Vanishing Act by Barbara Block Page A

Only Melissa hadn’t returned. Around four-thirty Bryan had gotten restless and started walking around the floor, banging on doors. Everyone who answered had either been napping or studying. No one had seen his sister or heard anything unusual. Her roommate had come back from a late class around five, as had Melissa’s suitemates. They hadn’t seen her either. The bottom line was that somewhere between two and four on a sunny September afternoon Melissa Hayes had vanished into thin air.
    That everything was just as she left it; that no one had seen or heard anything suggested what? That Melissa had run out for a second to give or get something from someone she knew and that that someone had forced her into a car and driven away? No. Forcing her into the car would have created a scene. Somebody would have noticed that. Melissa had gone willingly with whomever she had met, expecting to be back in a minute or so at most, but that wasn’t what happened. She’d left with a friend or an acquaintance and hadn’t returned. I stubbed out my cigarette, tossed the butt out the window, and grabbed my backpack. It was time to go inside.
    Except for two girls and a boy chatting by the soda machine, the lobby was deserted. The security guards that the university spokesman had announced they were posting in every dorm the week after Melissa Hayes disappeared weren’t there. Maybe they were on a coffee break. I took another step inside and looked around. The place reminded me of the dorm I’d lived in when I’d gone to college. Large windows looking out on the park. Cream-colored walls with scuff-marked baseboards. Metal-framed blue and tan Naugahyde chairs and sofas grouped in strategic locales. Three vending machines. A large bulletin board by the entrance full of notices for dorm meetings, campus events, and people seeking rides. Someone had written ‘Remember, quiet time means quiet’ on a piece of pink paper in red Magic Marker and tacked it on the wall facing the stairwell. Someone else had written ‘Get a life’ under it. A third person had scrawled ‘Get drunk’ under that.
    The two girls and boy fell silent when I approached them.
    â€œI’ve been hired by Bryan Hayes to help find his sister, Melissa,” I explained. “I’d like to ask you a few questions.”
    The boy scowled. “Listen,” he told me. “We’ve been through this already. We didn’t know her. We told the police, we told the campus cops, and now I’m telling you.”
    â€œSo you’re not going to help me?”
    â€œWe can’t help you.” The boy sounded annoyed.
    â€œCan you at least tell me who her friends were?”
    He put his hands on his hips. “How can I tell you who her friends were if I didn’t know her?”
    It struck me that none of them sounded particularly upset, and I told them so.
    â€œOf course we’re upset,” the girl who was wearing tortoiseshell-framed glasses said. “But Melissa disappeared four months ago.” She made the four months sound like four centuries. I guess when you’re raised on sound bites, your time sense gets messed up.
    After a few more tries along those lines I gave up and started toward the stairs. Hopefully, I’d find someone who was a little chattier on Melissa’s floor, but not many students were around, and the ones who were didn’t have much to say. According to them, Melissa was a girl who kept to herself. Well, maybe she was or maybe they didn’t want to talk to me. I couldn’t decide which, but I handed out my cards in case anyone remembered anything later on.
    The room Melissa had lived in, Room 203, was down the corridor and to the left. My eyes caught the names on the door as I stopped in front of it. Beth Wright and Stephanie Glass. It looked as if the university didn’t expect Melissa to come back either. From where I was standing I could see