“She was never found?”

He shook his head. “Talk about the ultimate parent’s nightmare. There’s no word I despise more than closure – pop-psych crapolsky. But not knowing’s got to be worse. I’m sure it has nothing to do with the Teague girl – it just reminded me.”

“Gene, in terms of the research job, is there something I might’ve missed? I checked federal, state, and private grants, including part-time positions.”

He thought awhile. “What about something off-campus? Paid subject positions. You see ads in the Daily Cub. ‘Feeling low or moody? You may be clinically depressed and qualify for our cool little clinical trials.’ Pharmaceutical outcome studies, obviously the FDA or whoever’s in charge doesn’t see a problem using paid participants. The Cub’s out of circulation till next quarter, but maybe you can find something. Still, what would that tell you about where she is?”

“Probably nothing,” I said. “Unless Lauren signed up for a study because she had a specific problem – as in depression. Depressed people drop out.”

“Her mother wouldn’t know if she was that low?”

“Hard to say. Thanks for the tip, Gene – I’ll look into it.”

I got up, placed the coffee on a table, and headed for the door.

“You’re really extending yourself on this, Alex.”

“Don’t ask.”

He stared at me but said nothing.

No longer a clinician, but he knew enough not to press it.

THE STORY WAS easy to find.

Shawna Yeager.

Beautiful face, heart-shaped, unlined, crowned by a tower of pale ringlets. Almond eyes, shockingly dark. Pixie chin, perfect teeth, beauty undiminished by grainy black-and-white miniaturization, the cold, metal frame of the microfiche machine, the stale air of the research library microfilm vault.

I stared at lovely glowing shoulders exposed by a strapless gown, sparkly things dotting the bodice. The gown Shawna Yeager had worn at her coronation as Miss Olive Festival. Silly little rhinestone crown pinned to the luxuriant curls, happiest-girl-in-the-world grin.

The contest had taken place two years ago in her hometown, an aggie community east of Fallbrook named Santo Leon. Shawna Yeager held a scepter in one hand, a giant plastic olive in the other.

The Daily Cub article said she’d graduated fifth in her class at Santo Leon High. A single paragraph summed up her pre-college history: small-town beauty queen/honor student travels to the city to attend the U. Shawna had surprised her friends by not pledging a sorority, choosing instead to live in one of the high-rise dorms. Turning into a “study grind.”

She’d majored in psychobiology, talked about premed, used her beauty contest winnings and income from a summer teacher’s aide job to pay her bills.

She’d been enrolled for only a month and a half when she left the dorm on a late October night, informing her roommate that she was heading to the library to study. At midnight the roommate, a girl named Mindy Jacobus, fell asleep. At eight A.M. Mindy woke, found Shawna’s bed empty, worried a bit, went to class. When Shawna still hadn’t returned by two P.M., Mindy contacted the campus police.

The unicops engaged in a comprehensive search of the U’s vast terrain, notified LAPD’s West L.A. and Pacific Divisions, Beverly Hills and Santa Monica Police, and West Hollywood sheriffs of the girl’s disappearance.

No leads. The campus paper carried the story for a week. No sightings of Shawna, not even a false report. Her mother, Agnes Yeager, a widowed waitress, was driven to L.A. from Santo Leon by a representative of the chancellor’s office and provided living quarters in a graduate student dorm for the duration of the search.

A Cub follow-up – still no news – said the search had lasted three weeks.

After that, nothing.

I returned to the microfilm librarian, filled out cards, obtained spools from the Times and the Daily News for the corresponding dates. Shawna’s disappearance merited two days of page 20 media attention, then a senator’s drunken son crashed his Porsche on the I-5, killing himself and two passengers, and that story took over.

I returned to the Cub spool, wrote down the reporter’s name – Adam Green – and studied Shawna Yeager’s beauty contest photo some more, searched for a resemblance to Lauren.

She and Lauren did share a sculpted, blond loveliness but nothing striking. Both A students. Psychology major, psychobiology major.

Both were self-supporting too, one banking on pageant money, the other, “investments.” Had each been on the lookout for extra income? Consulted the campus classifieds and gotten involved in one of the research studies Gene Dalby had described?

I searched for more parallels, found none. All in all, nothing dramatic. And plenty of differences:

At nineteen Shawna had been considerably younger than Lauren when she disappeared. Small-town olive queen, big-city call girl. Widowed mother, divorced mother. And Shawna had vanished during the second month of the quarter, Lauren during the break.

I scrolled to the Cub’s want ads, worked backward until I came upon a boldface entry in the middle of the JOBS!! section, posted two weeks before Shawna vanished.

Tired? Listless? Inexplicably sad?

These may be normal mood changes, or they may be signs of depression. We are conducting clinical trials on depression and are looking for $$ PAID $$ volunteers. You will be offered free evaluation and, if you qualify, may receive experimental treatment as well as a handsome stipend.

No address, just a phone number with a 310 area code. I copied the information, kept scrolling, found two similar ads for the entire month, one researching phobias and featuring a different 310 listing, the other a study of “human intimacy” that provided a 714 callback.

“Human intimacy” had a sexual flavor to it. Racy research in Orange County? Sex was commerce to Lauren. Might something like that have caught her eye?

I obtained microfiche for the last quarter, checked classified after classified. No repeat of the intimacy ad, nothing even vaguely similar, and the only paid-research solicitation was for a study on “nutrition and digestion,” with a campus phone extension that meant the med school. I wrote it down anyway, left the library, headed for the Seville.

Two girls gone missing, a year apart, very little in common.

Shawna had never been found. I could only hope that Lauren’s disappearance would amount to nothing at all.

I drove home trying to convince myself she’d show up tomorrow, a little richer and a lot tanner, laughing off everyone’s worries.

Gene Dalby had pegged her at thirty, and maybe he was right about her maturity. She’d been living on her own for years, had street smarts. So no shock if the last week came down to a quick jaunt to Vegas, Puerto Vallarta, even Europe – money shrinks the world.

I drove up the bridle path that leads to my house imagining Lauren partying with a potentate. Then seeing the dark side of the fantasy: Those kinds of adventures can go very bad quickly.

Lauren getting herself into something she hadn’t counted on.

Silly to let my mind run. I barely knew the girl.

The girl. She was well past childhood. No sense obsessing.

I’d bother Milo one more time, tell him about Shawna Yeager, receive the expected response – the logical detective’s response -

Interesting, Alex, but…

I pulled up in front of the carport, pleased to see Robin’s Ford pickup there, ready to stop wondering about a near stranger and be with someone I cared about.

But as I parked and climbed the stairs to the front door, I wondered: What would I tell Jane Abbot?

I knew I’d say little, if anything, to Robin about my day.