Free What You See by Ann Mullen Page A

information I can get on her—everything.”
    Then the worst thing happened. My stomach growled. What an
icebreaker. The room lit up with laughter.
    “Why don’t I take us all out to lunch?” Billy asked. “We can
talk more about your daughter, and Miss Watson can make up for not having
breakfast this morning. It sounds as if she needs to eat.”
    More chuckles echoed off the walls, but at least it made Myra stop crying. Her tears were breaking my heart.
    Even though I was terribly embarrassed, I was glad it had
happened. Now we could take a break, get some food, and Billy was going to
treat. I wondered if he did this kind of thing often.
    Billy picked up his tape recorder and said, “My brother,
Robert, owns a nice family restaurant a mile down the road, called the Rising
Sun. He has a couple of booths he keeps available for anyone in the family who
comes in to eat, so we won’t have to wait for a table. The food’s excellent and
the atmosphere is soothing. We can discuss everything as we eat.”
    As the Carroltons were walking out the front door, Billy
pulled me aside and asked if we could take my van. He said his truck wouldn’t
hold all of us and he sure didn’t want to take his junky car.
    “Sure,” I whispered as I grabbed my purse and turned on the
answering machine. I assumed it had a recorded message on it to take care of
missed calls, but I didn’t have time to check.
    Robert Blackhawk greeted us with a smile and then led us to a
booth in the back, talking to Billy the whole time. Occasionally, I picked up
on a few words of English, but most of their conversation was spoken in their
native language. Robert left and a waitress appeared at our table with menus. I
discovered the menu was made up of some foods I’d never heard of until now.
    “What do you recommend?” Billy asked the waitress. We all sat
down and then he placed his tape recorder in the middle of the table.
    “Our special today is pan-fried buffalo steak, twice baked
potatoes, black beans, and the house salad,” she answered in a tone so
personal, it led me to believe she must know Billy very well.
    “Sounds good to me,” Billy replied.
    “Sure, why not? I’ve never had buffalo steak,” I added.
    “Well, I’m afraid I’ll just stick with something less
exciting. How about the baked chicken platter? I have to watch what I eat at my
age. The digestive system is the first to go,” Jack said to the waitress.
    “I think I’ll have the same,” Myra replied.
    By the time the food arrived, I was seeing another side of
Billy. He was all business at first and then the caring side of him appeared.
He told the Carroltons his fee was two hundred dollars a day, plus expenses,
with a fifteen hundred dollar retainer, from which fees would be deducted until
the retainer was used up.
    After that, he would bill weekly. If, for some reason, they
wanted to terminate his services, any money left would be returned to them, and
if any money was due, it was payable upon termination. Then his demeanor became
softer.
    “I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but once a person has
been missing for several days, unless they just ran off, the outlook isn’t too
good. I’m sure the police must have told you the same thing. It’s been almost
six months, and I can’t promise to bring your daughter back to you alive, but
I’ll do my best to find her.”
    Myra started crying again as Jack pulled out his checkbook, ripped out a check, and
handed it to Billy.
    “Whatever it takes,” Jack Carrolton said. “Money is no
problem.”
    The buffalo steak turned out to be delicious. It tasted like
a T-bone steak. By the time we finished eating, I knew more about the awful
disappearance of Helen Carrolton than I wanted to know. She was young, pretty,
and had it all. She left her home in Poquoson the day after Christmas, but
never arrived at her destination in Charlottesville , and she never returned home. That was six months ago.
    Once our late-lunch-early-dinner