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Having deposited Sammy into Ethel’s loving arms, Sandra now sat with Bob in Ethel’s driveway. “I’m calling Joyelle.”
Bob nodded and gazed out the windshield patiently.
Joyelle answered quickly.
“Hi, Joyelle. Would you mind sharing April’s address with me?”
She hesitated. “Why?”
“We just need to ask her some questions.” She flinched at her use of the word we, but Joyelle didn’t mention it. Maybe she thought Gertrude was Sandra’s plus one. Sandra shuddered at the thought.
“April lives in the middle of nowhere. Wouldn’t it be easier to see her at her work? She should be there now.” This was a reasonable suggestion. Joyelle was on to her. She knew she wanted to do more than ask questions.
“That’s great. Thanks, Joyelle.” She hung up the phone and looked at Bob.
“We should have expected that,” he said.
“Maybe. Hey, do a search for April May in Plainfield. Maybe her address will pop up.” She didn’t have high hopes, but it was worth a shot. It had worked for Ivan Clark, but she didn’t think Ivan Clark was hiding out under a new name.
“Nothing,” Bob said. “The world wide web thinks I’m shopping for calendars.”
She stared straight ahead, thinking of their next step. Then she looked at Bob again. “You’re an angel.”
“Yes. I haven’t been fired yet.”
“You can get fired from being an angel?”
He averted his eyes.
She gave him ample time to answer.
He didn’t.
“Can’t you find out where she lives?”
“And how would you like me to do that?”
“I don’t know. Use your angel juice. Isn’t it on her driver’s license?”
He didn’t answer, but his posture stiffened.
“Can’t you use your X-ray vision to look at her driver’s license?”
“I don’t think I should do that,” he said after a pause.
“What about her vehicle registration? It’s in her glove box, I’m sure.”
There was a longer hesitation this time. “I still don’t think I should ...”
“Well, can you ask the daycare angel?” She was growing impatient.
Bob scowled. “No! Stop! What you’re planning is illegal and unethical. I can’t use God’s power to do these things.”
“What?” she cried. “Since when? What’s the difference between peeking at her license and opening locked doors?”
Bob looked down sheepishly.
“Oh no, have you gotten in trouble, Bob?”
He didn’t answer her.
“Fine. I’ll do it myself.” She put the car in reverse and backed out of Ethel’s driveway.
“How?”
“I don’t know yet.” She drove toward downtown.
Bob was quiet for a few minutes, and she kept looking to make sure he was still there. “Does her social media profile give a town at least?”
“No. It’s locked up tight as a drum. But I assume she lives in Plainfield.”
“Why do you assume that?”
“Because she works in Plainfield and she dances in Plainfield.”
“But what if she lives in Weld? She’s certainly not going to work or dance there. The closest working and dancing would be in Plainfield, and that would go for any other town within fifty miles.”
He had a point.
“Fine. Maybe she lives in Weld.” Sandra hoped not. She didn’t want to drive that far into the boonies again. Not after she’d had so much fun on their little expedition to Phillips.
She slowed when she neared All My Children Daycare.
“Are you sure this is even the right daycare?”
“Yes. Joyelle didn’t withhold everything.” For stealth’s sake, she drove past the daycare.
Bob raised an eyebrow, but he didn’t comment.
She parked in front of the bank. Then she put on her reffing cap and pulled it down over her eyes.
Bob rolled his eyes.
She added some sunglasses and then looked in the rearview mirror. Yup, pretty nondescript. She rested her hand on the door handle. “Are you going to wait here?”
“No. I’m going to come watch, but I have nothing to do with this. I do not support this, nor will I swoop to your rescue if you get caught.”
Sandra hesitated. Did this mission go against Nate’s rules then? Nate had said she couldn’t investigate without Bob. “You’d let her kill me?”
He rolled his eyes again. “That’s preposterous! She’s not going to try to kill you in broad daylight in the middle of town in a daycare parking lot!”
“But if she tried to, you’d let her?”
He narrowed his eyes. “You’d better hurry up.”
“Fine.” She got out of the van. Keeping her head down, she approached the large brick building full of infants and toddlers. She met someone who gave her a chipper “Good morning!” but she ignored her and then felt guilty for doing so. If being a sleuth made her rude, then maybe she shouldn’t be a sleuth anymore.
This was a good thought, one she would attend to as soon as she finished this case. She glanced around to make sure no one was watching her, and when it appeared that no one was, she turned ninety degrees to her left. Wondering how many security cameras were pointed her way, she followed the side of the building to the back parking lot, which was tiny. The backyard was a fenced-in mulched area with a small playground. Alongside the fence, three cars were parked.
On Tuesday nights, nearly every car in Joyelle’s parking lot sported a Synergy Dance decal on their back window. She hoped April’s car was one of those. If not, she was going to have to guess. As she got closer, she sighed with relief.
A blue four-wheel-drive Ford pickup with a white dancer on the back. Beneath the dancer, April.
She bent her knees and slouched a bit, hoping to be closer to invisible. Then she wondered if moving like a drunk with bad knees would call more attention to herself, and she popped up straight as an arrow. She pulled her sleeve down over her fingers, gave the area another quick scan, and tried to open April’s passenger side door.
It was locked.
Of course. No one locked their cars in Plainfield, Maine. Except for April. This made Sandra even more suspicious of her. She cupped her hands together and looked into the car to see what she could see. Maybe she had written a check and left it face-up on her dashboard so someone could come along and glean her home address.
No such luck. The car was spotless.
She heard someone cough and stood up straight to find a little boy on the other side of the chain-link fence. His tiny fingers clutched the fence, and his wide eyes stared right at her. She smiled at him, but the fear did not leave his face. She looked around, wondering why there was a solitary child wandering around in the backyard. Her instinct was to investigate, make sure that the providers knew where he was, but then how would she explain what she was doing on the scene?
So, against every fiber of her being, she slunk away, telling herself that he would be okay. He was fenced in. They’d find him eventually.
Embarrassed and frustrated at the failure of her mission, she returned to her minivan.
“How did that go?” Bob’s smirk suggested he knew exactly how it went.
“Were you watching?”
“I was.”
“Did you lock her car?” she cried.
“What? Why would I do that?”
“To foil my plan!”
“No, I did nothing to interfere with your mission.”
Sandra started the car and then pulled off her hat and sunglasses. “Did you see the little boy?”
“Of course. And it’s already taken care of.”
She looked at him quickly. “What does that mean?”
“He had shut the door behind him. I opened it again so the adults would notice. He’s already back inside.”
Relief washed over her. “Thank you so much.” She put the car in drive and turned on her signal.
“I didn’t do it for you.”
“I know, but I still thank you.”
