Seven Minutes to Noon

not this one. Tim looked at her so fast and so hard, all possibility of conversation ended right there. Alice was startled by the intensity of his eyes, which held on to Maggie in a merciless, desolate glare.
    It was awkward after that, but they stayed. As the night darkened, Alice became aware of a blossoming nub of mourning for the close friendship of the three families. But she reminded herself that with Lauren missing, with each word and glance a grain in the quicksand of possibility, there was no way any of them could find their equilibrium. Still, something was lacking between the friends tonight, a kind of cohesion they had grown lazily accustomed to.
    Alice and Mike stayed until just before midnight, finally lugging home their sleeping children and climbing into bed, desperate for sleep.
    Alice lay awake next to Mike under their soft, light blanket. The house was so quiet she could hear its nuances, its hollow sighs, every creak and moan of the wooden beams hidden behind plaster walls, the swish ofeach car that passed outside the closed windows. She put in her earplugs and strapped on her eye cover, creating a private capsule of sensory deprivation. The quiet now was exquisite, the darkness total. She waited for sleep. Time passed awkwardly through her mind like an illgaited runner, and she waited, but sleep was nowhere in her body. The dissonant resonance in her mind became deafening, until finally she gave up and got out of bed.
    As with most of the area’s lower duplex apartments, the bedrooms were downstairs, keeping the high-ceilinged parlor floor above for the business of daily life. Wedding-cake moldings traced the edges of the large living room, with its ornate marble fireplace and floor-to-ceiling windows. Wide wooden planks creaked under Alice’s feet as she tried to move carefully, quietly, above her sleeping family. She passed through the saturated darkness, under the wide arch joining living room to kitchen. When she turned on the overhead light, the kitchen sprang into focus. Mahogany cabinets, buttery Formica counters, workhorse appliances from the 1970s all clean and ready to service a new day.
    It was 3:00 a.m. She could feel her babies moving inside her body and wondered if she had woken them or if they were normally awake at this hour. She would find out soon enough. After rummaging through the fridge, she spooned some peanut butter from the jar and poured herself a glass of orange juice. She moved the laptop from the shelf by the garden door to the kitchen table and plugged it in. As she waited for it to boot up, she looked out into the dark backyard, silvery with moonlight. Her lush summer garden was as still as a photograph. She would miss it when she moved.
    Once she had the kettle on the stovetop and a peppermint tea bag waited in her favorite mug, she sat down and Googled Lauren’s name. It came up a few times in association with her former life as an attorney but there was nothing about her now. No mention that she was missing. Next Alice Googled Christine Craddock. She clicked on www.christinelost.com and instantly the screenwas filled with a picture of the young, pregnant woman proudly displaying her immense belly. The Web site’s pages were neatly listed down the left side, offering different views into the lost woman’s life.
    Christine Craddock had been an unmarried mother-to-be. Her baby’s father had been her graduate school professor and thesis adviser; married with a family of his own, David Jonstone had denied any personal relationship with Christine. She was preparing a paternity suit at the time of her disappearance, to be delivered to Jonstone upon their baby’s birth. It was unknown whether the professor had been aware of this. The morning of Christine’s disappearance, which was also her baby’s due date, she was overheard arguing with someone on her cell phone — the cell phone that had been found buried in silt at the bottom of the canal. The call was traced to a pay phone, so there was no way to know who had been on the other end. Christine Craddock was last seen crossing Bond Street, walking in the direction of Park Slope.
    One page of the Web site was devoted to the police investigation, headed by Detective Paul Giometti of the Brooklyn South Homicide Unit. Other pages were lighter: Christine’s Family; Christine’s Favorite Movies; Christine’s Pets, A-Z; Christine’s Hopes for the Future. There was even a page called Christine’s Politics, which