*Let's see--Shelly Kimble, no phone number, eight years ago, absenteeism. Never picked up her last paycheck. She's top of the list for the library tomorrow. Jessica Marie Warren, 555-9154.*

Axel dialed the number. A stilted female voice said, "We're sorry. You have reached a number that has been disconnected. Please check your number and try again." There was a series of electronic tones. "We're sorry. You have reached a number that has been..."

He hung up. She'd supposedly left for personal reasons five years before, so it was entirely possible she'd given up the number, and it hadn't been reassigned yet. *I'll probably get a lot of that.*

And he did. Claudine Reading (personal reasons), Pamela Fischer (unexplained absenteeism), Deborah Clumahn (sudden illness), and Danielle Smith (unexplained absenteeism)--he got the same recording for each one.

Someone picked up when he called the number for Theresa Lumford. IT was male, and blurred by sleep. "H'lo?"

Axel hadn't really thought about what he was going to say if he got hold of someone. "Is Theresa there?"

"Who?"

"Theresa Lumsford. Isn't this her number?"

"Nobody by that name here."

"Are you sure?"

Now the voice was irritated. "You think I don't know who lives in my own place? I've been here for close to three years, and there's no Theresa here. My old lady's name is Jackie, and..."

Axel heard a female voice say, "Who is it?"

"I dunno. Some idiot askin' for someone named Theresa. I told 'im..."

"Gimme that phone!" There was the sound of fumbling, and the woman spoke sharply, sounding wide awake. "You know about Theresa?"

Now Axel really didn't know what to do. "I have this number for her, and I'm trying to reach her. Well, actually I'm trying to find out where she is."

"Well, you're not the only one. She's my roommate--was my roommate--and she just flat dropped off the face of the earth over two years ago. I came home from work one day and some of her clothes were gone, and so was she, and I haven't heard from her since. I reported it to the cops, but since some of her things were gone, they seemed to think she just wanted a change of scenery. I kept trying to tell them, not Theresa. She wasn't the impulsive type. She was real quiet, you know? Wouldn't say boo to a cat, blushed like a fire hydrant if you looked at her more than two seconds. And besides, she'd just paid her share for the next month's rent and utilities. Why the hell would she do that if she was going to run off?" There was a pause, then she said, "Who is this?"

"Where did she work?"

"What business is it of yours?"

"Look, lady, I believe you. I think that whatever happened to your friend may be happening to someone I know. Now, where did she work?"

"I'm not sure. One of those buildings downtown. The company owned the whole thing, so it had to be a big one, lots of employees. It was... B-someting. Back... Bag..."

"Baxter?"

"Yeah, that's it! She was in the secretarial pool--took shorthand and did typing all over the building. Now, who are you?"

"You need to go to the police tomorrow and tell them to take another look at her case, lady. I'm afraid it's too late for your friend, but it might not be for someone else."

He hung up, then almost savagely slashed a circle around Theresa Lumford's name. After giving himself a moment to savor a small, bitter sense of triumph, he started dialing the next number.

The next number was for Winnie Hooper--left for personal reasons. The woman who answered didn't sound nearly as sleepy as the man had. She sounded a lot more suspicious, though. It was interesting how that came through when all she did was repeat the number he'd just dialed. "555-2434."

"Can I speak to Winnie, please?"

"Who is this? What do you want?"

"I just want to speak to Winnie Hooper."

"Why?"

"Look, I'm not the IRS. Is she there, or isn't she?"

"I don't know you, and there's no reason why you should be calling me at this time of night. What are you trying?"

"Winnie?"

"Is it you again?" Now there wasn't just nervousness in her voice, there was stark fear. "Are you stalking me again?"

"You were stalked before? Was it when you worked for Stephen Baxter?"

"It is you!" She was shrill. "You wouldn't know that unless... Leave me alone, or I'll call the police."

"You need to call the police, Winnie. They didn't do you any good when you were being stalked before, did they? Call them up and ride their blue uniformed butts about this. You were in real danger back then, and..."

Axel jerked his head back as the receiver on the other end was banged down. "Jesus!" *And I thought Mina was antisocial. Something must have scared the crap out of that woman, somewhere down the line.* He suddenly closed his eyes. *And I just scared her again. Way to go, Axel. I better hope she doesn't have *69 on her phone service. I wish I knew what kind of pattern her stalking took. If she does report it, and some of it happened at the Baxter offices, that'll help.*

Linda Trueblood's number had been disconnected, and Ashley Boone's now belonged to a Chinese restaurant--or so the recording said. But the last number, for Arabella Scott...

Before Axel could speak, the woman on the other end said anxiously, "Bella?"

"Excuse me, ma'am?"

"Oh, you're not her. I'm sorry, young man." The woman's voice was so disappointed that Axel felt he should be apologizing. "Can I help you?"

"I'm not sure--maybe. But can I ask you--why did you think I might be Bella?"

There was a sigh. "It's silly, I know. All my friends say that it's time I just admitted to myself that she... she isn't ever coming back. But I can't. She's my daughter, you see."

Axel found himself speaking very gently. "Mrs. Scott, did Arabella disappear?"

Now the woman sounded like she was trying to hold back tears. "She had to work late one night. I told her, 'Bella, it doesn't matter how late it is, you call me, and I'll come get you.' But she never... I called her work number at midnight, and I got the security guard, and he said that he hadn't seen her, and he was sure there was no one in the building but the guards, and maybe the cleaners. He even went and checked, but she wasn't there. I called the police right away, but they said she was a grown woman, and they couldn't consider her missing after such a short time, not unless there was some indication of foul play."

Axel grunted. "No blood, no investigation."

"I didn't like to say that, but... I went to her office the next day. They said that since her purse or coat hadn't been left that she must have just gone off, but... but her scarf was still there. They said she could have forgotten it, but they didn't know my daughter. I knitted that scarf for her, two months before she disappeared. She never left a building without having it draped around her neck. It was just a plain gray wool--she never liked anything colorful or flashy, but she loved it. She called it her 'signature piece.' She wouldn't have left it there by accident." She drew a deep breath. "I didn't mean to bore you, young man, but you see... There isn't really anyone I can talk to about this. It was almost five years ago. People seem to think I should be getting over it by now, but every time the phone rings... Well... You know. But I've just been chattering. Who are you, and why did you call? Were you one of Bella's friends? She didn't have many--she was a shy girl."

"Mrs. Scott, I think that something bad has been happening to shy girls who work at the Baxter building. Your daughter isn't the only one who's gone missing. She's not even the second. There are two more I think the same thing happened to, and at least one who had a near miss."

"But that's unthinkable!" She sounded horrified.

"It's bad," Axel agreed, "But it shouldn't be unthinkable. The cops should have been thinking about this a long time ago, huh? You need to go after them to start looking into Arabella's disappearance again."

"Yes, I will. But after the first few months they just started nodding while I talked, with this patient look on their faces. I doubt they even heard me. What can I say to make them pay attention."

"Do you have a pencil and paper?"

"Yes."

"Write this down--Theresa Lumford, Winnie Hooper," he paused, "and Mina O'Connel. Tell them to start with them. And I bet they won't have to look too hard to see some sort of a pattern."

"Thank you. Bless you. It's so good to have someone take me seriously about this. Young man? Do... do you think there's a chance that my Bella may still be alive, and just not able to come home?"

He was quiet for a moment, then said heavily, "I'm sorry, Mrs. Scott."

There was the sound of soft weeping over the connection. "It's all right--I knew. I've known for a long time. But now that someone else sees things as I do, I feel like I can do something about it. Thank you."

"You take care."

Axel hung up. He stared at the phone for a long moment, then violently rubbed his eyes. He needed some sleep--his eyes were starting to burn.

Detective Vandel nodded to Detective Mankowitz as she pulled off her coat and hung it up. "Anything new?"

"Oh, you bet," said Mankowitz.

"That's the most enthusiasm you've shown any time before lunch--at least in my memory." She went and sat at her desk. "What's up?"

"Well, I did a data search through the missing persons files as soon as I came in, and I've come up with something very interesting. You know we get dozens of missing persons in this city each year..."

"I think last year's figure was close to fifty."

"I filtered them for adult females. Then I filtered them for place of employment at the time of disappearance." He stopped talking.

"I think I know what's coming, but tell me anyway."

"Given the size of our city, would you think that three women missing from one place of business in less than a decade would be kind of against the odds?"

"I would indeed."

"This might be enough to get the DA to listen to us, but Baxter is a damn big wheel. I'd like to have even more before I try to ask a judge for permission to do a deeper investigation. What I want is to get into that house and have a good poke around. I told everyone taking calls today to let us know about anyone who reports anything having to do with missing persons, or any funny business around Baxter and his business."

"We should check up on reports of stalkings, too," said Connie. "Didn't Turner say that whatever this is started with several women getting anonymous gifts and messages at work?"

"Yeah. I'd be really interested to hear if the same thing was involved in any of the other disappearances."

One of the clerical workers came in. "Detective Mankowitz, I have a message for you. I'm sorry I didn't bring it up sooner, but I was swamped with work, and didn't see it till just now."

"You didn't see it?" said Mankowitz, perplexed.

"Yes. I didn't take it myself--it was taken by the desk sergeant on the graveyard shift." She consulted the slip of paper. "It came in around two am. He said that the woman seemed very upset, but it was in connection with a sort of non-case, so it probably wasn't urgent." She frowned. "Non-case?"

Mankowitz frowned, too. "That's what some of our less conscientious officers call a case that doesn't involve loss of life or great property, and has little chance of ever being solved."

He held out his hand for the paper. "What's it about?"

"He said she wasn't making much sense, but from what he gathered, she was being stalked--again. She got some sort of mysterious phone call."

As she left, Mankowitz gave Valden a significant look. "We're going to want to talk to her." Connie had come over and was peering at the slip. She reached for the telephone, and he said, "No, no. If she's as close to hysterics as they say, it will be better to see her in person. She gave her address. C'mon."

They went to the door and took their coats off the pegs. As they were slipping into them, Valden said, "If this woman's incident is the least bit like the ones that were going on before Mina O'Connel went missing..."

"Allegedly went missing."

As Mankowitz was saying this, the door had opened, and a hard faced blonde woman in her mid-thirties entered. Her tone was acidic as she said, "Like Theresa Lumford allegedly went missing?"

Mankowitz stopped buttoning his coat. "She worked at for Stephen Baxter?"

"She sure did, and it isn't as if Mister Big Shot expended any effort trying to help find her. I'm Jackie Bradford, her roommate, and I must've called that place twenty or thirty times, trying to get some information about what happened to her there the day she disappeared, and all they did was eventually tell me to quit calling, or they'd sue me for harassment. Kept telling me I didn't have any right to information, since I wasn't related to her." She scowled. "I should've just told 'em I was her wife--maybe then they'd have talked to me." She glared at the detectives. "Of course, you people weren't any more help."

Mankowitz started to take off his coat again. "Maybe we can be now. Miss Bradford, if I remember the records correctly, this happened over three years ago. Why did you decide to come bring it up again now?"

"I got a phone call last night."

Now Vandel started to unbutton her coat, too. "Sit down, Miss Bradford. Can I get you some coffee? I think we're going to be talking for a little while."