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Maggie felt her throat constrict.

She clicked the pound sign, fast-forwarding past that and the older messages.

The female computer voice then announced: “New message from Saturday, ten thirty-one P.M. . . .”

Maggie then listened to her mother’s voice, calmly asking Maggie to call when she had a chance.

“Nothing important,” her mother said, her voice tired. “Good night.”

Well, Mother, that didn’t happen.

Maggie deleted the message.

The next message was her mother again, almost two hours later, just after midnight. Her voice now was frantic.

“Maggie! Please answer! Call us! We need to know you’re okay!”

It hurt to hear her mother so distressed. She deleted the message.

That bastard Ricky is causing everyone pain. People who’ve done nothing to deserve it.

She listened to the next one. It was her father, his gravelly voice trying to sound calm.

And that really hurt to hear, too.

She listened to the entire message—felt the moral obligation to do so—then deleted it. And then she did the same with the rest—played them all, ones from family and friends and the police, and deleted them

one by one.

The tone of her mother went from the initial frantic to hysterical crying to sheer exhaustion. Maggie thought that if there was any silver lining, it was that some of the messages had been thankfully brief. But toward the end, a few were just one or two words—“Maggie?” “Please call . . .” “Hello?”—almost as if her mother had called the number simply to hear Maggie’s voice on the recording.

Listening to them all had been emotionally exhausting. Maggie was glad to finally hear, “You have one new message. From Monday, at twelve-ten A.M. . . .”

“I believe you have something that belongs to me,” a man’s steely voice said. “Call me at 267-555-9100 and I’m sure we can come to some arrangement that is mutually satisfying.”

Maggie shivered at the sound.

That is one cold voice.

And what is that accent? Eastern European?

It’s certainly not Hispanic. Not Ricky’s.

And “mutually satisfying”?

Like what? What happened to Krystal?

She played the message again, this time writing down the number on a piece of paper. She stared at it for a long time.

It’s a Philly area code.

Then she opened a new window on her browser and typed the telephone number in its search field.

The first search result read: “267-555-9100, a KeyCom Mobile Device. Month-to-month service. Never be locked in a long-term cellular contract again!”

Well, only a fool would use a landline number that could be traced.

So, it’s a go-phone.