(Page 2 of 2)

On Monday, the priority was getting her father. Her parents had been visiting friends in Russia, and he was returning to Kennedy Airport at 5 p.m. Her mother was staying longer. The Aronovs were minding their dog. Over the weekend, they left it with friends while they took their 9-year-old daughter, Veronica, skiing in Vermont. Polina, 22, who works in the fashion industry and lives with them, was in Los Angeles.

On Monday morning, according to her husband, Ms. Aronov drove Veronica to school in their Jeep Cherokee, then retrieved the dog. She pulled up in front of her apartment building, and her husband took the dog up, because she had another appointment. He asked her to drop him off at the subway. He was on his way to his Brooklyn office.

At the station, she mentioned that she was going to the doctor to have the mole removed. This was news to him. They had discussed it before, and he frowned on the idea, thinking it was an act of needless vanity. But she decided to go ahead.

Around noon, the mole gone, she phoned her husband from the apartment. He said she reminded him not to go to the gym after work but to get home by 8 to relieve his stepmother, who was going to pick up Veronica from school. Ms. Aronov was supposed to leave keys with the doorman so his stepmother, who lives in Forest Hills, Queens, could get in.

A doorman saw Ms. Aronov go out with the dog around 2:30. He said she was wearing a brown coat, a white beret, pants, winter boots. She is about 5-feet-4, with brown eyes and short blond hair. That was the last reported sighting.

When her father's plane arrived, she wasn't there. He tried calling her. No answer. He didn't have Dr. Aronov's office number, so he waited. And waited.

Meanwhile, when Dr. Aronov's stepmother got to the apartment with Veronica, the doorman had no keys. She called his office. He tried his wife's cellphone and got her voice mail. He assumed she had simply forgotten about the keys. So his stepmother took Veronica to Forest Hills. Dr. Aronov told her that he would get her after work. He said he left his office around 7:30 and continued to call his wife on her cellphone and in Southampton. He said he assumed they were somewhere in the thicket of New York commuting traffic. He stayed awhile in Forest Hills.

He got to his apartment lobby around 10 p.m. Her father was sitting there. Now, Dr. Aronov said, he knew something was terribly wrong: thinking there had been an accident, he hurriedly checked to see if the car was there. It was. Then he called the police.

In the apartment, he found her wallet. There was a glass of apple juice on the kitchen counter. And there was some chicken she had cooked for his dinner, still sitting out. She had not come back to put it in the refrigerator.

The Police Department Crime Stopper vans crawled up and down York Avenue yesterday, trumpeting word of her disappearance, trolling for tips. The sidewalks were busy. A lot of people were walking their dogs.