Page 79 of No Kind of Hero
Evan stared at her, and a muscle jumped in his taut jaw before he said, “How does that help, if we don’t know where she is?”
“It’s what we can do,” Beth said. “We need to focus on what we can do. I’m going to think. I’m going towork.We’re going to get her back.”
It was a council of war. Six people sitting around Evan’s kitchen table, next to the empty high chair. Evan, Beth, and Joan, although the attorney hadn’t told them anything they’d wanted to hear. Evan’s mother Angela, her face no longer good-humored but tight with worry. Michelle and Don Schaefer. And Blake and Dakota, leaning up against the kitchen counter because there were no more chairs.
Beth had called her father after another call to April’s parents had yielded nothing but voicemail, after Joan had said, “We canaskfor an emergency hearing, but I’m not sure we have a strong case.” After dead ends everywhere.
“Evan needs help,” she’d told her dad. “Gracie’s sick, and she doesn’t have her medicine, and her mother didn’t take good care of her even while she was here. She’s unstable. Please, Dad.” Her voice had wobbled and cracked, and for once, she hadn’t tried to hide it. “Please help him.”
“Hang on,” her dad had said, and Beth had rested her elbow on the table and the phone against her forehead and tried to pray. There had to be an answer. Something.
“Elizabeth?” Her mother’s voice. “I can’t get any sense at all out of your father. Tell me.”
Her parents had come over fast, and her dad had already called the police chief, too. But the answer had been the same. Nothing he could do. Nothing anybody could do except request that hearing, and they didn’t even know where Aprilwas. Where Gracie was. So what good would a hearing do?
“I understand that,” her father said. “But we’ll be asking for the hearing anyway. And any pressure I can put on, I will.” He looked at Evan with none of his usual good humor and said, “Whatever Joan tells me I can do, I’ll do. Got to be careful pushing a magistrate, but I’ll do everything I can. You have my word.”
“Thanks,” Evan said, his mouth barely moving.
Her dad reached out and gripped Evan’s forearm. “Hey. I’ve got a daughter too. We’re all here for you, son.” Beth saw Evan swallow. She put her own hand on his back, and she loved her father. But it was so little, what they could do. So much too little.
Now, they all sat and listened to Joan explain that yet again. “Right,” Beth said when Joan finished. She wanted to cry and panic, but she couldn’t cry and panic. “If we can’t get help fast enough through the system, we need to try ourselves. A private investigator, although a background check didn’t turn anything up. But still. He could start with her friends here, maybe, and with her neighborhood around her parents’. Somebody’s going to know where she is, who she’s with. Or even if she’s at her parents’ after all.” Even though April’s mother Tiffany had sworn, when Angela had called, mother to mother, and begged for answers, that April wasn’t there. But when Angela had pressed, Tiffany had said, “You think I’m telling you something that’s going to get April in trouble? No way. She’s got as much right to that baby as Evan has. More. She’s the mother.”
Now, Beth said, “So that’s where we start. We check.” She asked Joan, “You must know of somebody. Somebody who could start now.Rightnow.”
Blake said, “Never mind that. I’ll find somebody, and I’ll get them wherever they need to go, wherever we need to look. Helicopter.” He pulled out his phone. “I can get it spinning up right now, get it here and ready to go.”
“Nonsense,” Beth’s mother said. Sitting erect in her chair, her hair perfect, looking like a queen.
“Mom,” Beth said, “we have to. I know you’ll say to wait, but Gracie . . .” Her hand tightened in Evan’s, or his tightened in hers. “She was sosickyesterday. You didn’t see. There was no way there was a car seat in that pickup, and anyway—who grabs a baby when they don’t know how to take care of her? Somebody who’s thinking about themselves and not the baby. Gracie’s notsafe.Sheisn’t.We can’t wait.”
Why had she called her parents at all if they weren’t going to be more help than this? Evan didn’t need two more people telling him there was nothing to be done.Blake got that, at least. Thank God for Blake. A helicopter sounded good. A helicopter soundedfast.And Beth had a feeling that Blake wasn’t a guy who waited for courts if there was a faster way.
Her mother said, “Of course we can’t wait. Did I say to wait? Be quiet and listen,” she added when Beth would have spoken. “An investigator? Ridiculous. Nobody knows this town better than I do. Nobody can find out more than I can. We’re going to do this ourselves, and we’re going to do it now.” She asked Evan, “Did she work while she was living here? Did she have friends?”
“Yes,” he said. His face was more wooden than Beth had ever seen it, but his eyes slid over to hers. She shrugged helplessly. Evan must have figured the same thing she did, that they could use any help they could get, because he went on. “At Round Table. She had a couple friends who worked there. Amber something, girl with dark hair. And, uh . . .” He shook his head, and Beth could see how fragile his grip was. “Can’t remember. Carol? Karen? Something like that.”
“Good,” Michelle said. “Perfect. Make a pot of coffee, Beth. We have a lot of planning to do.” She pulled out her phone, scrolled, then made a call. Beth looked at Evan, Evan looked back, and Michelle said, “Valerie? Hello. Michelle Schaefer here. I need a favor. Your Round Table girls. Just the girls. The ones under thirty or so. I need you to call them and tell them to get into the restaurant now. Not now, though—say, at four. Time enough for them to get there, but before things get busy. Tell them they’ll be paid double time, and a lot more if they’re useful. And yes, that’s me paying it. Right now, I need their names and ages and how long they’ve been working there. And I need everything you know about April . . .” She snapped her fingers at Evan, and he said, “Yates.”
“Yates,” Michelle said. “April Yates. Everything you know.”
Everybody had wanted to come, but Michelle hadn’t let them.
“If you come,” she’d told Blake, “they’ll all be looking at you. I want them looking atme.You’ll get your chance to help, but it’s not now. And no,” she’d told Evan before he could open his mouth. “Absolutely not. Who knows what she’s told them about you? Girls and their stories. I’d think you’d have had better taste, but that’s another conversation for another day. But no. Beth will come with me. And Joan, you shouldn’t come either. You don’t need to know what we do. Evan, you stay here with your mother and the others.”
Beth would bet Blake Orbison hadn’t been called “the others” a whole lot, or told what to do, either. But then, Blake hadn’t run up against her mother that much.
Her mother had taken her home and made her change, too. “You’re not one of the girls,” she’d said. “You’re polished. You’re confident. You’re intimidating, but you’re not as intimidating as I am.”
“Bad cop/good cop?” Beth had asked.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. Here. Scarf.” Her mother had tossed it over. “I’d say to be sympathetic, but you’ll do that anyway.”
Now, her mother sat at the desk in the manager’s office at Round Table like a judge presiding over court. Beth stood beside her, while four young women sat on straight chairs crammed into the tiny office.
Michelle said, “I think you all know April Yates, who used to work here. Yes?” She looked around, and Beth knew what she saw. A couple nods, a couple dropped gazes. “You’re thinking,” Michelle said, “that April must be in trouble. And you’re right, but not in the way you think. She may be in danger, and we need to find her.”
“Why?” It was the dark-haired girl. Amber. Who had more than a little bit of attitude. “I mean, if she’s in trouble, why are you asking? Wouldn’t the police be here?”
