Vanished by Sheela Chari Page B

loud thud outside the house. She and Pavi bolted down the stairs. The mothers and the boys were already at the front door.
    â€œDid you hear that?” Neela’s mother asked.
    â€œIt sounded like something hit the house,” Mrs. Sunder said.
    They opened the door. A few tree branches swayed in the wind. But no one was there.
    Mrs. Krishnan stepped out, frowning. “Was it snow from the roof?” She peered up to see if the snow had shifted.
    They decided to look around the house. Mrs. Krishnan, Mrs. Sunder, and the boys went along the side nearest to the garage, while Neela and Pavi skirted the front, behind the azalea bushes. Pavi was the first one to shout out. “I found it!”
    Everyone quickly gathered around. “It’s a note,” she said excitedly. The note was attached to a rock with several rubber bands. “Somebody threw this and ran off.”
    â€œWhy didn’t they put it in our mailbox?” Neela said. “What if we weren’t home? We’d never find it behind the azaleas.”
    Pavi undid the note from the rock. The words on it had been formed from letters cut out of a newspaper.
    N EE L A, I F Y O U Kn ow Wh AT’S GO OD F o R y o u, ST OP
    L O OK i N G F O R Y Ou R VE EN A !!
    Y OU W iL L nE V ER G E T I T BA C K
    AND IF YO U K EEP
    A s K i NG QU EST I O N S AT T HE
    CH uR CH , Y O U AND Y OUR
    G R A ND M o TH E R WI L L SU F F E R
    T H E C ON S E QUA N CE
    â€œGrandmother?” Neela’s mother repeated.
    Pavi was excited. “This is just like the movies!”
    â€œWhy is there newspaper on it?” Sree asked.
    â€œSo we can’t recognize the person’s handwriting,” Pavi explained. “They don’t want us to be able to trace it back to them.”
    â€œWhy didn’t they just type the letter?” Neela asked. “Talk about dumb.” Something caught her eye. “Look,” she said, pointing toward the edge of the lawn.
    Everyone walked to the end of the property, where they found a line of tracks crisscrossing the snow along the edge of the driveway.
    â€œThey’re boot tracks,” Neela said. “They stop here, where whoever it was threw the rock. And the tracks look pretty big. Like a grown man made them.”
    â€œLike Hal?” Pavi asked.
    â€œIs that the man from the church?” Mrs. Sunder asked.
    Mrs. Krishnan looked worried. “I thought he was a thief. Now he’s psycho, too. And why is he bringing Lalitha Patti into this?”
    â€œIt might be some kids pulling a prank?” Mrs. Sunder suggested.
    â€œOver her veena?” Mrs. Krishnan asked. “I thought kids just threw rotten eggs.”
    Pavi looked mildly insulted. “Kids are more sophisticated than that.”
    â€œMaybe there’s a clue in the note,” Neela said. She stared at the footprints in the snow. Was Hal warning her to stop trying to find her veena?
    But Mrs. Krishnan wasn’t interested in clues. “I’m calling the police.” She asked everyone to come inside. “I don’t want some nut out there to hurt you.”
    Mrs. Krishnan contacted the police department and gave a description of what happened. Within ten minutes, an officer came to their door. They showed him the rock and the footprints. He looked at one, then the other, and scratched his head.
    â€œTell him about the veena,” Mrs. Sunder said.
    â€œThe what?” he asked.
    Here we go again, Neela thought. She remembered her father spelling “veena” at the station a few weeks ago.
    Mrs. Krishnan ran through the whole past month, including the report they had already filed.
    The police officer listened patiently and said, “Ma’am, I wish I could say these all added up to something. You know what I mean?”
    Mrs. Krishnan murmured something to the effect of, yes, she knew what he meant. Which was basically that he wasn’t going to do much more about it.
    The officer turned to