Kay nodded. She recited the facts so well that it was obvious to Diana she had spent a lot of time thinking them over. "She disappeared one night in March. That's the last time she was seen. It was a cool night, cloudy, and Margie left her room around eleven o'clock. One of the neighbors saw her on the stairs. She took just enough money for cigarettes and left her wallet, her ID, clothes and everything else behind. She didn't even bring her glasses. We know she made it to the store because the clerk remembered waiting on her. He recognized her from a picture. But she never made it back to her room. Somewhere between the store and her room, she disappeared. Right there on Poplar Street. Nobody saw or heard a thing, according to the police."
Despite the hot coffee, Diana felt a cold tingle at the back of her neck. Stories of young women disappearing always had that effect on her.
"I've never heard of her." Diana leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms, looking for added warmth. Something about Kay Todd was bothering her. Not only did she speak with the central Ohio twang that Diana had grown up hearing and had tried to purge from her own mouth, but she also possessed the small-town, Midwestern habit of circling around a topic without ever really arriving at it. Diana knew there was something she wasn't being told, that there were layers to this story that were only going to be revealed after extensive peeling. "Kay, what year are we talking about?"
"Again with the hurry." Kay smiled, but there was no warmth in her eyes. "Does it really matter what year it happened? My daughter is gone, and no one has been able to tell me what happened to her. The police say they don't have a single clue. Not a single lead. No blood. No physical evidence. Nobody heard a scream or a struggle. They say she most likely ran away. Probably sounds familiar to you, doesn't it? The things these cops say?"
Diana started to get the feeling that their conversation wasn't leading in the direction that she originally suspected, that Kay Todd hadn't sought her our because of her connection to the police department but because of something else. And that uncertainty, that lack of confidence in the direction of the conversation, made her uneasy.
"What year are we talking about, Kay?"
"1984. March of 1984."
"Twenty-five years?"
"Twenty-five and a half," Kay said. "You probably weren't even born then, were you?"
"No, I wasn't."
"It feels like a lifetime since I saw her. A couple of lifetimes."
"So why are you bringing it up now?" Diana asked.
"I have lung cancer. Inoperable. The doctor says eight months, maybe a year. My other daughter, Daphne, died two years ago. Ovarian cancer. It runs in our family apparently. My mother died of it, too."
"I'm sorry," Diana said again. She sometimes felt as though it was all she could say to the Kay Todds of the world. I'm sorry. Sorry for the hand they'd been dealt, sorry that the world isn't fair, sorry that whatever god hands out the breaks and the advantages hands them out with all the care and foresight of an overgrown, temperamental child. I'm sorry.
"I want to know something before I go. I want to know what happened to my Margie. For a long time, I thought she was still alive. I believed it. I could feel it in my heart. Lately, I'm not so sure. I don't feel her anymore the way I used to. The way I always did, since I carried her inside me." She licked her lips. "Do you still feel your sister, Diana? Do you still think she's alive?"
The cold sensation at the base of Diana's skull spread down her spine and radiated through her body. She let her hands drop to the top of the table.
"Why did you say that? Why did you bring up my sister?"
"You didn't answer my question," Kay said.
Diana studied the old woman's face, which no longer looked as helpless as it had in the parking lot. Her withered, wizened features and watery eyes looked like a mask, one that hid some deeper motivation Diana couldn't begin to understand.
"You have no right to say that," Diana said. "You have no right to talk about her."
Kay brought out a cigarette and lighted it, ignoring the posted No Smoking sign above their table. She blew a plume of smoke up toward the fluorescent lights and leveled her gaze at Diana.
"I want to help you, Diana," she said. "But you have to help me first."
"How can you help me?"
Kay held up her hand, a request for Diana's silence. "I want you to find out what happened to Margie." Her eyes were pleading again, but her jaw was set tight. "I need you to."
"It's been too long. Twenty-five years is too much time. Seventy-two hours is too long in a case like this."
"Find her," Kay said. "Find her and I can tell you what happened to your sister."