“Is there anything you want us to do?” Elizabeth asked, eager to start pitching in.
***
David still couldn’t believe Elizabeth was here with him finally, and having her and Sheri wanting to help with the office was the perfect plan. “Give yourself a minute to breathe,” he said. “You just got here, no one expects you to jump right in. You can come over with me in the morning, and I can show you what you could do. But I don’t want you to feel you have to do anything now. Trust me, there will be plenty of time to work.”
His phone started ringing.
David wanted to go overboard to make the two women feel welcome, to choose to stay forever with his pack, to ensure that Elizabeth sought to mate him when she felt the time was right. But he didn’t intend to seem too desperate or make them believe it would always be like that—always playing and just having fun when he had to work. He needed them to feel comfortable with him when things would be more routine.
“Okay, thanks, David, we will.” Elizabeth kissed him, then she and Sheri headed back to the house, leaving him to it.
“This is David Davis, White Wolf Investigative Services, how may I help you?”
“My name is Jimmy Warner and I need help. My dad has gone missing.”
“Tell me a little about what’s going on.”
“This is going to sound weird, but my father ran away or something. The police won’t do anything because there’s no evidence of foul play and he’s an adult… You probably know the drill. The thing is, he’s threatened to leave when he’s had fights with my mother before, but he never did. Well, maybe for a couple of hours, but it’s been three days now, and it’s like he vanished into thin air. No one’s seen him, no calls, texts, nothing.”
“His name?”
“Mel Warner. He’s a baker at Olson’s Bakery. He hasn’t returned to work, and his boss and coworkers are just as concerned.”
“Age?” David asked.
“Seventeen. Oh, you mean my dad’s. He’s forty-two. I tell you, he wouldn’t leave, not like this. I have a fourteen-year-old sister he adores.”
“And you?”
“Yeah, we get along fine. It’s just Mom he has issues with.”
A lot of men left their families because they couldn’t get along with their spouses and left their kids behind too. So David could get why the police weren’t concerned.
“Gut feeling?” David asked. That was something the police didn’t believe in, but if a family member had a gut feeling about the situation, David and his partners always listened. It wasn’t something they did just because they were wolves either. They’d always paid attention to their own instincts and had better results because of it.
“I think something’s happened to him. I don’t think he’s been kidnapped or anything because wouldn’t there be a ransom asking for his return? We don’t have that much money, so he couldn’t have been taken to, say, open a bank safe or whatever. Or give them secrets they could sell to the Russians or something crazy like that. But something’s definitely not right. I just know it.”
“Did you notice any changes in his behavior leading up to his disappearance?”
“You mean was he seeing another woman? I considered it. I love my mom, but if my dad could find someone who he cared about who wasn’t nagging him all the time, then maybe he would leave my mom for another woman. But his mom cheated on his dad and he never forgave her for it. So I just don’t see him doing that to my mom. Besides, he wouldn’t just disappear like that. He’d file for divorce. I’m sure of it.”
David grabbed a pen and legal pad off his desk. “Can you give me a quick description of him? What he might have been wearing the last time anyone saw him? Your address and your dad’s cell, if he had one?”
Jimmy rattled off a description, David writing as he went.
“Okay. Got it.”
The next topic, he already knew, would be a challenging one: payment. David was afraid money would be an issue. But they had taken cases where they cut their fees just to help someone out who couldn’t afford it.
The kid answered the unasked question in his next breath: “About the money… My mom won’t pay for it.”
Even worse that his mother, who was the adult, hadn’t been the one to contract with them to conduct the investigation. David created a mental list of to-dos in this mind. One of the first items on the list? Having a little conversation with the mom.
“But I have a job in a hardware store after school,” Jimmy continued. “I’ll hire your services and pay you back as soon as I can.”
“We’ll talk about the financial aspect later.” If David could find the boy’s father and put his mind at rest, he would do it, even if they didn’t ever get paid. They had to be careful they didn’t take on too many free cases, or word would get out and that’s all they would get. But in a situation like this, he felt compelled to take the case and learn what he could.
“But I want to do this, and if I have to, I’ll try to get crowdfunding for it. But I have to do it,” he repeated.
David could hear the anguish in his voice. “If we find your dad and he’s perfectly fine, we can have him pay for our services to locate him. How does that sound?” Not that the dad would have to pay their agency anything, because technically he hadn’t contracted them to find him, but David wanted to set the son’s mind at ease.
“Oh, yeah, okay, sure. That would work.” Then Jimmy was quiet for a moment. “And if he’s not okay?”
“Then we’ll do this for free. How does that sound?”
“Uh, well, I’ll still pay you for your help. If you find him, no matter what the deal is, you need to pay for expenses. So you just let me know what they are when the time comes.”
“I will, Jimmy. You said he works at Olson’s Bakery?”
“Yeah, on Main Street. He’s worked there for years and has never been in any trouble. Everyone really likes him. In fact, he has tons of friends. It’s just Mom who gets on his nerves.”
Sounded like a match made in heaven. Not.
“I’ll get right on it.”
“Okay. My sister and I put up a hundred flyers, but we haven’t had any response. I’ll send you his photo.”
“Thanks. I’ll be over to talk to your mom and sister soon.”
“Okay, thanks. I’ve got to get to work. I’ll let you know if anyone gets in touch with me with any information that might help.”
“Sounds good, Jimmy. Same here.” David hung up the phone, then picked it right back up again.