Where Are You Now? by Mary Higgins Clark

lightning accuracy, appraise and judge it. I know I’m like that, too. Mack was more like Mom. He was always giving everyone a break. Like her, if he ever realized he was being used or treated shabbily, he wouldn’t have a confrontation, he’d simply withdraw from the situation. And that, I think, is what Mom is doing now—she views Mack’s note in the collection basket as a slap in the face.
    I moved to the window, trying to see what he had seen. Knowing how Mack loved to stand at the windows of the Sutton Place apartment and study the panorama, the East River with boats and barges, the lights of the bridges, the air traffic heading in and out of LaGuardia Airport, I was sure he’d often gazed out these windows, overlooking West End Avenue, the sidewalks constantly streaming with people, the vehicle traffic bumper to bumper in the street.
    The dream I had had of him after his predawn phone call on Mother’s Day replayed itself in my mind. Once again I was walking along a dark path, desperate to find Mack.
    And once again he was warning me to stay back.

11

    I n a weary voice, Dr. David Andrews said, “Detective Barrott, Leesey left that bar at three o’clock yesterday morning. It is now one o’clock Wednesday afternoon. She has already been missing thirty-four hours. Shouldn’t you check the hospitals again? If anyone knows how busy emergency rooms are, God knows it’s me.”
    Leesey’s father was sitting at the small kitchen table in his daughter’s college apartment, his hands folded, his head bowed. Heartsick, sleep-deprived, and despairing, he had refused his son’s plea to go back with him to his apartment and wait for word there. After being here all night, Gregg had gone home to shower and change before stopping at the hospital to see his postoperative patients.
    Roy Barrott was sitting opposite Leesey’s father at the table. The night my daughter went to a prom, his daughter went to that joint, then disappeared, Roy thought, with a sudden guilty feeling at his own good fortune. “Dr. Andrews,” he said, “you have to hold on to the possibility that Leesey may be perfectly all right. She is an adult, and has the right to privacy.”
    Barrott saw the expression on the doctor’s face harden into anger and scorn. I sound like I’m suggesting that she’s an easy pickup, he thought, and hurried to add, “Please don’t think I believe that this is the case with Leesey. We’re treating her disappearance as a serious problem.” Barrott’s boss, Captain Larry Ahearn, had made the urgency of this case perfectly clear already.
    â€œThen what are you doing to find her?” The anger drained from David Andrews’s face. His voice was low and halting.
    He’s only one degree from going into shock, Barrott thought. “We’ve reviewed the security cameras of the Woodshed, and she did leave alone. The only people left in the bar were the band that was playing, the bartender, and the security guard. They all swear that none of them left for at least twenty minutes after Leesey, so we presume none of them followed her. So far, they all check out as okay guys. Right now our people are going over every frame in the security camera at that bar Monday night to see if we can identify any potential troublemakers.”
    â€œMaybe someone who was there earlier waited outside for her.” David Andrews knew that his voice was a monotone. Is this detective trying to reassure me? he asked himself. Then the same thought crossed his mind for the thousandth time: I know something terrible has happened to Leesey!
    He pushed his chair away from the table and stood up. “I’m going to offer a twenty-five-thousand-dollar reward to anyone who helps us find her,” he said. “I’m going to put her picture and a description of what she was wearingon posters. You’ve met my daughter’s roommate,