The girls had been missing for three days, they were told.   Deb knew right away that something dreadful had happened.  Jenni had gone to the Valley in March.  She has no boyfriend, she has few friends, she largely is a homebody.   Plus, Jenni wouldn't go for more than a couple nights without calling Deb. The two acted more like friends than parent and child.

''Somebody stole my baby,'' Deb said again.   Of course, Jenni isn't a child anymore. She is 19 and living away from home, determined to stand on her own two feet. She flew into Phoenix this spring with a round-trip ticket and didn't go back, telling her parents that "Diana needs me right now," and "the Valley was a paradise of jobs and opportunities."

But to Deb and Bob, Jenni is still a little girl, the same shy, skinny youngster who had to overcome childhood health problems; who in high school befriended the boys who were picked on and shamed the bullies; who at home faithfully took care of her great-grandmother by helping to bathe her, roll and comb her hair and make her lunch each day.
 
          

Then came the phone call.   Diana and Jenni had left home without their purses, with their uncashed paychecks inside; without a change of clothing; without cosmetics.

The Lueths posted hundreds of fliers and faxed dozens more, enlisted the help of television stations and persuaded police agencies to launch a massive air search for an older pickup  the girls were seen getting into.  They ate little, slept less and gave nary a thought to what evil may have befallen Jenni and Diana.  It has been two weeks since Jenni and Diana were seen last, and 10 days since the Lueths drove from their home to Arizona with light luggage and heavy hearts.

Atop a chest of drawers in their central Phoenix hotel room, they have placed the fliers of Jenni and Diana to keep their minds focused. Jenni beams from her Olan Mills studio photo, an expensive proposition she decided on as a 25th wedding anniversary present to her parents.

''If we have to walk every inch of the desert and turn every grain of sand, we're going to do it,'' Deb said. ''And Jenni knows that. She knows that in her heart.'' She has a heart of gold, her mother says. Jenni's dad agreed.