Page 80 of No Kind of Hero
Michelle had worn her reading glasses to this meeting, and had a legal pad in front of her. She looked, Beth had to admit, like the sternest of judges. She looked like she meant business. Now, she dropped her chin and stared at Amber over the glasses until Amber’s gaze fell. “The police,” Michelle said, “can’t do everything. They want warrants. They want evidence. Meanwhile, April’s in trouble, and so is her little girl, and we can help them.”
“Gracie?” Another girl, a somewhat bottom-heavy blonde, looked at Amber, then away. “What’s happened to Gracie?”
“We’re not sure,” Michelle said. “We’re trying to find out now. We do know that she’s in serious danger, and that you can help. I’m prepared to pay five hundred dollars to anyone—everyone—who gives me information that helps us locate and help April and her daughter.” She held up a hand.“WhenI find out that the information is correct. If it isn’t, I’ll know that, too. I’ll be sharing that with Valerie Keeland, and I’m sure you girls need your jobs. I don’t recommend that you lie to me. But if April’s talked to you since she left? Share that with me, please, for her sake. My daughter will take notes.” She waved a regal hand at Beth. “Keep track of who it came from, please, Elizabeth, so they get their money. So. Girls. Tell me. Who’s spoken to April since she left town?” She paused and looked the four women over. “We can’t help her unless you help us first.” She zeroed right in on the blonde like a hypnotist choosing his “volunteer,” or an attorney choosing her juror. Selecting the susceptible. “Caroline.” The blonde jumped in her seat. “You know something. Tell me what it is. Help me help your friend.”
When they climbed into her mother’s Lexus a half hour later, Beth felt wrecked, wrung out, and her mother still looked perfect. Her mom put the car in gear, pulled out of the lot, and said, “I think that went very well. The rest, of course, is up to you.”
Beth said, “Mom. You’re . . .” Her voice was shaking, and she didn’t care. “You’re amazing. You could have been a lawyer. You could have been ajudge.”
Her mother shot her one quick look, then turned onto Cedar and headed toward Evan’s house. “Of course I could have. But I’m not. I’m a wife and mother. And I’m very good.”
It was like the world was moving past Evan, and he wasn’t able to grab hold. However hard he tried to focus, things kept slipping by him. Joan had gone home, and so had Beth’s dad, once Beth and her mom had taken off. First, though, Don had given him a squeeze on his shoulder and a promise to “do whatever I can. Whatever Michelle finds out, if I can make something happen faster, I’ll do it. Meanwhile, you hang in there.” Which didn’t do much for Evan right now. Henry was lying by his side as he had been all afternoon, when he wasn’t pacing to the front door and back again, looking for Gracie. And the pink medicine was in the fridge. Waiting.
Evan had called the doctor’s office, but he’d got the answering service. Of course, he’d realized after a moment. It was Sunday. How had he forgotten that? Beth and her mother had already left when his phone rang, which made him jump and grab for it.
It wasn’t April, it wasn’t her parents, it wasn’t the police saying they’d made a mistake, and it wasn’t even Beth. It was the doctor.
Evan explained the situation as fast as he could, knowing he sounded like a robot.
“Not the best,” Dr. Gehrig said, “but of course, this does happen when kids are going back and forth between parents. How many doses has she had?”
“Three.”
She made a “Hmm” noise, the kind they must teach doctors, and said, “How was Gracie responding?”
“By last night, she was better. So the medicine knocked it out, right? The infection?”
Another “Hmm,” then, “It would be best for her mother to take her in and get that re-prescribed, certainly.”
“What if she doesn’t? What if she won’t?” He tried to breathe.
“Then Gracie will either get better, or she won’t. If she does, you’re fine. If the fever and pain start up again, I expect her mother will take her in to get checked before any complications have a chance to set in. A sick baby tends to get her point across. I wouldn’t worry too much.”
The cold lump in Evan’s stomach was sending a different message. He wanted to say, “How about if the mother doesn’t know what she’s seeing? How about if she doesn’t care?” But he didn’t. He knew what it would sound like. Another set of parents fighting over the kids, the accusations flying. He hung up, turned his head like he was moving through water, and asked his mom, “Would you call April’s mom again? Tell her about the medicine. Give her the name.” He got up from the table and went to the fridge to get it, banging his knee along the way and not feeling it. “Tell her Gracie needs it,” he said, handing the bottle over. “Tell her she could get sicker fast without it. Alotsicker.”
He wanted to keep moving, but he didn’t. He was afraid he wouldn’t be able to stop, and he didn’t know what he’d do. He sat down, picked up the cup in front of him, took a sip of cold, bitter black coffee, and set it down. Dakota was moving around the kitchen, making sandwiches. Blake was in the living room, on the phone. For his business, probably, but at least he was here. And Evan’s mom was calling April’s mom, whose name, suddenly, Evan couldn’t remember. Getting voicemail. Leaving the message, somehow sounding calm. Hanging up and saying, “That’s the best I can do. Remember, honey, Gracie’s her granddaughter too.”
Evan wanted to say, “Then why hasn’t she seen her since the beginning?” But he didn’t. He just breathed in and breathed out. He sat. He tried not to think that if only Beth hadn’t convinced him to file. If only . . . He sat.
When he heard the front door open, though, he was there, and his mom and Dakota were right behind him. Beth came in with a look on her face like excitement. Likesomething.She put her hands on his forearms and said, “We’ve got a first name. Chris. At least if it’s the same guy, because it’s been a month or more. But if it is—we know he’s somewhere near Spokane, but ‘out in the boonies.’ Probably Spokane County, though, because of that Washington plate. Somebody was driving that truck, if it wasn’t one of April’s parents.”
“It wasn’t her dad’s rig,” Evan managed to say. “Unless he got a new one. But yeah. We should check her folks. We should . . . stake their house out or something. Break in the back when they leave. Something.”
“Can’t do it,” Blake said. “You heard it from your lawyer, and I talked to mine and heard the same thing. The minute you do something like that, your ex gets a restraining order slapped on you, and that’s the last thing you need when you’ve got a little girl to hang on to. But don’t worry,” he said when Evan would have spoken. Exploded, more like. “I already got a few guys on that. Just set it up. They’re headed out there now. They’ll watch her parents’ place, and they’ll check for that truck.”
“Get them to run the plate,” Evan said. “We’ve got a first name. Probably a county. Make and model. Two digits on the plate. Narrow it down.”
“I asked,” Blake said. “You bet I did. Only law enforcement’s going to be able to do that.”
“You’re not telling me that they can’t do it,” Evan said. “You know they could do it. You know they’d have somebody on the inside who could get that for them.”
“Sorry, man,” Blake said. “They say not. If we had a full plate, they’d probably skate on it, call in a favor. But when you only have two digits, and you’d get all those names and addresses? And with Gracie’s mom not breaking any laws? They aren’t doing it. But they’re watching the house, and they’ll keep watching it. Sooner or later, she’ll go to her parents’, because she’s probably close by. She’ll go there, and my guys will follow her. We’ll find out where she is.”
“And then what?” Dakota asked.
“Then we serve papers,” Beth said. “The petition for custody. Faster than by publication. We’ll have the address, and then we’ll go for an emergency hearing. Dad can help make that happen.”
“Are you sure?” Dakota asked. “That he can, and that he will?”
