WHITEOUT

 

 

“OKAY, YOSH, you got my laptop open?”

Larx had started the call in the hallway while pulling on his snow parka and lacing his boots. Kirby and Kellan had gone together for Christmas and gotten him a cashmere scarf—warm, soft, and a muted denim blue, it was such a guy thing—and so practical.

It was going to save Larx’s life in weather where you either followed the snow plow or you didn’t make it to the store.

“Larx, you just told me your kids are on the way over. Quick, I need to hide the hookers and blow.”

Larx choke-snorted even as he made sure his parka was zipped. “The only blow you know how to do is the clarinet—don’t lie.”

“Oh my God, you even guessed the instrument. Now seriously—I’ve got the laptop open, but before I go snooping, how are you doing?”

Larx tried to think about his morning, and his brain froze. “Uh….”

“Awesome. Emotional constipation. It’ll be like defrosting an engine in Minnesota.”

“Yet another thing you’ve never done—”

“I’ve read books. You have to start an actual fire under the car to melt the oil enough to travel through the car or you’ll fuck up your vehicle.”

“I have no idea what that has to do with my brain. Can we stick to shit I actually need done now, Yoshi?”

“As opposed to what you’ll need me to do next week, when you completely lose your shit over something stupid that’s not what you’re really freaking out about? Sure. I’m down with that.”

“Candace Furman is lost now,” Larx told him. “Next week she might still be lost, but we’ll have less of a chance of finding her.”

Yoshi sighed. “That’s fine. You be a powder keg. Other men might choose emotional health, but you go ahead and do you. I’ve got her teachers pulled up, and it’s the same story as before—falling grades and no involvement. What do you need me to look for?”

“First off, how’s she doing in geography or life science?” Larx had learned that much looking at her profile. “And who are her teachers there?”

“Huh.” Oh, blessed Yoshi—he might know where Larx was going with this. “Those classes she is not failing. She’s getting a B in one and a C plus in the other—apparently she did some extra credit in life science, but I don’t know what the assignment was.”

“Good. Now we’re getting somewhere. So here’s what I want you to do—do you have a pencil and paper? We’re going to need to make a list.”

Yoshi let out a raucous squawk of laughter. “Oh my God—you just told me to get organized. I might need surgery myself!”

At that moment Eamon bustled out, looking practically daisy fresh after his nap and some mouthwash. He nodded at Larx, and Larx fell in step behind him, like Larx was a deputy or something. Funny how some men could lead an army with just a nod of the head. Aaron was like that too.

“You’re a laugh riot, Yoshi. Now here’s the list of things you need to do.”

“Okay, CSI Colton High, shoot.”

Larx took a deep breath and watched his step over the snow. By the time they got to Eamon’s unit, he’d outlined about half the list, and by the time he’d hauled himself into the passenger’s side, belted in, and shut the door, Yoshi had the rest.

“So text me what you got when you got it,” Larx finished off with, “and talk to Jaime first.”

“Fine. By the way, that kid and Aaron’s dog have a very suspect relationship. It’s a good thing the dog sleeps inside, or Eamon would be arresting me for child neglect.”

Larx half smiled. “Good. Tell him he’s welcome to sleep with the dog on the couch after you go back home.”

Yoshi’s voice dropped. “Larx? Tane called. His brother’s in a… in a really bad place right now.”

Oh Lord. “Do we need to take him to a psych ward?” Larx asked, mindful that Eamon was sitting right next to him and tended to take things literally.

“God. No.” And Yoshi, cheerful and sarcastic Yoshi, had a moment of complete and total sobriety. “Larx, look. I’ve… I’ve seen one of those places, when Tane and I were dating. Not for Tane, but he told me he spent time in one. They’re… if you don’t have family, like Tane did, they’re not good places. And even though none of us would let that boy twist in the wind, he doesn’t know that. Just… just give him some time. Tane knows how to give somebody peace, okay? I mean… I know he freaks you out because he’s way intense, but he can get this boy to chill. To stay with the living, if you know what I mean. It’s what he was doing in Sacramento when I met him. He took on a student of mine who… who might not be alive today, you know?”

Yoshi’s voice, soft and passionate, actually made Larx’s chest hurt.

“I hear you, Yosh. You’ve got faith in him. That’s all I need. Jaime’s welcome in my house until his brother’s good, okay? And you are too. Tell him that. Tell him he won’t have to sleep outside with the chickens. Olivia and Wombat Willie are going to move to Aaron’s house as soon as the service road gets plowed, and then everybody will have breathing room. Tell him that. And if he likes Kellan’s room, he can have a bag on the floor. But in the meantime you’ve got to ask that kid some questions or we might lose the girl, okay?”

“Yeah. I hear you. Thanks, Larx. He took the love seat last night, and I took the couch—we might do that for a while, but it won’t kill either of us. Thanks.”

“Not a problem. I’m going to sign off and let you talk to him. Text me the info on the teachers so I can talk to them. Eamon’s going to take us to get coffee and then to talk to Candace’s little sister and her mother, and we’ll get back to you after that. Deal?”

“Deal. Break.”

And with that Yoshi rang off, and Larx fumbled in his pocket for the charger so he could plug into the SUV’s power supply.

“I don’t remember anything about coffee,” Eamon mumbled.

“Eamon, do you think we’re going to make it anywhere without coffee?” Larx was weary to his bones, and their day had just started. But hey—even Colton had a Starbucks, and it was probably the one business that would be open this morning.

“No.” Eamon let out a sigh that was the closest to complaining the man ever got. “You know, in a bigger town, they would have had takeout coffee in the hospital.”

Larx let out a matching sigh. “They don’t,” he said glumly. “I asked.”

“Been asking for years.”

“Bastards.”

“Yeah. Okay, pity break over. Get back on the horn, boy. We need something to hit Candace’s mother with, because she was not talking last night.”

Larx remembered the dead body on the floor, facedown. “Was she close to her stepson?” he asked, curious.

Eamon grunted. “I’d say more terrorized by him. That family gives me the fuckin’ creeps—I know you and Yoshi were going by the book, but next time you get that freaked-out about a kid, call me first. CPS is so far away, and this thing got bad quick.”

Larx grunted. “It was just… you know. Aaron was called out there for a domestic call Saturday night, asked me to look up the kids. Jaime was fine, but he and his brother had heard raised voices in the Furman house. Berto got freaked-out, so we figured her grades slipping was a sign of other shit. Yoshi called her to his office Monday, and he didn’t like her vibe. We set up a meeting with CPS and the school psychologist for tomorrow… wait. Today. And… and Jaime called me…. God. Last night. Monday night. And….”

Recounted like that—Saturday, Sunday, Monday—what was today?

“Holy fucking Jesus, Eamon, is it only Tuesday?”

“Yeah. Yeah, Larx. It’s only Tuesday. Your life went to hell that quickly. You need to keep up.”

Larx tried to hold his breath—but even more, he tried not to lose his grip. “So quick,” he breathed. “It…. Olivia showed up Saturday, and my life was stable, and now it’s….” He’d left Aaron in the hospital and sent his kids home to Yoshi. He couldn’t put it all together in his head.

His heart might explode.

“He’ll be home by Sunday,” Eamon said practically. “And you can put your life back to where it was.”

Larx closed his eyes. “Olivia and Wombat Willie are going to move into Aaron’s house, and me and Aaron are going to be grandpas.”

Eamon cackled. “That is the most excellent news! I can’t wait to give George shit about that. Grandpa George. Oh my God—it even sounds like Dudley Do-Right!”

Dudley Do-Right. Deputy Dudley Do-Right. “He’ll make a good grandpa,” Larx said, the humor helping to hold him together. Good. Between Yoshi and Eamon, Larx might not lose his shit. His shit might stay completely contained in the same bag that held his panic and his fury. He could do this. He could function. He could compartmentalize.

Aaron probably did this shit every day.

“Yeah,” Larx reaffirmed, feeling stronger. “He’s going to be a good grandpa.” Larx saw Aaron holding his son’s hand at his own hospital bed. “He’s a great father.”

“Yes, he is,” Eamon said gently. “And you’ll find your way to be okay with this. He’s not going away.”

Larx nodded and pulled his shit together—he’d already established he had the bag for it. “I’m going to call her teachers. You make a giant, swimming-pool-sized coffee your priority, and I’ll get you some ammunition so you can talk to her family.”

A half an hour later, Larx was so over talking on the phone he almost couldn’t open his mouth to talk to Eamon—except Eamon had bought him not one but two giant mochas, and he was sort of indebted.

“Okay,” he said on an exhale as Eamon idled in the Starbucks parking lot and munched doggedly on a breakfast sandwich. “Here’s what we got.”

Tessa Palmer, her life science teacher, had given her the extra credit for writing a paper on how to survive in cold weather. Her plan had involved a basic backpack of power food, grease in tuna cans, flannel long johns, good boots, a packet of hand and feet warmers, and a shovel.

“Was she carrying that?” Eamon asked sharply, breathing on his Venti coffee black. “Could you see?”

Larx shook his head. “I couldn’t—but I had Yoshi ask Jaime some things, and this is what he remembers….”

First off, Jaime had been freezing in the outbuilding—but he’d grabbed a blanket for himself and one for Candace off the small cot in the corner. Candace had kept the blanket when she left, shoving it in her pack and thanking him hurriedly as she ran. In return for stealing his blanket, she’d shoved a power bar in his hand while they were waiting to see what would happen. Yoshi said Jaime had blushed about that, like the gesture had been a thank-you or a kindness, and Larx had a moment to think about the goodness that could linger in even the most traumatized kid.

Second, Jaime remembered that as she’d squeezed under the bed, a scraping sound had terrified him in the quiet of the shed. When Yoshi questioned him further, he thought it could be a shovel.

Third, Candace had begged Jaime to protect her little sister. Larx passed that on to Eamon and got “Well, yes—the girl and her mother are being supervised in their own home, but the stepfather—we had nothing on him, Larx, and his son was going to the morgue. So she’s safe for now, but we need to sort this out quick.”

Larx grunted. “You know something? I’m not a stupid guy. Just tell me the job I need to unfuck the world, and I’ll apply for it. Counselor? Lawyer? Judge? Social worker? Which one is it? Is it too goddamned much to ask that kids feel safe in their own goddamned homes?”

Eamon regarded him impassively. “You done?”

Larx scowled and took another sip of his second giant mocha. “No, but the rant is tabled until it’s more useful. So, okay—stepdad is wandering the woods with a gun, kid is wandering the woods with a shovel, hand warmers, and power bars. Why hand warmers?”

But Eamon knew this one. “So she can melt water on the run. I bet she has an aluminum flask. She packs it with snow, tucks it next to a hand warmer, and she has water. Not to mention, if she keeps them both near her core, she has another heat source—depending on which ones she got, those things last a couple hours.”

“God, she was smart,” Larx muttered. “I mean—smart. Her grades were tip-top until this semester, but nobody knew because she kept to herself.”

“I wonder if her little sister’s the same,” Eamon mused.

Larx remembered that Eamon and his wife had no children. Eamon was in his sixties, and he’d met his wife about twenty years ago—perhaps they had simply decided not to. “I doubt it,” Larx responded. “Kids… find a niche. If one of them is ‘the nice one,’ the other one’s going to be ‘the pain in the ass.’ If one of them is the clean freak, the other one is going to need a hazmat detail to clean her room. Part of it is establishing an identity, but part of it, I think, is just that people are different. Kids want their parents to know that no matter how many times you call them by each other’s names, they are not interchangeable people.”

“You’ve done that?” Eamon asked, amused.

“I just started calling them both together so I didn’t have to worry about it.” Larx shrugged. “I do that with students too. The rule is, you look them in the eye and say a name—any name—and that kid has to respond. So you look at Jessica and say, ‘Andrea, what’s the answer to that question?’ and Jessica says, ‘I’m Jessica and I’m pretty sure it’s X.’ Or, ‘Kirby, put the dog out.’ ‘This is Kellan, putting the dog out, sir.’ The first kid who splits hairs has to pass out papers or gets oatmeal for breakfast, depends on the venue.”

Eamon chuckled. “Understood. So, if Candace is an A student, Shelley is probably not.”

“Until this semester, if patterns hold true.”

“Yeah. Maybe call the middle school when we’re done here and on our way to interview the little sister.”

“Yes, sir—but I’ve got one more teacher I talked to, and it’s important.”

Eamon hmmed, and Larx kept going.

“It was geography, Eamon. And apparently she was doing a whole lot of research into the local forest and train routes.”

“Well, we’ve got the local bus and train stations monitored,” Eamon told him, somewhat exasperated. “What else do you want me to do?”

“Except she’s smart, remember? I don’t think she’s heading for the local ones. You don’t ace geography so you figure out how to make it to Main Street and hop on a bus.”

“By God, you do not. Any ideas?” Eamon was looking at him like he held the keys to the kingdom.

“I’d have to see a map first,” Larx told him. “Does your tablet get Wi-Fi?”

Eamon took the tablet and entered the password. “Knock yourself out.”

Larx pulled the map up and adjusted it for size, putting the closest outlying towns on the edge of the screen and Candace’s parents’ house in the center.

“Okay—she’s got a hike ahead of her,” Larx said thoughtfully. “The easiest town to access is here—”

“No bus stop,” Eamon said promptly. “If she’s smart enough to survive so far, she’s smart enough to know that.”

“Truth.” Larx studied the map some more. “So we’ve got Foresthill, which has a train stop, and Dogpatch, which has a bus station.”

“Foresthill is closer,” Eamon reminded him.

“Yeah, but Dogpatch is easier. Not so many hills or snow pitfalls or cliffs.” He hmmed. “What do you want to bet she has a compass?”

“No bet.” Eamon gathered all his wrappers and put them in a trash bag in the front of the cruiser. “What do you want to bet she’s got a hunting knife?”

Larx paused. “I hope so. If her stepfather’s out there with a gun, I don’t want her to be defenseless.”

Eamon sent him a long look. “What happened to ‘children and guns are a bad combination’?”

“I didn’t say arm the psychopaths, Eamon! I just said don’t let the sexually abused fourteen-year-olds wander the snow without a knife!”

Eamon grunted. “You know, I like police work. There are a lot of absolutes in police work. There’s law and not the law and—”

“And good cops know the gray areas too. Don’t bullshit me, Eamon. You wouldn’t like Aaron so much if he didn’t see the human factor in between the bylaws.” Larx swallowed, because the mention of Aaron had come out so easily. “How did he get shot?” he asked, even though he knew this. “Why was there a gunfight in the living room of Berto Benitez’s house? Aaron was in there alone for a minute—what happened?”

Eamon sighed. “What happened?”

“Yeah. How’d it go so wrong?”

Eamon pinched the bridge of his nose. “You’re the first person to actually ask that. Everybody else, we said, ‘Suspect with a gun. George arrives first, Mills second, suspect opens fire.’ You are the first person to ask me how it went wrong.”

Larx shivered. “Eamon?”

“It’s like there was a black man in the room, Larx. Because there was. Me. The guy was yelling at Berto—saying the shit you’d expect from a racist asshole, and then I walked in, and that kid’s hostility level jumped through the roof. I said, ‘Son, just calm down’—doing my best Morgan Freeman, I swear to Christ—and Braun Furman just swung around with his gun drawn. Aaron shouted his name just as he fired or I’d be toast, because it was close quarters and he was aiming at my head. Those were the shots that took out Aaron’s unit, by the way—you’re welcome.”

“Jesus.”

“But Aaron was shouting to draw his attention, he swung back around, and we both shot at the same time. Aaron lived. Braun Furman didn’t.”

Larx frowned. “Aaron shot?” Aaron hadn’t thought he had.

Eamon frowned back. “I… you know, I’m… oh God. I’m not sure. His arms were out until Furman was down. I guess we’ll have to wait for forensics. Does it matter?”

Larx thought about it, shivering some more. “I hope he did,” he concluded, surprising himself, going back on everything he thought he’d believed. “I hope he defended himself. I… I don’t ever want him to hesitate because he’s thinking about what I would do instead.” Larx smiled at Eamon a little. “You either.”

Eamon sighed. “You were asking which job you needed to unfuck the world?”

“Yeah?”

“Law enforcement ain’t it. Our job is to catch the fucked-up. But you—you figured out the fucked-up was happening and are trying to stop it. I’d put my money on you and Yoshi any day.”

Larx gave him the side-eye. “Do you have any idea how screwed up that is?”

Eamon’s laughter was sort of a miracle, and it rolled through the car as he turned the ignition. “Let’s go talk to that little girl’s mom.”

 

 

THE PLOWS had just cleared the roads as Eamon pulled up to the same neighborhood that had seemed so terrifying the night before. In the daylight, Larx could see Berto and Jaime’s little house and the crucial outbuilding across a snow-covered yard and up a hill from the perfectly maintained log-cabin-style house where Eamon parked.

Berto and Jaime’s house looked old—a classic small ranch house, probably bought to fix up, with yellowing stucco, chipped on all the corners—but Larx could see signs of life: new gutters, bright and shiny, new roof tiles, unstained raw boards replacing some of the weathered, warped boards on the porch. Old, but with new life—the potential for one, anyway. There was also a small greenhouse, hastily erected—with what were probably exactly five marijuana plants as well as some cooking herbs and maybe a flower or two—attached to the back of the house.

“Did you keep the greenhouse going?” Larx asked, thinking of poor Berto, pulling the tatters of his safety around him in the house that night.

“Yeah,” Eamon said. “I went in after cleanup—Tane asked me to. That kid—he’s going to need a lot of help. He was sort of fragile to begin with, you know?”

Larx sighed and tilted his head back. “I do now. I didn’t before. I… I hadn’t met Jaime before Monday. Without Aaron’s call, I wouldn’t have known him. Wouldn’t have known Candace either. Just luck.” God. “If I’d been their teacher—”

“You wouldn’t have been Isaiah and Kellan’s when they needed you. Don’t go second-guessing yourself, Mr. Larkin. I can tell you the one thing I know for sure about your place in all this.”

“What’s that?”

“I wouldn’t have had Nobili in my car looking for a missing teenager if I told him there was money under the seat.” Nobili—Larx’s predecessor—seemed remarkably unlamented, and not just by staff. “He wouldn’t have called that kid to his office in the first place—and he damned sure wouldn’t have been a friend to Jaime or Berto. You just keep on doing what you’re doing. Like I said—law enforcement isn’t what’s gonna unfuck the world.”

It was all he had.

Together they got out of the car, zipping up their coats and pulling on their gloves for the trip from the SUV, past the two cold troopers doing watch in the driveway, to the front door.

The thin woman with hurriedly twisted dyed pink hair and dead eyes did not look happy to see them.

“Did you people kill my husband now?”

“I don’t know,” Larx snapped. “Has he molested any more fourteen-year-old girls?”

Candace Furman’s mother gaped at him. “What in the hell—?”

Larx scowled at her but spoke to Eamon. “You didn’t tell her? Nobody told her what this was about?”

Eamon shook his head. “No, sir. We were waiting for CPS—and they’re on their way—but, well, officers in the hospital, dead racists with guns, and snow.”

Larx took a deep breath and tried some compassion. “Do you care about your daughter, ma’am? Even a little? Because we’re trying to find her, and at this point, knowing whether she had enough money for a bus ticket or a train ticket could mean all the difference in the world.”

“My husband will find her,” Mrs. Furman replied, and Larx tried hard to remember what her name was from the file he’d read.

“That’s our biggest fear, frankly,” Larx said, dropping his voice. “May we come in?”

The woman regarded them both with unfriendly eyes. “That thug killed my stepson,” she snarled. “Why is he even still working?”

“Because he’s an elected official, ma’am. Unless there’s an investigation by the US Marshals, he’s not obligated to turn in his gun or any of the things you see on television. Now, your stepson shot an officer—and damned near shot me, since I was sitting outside in the police unit. The officer made it because he was wearing a vest, but your stepson opened fire on two peace officers in close quarters. There was no good way out of that situation the minute he pulled the gun. We are sorry for your loss, but your daughter is out there—aren’t you the least bit afraid for her?”

Marie. That was it. Marie Furman dropped her eyes to the brown-haired blue-eyed girl standing a little behind her. The girl was small-boned, like her mother, and sported the same narrowed eyes and tightened lips. Larx remembered his and Eamon’s conversation about one daughter getting the good grades and the other acting out.

Larx could see rebellion in the young one—he thought they could work with that.

“God will help us find my baby if she’s meant to be found,” Marie Furman muttered.

“But maybe God wants you to help!” Larx protested. “Lady—your daughter is afraid and in pain—”

“Then she shouldn’t have run away!”

Larx shook his head. “Sometimes there are bigger things out there than we know of. Sometimes we think we’re looking at our kid, and it’s really like looking at a seal in the ocean. The seal is cute, and it’s familiar, and underneath there’s frickin’ Jaws ready to come up and eat it. Your kid’s shark was….” This was going to be rough. “Ma’am, she had all the behaviors of a victim of sexual assault—”

“Are you calling my daughter a slut? My baby does not get nasty like that!”

“We don’t think it’s her idea, Mrs. Furman. We think she was forced. She had all the behaviors—in fact, if last night hadn’t happened, we would be having a very different conversation today. Your daughter was planning to run away. Do you understand that? The only way she could have survived last night’s storm is that she was prepared. She was wearing all-weather gear, flannel long johns, and knew how to build a snow shelter—”

“She was just a little girl—”

“She taught me how,” Shelley blurted.

Larx smiled at her. Thank God. “Yeah? Was it warm?”

“It was weird. She insulated it—like, an old sleeping bag on the bottom and a small fire—like those fires in a can? She used a cat food can and grease. Wanted me to play in the shelter like a fort.”

Larx and Eamon exchanged a hopeful glance. “Warmer than you expected, wasn’t it?” Larx suggested.

“Yeah.” Shelley moved closer, looking at him earnestly. “She didn’t like Braun. Said his breath smelled like the cat box.”

“What about your stepdad?” Larx asked. Above them, in grown-up land, Mrs. Furman made a sound of protest, but Eamon cleared his throat.

“He spanks us.” Shelley’s voice dripped resentment. “Sometimes with sticks. But Braun—he’s who she didn’t like the most. Told me to stay away from him. She’d find a way to hide us.” Shelley sent her mother a fierce look. “I told her I’d stay safe until she came back.”

Marie Furman backhanded her, rattlesnake quick, and Shelley went flying backward. Larx went to pick her up, and Eamon snapped cuffs on Marie before the little girl could even stand.

“She’s lying,” Marie Furman snarled, struggling against the restraints. “Her stepbrother was a good man, like his father!”

Larx grunted. “I’m done with you,” he said, high on hope and fury. “Eamon, can we hand her off to the patrol car and get CPS here if we have to teleport them? I’ll stay here with Shelley—I have some more questions I want to ask.”

“Where are we going?” Shelley asked, wiping the blood off her split lip with more poise than Larx would have had.

“Well, that’s going to depend on Child Protective Services when they get here,” Larx told her frankly.

“So we don’t have to live here anymore?” Hope and fury—Larx recognized the sound.

“No. But we still need to find your sister.” They could find her, he thought, able to breathe for just that moment. She’d prepared—even better than Larx had hoped for. “Shelley, while Sheriff Mills gets your mother to the nice police officers waiting outside, do you think you could show me your sister’s room?”

“Wait until I get back inside,” Eamon cautioned. “You need to stay in this room—understand me, Larx?”

Larx nodded. “How about we sit at the table. Shelley, go fetch me some crayons and some paper, okay?”

Shelley ran off even as her mother protested.

“You can’t stay in here with her! Aren’t you that gay teacher? You’re not allowed near little kids!”

“I’m a principal, Mrs. Furman. Being near kids is my job. And you just—” He shook his head. “How could you just do that?” he asked, baffled. “That’s your daughter—how does she even respect you if you just haul off and hit her like that?”

Mrs. Furman’s gaze was flat and unfriendly, and Eamon tugged her toward the door. “Don’t ask,” Eamon said softly. “You can’t fix this, Larx. Work on getting information from the little girl.”

Shelley came running back in, paper and crayons in hand, and Eamon took Mrs. Furman out to the chilly police car.

Larx realized his hands were shaking. Maybe they’d never stopped since that morning outside Aaron’s room.

He sank into a solidly built chair at what looked to be a new kitchen table and stared at the new tile floor. One of those slate floors—he sort of dreamed about them sometimes, because his floor had a hole in the tile that grew a little wider every day. He hid it meticulously with a rug—Aaron and Kirby had been moving Kirby’s bedroom set in before they kicked the rug aside and saw it. Aaron had cheerfully put “tile floor” on his list of spring things to do, and when Larx had rolled his eyes and said, “Hello, kids in college!” Aaron had reminded him that they were splitting expenses now.

And then he’d kissed Larx while the kids had finished moving Kirby in.

For this quiet moment, in a stranger’s cold kitchen, a yawning pit opened up at Larx’s feet, and he fought to stay on the edge before it.

“Are you really dirty?”

Larx pulled his attention to Shelley, who stood uncertainly at the entrance to the kitchen.

“I sort of need a shower,” he confessed. “But I spent last night in the hospital because someone I cared for got hurt. Why? Can you smell me from there?”

Shelley giggled. “No—because my mom said you were dirty. Nasty dirty. Like what Braun did in Candace’s room.”

Larx swallowed. “I’d never do those things to a child,” he said, meaning it with all his heart. “Somebody should have protected Candace. That wasn’t right.”

Shelley looked away. “Mom said she was lying. All women lied, and Candace was wicked like all women.”

“That’s not true,” Larx said reflexively. Part of him was thinking about his daughters, about Aaron’s daughters—about how even when they weren’t perfect, they were as honest as they could be—but only part. Part of him was remembering his sister, when she’d gone into remission, telling him that there were no guarantees. Most of him was appalled because he knew this doctrine, had heard a variation of it from students in his classes—and he was one person, one man, and he was helpless to combat it.

“Mom says so,” Shelley said, eyes narrowed. Oh yes. The rebel. The only thing that had ever worked with Larx himself had been pure reason.

“Is that the same mother who just backhanded you?” Larx asked bluntly. “Because she’s the one in a police car, not you.”

Shelley’s lower lip wobbled. “She… she said we had to do anything to keep Roy. Roy bought this house, he had a job, he bought us food. So we couldn’t lie to make him mad, and… and she said Candace lied.”

Crap. “Do you think Candace lied?”

Shelley shook her head, eyes closed. “Braun came into our room a lot. Candace told me to pretend I was asleep. He… he made her cry.”

She looked ready to break—and Larx didn’t blame her. “Here,” he said gently. “You brought crayons. Come sit with me. Let’s color and talk. You sit across the table there, and I’ll sit here, okay?”

He wasn’t a big man—five foot nine, maybe. But Shelley wasn’t a big girl either, and he was pretty sure all men would be threatening at this point. She set the crayons in the middle of the table and handed him a piece of paper. He took it and waited for her to pick the first crayon before picking turquoise blue.

The color of Aaron’s eyes.

He started coloring the sea.

“Is that other man going to come back in?” she asked. “The darkie?”

Larx bit his tongue. Literally. So hard he saw stars. “That’s, uh, not polite. Eamon is black or African American. You can say that.”

Shelley grunted. “I get afraid I’ll say the wrong one. But you’re right. That’s a word Braun and Roy used.”

“Well, if you heard them use it, maybe think about words that nice people use. But you may get it wrong. It’ll be hard. Just keep trying.”

Shelley bit her lip and kept coloring. “So, if I think girls lie just because they’re girls, I should think about Roy saying that when he hit Candace last night?”

“Yeah,” Larx said. He was using all the blue. He reached out blindly and grabbed the gray and the black. “So it was someone you didn’t like, doing a thing you didn’t like. Maybe his words were bad too.”

“Huh.” Well, hopefully she would have social workers, foster parents, teachers, someone, who would make her see the world in less awful terms. “So, you’re not dirty, and the cop guy is black, and my sister wasn’t lying.” She looked at her picture—stick figures, doing what, Larx couldn’t see.

Welp. “That about sums it up,” Larx agreed. “And we’re worried about your sister. Did Roy know Braun was hurt before he left the house?”

Shelley grabbed a red crayon and started to scribble all over her stick figures. “Yeah. He got mad, said he was going to fix the bitch who lied and got him dead.”

“‘Bitch’ is another word you might not want to use,” Larx told her, trying not to bang his head against the table.

Shelley wrinkled her nose and grabbed another crayon. “I really hate coloring,” she said. “I do—and I usually use pens. I’ve got nice pens in my room. But… but I don’t want to go in there.”

“Why not?”

“The whole house is empty,” she said, sounding like a child for the first time since Larx and Eamon came in. “These were on top. Is Candace okay?”

Big breath. “I hope so. I got really excited when you told me about how she lit a fire with grease in a can. Is her snow fort in the backyard still?”

He heard a soft noise at the door and looked up. Eamon walked in quietly and nodded, standing in the hallway and pulling off his stocking cap and gloves while Larx talked.

“Yeah—it’s out by the big split tree. Do you want to go see it?”

Larx looked up at Eamon, who sighed and started pulling his gear on again.

“My friend Sheriff Mills is going to go see it. We don’t need to go out into the yard again. Let’s just sit here and color for a little while, okay?”

She sighed and put her scribbled-on picture to the side and then pulled a clean piece of paper and started to color again. This time she grabbed a green crayon from Larx’s pile, and he let her. The red and black had been disconcerting, and he was hoping the color choice had been one of convenience, not psychosis.

“Fine,” she muttered. “Are we going to talk about Candace some more?”

“Just one more question, then we can talk about anything you want.”

“I want to talk about my birthday,” she said mutinously. “Mom said we weren’t celebrating our birthdays anymore because Roy said it was too expensive, but I was supposed to get a doll on my birthday, and Candace said she’d try to do that.”

“She did?” Larx saw his opening. “Dolls cost money. Where would she get money for that?”

“Her friend,” Shelley said casually. “Mom said we needed to keep to ourselves so we could come home and study the Bible. Do you study the Bible?” She eyed him with suspicion.

“Not so much.” Honesty. It had worked for him so far.

“Good. Some of the stories are fun, but most of the time it’s all about how women lie, and I’m bored with that.” And then, maddeningly, she just kept coloring.

“So, which friend did she have who was going to give you money for your doll?”

“A girl in her class. I forget her name. But—” Shelley lowered her voice. “Do you know what she’ll do if she doesn’t get enough?”

“Not a clue,” Larx whispered back. “Are you going to tell me?”

“She got a card from Braun’s wallet on Saturday—when he came into her room. She told him she’d scream if he didn’t give it to her, so he did. She told him she needed a… to do a thing. She just kept saying ‘it.’ And he needed to pay for it. So he did. When I asked her what for, she said it was to get me a doll.”

Shelley smiled benignly. “I would really like a birthday party too, but a doll would sure be nice. One of those firefighter dolls? With the big thing to play on with the elevator and the policeman friend and the soldier friend—Mom would never let me get one of those.”

Larx pulled out his phone. “That’s a shame,” he said, thinking fast as he pulled up a website. “I think every little girl deserves the doll of her choice.” He knew those action figures—and this little girl had just given him and Eamon a ginormous clue. Screw new tile, he was getting this kid a doll for her birthday.

Eamon came in a few minutes later and gave him a look. “CPS is here—should I let them in? Two women.”

Larx nodded.

“Shelley? There’s some nice people here who want to take you somewhere safe. They’re women, so we’re going to let them help you pack so you can take your best things and your good clothes with you. Do you want to go start getting your stuff?”

Shelley looked up at him and smiled and yawned. “Sure. Are they going to feed me? Mom gave me oatmeal for breakfast, but it was a long time ago.”

“Sure,” he answered, smiling faintly. “It was really nice talking to you, sweetheart. You told me so much good stuff.”

She shrugged. “You were nice for someone who was supposed to be dirty. I’ll try to not use those words they used anymore. Only people who are nice to me get to give me words.”

She strode off to her room then, and Larx rubbed his temple with his fingertips.

“That kid is going to rule the world someday—we need to be really really careful what we teach her in the meantime.”

Eamon stared after her. “Word. Now tell me what you got.”

Larx pressed the final key on his phone for PayPal and took a deep breath. “She’s not going to Dogpatch—she’s got her stepbrother’s credit card, and I’m going to take a big leap here, so bear with me.”

“Shoot,” Eamon said soberly.

“Braun was abusing her for months—the little girl confirmed that. I have no idea when her mom got married, but it was probably this summer, judging by the girls’ grades and their complete lack of anything of note on their school records. So Mom marries fundamentalist scumbag Roy Furman, and his son moves in on his fourteen-year-old stepsister.”

They both paused to shudder.

“And then?” Eamon prompted.

“I think she’s pregnant—Yoshi guessed it, because she’d been gaining weight in the right places, and because where’s she going to get birth control in Colton where the whole world wouldn’t see her, right?”

“I don’t even want to…. God.”

“Yeah.”

Two women entered at that point, both of them dressed practically in jeans and boots and parkas, but with visible accessories as kid-friendly as possible. One woman had ducks on her scarf and the other a big bow in her hair, and both had average, sweet faces with real smiles.

“Where is she, Eamon?” the shortest of the woman asked—the one with the scarf. She had a bobbed blonde haircut and a brusque attitude, and Larx had worked with Carlene Collins before. He stepped forward with his hand extended in honest friendship.

“Carlene, Sandy—she’s in her room packing. She may need some help—she seems really levelheaded, but every now and then she remembers that her house is empty, and it freaks her out.”

Carlene nodded at Sandy, who set off for the bedroom.

“Anything else you can tell us?”

Larx recounted what he knew of Candace and Braun and what they’d seen the mother do.

“We’ve got some damage to fix, then,” Carlene said when he was done. “Okay. Good to know. I’m going to go help them—will there be officers out front when we leave?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Eamon said. “Larx and I need to go find the sister—she probably managed to survive the night, but we’re not sure how much more luck she’s got.”

A look of weariness crossed Carlene’s middle-aged face. “I hear you. Go, be careful. We’ll wrangle this one.”

“Uh, Carlene?” Larx said, not sure if this was even allowed. “If I bring a birthday present for Shelley to your office, you could give it to her, right?”

A sudden grin split Carlene’s face. “Larx, you make my job a joy. Yessir—even if you send it our way, we’ll make sure she knows someone sent her a birthday present.”

Larx nodded, and then he and Eamon left quickly. Larx realized he’d never taken off his snow gear, not even his gloves when they’d been coloring, and the snow was a welcome, refreshing smack in the face to wake him up from the cranky doze he could have fallen into.

“So she’s got a credit card and a mission,” Eamon said as they got into the SUV again. “Where do you think she’s going?”

“Foresthill,” Larx said with as much certainty as he could muster. “She’s going to want the train to Auburn so she can get an abortion—as soon as she possibly can.”

“I don’t blame her,” Eamon said softly. “Jesus. Poor kid. That shelter in the backyard was really something. Sleeping bag, a bunch of those cans with the grease all burned out. I wonder how often she went out there just to get away.” He put the SUV into gear. “Now call your kids, and then settle in for a nap. We’ve got two hours to Foresthill in the snow, and I need you fresh.”

Larx grunted. “And food,” he said. “When we get there, at the very least. Police hospitality is for shit.”

Eamon chuckled. “You help us get this kid to child health and welfare without getting dead or getting to Auburn, and I swear to God, I’ll buy you steak. And Aaron too.”

Larx yawned and pulled out his phone. “That’s a deal,” he mumbled. “Christi? Yeah, hon. How you doing?”

“Good, Daddy. We’re all sort of hanging out and eating—I hope that’s okay.”

“It’s what snow days are for,” he said. “How’s Jaime?”

“Sad,” she told him softly. “He really misses his brother.”

“Tell Yoshi. Maybe he can do something about that. I just wanted you to know that Eamon and I are heading for Foresthill to check something out, okay? It’s going to take a little while because of the snow, so don’t expect me until later. And even then, when I get back, I’m—”

“Going to the hospital. Don’t worry, Daddy. We know. Thanks for telling us. Yoshi’s ordering pizza for everybody. He says he doesn’t care if that’s okay or not, that’s what you get for stranding him in the house with five thousand teenagers.”

Larx chuckled. “Tell Yoshi I love him too.”

“Sure. You tell Aaron we love him when you’re there. Be careful, Daddy.”

Of course he would be.