Sorry again, but what kind of ‘missing’ are we talking about? Like his dad was declared missing by his neighbors/police? Or his father left the family years ago & the son is going to look for him? Either way, try to figure out a way for the person that your guy (the son) meets along the way, man or woman, to be someone who is needed to get further into the search for his dad. So if the dad is literally, missing, declared so by the police, have the person be a clerk at a police station or something. Maybe he/she will be the only one who cares enough to sneak around the station to utilize the tools at their disposal, which the officers don’t use because they don’t care about his dad as much as he/she does. Make the person that the son stumbles into, important, otherwise it’s just another character being dragged along for the sake of having a B-story (secondary, not that important). If you do write back with a little bit more detail, I’ll continue to think of ways for them to meet. If you think I have given you enough, just say so. Either way, my head will continue to come up with ideas. It’s what i do.