Beneath the baggy pants or the message-cropped hair, the same adolescent fears and needs and feelings of inadequacy remained frighteningly constant.

The last call was from a guy named Glen. He wanted to know if Chad wanted to play golf at "the Pine" this weekend, being that Merion was off-limits because of the Open. "Daddy," Glen's preppy taped voice assured Chad, "can get us a tee time, no prob."

No messages from Chad's close buddy Matthew Squires. .

He snapped on the computer. Windows 95. Cool. Myron used it too. Chad Coldren, Myron immediately saw, used America Online to get his E-mail. Perfect. Myron hit FLASHSESSION. The modem hooked on and screeched for a few seconds. A voice said, "Welcome. You have mail."

Dozens of messages were automatically downloaded. The . same voice said, "Good-bye." Myron checked Chad's E-mail address book and found Matthew Squires's E-mail address. He skimmed the downloaded messages. None were from Matthew.

Interesting.

It was, of course, entirely possible that Matthew and Chad were not as close as Linda Coldren thought. lt was also entirely possible that even if they were, Matthew had not contacted his friend since Wednesday even though his friend had supposedly vanished without waning. It happens.

Still, it was interesting.

Myron picked up Chad's phone and hit the redial button. Four rings later a taped voice came on. "You've reached Matthew. Leave a message or don't. Up to you."

Myron hung up without leaving a message (it was, after all, "up to him"). Hmm. Chad's last call was to Matthew. That could be significant. Or it could have nothing to do with anything. Either way, Myron was quickly getting nowhere.

He picked up Chad's phone and dialed his office. Esperanza answered on the second ring.

"MB SportsReps."

"lt's me." He filled her in. She listened without interrupting.

Esperanza Diaz had worked for MB SportReps since its inception. Ten years ago, when Esperanza was only _

eighteen years old, she was the Queen of Sunday Morning Cable TV. No, she wasn't on any infomercial, though her show ran opposite plenty of them, especially that one with the abdominal exerciser that bore a striking resemblance to a medieval instrument of torture; rather, Esperanza had been a professional wrestler named Little Pocahontas, the Sensual Indian Princess. With her petite, lithe figure bedecked in only a suede bikini, Esperanza had been voted s FLOW's (Fabulous Ladies Of Wrestling) most popular wrestler three years running or, as the award was officially known, the Babe You'd Most Like to Get in a Full Nelson. Despite this, Esperanza remained humble.

When he finished telling her about the kidnapping, _

Esperanza's first words were an incredulous, "Win has a mother?"

"Yep."

Pause. "There goes my spawned-from-a-satanic-egg theory."

"Ha+ha." +

"Or my hatched-in-an-experiment-gone-very-wrong theory."

"You're not helping."

"What's to help?" Esperanza replied. "I like Win, you know that. But the boy is what's the official psychiatric term again? cuckoo."

"That cuckoo saved your life once," Myron said.

"Yeah, but you remember how," she countered.