“And you…?”

“Worked, waited. She didn’t show up. Josh suggested I get one of those things you put on your phone that shows the number someone is calling you from in case she called. I did-couldn’t really afford it-but… but no call from Adele till two weeks ago. I wrote down the number. Adele sounded bad, scared. Wouldn’t tell me why. I told her to come home. She said she couldn’t, that she’d be all right.”

Beryl reached into her purse and came up with a sheet of paper. She handed it to me. It had an 941-area-code number.

“I called her back,” Beryl said, fingering the little silver latch on her purse. “Called back maybe fifteen times. No answer. Little over a week ago a man answered, said I was calling a pay phone outside a motel on Tamiami Trail in Sarasota, Florida. I got a ride from Ellis to Wichita, bus here. Adele is fourteen, just barely. She’s pretty, smart and in trouble. I’ve been wandering around for the last week looking for her, but I don’t know how to do it or what to ask.”

“Did you go to the police?”

“Yes,” she said. “First thing. They took a picture of Adele and the phone-booth number and said they’d look into it. Nice man, a sergeant, said it would get it posted and go in the computer. I got the feeling Adele was going in a big box with a thousand or more other lost children.”

“I think you’re right.”

I placed the phone number right next to the photograph of the smiling girl on my desk.

“How did you find me?” I asked.

“Motel I’m staying at, the Best Western, is just down the street. Came here for a Dairy Queen fish sandwich just maybe fifteen, twenty minutes back. I showed the man who served me the sandwich Adele’s picture. Told him my story. He said maybe you could help.”