serve myself a free cone before I wander the store to look for the assistant manager. If I discover he’s recently disappeared too, I’ll start to suspect my niece of murder.
That would be kind of fun, actually. A tiny little killer in my family. I’m just settling into the fantasy of that when I come to an open doorway and peer in to see a sandy-haired man behind a computer. “I’m looking for Frank,” I say.
He brightens up and stands quickly. “Hello! I’m Frank! What can I do for you?”
Crunching into my cone, I study him for a moment. Frank looks about thirty-eight, maybe forty. He’s got a little gut, but he has the healthy good looks of a guy who played a lot of sports in high school. He’s white and tan and still has a full head of hair, which he spends a little time on in the morning. But there are broken blood vessels in his nose. I’m thinking he drinks at least a six-pack every night. Anything to get through this life, am I right?
“You’re in charge of the soccer league around here?” I ask as Frank skirts his desk to come shake my hand.
“That’s right! You found me!”
“I’m so sorry to bother you at work. Is this okay?”
“Absolutely! Come on in!” He shakes with a good grip and his hand doesn’t linger. I smile up at him, but he just waves me toward a chair, not the least bit desperate for female attention. “The bosses don’t mind,” he assures me. “It’s good for the community. Good for the store.”
“Of course.”
“Looking to get your daughter into soccer?”
This league had better include five-year-olds or I’ll be pissed. I definitely couldn’t have a teenage daughter. Then again . . . of course I could. Several of the girls I went to school with do, assuming everyone is still alive and kicking. Ha. I made a soccer joke.
“Actually . . .” I watch as he takes his seat and folds his hands patiently on top of his beat-up metal desk. What in the world did my hell-raising niece want with this guy? I cross my legs and lean forward a little. “I’m here about Kayla.”
“Kayla?” His tan face goes grayish white so suddenly, I almost think the bad fluorescent lighting experienced a surge, and I glance up to see if something popped. “Who?” he croaks.
“Kayla. I believe you know her . . .” He can’t possibly fake his way through ignorance when all the blood has left his head. He must be getting dizzy by now.
“Kayla?”
“Yes!” I repeat her name one more time, because each utterance lands like a bullet in his body. “Kayla. Average white girl. Really skinny. Just turned sixteen, looks much younger. Has she been by recently?”
“That was four months ago!” he says too loudly.
“Oh. Okay. What was four months ago?”
“She . . . She . . . I mean, she came here. Yes, I remember her. Kayla.” He laughs for no reason at all, the sound a high barking that floats up to the metal rafters of his office. “Yeah, she was hoping to join the league, but she . . . I guess she didn’t have much support from her family. She didn’t have the fees, so she hoped maybe she could . . .”
Sweat is gathering on his upper lip as he stammers through his explanation. This man definitely had sex with this teenage girl, or something close enough to sex that he can see his life flashing before his eyes.
He coughs hard and the blood finally rushes back to his face, turning it bright red. “She was hoping there was paid work she could do for the league, but it’s run by volunteers, you understand. Nobody gets paid or anything. Even I don’t get paid.”
“So what happened?”
“Nothing! Nothing happened! I mean, we talked about her working here at the store, maybe, to try to raise funds, but it didn’t pan out. She wasn’t . . . you know.” A wave of hard swallows works along his throat as if he’s choking down a stuck chicken bone. “You have to be sixteen to work at the store, and she wasn’t . . .”
“She was only fifteen, huh?” I raise my eyebrows and meet his gaze to watch the panic swirl inside him. “So did you make some kind of deal with her so she could get those league fees waived?”
“No. No. Definitely not. She didn’t join a team.”
“And you never coached her?”
“Never. It