The Vanishing by Bentley Little

a garishly dressed woman holding the hand of a small child with a hairless head and what did indeed appear to be a horn growing out from the spot where his nose should have been.
    Carrie’s stomach dropped. More than anything else, it was the grain that got to her, that granted the picture verisimilitude. Faked photos these days were usually much clearer than this. She recalled several years ago seeing a perfectly focused, perfectly composed picture of the president supposedly shaking hands with an alien. Something about both the graininess and the artless composition of this photo, however, made it look as though it had been taken by a hidden camera, without the consent of the subject, and to her that made it seem much more real.
    Of course, she thought of Juan. There was no real physical similarity between Juan and the rhino boy, but the parallels were impossible to ignore.
    The man in front of her finished scratching his lottery tickets, grabbed his bagged beer and walked away with a muttered, ‘‘Shit.’’ Impulsively, Carrie grabbed the tabloid and popped it on the checkout counter next to her Big Gulp. Once in the car, she opened the paper, turning pages until she found the rhino boy article. Flanked by two more photos nearly identical to the one on the cover and obviously taken in sequence, the story was short and sketchy with very little hard information. The ‘‘prostitute,’’ if that’s really what she was, was identified only by her first name—Holly—and the city in which she lived— which just happened to be San Francisco.
    Coincidence?
    Carrie was beginning to think not.
    The Weekly Globe was a national publication based in Minneapolis, but there was an address and phone number for a West Coast bureau listed in the staff box, and as soon as Carrie got back to the office, she called the number, got a receptionist on the line and asked to speak with Kent Daniels, the reporter who’d written the article.
    ‘‘I’m sorry,’’ the receptionist said in a pinched Ernestine voice, ‘‘but it is the policy of this publication not to give out the numbers of its contributors.’’
    ‘‘I’m not asking for his home phone. Just transfer me to his desk or his voice mail.’’
    ‘‘The Weekly Globe is one hundred percent freelance written,’’ the woman said. ‘‘Mr. Daniels does not have a desk or a phone here.’’
    ‘‘I just need to contact him,’’ Carrie said, beginning to get frustrated. She paused, thinking of something. ‘‘I read his article on the rhino boy.’’ Here she paused again, this time for dramatic effect. ‘‘I know someone else like that.’’ She didn’t elaborate, leading the woman to read between the lines that she might be calling in order to provide the reporter with a tip for a new story.
    ‘‘I’m sorry,’’ the receptionist repeated, ‘‘but it is the policy of this publication—’’
    ‘‘Forget it,’’ Carrie said tiredly. She hung up the phone. She was not entirely convinced that the rhino boy was real, but the connection with Juan, as tentative as it might be, was enough to keep her going a little further.
    She thought for a moment. A lot of prostitutes received some sort of assistance, particularly if they had children. She could pass around the photo and see if anyone recognized the woman, or even access records within the department and see if any Hollys were assigned to one of their caseworkers. Even if that angle didn’t pan out, Social Services had numerous contacts within the police department. The two worked together frequently. She herself had good rapport with a sergeant who had recently referred to her a victim of domestic abuse. Someone somewhere was bound to be able to identify this woman and her child if they really existed.
    She hit pay dirt almost immediately.
    Jan Nguyen had counseled Holly a few years back. She, too, had seen the tabloid and had brought in the paper to show Sanchez. Carrie saw Jan and caught her