They said the girl had been skipping off at night, only to return days or weeks later from crack binges, emaciated, bruised and disheveled.

One day, on a crack binge deep into her pregnancy, Ms. Lopez left her two children in the care of friends for several days.

Seven-day crack binges do that, apparently.

Yvette Santiago came home one sultry June night after a three-day crack binge to find that her seven children were gone.

Miss Scott told the police she had spent the six days she was gone on an extended crack binge, prostituting herself for drug money, the detective said.

A crack binge, she added, often results in scorches on smokers' thumbs, from use of cheap lighters.

Most of the money she once made disappeared into crack binges and supporting nine brothers and sisters.

Ms. Scott told the police that she had left the child with Mr. Valdez and gone on a six-day crack binge.

But after a crack binge of three or four days, known as "a mission," some take heroin as a sleeping pill.

I thought perhaps I could study her face and see the evidence of a crack binge, but there was nothing unusual.