Dark Secret - Avelyn Paige Page 0,11
that’s all that’s holding up the process, it should work.”
Shelby doesn’t move.
“You gonna call them, or are you going to give me this detective’s number?” Shelby pulls out her ancient cell phone and presses her finger to the screen. Snatching it from her as the first ring goes through, I put it on speakerphone. “What’s this asshole’s name?”
“Detective Fischer. Please, don’t piss him off. He was less than helpful earlier. I’m worried that if you go all you on him, he’ll refuse to help at all,” she pleads.
“It’s his fucking job to help, Shelby. If he’d done his job, there would’ve been an Amber Alert out hours ago.” And then she wouldn’t have come to me and turned my life upside down, but I leave that part out.
A voice answers on the second ring. “Beckettville Police Department.”
“Yeah, I need to speak to Detective Fischer regarding my missing daughter.”
“He’s not here right now, sir.”
“Then who the fuck’s there?” I growl. It’s no secret that I hate fucking cops, but this one time, they could prove useful. As I don’t have that kind of reach, an Amber Alert will have every single person in the state on the lookout for my girl.
“Please hold. I’ll transfer you to one of the detectives on duty.”
A few beeps go by before someone else answers. “Detective Moulton.”
“Yeah, my kid’s missing, and I want to know why the fuck your department is refusing to put an Amber Alert out on her.”
“Sir, calm down. Amber Alerts have certain criteria that have to be met before we can issue one. We can’t just put one out on any kid who’s wandered away from home.”
“She hasn’t run away,” Shelby interjects. “I tried to tell Detective Fischer that, but he wouldn’t listen to me.”
“What’s her name?” he asks.
“Hayden Dawson.”
I hear the clicks of the keyboard in the background.
“I’m sorry, but I don’t show a report anywhere. Detective Fischer may not have it filed yet in the system, and until he does, there’s really nothing I can do. My advice would be to call back in the morning and talk to Fischer directly.”
“You’ve got to be shitting me. All those resources at your fingertips, and you won’t do a fucking thing? Your detective told her mother that he’ll look into it but needs to talk to me. Well, here the fuck I am. She’s not with me. Issue the fucking Amber Alert.”
“If you’re going to continue to speak to me like that, sir, I’ll have to end this call. If you call back and talk to the detective who spoke to your wife, you’ll be able to get more answers than I can give you.” I ignore his assumption that she’s my wife. If she was, this would have never happened. That was Shelby’s choice, not mine, and I’m paying the consequences now that she needs my help.
Shelby’s eyes plead with me to stop, but I can’t. I may not have known about Hayden until tonight, but Shelby’s assured me that she’s my blood, and a DNA test will prove that later. But even if she isn’t, I’m not about to sit around and let the police shove a child’s safety on the back burner. I’d been down that road myself, and no child deserves to be ignored by a system meant to protect them from shit like this.
“If you and your department don’t want to handle it, I’ll fucking do it myself,” I bellow before hanging up on the guy. “So help me, Shelby, I’m going to get her back, police or no police. I’ll do it.” Tears stream down her beautiful face, but I can’t focus on her sadness or my rage.
Focus on what you can do. Ignore how much you want to take Shelby into your arms and comfort her.
“Does she have a cell phone?”
“She does, but it wasn’t at the house. She never leaves without it.”
“What’s the number?”
Shelby hesitates. “It’s 554-0690.”
Opening my desktop, I pull up a geo-locator site I use for the club.
“Service provider?”
“T-Mobile.”
My fingers fly across the keyboard, quickly entering in the information and the provider. With a click of the enter key, the screen flashes. My heart drops.
“Her phone hasn’t connected to a cell tower since early yesterday morning.”
“Oh, God.”
“Relax, Shelby. It could mean her phone’s off or the battery’s dead. We just have to keep checking to see if it connects to a local cell tower, which will get us a close proximity of where she could be or has been. You just have