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Esther
“Esther!” Rachel called across the sanctuary. “Your phone is ringing!”
Esther looked up to gauge who was closer, she or Rachel. Rachel was already on her way to the phone, so Esther let her get it.
“It’s Zoe!”
“Answer it.” As if Rachel needed to be told.
“Hi, Zoe. It’s Rachel ... oh ... I don’t know ... that’s a good question. Hang on.” She readily handed the phone off to Esther. “She’s asking hard questions.”
“Hello?”
“Hi, Gramma. We were just thinking, and we wanted to confirm that the police have tracked his phone, so that we know that he didn’t leave the area.”
“Oh. I have no idea. I would assume so?” She scanned the sanctuary for someone smarter than her. Nora made eye contact with her, so she headed that way. “The kids just wanted to check to make sure that the police tracked your son’s phone.”
“I already found his phone,” she said tiredly.
“No,” Zoe said. “Gramma, can you put me on speaker?”
“Hang on.” It took too long, but she managed to do that. “All right. You’re on speaker phone.”
“Hi, Mrs. ...”
“Langford,” Esther quickly said.
“Langford,” Zoe repeated, sounding annoyed. “I’m sure the police have already done this, but I just wanted to check now that I’ve thought of it. They did track his phone movements over the last few days? Just to make sure he didn’t leave the area on Friday night?”
“But his phone was found here,” Nora said, obviously confused.
“Right,” Zoe said and then didn’t say anything else.
Esther understood her hesitation. Zoe didn’t want to say that the phone could have made its way back to Carver Harbor without Levi. “Wouldn’t hurt to check?” she said to Nora.
Nora’s head fell. “I don’t really want to deal with the police right now. If they haven’t done that, then me calling them isn’t going to get them to do it.”
“I’ll call,” Esther said before she thought about what she was volunteering for. “I’ll call you back, Zoe.” She hung up and started to dial, but then she wasn’t sure what numbers to press. She looked at Nora. “Have you been working with a particular detective?”
Nora nodded and pulled a card out of her pocket. She offered it to Esther. “He’s not a detective, I don’t think, but here he is.”
Esther dialed the number, her belly a swarm of nerves. She wished Walter hadn’t left the prayer circle to join one of the search teams. He’d be much better at this than she was. He loved talking on the phone.
“Hello?”
“Hello ...” Esther looked at the card. “Is this Officer Pettiford?”
“It is.”
“Great. My name is Esther, and I’m calling from New Beginnings Church. We’ve set up a sort of search party for Levi, and we wanted to check ...” She searched for the right words.
“You set up a search party?”
“Yes. Just a few of us, though anyone is welcome to help.”
“Where are you looking?”
“Well, that’s just it. We’re combing the whole peninsula, but we wanted to make sure that you guys tracked his phone locations for the last few days.” She worried she wasn’t being clear. “You know, so that we would know if we needed to look further away, if he did go further away.” She cringed. Why had she volunteered to do this? She should have made Cathy do it. She looked at Cathy, who was still busy calling every church in the state asking for help.
Officer Pettiford chuckled dryly. “You cannot track a phone unless the owner makes calls, which he did not.” He sounded beyond irritated.
“Oh.” She tried not to let her disappointment show on her face, for Nora’s sake. “So does that mean we don’t know for sure that he didn’t leave the peninsula?”
“We don’t know anything for sure. Now if you don’t mind, I’ve got to go—”
“Yes, yes, of course. Thank you for your help.” Esther hung up the phone and looked at Nora, who was paler than she’d been a few minutes ago.
“I should have called him,” she said and then she let out a wail unlike any wail Esther had ever heard before.
Esther went to her quickly and wrapped her arms around the small, trembling woman and squeezed. The woman sobbed, and Esther didn’t know what to say, so she just held her. Please, Father. I’m begging you. Let us find this child.
