A young man brought their coffees to the end of the counter. “Hey,” he said to Vickie. “I know you ordered at the counter, but you look as if you’d like to sit. Please, right over there. My table, and I don’t mind. We see you here all the time.”
“Thanks,” Vickie said. “Sure. And...really? I’m here that often?”
He laughed. “Yep—you and your friend. Alex. Well, Professor Maple to me!”
“You know Alex?”
“I have a class with him.”
Vickie studied the man speaking to her. He was, she thought, in his midtwenties, maybe even as young as twenty-one or twenty-two. He was lean and about six feet even with close-cropped black hair and warm brown eyes.
“Political science major—working my way through school,” he told them. He offered them his hand. “My name is Manny,” he told them.
Vickie introduced herself and then Devin, adding, “Devin is actually Special Agent Lyle. She’s with the FBI. We’re looking for Alex.”
“Oh?” Manny asked. “Well. He missed a class this morning. I know because a friend of mind dropped by about an hour ago to say that he was cutting class because there wasn’t a class. But I didn’t know that Professor Maple was missing. He was in here Saturday night.”
“You were working Saturday night?” Vickie asked him. “You work days and nights?”
Manny nodded. “I work whatever shift I can each week. I have some scholarship money, but college—especially this college!—isn’t cheap.”
“Good for you. And us,” Devin murmured, glancing at Vickie. “So, did you see Alex do anything out of the ordinary on Saturday night? I realize that’s probably not an easy question—hard to tell what is usual or ordinary for someone else!—but it does sound as if you somewhat know Alex.”
“Saturday was a big night. We had the music duo, the Dearborn sister and brother, Cathy and Ron.”
“A lot of people came to see the show? To stay?” Devin asked.
“Yes.”
“Did Alex speak with anyone? Did he come in with anyone? Did anyone seem to be bothering him? Did he...did he look okay?” Vickie pursued anxiously.
“Come to think of it, he was a little off. Friendly as ever—the professor is a great guy!—but he started to seem a little out of it. As if we were serving booze instead of coffee,” Manny told them.
Vickie glanced at Devin anxiously.
Could that mean something? she asked with her look.
Devin gave her a barely perceptible shrug. Maybe.
“Did you see him when he left?” Devin asked.
“No,” Manny said. “I was running around like crazy, and I wasn’t Alex’s server on Saturday night. Audrey had his table—Audrey Benson.”
“So we heard. We’re just waiting on the manager to help us get in contact with her,” Vickie said. “You don’t happen to have her number or a way to reach her, do you?”
To her surprise, he smiled. “Sure. And she’s a good kid. She’ll be happy to help you.”
He pulled out his phone and dialed, smiling at them, happy to be of assistance.
But after a moment, he began to frown as he listened to a recorded voice on the phone.
“Um, well, I thought I could help you,” he said. “Her number is no longer in service at the moment. I think it was some kind of a prepaid cell phone. Odd. Though, not so odd. Lots of college kids can’t afford the plans where you pay the big guys on a plan every month.”
“Do you know where she lives?” Devin asked.
“I’m afraid not. She said that she was somewhere near the aquarium, though. She hasn’t worked here that long. We just exchanged phone numbers in case we had to cover for one another somewhere along the line. I like her—she’s always very cheerful,” he told them earnestly.
The cashier/manager walked over to them, sighing as she smoothed her hands down over her apron. “What is going on? How can I help you? I’m Susan. Acting manager now, but I suppose I should call our overall manager. I mean, we really want to help, but I don’t know anything about privacy laws and all that.”
“Manny here just tried Audrey on the number that he has for her. Perhaps you could just call her and ask her if she minds talking to us. This is an official missing-person case,” Devin said pleasantly, but with an impressive authority Vickie definitely admired.
“Oh, yes! Of course!” Susan said.
She waved a hand in the air. “Thank you, Manny,” she said, as if she’d realized that, at the moment, she was the queen of the situation and he’d been a retainer to handle things in her wake. Manny grinned good-naturedly and turned to start wiping down a table.
Susan continued to a little office in the back. She indicated that Vickie and Devin should follow her. She walked around behind a desk and opened a computer, punched in a few keys and found a phone number. The office had a landline and she used it to call Audrey Benson.
But her expression was much as Manny’s had been; she had evidently called the same number that Manny had in his phone, and received the same response.
“Well, the phone is disconnected,” she murmured.
“Do you have an address for her?” Vickie asked.
“I don’t know if I should—” Susan began.
“We’re not after Audrey! We’re trying to find a missing person who may be in danger. We’re just looking for some help,” Devin said. “Please.”
“I’m desperately trying to help a friend!” Vickie said.
“All right, all right,” Susan murmured, looking at the computer. She rattled off an address.
Vickie and Devin looked at each other, frowning.
“Say again, please?” Devin said.
Susan rattled off the address again, then paused, frowning. “Hmm. That can’t be right.”
“Nope. Not unless she’s living in the Atlantic Ocean,” Vickie murmured.
“Someone just transposed a figure wrong, or something,” Susan said.
“Right. Good job checking out your employees,” Devin said.
“Hey! We check, we do everything right.”
“You have a social security number for her?” Devin asked.
“Hey! Now, I think you have to give me a warrant or something like that for a social security number,” Susan said. “If you want more than that, you’ll have to wait until eleven o’clock. Our general manager comes in then. And he’s the one who hired Audrey!”
“But you do have a social security number for her, right?” Vickie asked. “I mean, seriously? Anyone who has visited Boston would probably know that was a sham address. Anyone who knows that we’re on the east coast would know—”
Devin jabbed her in the ribs. Vickie fell silent. She knew that she was getting more and more worried by the minute.
The waitress seemed suspicious now. Could she have drugged Alex, giving him something that made him either pass out or become out of it and pliable?
“You do have a social security number for her, right?”
“Of course!” Susan snapped. “If you’ll excuse me, I have to get back to work! We are a busy place, if you haven’t noticed.”
“We will get a warrant,” Devin said.
“Just