Come and Find Me A Novel of Suspense - By Hallie Ephron Page 0,28
be so grateful if you would.”
“You said 88N? I’ll call you back—”
“I don’t mind waiting,” Diana said, afraid that if she lost the connection she might never get Mrs. Fiddler back.
“It might take a while.”
“Take your time.”
Diana heard the phone being set down and, a little while later, what sounded like a door closing. While she waited she checked for new messages and then started a game of solitaire.
Finally, after three rounds: “Hello?” That same quavery voice. “You didn’t tell me your name.”
“I’m Diana. Diana Highsmith.”
“Your sister’s Ashley Highsmith?”
“Yes, yes! Did you find her?”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t find a car like that. And I knocked on your sister’s door but no one answered.”
Don’t panic, Diana told herself. No car and no one answering to a knock on the door were exactly what she would have expected midmorning on a Monday.
“One thing, though,” Mrs. Fiddler went on. “The mailman left some mail for her on the table in the lobby.”
Diana knew that the mailboxes were small—oversize items typically got left on the table for tenants. “Magazines?”
“Vogue. And also what looked like bills and a bank statement.” She hesitated. “I hope it was okay to snoop. I hate people who do.”
Diana swallowed. “Did you look in her mailbox?”
“From what I could see, it looked pretty full. And another thing. There were a couple of menus in her door. You know how they stick them in the doorjambs? I get those too, and I think these came Saturday.” Mrs. Fiddler sounded as devastated as Diana felt.
Menus left stuck in the door? Mail overflowing onto the table? It didn’t sound as if Ashley had gone into or out of her apartment building in days. The queen of hearts, the last card she’d turned over in solitaire, stared placidly back at her.
“Hello? Are you still there?” Mrs. Fiddler said.
“Thank you so much,” Diana said, trying to sound calm. “If you notice anything else, could you give me a call?” She gave Mrs. Fiddler her phone number and disconnected the call.
What in the hell was she supposed to do next? Damn Ashley. It was so inconsiderate of her to take off like that. And so typical . . . But when Diana tried to remember other instances when Ashley had disappeared without a word, she could come up with none.
Ding! A message popped into her queue.
RE: Desperately seeking Ashley Highsmith!
Surely here were the answers she’d been aching for.
Ding! Ding! Two more replies to her e-mail asking about Ashley popped in.
Diana whipped through the responses, but excitement quickly faded. No one had seen or heard from Ashley. Not since Friday.
Diana pushed herself away from the computer. She needed to think. What was she missing? Maybe Ashley’s supposedly soon-to-be former boyfriend hadn’t given up. Maybe pulling the bar stool out from under her and leaving her to pay the tab wasn’t enough. Maybe—a possibility Diana could barely contemplate—he’d followed her and turned violent.
Aaron. At least Diana remembered the jerk’s first name. Should have thought of him earlier. She went back to Ashley’s contacts list and checked that she hadn’t missed him. She hadn’t. Diana knew that Ashley had at least two e-mail addresses, and she wouldn’t be using her corporate account to communicate with Aaron.
She opened a browser window on Ashley’s laptop and clicked to drop down the list of most frequent Web sites visited. Near the top was GMAIL. She picked it and the welcome screen appeared. AHIGH88 was in the user name box and a series of dots in the password field on the opening screen. Yes! Diana pressed enter and she was in.
181 unread messages
Ashley was addicted to her e-mail. She would have been incapable of going even a single day without checking it. Three days? Couldn’t happen.
Chapter Thirteen
“S-M-I-T-H.” Diana finished spelling her sister’s name to the operator at St. Elizabeth’s Hospital.
“Sorry, we have no one here by that name,” the answer came back.
Diana hung up the phone and checked off the last of a dozen hospitals within a twenty-mile radius where she’d called. There was nothing left to do but contact the police.
She dialed 911. Her call was routed to an officer with a gravelly voice.
“I want to report”—her voice caught—“a missing person. My sister. Ashley Highsmith.”
“And you are—?” His Boston accent turned “are” into “ah.”
“Diana. Her sister.” Haltingly she managed to explain the situation to the officer.
“So you last saw your sister downtown at—”
“I wasn’t there. She was. I saw her in video footage that was on the Internet. And she called me