Page 41 of Did You See Evie

I stop walking, feeling as the passersby nudge at my shoulders.

“Are you okay, Tara?” I ask her. “I can only imagine how hard this must be on all of you.”

“It’s about Evie,” she says, dodging my question with determination. “I think I might know what happened.”

TWENTY-TWO

I grab Tara by the wrist, and we move in the opposite direction of the departing crowd, stopping when we reach a corner of the school building.

“Tara, if you think you know what happened to Evie, you really should talk to the police.” I raise my head, searching the swarms of people for Detective Fields. I’m about to flag her over, when Tara grabs me again.

“No, Coach. Please. I just want to talk to you.”

I exhale and shift my weight to the left side of my body. Even for me, it’s easy to forget I’m dealing with preteen girls. They’re equal parts confident and unsure. Tara is trying to do the right thing by coming forward, but she’s too intimidated by the likes of Fields. She’s more comfortable coming to me.

“Okay. What do you think happened?”

“I think…” Tara’s voice trails away, her eyes following the people in the parking lot. She looks as though she’s searching for someone in particular. “I think it might be someone in her family.”

A seed of worry forms inside my stomach. This isn’t new information; anyone with any insight into Evie’s home life knows there is cause for concern, but the conclusion feels more raw coming from a girl Tara’s age.

“Why do you think that?”

“We all know that Evie’s family is… different.” It takes her a while to land on the right word. “I’m not trying to sound judgmental, or whatever. It doesn’t bother me that she’s poor…”

Whatever point Tara is trying to make is getting lost. Again, I have to remind myself that I’m talking to a preteen about an increasingly uncomfortable situation, but I need her to finish a complete thought, so I can know if she has a credible lead. This could be what Evie was trying to tell me all along.

“Tara, did Evie tell you something about her family?”

“That’s the thing. Normally she doesn’t want to talk about them at all. She tries to act like she’s one of us, even though we know she’s different.”

There’s that word again. It bothers me, even though I doubt Tara means for it to come across as the slur that it feels. I was different when I was Evie’s age, too. Parts of me worry that I still am.

“At the lock-in, she was telling us about some guy that had moved into their house recently. That’s weird, right? I mean, we all know Evie lives in that tiny house with her mom as it is.”

“Did she say who came to live with them?”

“Her mom’s boyfriend, I think.”

In my mind, I try to recall the few times I’ve been around Evie’s mother or any other family. Her mother only makes it to a handful of games, and when people tag along, it’s usually random friends, no one I remember Evie introducing me to as family.

“Did she tell you his name? Or say anything about him?”

“She said that he kind of gave her the creeps.” Tara’s eyes scan the crowd again, before focusing back on me. “And she said he recently got out of prison.”

Prison. The word sends a shiver down my spine for a multitude of reasons, but I fight not to react. Tara is doing the right thing by coming to me, but I don’t want her to know how serious this information could turn out to be.

“Tara, this is important. Did she tell you anything else about her mom’s boyfriend? Anything he might have done.”

“No, nothing like that,” she says, quickly. “But it made me worried. I mean, I can’t even imagine if some random guy just started living in my house. It made me think maybe she, I don’t know, ran away.”

“Did she say anything at the sleepover to make you think she would do that?”

“No. She just told us all about the boyfriend.”

“Tara?” Someone is calling her name from across the parking lot. I look over and see Tara’s mother. We lock eyes and I raise my hand to let her know Tara is with me.

“Do you think it could be important?” Tara says, her voice quiet and quick, as though she wants to finish this conversation before her mother walks over.

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