Vanished in the Shadows — Susan Hart

Dargan Hughes did not consider himself a man of routine, though most would have said otherwise. Each morning, he walked two blocks to the station, pausing at Perkins Bakery for a coffee and a cinnamon roll. The barista never asked for his order. The same newsboy, hunched behind a battered stack of weeklies, greeted him with a sullen squint.On Mondays, his route included a detour around the community garden, where Mrs. Sanderson and her yappy beagle staged daily protests against someone or other. The sameness of his days suited him; he found comfort in the predictable, the reliable. But three weeks ago, the town's only bar—a squat cinderblock building lacquered in the kind of paint that faded as soon as it dried—sent out a ripple of panic that left Dargan deeply unsettled.The bartender, Charlie Wicks, was gone. Not called in sick gone or off on a bender gone—just vanished.