And so in her face, as Zeno climbed out of the Land Rover, he saw the disappointment.

"She wasn't there?"

"No."

"Did you talk to-Ethel? Was Brett there?"

"Ethel was no help. Brett wasn't there."

Arlette hurried to keep up with Zeno, who was headed into the house.

Suddenly it had become 8:20 A.M. So swiftly, the night had passed into dawn and now into a sunny and shimmering-hot morning.

The privacy of the night. The exposure of the morning.

Arlette asked, in a shaky voice, "Do you think that Cressida and Brett might have gone away together?-or, he took her somewhere? To hurt her? To embarrass us? Zeno?"

"Cressida is nineteen. She's an adult. If she chooses to stay away overnight, that's her prerogative."

Zeno spoke harshly, ironically. He had not the slightest faith in what he was saying but he believed these words must be reiterated.

Arlette clutched at his arm. Arlette's fingers dug into his arm.

"But-if she didn't choose? If someone has hurt her? Taken her? We have to help our daughter, Zeno. She has no one but us."

Unspoken between them was the thought She isn't really an adult. She is a child. For all her pose of maturity, a child.

There was no choice now, no postponing the call, even as Zeno stood in the driveway staring with eyes that felt seared, ravaged with such futile staring in the direction of Cumberland Avenue as into an abyss out of which at any moment-(feasibly! Not illogically and not impossibly!-for as a young aggressive attorney Zeno Mayfield had often conjured the attractive possibilities of alternate universes in which alternate narratives revealed his [guilty] clients to be "innocent" of the charges that had been brought against them)-his daughter Cressida might appear; no choice, he knew, except to contact law enforcement; calling the Beechum County Sheriff's Department and asking to speak to Hal Pitney who was a lieutenant on the force, not a close friend of Zeno Mayfield's but an old friend from Zeno's political days and, he wanted to think, a reliable friend. With forced calmness he told Hal that he knew, it might seem premature to be reporting his daughter missing, since Cressida was nineteen, and not a child, but the circumstances seemed to warrant it: she'd been gone overnight, she was definitely not a person to behave irresponsibly; they had learned that she'd been seen at the Roebuck Inn the previous night, alone; then, later, in the company of several men of whom one was Brett Kincaid. (Pitney surely knew of Corporal Brett Kincaid, from stories in the local media.) Zeno said they'd called Cressida's cell phone repeatedly and they'd called virtually everyone in Carthage who knew her, or might know of her-she seemed to have vanished.

Zeno said he'd gone to Kincaid's house. And Kincaid was missing, too.

Zeno spoke rapidly and, he hoped, persuasively. He was not prepared for Hal Pitney telling him that, though they knew nothing about his daughter, it had happened that Brett Kincaid had been brought into headquarters that morning, less than an hour before. He'd been reported by hikers seemingly incapacitated in his Jeep Wrangler, that appeared to have skidded partway off the Sandhill Road, just inside the Nautauga Preserve. There'd been no one with him but there'd been "bloody scratch or bite marks" on his face and bloodstains in the front seat of his vehicle; he'd been "agitated" and "belligerent" and tried to fight the deputy who restrained him, cuffed him and brought him into headquarters.

"He isn't cooperating. He's pretty much out of it. Hungover, and sick to his stomach, and scared. He didn't seem to know where he was, or why, or if anyone, like a girl, had been with him. We've sent two deputies back to investigate the scene, and his Jeep. We're questioning him now. You'd better come to headquarters, Zeno. You and your wife. And bring photographs of your daughter-the more recent, the better."

This news was so utterly unexpected, Zeno had to stagger into the house to fumble for a chair, a kitchen chair, and sit down, heavily; he felt as if he'd been kicked in the gut, the air slammed out of him. So weak, so frightened, he was scarcely able to hear Arlette pleading with him-"Zeno, what is it? Have they found her? Is she-alive? Zeno?"

Time moved now in zigzag leaps.

Once Zeno made this call. Once what had been a private concern became irreversibly public.

Once their daughter was publicly designated missing.

Once they'd brought photographs of the missing daughter to law enforcement officers, to be shared with the media, broadcast over TV and on the Internet and printed in newspapers.

Once they'd described her. Once they'd described her in all ways they believed to be crucial to finding her.

Then, time passed with dazzling swiftness even as, perversely, time passed with excruciating slowness.

Swift because too much was crammed into too small a space. Swift like a nightmare film run at a high speed for a cruel-comic effect.

Slow because for all that was happening very little that was crucial seemed to be happening.

Slow because despite the many calls they were to receive in the course of a day, two days, several days, a week, the call they awaited, that Cressida had been found, did not come.

Alive and well. We have found your daughter-alive and well.

This call, so desperately wished-for, did not come.

(AND THEY KNEW, each hour that their daughter was missing there was more likelihood that she'd been injured, or worse.) (Each hour that Brett Kincaid refused to cooperate, or was unable to cooperate, there was more likelihood that she'd been injured, or worse, and less likelihood that she would be found.) PROVIDING LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICERS with photographs of Cressida.

Spreading a half-dozen photos across a table.

Startling to see their daughter gazing up at them.

Wariness in Cressida's eyes, thin-lashed dark eyes gleaming with irony and the faintest tincture of resentment as if she'd known that strangers would be staring at her, memorizing her face, without her permission.

In none of the photos was Cressida smiling. Not since childhood had Cressida been recorded smiling.

Arlette had wanted to explain-Our daughter was not an unhappy person. But she refused to smile when she was photographed. Not even in her high school yearbook is she pictured smiling. And this is because . . .

But Arlette could not utter these words. Her throat closed, she could not.

. . . she'd said, you know that one of the pictures will be for the obituary. So you can't ever smile. You'd be a fool to smile at your own funeral.

IN THE LATE MORNING of Sunday, July 10, 2005, the search for the missing girl in the Nautauga Preserve began and continued until searchers were obliged to leave the park, at dusk; it was continued the next morning, until dusk; and the next morning, until dusk.

The search differed considerably from more routine searches in the vast Preserve for lost hikers, campers, mountain climbers, numbering quite a few in the course of an average summer: for it was believed that this missing girl might have been assaulted-raped, killed?-by a man.

The search was complicated by the possibility that the missing girl had been dumped into the Nautauga River, and her body carried far downstream.

Yet, morale was high. Especially among those volunteer searchers who knew Cressida Mayfield and the (younger, female) park rangers who were determined to find the girl, missing in their own territory.

It had been eleven years since anyone had been lost in the Preserve and had not been found alive; in that case, involving a young boy believed to have run away from home, in the winter, the boy's body wasn't found until the following spring.

In the course of the search a miscellany of castaway items was found-rotted and desiccated articles of clothing including underwear (both men's and women's); single gloves, mittens; single shoes, hiking boots, and belts; mangled hats; plastic bottles, cans, and Styrofoam; maps of the Preserve, hiking books, bird books, children's toys, a single headless doll terrifying to the volunteer searcher who discovered it believing it to be, for a moment, a headless human infant.

Also, scattered bones determined to be the bones of animals or birds.

Here and there, a dead, rotting animal carcass like the partially devoured doe discovered by Zeno Mayfield, that seemed to have caused the father of the missing girl to collapse in a paroxysm of exhaustion and despair.

God if I could trade my life for hers. If that were possible . . .

SO MANY VEHICLES parked in the Mayfields' driveway, and along Cumberland Avenue, if the missing girl had arrived home she'd have thought it was a festive occasion.

Muttering out of the side of her mouth, a droll remark her mother could almost hear-What's the big deal? Juliet's getting engaged-again?

Bright TV camera lights in the living room as Arlette and Zeno Mayfield of Cumberland Avenue, Carthage, parents of the missing girl, were being interviewed by local TV personality Evvie Estes for WCTG-TV 6 P.M. news.

Arlette hadn't been able to speak. Zeno had done all the talking.

Of course, Zeno Mayfield was very good at talking.

His voice had quavered only slightly. His eyes pouched in tiredness were damp and seemed to have no clear focus.

But he'd showered, and shaved, and put on clean pressed clothes, and his thick-tufted hair had been brushed properly. He knew to speak to the TV audience by way of the TV interviewer and he knew not to be nettled or discomfited by certain of the woman's questions.

Arlette gripped in her right fist a wadded tissue. Her tongue had gone numb. Her eyes were fixed to the rapacious eyes of the heavily made-up Evvie Estes. Her terror was, her nose would begin to run, her eyes would leak tears, unsparingly illuminated in the bright TV lights.

Our daughter. Our Cressida. If anyone has any information leading to . . .

Then, there came the surprise of the ten-thousand-dollar reward.

Not one of the law enforcement officers who'd been interviewing the Mayfields had known this was coming. Judging by her confusion on camera, Arlette had not known this was coming. Zeno spoke in an impassioned voice of a ten-thousand-dollar reward for information leading to the recovery of-the return of-our daughter Cressida.

SURPRISING NEWS-A REWARD.

Not a great idea.

Many more calls will come in.

Many more calls will come in.

FOR INSTANCE, from "witnesses" who'd sighted the missing girl, they were sure: in and near and not-so-near the Nautauga Preserve.

As far north as Massena, New York. As far south as Binghamton.

In a 7-Eleven. Hitchhiking. In the passenger seat of a van headed south on I-80.

Wearing a baseball cap pulled low on her forehead.

Wearing sunglasses.

Coming out of the Onondaga CineMax on Route 33, with a bearded man-the movie was The War of the Worlds with Tom Cruise.

As far north as Massena, New York. As far south as Binghamton.

Dozens of calls. In time, hundreds.

Most valuable were calls from "witnesses" claiming to have been at the Roebuck Inn on the night of Saturday, July 9.

Guys who knew Corporal Kincaid by sight. Women who'd seen a girl they suspected to be, or believed to be, or knew to be Cressida Mayfield, at the inn: in the crowded taproom, on the deck overlooking the lake, in the women's room "sick to her stomach"-"splashing water on her face."

One of the bartenders, who knew Kincaid and his friends Halifax, Weisbeck, Stumpf-"The girl came in from somewhere. Like she was alone, and kind of scared-looking. In jeans, a black T-shirt, and some kind of top, or sweater. Not the kind of girl who turns up at the Roebuck on Saturday night. Maybe she was with Kincaid, or just ran into him. I think they left together. Or-all of them left together. It was a pretty loud scene, with the band on the deck. But definitely, it wasn't any bikers she was with-this girl 'Cressida.' Hey-if other people call about Kincaid, and it turns out it's him, like if the girl is hurt-do we split the ten thousand dollars? What's the deal?"

And there was an ex-girlfriend of Rod Halifax, named Natalie Cantor, claiming to have been a "friend" of Juliet Mayfield's in high school, who called Zeno Mayfield's office phone to tell him in an incensed, just perceptibly slurred voice that whatever happened to his daughter, Rod and his buddies would know-"Once, the bastard got me drunk, slipped some drug into a drink, he'd been wanting to break up with me and was acting really nasty trying to pimp me to his disgusting buddies-Jimmy Weisbeck, that asshole Stumpf-out in his pickup. Right out in the parking lot, the son of a bitch. They're all mean drunks. I don't know Kincaid, but I know Juliet. I know your daughter, she's an angel. I'm not joking, she's an angel. Juliet Mayfield is an angel. I don't know the other one-'Cress'da.' I never saw 'Cress'da.' Anything you want to know about that poor girl, Rod Halifax will know. I wasn't the first girl he got tired of, and treated like shit. It was not 'consensual'-it was God-damn fucking rape. And I was sick afterward, I mean-infected. So, ask him. Arrest him, and ask him. Anything that's happened to that poor girl, like if they raped her, and strangled her, and dumped her body in the lake-you can be sure Rod Halifax was responsible."

ZIGZAG TIME ENTERED her head: hours moved slow as sludge while days flew past on drunken-careening wings.

Until she could think A week. This Sunday is a week. And she hasn't been found and it would have the ring of tentative good news: She hasn't been found in some terrible place.

He would never forgive himself, she knew.

Though it could not be his fault. Yet.

Arlette had long gotten over being jealous-at any rate, showing her jealousy-of her daughters. Particularly Zeno adored Juliet but he'd also been weak-minded about Cressida, the "difficult" daughter-the one whom it was a challenge to love.

At the very start, the little girls had adored their mother. As babies, their young mother was all to them. Which is only natural of course.

But quickly then, Daddy had stolen their hearts. Big burly bright-faced Daddy who was so funny, and so unpredictable-Daddy who loved to subvert Mommy's dictums and upset, as he liked to joke, Mommy's apple cart.

As if an orderly household-eating at mealtimes, and properly at a table, with others-walking and not running/rushing on the stairs-keeping your bedroom reasonably clean, and not messing up a bathroom for others-were a silly-Mommy's apple cart to be overturned for laughs.

But Mommy knew to laugh, when she was laughed-at.

Mommy knew it was love. A kind of love.

Except it hurt sometimes-the father siding with the daughter, in mockery of her.

(Not Juliet of course: Juliet never mocked anyone.) (Mockery came too easily to Cressida. As if she feared a softer emotion would make her vulnerable.) Arlette knew: if something terrible had happened to Cressida, Zeno would blame himself. Though there could be no reason, no logical reason, he would blame himself.

Already he was saying to whoever would listen I wasn't even there, when she left. God!

In a voice of wonder, self-reproach Maybe she'd have told me-something. Maybe she'd have wanted to talk.

COUNTLESS TIMES they'd gone over Saturday evening: when Cressida had left the house, on her way to the Meyers' for dinner.

Casually, you might say indifferently calling out to her mother and her sister in the kitchen-Bye! See you later.

Or even, though this was less likely given that Cressida wouldn't have stayed very late at Marcy's-Don't wake up for me.

(Had Cressida said that? Don't wake up for me?-intentionally or otherwise? Wake up not wait up. That was Cressida's sort of quirky humor. Suddenly, Arlette wondered if it might mean something.) (Snatching at straws, this was. Pathetic!) Certainly it was ridiculous for Zeno to reproach himself with not having been home at that time. As if somehow-(but how?)-he might have foreseen that Cressida wouldn't be returning when she'd planned, and when they'd expected her?

Ridiculous but how like the father.

Particularly, the father of daughters.

EACH TIME the phone rang!

Several phones in the Mayfield household: the family line, Zeno's cell, Arlette's cell, Juliet's cell.

Always a kick of the heart, fumbling to answer a call.

Deliberately Arlette avoided seeing the caller ID in the hope that the caller would be Cressida.

Or, that the caller would be a stranger, a law enforcement officer, possibly a woman, in Arlette's fantasizing it was a woman, with the good news Mrs. Mayfield!-we've found your daughter and she wants to talk to you.

Beyond this, though Arlette listened eagerly, there was-nothing.