Page 31 of Did You See Evie

Connor isn’t home. He’s likely at the gym, getting in a lengthy sweat session before the lazy weekend takes over. I wonder if he’s heard about what’s happened yet, if it’s as important to the rest of the world as it is in my own mind. I grab the remote and turn on the television, just in time for the news update.

Sure enough, she’s on there. Her name and face, the details of her last known whereabouts. Gone missing from an overnight school event. That’s the phrase they use. She was supposed to be safe there, under my care, and yet now she’s missing.

I turn off the television, a sickening realization arising: This is all my fault.

I pull out my phone again and call Nadia.

This time, instead of going to voicemail, the call refuses to connect. The number has been discontinued. My cheeks flush red, anger and rage coming in full force. Nadia lied to me. Nadia is avoiding me. And I’m not going to wait another fifteen years to find out why.

Gripping the car keys in my fist, I walk out of the house, back into the pouring rain.

SIXTEEN

Nadia is crafty and cunning, but I once was, too. I was the first one to complete a dash and go, even if it was her giving me the idea. She might have thought, after all this time, that my instincts have softened.

I’m going to prove her wrong, show her she made a mistake in trying to mess with me and one of my players.

I start back at the place where I first saw her: the liquor store. Knowing what I know now, that run-in was no chance encounter. Nadia had likely been watching me for days, maybe even before that newspaper article came out. She would have known this is where I usually stop after work to pick up a bottle of wine, which means I might be able to find something out from the workers.

It’s still early on Saturday, the place freshly opened. A sensor beeps as I enter the store, and I scan the room, seeing there are no other customers in sight. Behind the counter, an older man sits. He nods his head in acknowledgement before returning to his morning paper. Luckily, it’s the same man who was working the day I ran into Nadia, and while I don’t expect him to remember our encounter, I’m hoping he remembers her. Her face is striking, hard to forget. It’s always been that way.

“Excuse me,” I say, approaching the counter. “I need your help.”

“Looking for something specific?” he asks, laying the paper flat on the counter.

“Not something. Someone.”

He leans back and crosses his arms over his chest. His left eyebrow raises. “Police?” he asks, heavy skepticism in his voice.

“No,” I assure him. “I ran into a friend here the other day and am trying to track her down.”

“You have a picture of this friend?”

“No.” This would be a lot easier if I did. Any pictures I have of Nadia would be almost two decades old, stuffed inside some shoebox in a storage container back at the house. I never even took the time to look, and she’s probably difficult to find on social media. Knowing Nadia, she doesn’t have an online presence at all.

“She’s easy to remember, though,” I say. “Petite. Long blonde hair. Expensive jewelry and purse.”

From my experience, most people in customer service are good at assessing a person’s social status based on what they wear. I’m hoping some of Nadia’s accessories might have caught the man’s eye.

“I know who you’re talking about,” he says, confident in his answer. “Can’t tell you much about her.”

I reach into my wallet and pull out two twenty-dollar bills, sliding them across the counter. “You can’t think of anything else? Maybe she mentioned where she works, or you’ve seen what car she drives?”

“No car,” the man says, resting a sun-spotted hand over the cash. “She walks.”

“Walks?”

“From one of the apartments down the street,” he says, pulling the cash away from me. “And that’s all I know.”

“Thank you,” I say, heading back outside.

It’s not much, but it’s something, maybe enough information to help me track her down. Even if she’s a con, she must live somewhere, and even if she’s disconnected her phone number in the wake of what happened last night, she wouldn’t have had enough time to move.

I twist my head from side to side, surveying the area. To the right, there’s a stoplight at a four-way intersection. Beyond that, are a few multi-level buildings housing offices and rental spaces. To my left, a few blocks down, I see a row of condos. I begin walking in that direction, my senses alert to take in whatever is around me.

It’s an expensive area, despite its proximity to the liquor store. This is one of the many gentrified areas of downtown Manning; what was a bad part of town in my youth is now only accessible to people in the six-figures club. If the liquor store attendant is right, and Nadia lives here, she must be making more off her scams than I realized.

There’s a hard knot in the pit of my stomach. If Nadia is in the business of human trafficking, that’s likely to bring in more money than stealing office equipment. It’s a long-shot theory, one likely influenced by too much misinformation in the media, but I can’t shake the fact that the same night the school was scheduled to be burglarized, Evie went missing.

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