The parents join in. The room fills with clapping, laughter, and the scrape of shoes against the floor.
The gym dissolves into chaos as the applause peters out, voices rising as the kids run over to their parents.
“Mom! Watch what I learned!”
“Did you see me?!”
“Dad, I can tap now!”
Vivien moves through them easily, crouching to talk to a few kids, smiling at parents, answering questions. Thanking them for coming. Taking compliments like she doesn’t quite know what to do with them. Carter is in the mix too, chatting with parents.
I wait until most of the crowd has dispersed before making my way to Vivien.
She waves goodbye to one of the families, then smiles at my approach. “That went surprisingly well.”
“It did,” I say.
She glances around. “Have you seen Audrey?”
“No.”
“Maybe she went to the bathroom. I’ll go check.”
“I’ll see if Carter saw her leave.”
“Perfect.” She heads to the side of the room where the restrooms are.
“Did you see where Audrey went?” I ask Carter.
“I think she left.”
“What? Why?”
He shrugs. “Not sure. I saw her go through the doors like five minutes ago.”
Vivien reappears by us. “She’s not in the bathrooms.”
“Carter saw her leave.”
“Oh. Maybe she’s waiting in the car.” She glances over to the bleachers. “But she left her purse.” She stalks over, picking up a funky fringed purse and pawing through it. “And her phone and the car keys.”
I walk over to her. “Well, then she couldn’t have gone far.”
Carter blows out a breath. “I’ll head into town. Maybe she went to the diner, or to the Surrender Saloon.”
Vivien rubs her head, forehead creasing in concern. “Why would she leave? This makes no sense. I don’t know. She’s not the dive-bar type. More of a martini girl.”
“Don’t worry. We’ll find her,” Carter says. “We can split up. You two head north toward the bar, I’ll head south toward the diner.”
“That sounds good,” Vivien says. “Thanks.” She turns to me, her eyes worried. “That’s okay, right?”
“Yeah.”
“I’ll lock up. You two go ahead.” Carter waves at us. “Text me if you find her, and I’ll do the same.”
Thirty minutes later, we’ve gone through every open business between the school and my office, and no sign of Audrey.
We stop in at the office to come up with a new plan. While Vivien is in the bathroom, I text Carter from the waiting room to let him know our status, and he immediately replies.
