pages.

      The adjoining kitchen’s tidiness impressed her.

      Crystal grabbed her sleeve. “Never mind the kitchen. Our stuff, Aunt Mary’s and mine, is in there.” She pointed down the hall to a closed door. Heavy-footed, she stomped down the hall and flung the door open.

      Hollis and Jay traipsed into the bedroom, where two neatly made single beds, one with a bedraggled toy monkey on the pillow, shared a small chest of drawers with a two-armed gooseneck lamp.

      Two unmatched white DIY bureaus crowded together, as did two desks and a tall grey filing cabinet. The contents of a bulletin board over one desk, along with a collection of bobble-headed dolls lined up in front of a computer, clearly belonged to Crystal. The second desktop with its mug of pens and computer must be Mary’s. A navy backpack tucked under the desk attracted Hollis’s attention.

      “Okay if I take a look in this?” Hollis said to Crystal, who stared sadly around the room.

      “It’s Aunt Mary’s. Go ahead.”

      Opening zipper after zipper, Hollis found nothing and was about to replace it when she poked into a small side pocket and found a notebook. She looked at Crystal, who shrugged. “She always kept that with her. Really weird that she doesn’t have it. Maybe it’ll tell you where she is.”

      “I’ll return it,” Hollis said as she stuffed it in her pocket. She waved a hand at the room across the hall. “Whose bedroom is that?”

      “Different people’s,” Crystal said, not meeting Hollis’s gaze.

      “Let’s have a look.”

      Hollis opened the second bedroom door. Two bunk beds, one with bottom and top neatly made, contrasted dramatically with the tangle of bedding and clothing on the other. It was as if an invisible line divided the room. Order versus chaos. Hollis imagined how difficult it must be for the neatnik to live with her absolute opposite.

      Hollis turned back to the girls who hovered in the hall. She pointed to the cyclonic confusion. “Crystal, is this half of the room always like this?”

      “I don’t know. I never come in. They keep the door closed.”

      “Who lives here with you?” That was the first thing to determine. Then she’d find out what they’d been doing.

      Crystal allowed her short-bobbed black hair to swing forward and partially hide her face as she scuffed her shoe and fixed her gaze on the floor. “Different people,” she muttered.

      “That doesn’t tell me much. Why did they live here?”

      “Aunt Mary never said. I asked once and she told me it was better if I didn’t know.”

      Crystal’s obstinate refusal to provide meaningful information irritated Hollis. “You must have wondered. Didn’t you talk to them? Didn’t you ask their names?”

      Crystal shook her head. “Mary didn’t want me to know and I stopped asking. I didn’t want her to send me away.”

      Send her away? What had gone on in this room? “I don’t think we’re going to find out anything here,” Hollis said, although she longed to search the drawers, lift mattresses, read clothing labels, and go through pockets. She might be the building’s custodian, but until she had a few more answers, she’d be abusing her job if she succumbed to the urge

      Stepping out of the room, she gently put her hand under Crystal’s chin and raised her head until the girl finally looked at her. “Did your aunt have enemies?”

      Crystal shook her head. “I don’t know.”

      “I don’t understand any of this and you’re not helping,” Hollis said.

      The angry lines around Crystal’s mouth and eyes disappeared. Her brown eyes filled with tears. “I’ll never see her again,” she sobbed.

      Not the time to give the child the third degree. Hollis pulled her close and hugged her. “I’m sure you will, but you must help me if we’re going to find her. Let’s have another look in your room and see if we can figure something out.” She released Crystal. With shoulders bowed like a prisoner facing execution, the child walked directly to the cupboard in her room, where she clutched a blue velour robe hanging on the back of the door, buried her face in the robe’s soft folds, pulled it from its hook, and sank to the floor.

      Jay squatted beside her, wrapped her arms around her friend, and rocked her. “You don’t know she’s gone for good. Hollis will find her. She’s really smart and her boyfriend’s smart too. Don’t worry, we’ll get her back.”

      Tears filled Hollis’s eyes. Given that Jay had lost her own mother when she was a young child and her longtime foster mother only months earlier, it was clear that she related to Crystal’s pain. Maybe, if they could find Crystal’s aunt, in some small way it might compensate Jay for her losses.

      “I’ll speak to the police at the door….” Her voice trailed away. What would she say? If there had been an abduction, how had the abductor managed to get a grown woman out of the apartment and the building without attracting attention? It seemed like an impossible task. Furthermore, unless there were clear indications of foul play, the police counseled waiting twenty-four hours before filing a missing persons report.

      Crystal dropped the dressing gown, stopped crying, and stared wide-eyed at Hollis. “No. No police. Never.