Not missing, Mindy thought. Just not home.

She had to remain calm. Tess had been due home by five. It was only six fifteen now. An hour and fifteen minutes late wasn't anything unusual. Not for any child, and especially not for Tess. Time existed as a fluid concept for her daughter, one that easily and frequently slipped away from her.

But today's different. She knew how important it was to be back on time tonight. She knew it.

Every kid in Russet Creek knew it. Every kid in Randolph County probably knew it. They had all heard the same lectures from their parents. After Ricky went missing, it had been big news, and no one had been letting their kids out of their sight. That is until two weeks ago. Things had changed then. The police had taken Harris Hallahan into custody, and slowly that tension had eased parent by parent and the kids had returned to the neighborhood streets, the woods, and the streams. Life had taken on an uneasy return to normalcy.

Yet Mindy had held out. Ricky had been her sister's youngest. He was family. She had babysat for him. She had taken Tess on numerous play dates with him and his older brother, Jimmy. She had burped him and changed his diapers. She had been there when he was born.

When Ricky went missing part of her had died. Another part of her, however, had lived. That part had rejoiced that it hadn't been Tess. She had been there. She had been in those woods when Ricky disappeared. She had been playing with him. Only a small twist of fate, and it could have been her daughter that had gone missing. She could have been the bereaved mother rather than the distraught aunt. She hated the relief that distinction brought, but she couldn't deny it. Not to herself.

"Hi. Mindy, are you still there?"

Of course, she was still there. What was she going to do? Hang up and say oh well. Tired of waiting, so no need to hang around and find out if your son has seen Tess. Has seen my baby girl. Guess I'm just going to go now.

"Yes. I'm here," she said.

"I'm so sorry dear, but Alex hasn't seen her. Have you talked to Melinda?"

"No." Adamant. Hard.

Melinda? Really? I'm going to call my distraught sister who hasn't seen her son since July to see if she's seen my daughter? My daughter that was there with her son when he went missing? Mindy hated stupidity and it took every ounce of will she had not to snap and tear Amanda a new asshole. Apparently you could do that sort of thing. Mindy had already lived through it.

"I could check with her if you like. She's only a couple doors down."

"No. Don't bother her."

"It's no bother. Really." Mindy could just make out a hint of excitement in Amanda's voice.

That bitch.

"For you, no. For her it's a bother." Why did Tess have to like Alex Baker? His mother was the worst busy-body in town. She didn't want to see if Melinda knew anything. She wanted an up close and personal one-on-one with the grieving mother. She wanted a story.

"She's her aunt. I'm sure she'd want to know and she'd do everything that she could to help. Really I ought to ask."

Oh for fuck's sake. Some people were just too thick for their own good. She had tried the polite way. Now for the Robach way.

"Amanda," she started, drawing out the name. "Baker. If you call her, if you so much as set foot on my sister's lawn, I will slap the shit out of you. You leave her in peace. You understand?"

"Seriously, Mindy, I'm just trying -–"

Mindy had no time for excuses.

"Do you understand me?"

"I suppose I do."

"Good. Thanks for your help. Leave my sister alone."

Mindy hung up before Amanda could respond. So much for Tess's friendship with Alex, she thought. Still, it couldn't be helped. When it came to family, Mindy had fierce loyalties and despite Melinda's eccentricities Mindy would always stand up for her little sis.

Ever since Ricky had disappeared, Melinda, understandably, had lost her tenuous grip on sanity. She wasn't full fledged off her rocker - her decline sprang forth from a completely justified and understandable source - but she had slipped down a depressive slide, existing now in a virtually comatose state. She busied herself about the house and went through the motions but Melinda Robach-Hill had been hollowed, becoming little more than an animated husk, ready to be shucked and cast aside.

Her husband Donald did what he could to support her and ease her grief but the effort wore on him as well. Between straining to provide some normalcy for their one remaining son, Jimmy (and what a phrase that one with all its implications – one remaining son), and keeping his own emotions bottled up so that he could provide that stalwart rock for the household, Don stood on a dangerous precipice. Any moment he could lose his footing, and that macho façade would fall and crack, and while there are worse fates, right then Don probably needed that façade more even than his wife and son did. He was not a man in touch with his emotions, and once that dam broke there may be no piecing him back together.

So Amanda Baker's feelings be damned, that gossip would not be making a house call at Chez Hill. Mindy wouldn't have called Amanda at all if she could have helped it. Yet she had already called all of Tess's other friends, and with no luck. She had also checked in with her own brother Eddie, and those of her cousins that lived nearby. No one had seen or heard from Tess in hours, not since she had left her cousin Anna's. Her second cousin Anna's? Cousin once removed? Mindy could never figure out how that worked.

Either way she had left Anna's place around two o'clock that afternoon, and no one else had seen her. So, eventually without anywhere else left to turn Mindy had found herself phoning Alex's mom. Now Mindy could only hope that Amanda Baker was more afraid of her than she was determined to get a peak at Melinda.

Mindy grabbed her house keys from a junk pile on the media shelf and rushed out the door. With no calls left to make, she would have to hit the street.