Gone by Jonathan Kellerman

Rolling a fist on the table, he flexed his forearms. Tendons jumped. The big, white teeth again. Eager to bite something.
    “Tori wanted to be noticed. Since she was a little girl, my wife told her she was special. Taking her to these baby beauty contests, sometime she won a ribbon, it made the wife happy. Dancing and singing lessons, all these school plays. Problem was, Tori’s grades weren’t so great, one semester they threatened her she’d have to drop out of theater arts unless she passed math. She passed with a D, but that’s what it took, threats.”
    I said, “Acting was her main thing.”
    “Her mother was always telling her she could be this big movie star. Encouraging her, for the whatchmacallit, the self-esteem. Sounds good but it also put ideas in Tori’s head.”
    “Ambitions,” I said.
    Giacomo pushed his glass away. “Tori shoulda never come out here, what did she know about being on her own? It was the first time she was ever on a plane. This is a crazy place, right? You guys tell me if I’m wrong.”
    Milo said, “It can be rough.”
    “Crazy,” Giacomo repeated. “Tori never worked a day in her life before she came out here. Until the baby came along she was the only girl, it’s not like she’s gonna work with
me.
Right?”
    “Did she live at home before she came out here?”
    “Always, with her mother doing everything for her. She never made her own bed. That’s why it was crazy, picking up out of the blue.”
    “Was it a sudden decision?” I said.
    Giacomo frowned. “Her mother was putting it in her head for years, but, yeah, when she announced it, it was sudden. Tori was nine years outta high school but she done nothing except for getting married and that didn’t last.”
    “When’d she get married?” said Milo.
    “When she was nineteen. A kid she dated in high school, not a bad guy but not too bright.” Giacomo tapped his head. “At first, Mikey worked for me, I was trying to help out. Kid couldn’t figure out how to use a frickin’ Allen wrench. So he went to work with his uncle instead.”
    “Doing what?”
    “Sanitation Department, like the rest of his family. Good pay and benefits, you get in the union, it’s all about who you know. Used to do it myself but you come home stinkin’ and I got tired of that. Tori said Mikey stunk when he came home, it wouldn’t wash off. Maybe that’s why she got it annulled, I dunno.”
    “How long did the marriage last?” said Milo.
    “Three years. Then she’s back at home sitting around, doing nothing for five years except going out on auditions for commercials, modeling, whatever.”
    “She ever get anything?”
    Giacomo shook his head. Bending, he unzipped a compartment of the red suitcase and drew out two head-shots.
    Tori Giacomo’s face was millimeters longer than the perfect oval. Huge dark eyes were topped by feathery, fake lashes. Too-dark eye shadow from another era. Same cleft chin as her father. Pretty, maybe borderline beautiful. It had taken me a few seconds to come to that conclusion, and in a world of flash impressions that wouldn’t be enough.
    In one photo, her hair was long, dark, and wavy. In the other, she’d switched to a shoulder-length, feathery platinum cut.
    “She’s always been a gorgeous kid,” said Lou Giacomo. “But that ain’t enough, right? You gotta
do
immoral stuff to get ahead. Tori’s a good girl, never missed mass on Sunday and that’s not ’cause we forced her. My oldest sister became a nun and Tori was always close to Mary Agnes. Mary Agnes pulled strings with the monsignor to get the annulment through.”
    “Tori had a spiritual side,” I said.
    “Very, very spiritual. When I was out here I found out where the churches were near her apartment and went to all of them.” Giacomo’s eyes narrowed. “No one knew her, not the priests, the secretaries, no one. So right away I knew something was wrong.”
    His expression said he meant that on more than one level.
    I said,