Sarah Rogers, aka Marla Moon, is still missing. Rogers left her home in Barrington, N.H. Dec. 13. She made it as far as Clinton, Maine, in Kennebec County, where her car was found, abandoned in a snowstorm in the center median of the interstate. She was dressed in shorts, a tank top, and a spring jacket. Footprints led to the southbound lane where they ended. Rogers/Moon, 29, hasn’t been seen or heard from since.
Now a story in the Morning Sentinel family reports that Sarah is bipolar, was off her medication, and left a toddler son behind. She’s left home before but always has been located soon after.
One hopes she found a sympathetic soul and will turn up when this phase of her illness diminishes. One hopes.
Reading about Sarah Rogers, I’m reminded of all the missing-women cases I wrote about over 18 years in newspapers. Sometimes I interviewed family members, clinging to hope. Sometimes I wrote about those hopes being dashed— a body found, a murderer arrested. In more than one case, nothing was ever determined. In some ways those cases were the saddest. When a person vanishes, neither hope nor grieving ever really end.
As a novelist, I can picture Sarah/Marla. I can hear her voice, or at least what I imagine it to be. I can envision this as the beginning of a novel. I’d love for Sarah to turn up— and the rest of the story to be fiction.
In PORT CITY SHAKEDOWN, the first Brandon Blake novel, Brandon gets a full dose of bad guys. A brawl in a funeral home introduces him to Joel Fuller, a sociopathic hustler. Fuller is fresh out of jail and determined to take Brandon out—after Fuller and his sidekick Kelvin shake him down.
Rocky isn’t a tough guy. He’s a skinny little kid with crooked glasses, and he shouldn’t be homeless in Portland, Maine. When McMorrow and Roxanne pluck him from under the stomping feet of a gang of street kids, Rocky latches onto McMorrow–and drags him into a world of murder, both old and new. Why is McMorrow protecting Rocky? The cops want to know. Why is Rocky on the run? McMorrow wants to know. Why does death follow in Rocky’s wake? Jack and Roxanne need to find out before they’re added to the list. 
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