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High winds rattled the Jeep as John pulled into the yard of a small one-story home. When he stepped out of the vehicle he didn’t bother to zip his leather jacket. The brisk gush of air felt good.
The hind quarters of a short-haired mutt stuck out of an overturned aluminum trash can as the dog scrounged for food. Fast food wrappers tumbled across the hard ground—a ground littered with beer cans, empty food cartons, and cigarette butts.
A male, midthirties or so, opened the door to John’s knock. “Yeah?”
“I’m here to see Martha Henry.”
“What about?” the guy asked. He clutched the door frame with long-fingered hands. His nails had more grease under them than the floor of a Super Lube.
John flipped open his wallet and showed his badge. “Police business. Is she in?”
Grunting something, the guy backed out of the door, leaving it open. John followed him in.
Emma had given him the names of two girls who’d been regular attendees at the center and hadn’t been seen in several months. According to a friend, Cheyenne Henry seemed desperate to get off the reservation.
John stepped into a small room dwarfed by a large brown sectional with several Afghans of different colors covering the back of the sofa. A glowing pot belly stove stood at one end of the room.
Murmurs drifted to him from the back of the house. John cast a glance around and spotted a small bookcase with picture frames. Two young boys and a girl smiled back from a photo creased with age. The girl appeared to be around four or five.
A few moments later a bird-like woman shuffled into the room with the guy close on her heels. Never able to judge women’s ages with any accuracy, John guessed she was close to fifty, which meant she could have been anywhere between forty or sixty.
“Ms. Henry?”
The woman nodded.
“Her name is Neville,” the guy said. “Henry was her first husband.
“Sorry.” He directed his statement to Mrs. Neville. “I wanted to ask you about your daughter, Cheyenne.”
Martha Neville lowered herself carefully onto the sofa.
“Is your daughter here?”
She worried the thin band on her left hand. Mr. Neville sat with one leg crossed over the other, he stared straight ahead as he took a swig from a can of beer.
John moved to place himself in the woman’s line of sight. “Is your daughter here?” he repeated.
She shook her head. Her gray streaked hair provided a curtain, hiding her features.
“Do you know where she is?”
“No.” The word came out low and raspy.
“When was the last time you saw her?”
“About two months ago.” This came from the guy.
John studied him. He appeared to be at least ten years younger than Cheyenne’s mother. He didn’t meet John’s eyes. “What’s your relationship to Cheyenne?”
“Her stepfather.”
“Did she leave with someone?” John directed this question to the man.
The guy burped then shook his head. “Don’t know.”
John glanced from the mother to the stepfather. Something was off here.
“Mrs. Neville, do you have a picture of your daughter?”
She got up slowly from the sofa and walked to the same bookcase John had stood in front of minutes earlier. She picked up the same frame containing the picture of the girl and the two boys. A slight tremor of her hand made the frame wobble as she handed it to him.
He didn’t take it. “You don’t have a more recent photo?”
Grasping the frame to her chest, she shook her head.
“Have a seat.” He waited until she sat before resuming his questioning.
“Why didn’t you report her as missing?” John glanced between the two, his gaze finally resting on the mother. She seemed to shrink under his probing glare.
“She always threatened to run away,” the stepfather said. “We thought she’d made good on it.”
The mother said nothing just stared down at her entwined fingers. If Laurie had disappeared he’d have turned over heaven and hell looking for her.
“Why did she threaten to run away?” He directed his question at the woman.
“You know how kids are,” the stepfather said. “One fight at school and they’re ready to run.”
John ignored the stepfather. “Was she having trouble at school, Mrs. Neville?”
“I—”
John put his hand up when the guy started to answer. “Is that what was going on, Mrs. Neville?”
A spark of something flashed in her eyes and extinguished so quickly John wondered if he’d imagined it. The silence stretched as he waited for her to speak. When she didn’t, he went out on a limb.
“Was she having problems at home?” John directed the question to the mother, avoiding the stepdad’s gaze.
She didn’t speak, but the tightness around her mouth answered his question.
Standing, John reached into his back pocket. The girl at the quarry was the right age to be a friend of Cheyenne’s. Maybe Mrs. Neville would recognize her.
He placed a hand over the woman’s cold fingers. “What I’m going to show you is going to be shocking, but I need your help identifying a girl we found murdered out at the quarry.”
Mrs. Neville stiffened.
He placed the autopsy photo on her lap. “Do you know this girl? Is she a friend of Cheyenne’s?”
She didn’t touch it, just stared at it, and then began to moan. The stepfather leaned over and snatched the photo up. He studied it before saying, “Holy shit.”
He stared at John, his eyes clouded with confusion. “We thought she’d runaway. We didn’t know she was dead.”
∞
Laurie shivered in her blue jean jacket and sank deeper into the protection of the sprawling building. She scanned the school parking lot for the tenth time. Danny promised to pick her up, so she’d let the bus leave without her. If he blew her off, she would...she would...do nothing. She couldn’t afford to make him angry.
Everything inside her stilled. Did he have someone else? A year was a long time. At the thought of him hanging with some other girl—
“You miss the bus, Laurie?”
Her heart pole-vaulted into her throat.
Keys in hand, her English teacher stood a few feet away. She eyed Laurie speculatively. She’d been so lost in thoughts of Danny she hadn’t heard Mrs. Spindler exit the building.
“I can give you a ride to the council offices.”
Swallowing the lump in her throat, Laurie’s gaze shifted to the parking lot, praying Danny wouldn’t show up now. Her English teacher would do Laurie no favors by dropping her off at the council offices. Her father would throw a fit if she’d missed the bus. And if he found out her boyfriend was back, he’d shut down the Rez until he’d hunted Danny down.
“No, thank you. My dad’s girlfriend will be here soon. She just lost track of time.”
Mrs. Spindler looked at the rain darkening sky. “You sure?”
“Yes, ma’am.” Laurie gave the teacher her brightest smile.
“Well, okay.” The woman walked briskly toward the almost empty parking lot, trash blowing across her pumps. Laurie followed the woman’s car as it exited the school lot. She blew out a sigh of relief.
A horn blew, startling her out her thoughts. A cherry-red sports car idled at the curb. As she walked toward the car, Laurie squinted trying to make out the driver. The passenger window rolled slowly down.
“Want a ride?”
“Where the fuck did you get this car?” She slid in. The smooth peanut butter-colored seats enveloped her in an embrace as sexy as his grin.
In answer, Danny gunned the engine and burned rubber pulling out of the school parking lot. She didn’t say a word for the first five or ten minutes, too busy studying the car, running her hands over every gadget then just watching him shift the transmission.
“This is so hot.”
“You like, baby?”
“This car must’ve cost a bundle.”
“Sixty Gs.” He took his attention off the road probably to gauge her reaction. “Cash.”
“Jeez, Danny, how’d you get that kinda of money?”
“I know people. Told you when I left I was going to be somebody. That I was gonna have money.” He lifted both hands off the steering wheel in a look at me now gesture.
“So, who do you work for?” She placed her hand on his arm and squeezed. She didn’t care who he worked for, but if it kept him from bringing up her dad, she’d ask.
“Hmmm... Well, he likes to keep a low profile.”
“You know you can tell me.”
He raised an eyebrow.
She tightened her lips. “Yeah, like I’m gonna talk to him about anything. Plus, he’s got his own problems. In the next election, someone younger is running against him.”
Danny’s face broke into a sly grin. “Yeah?” He nodded like he kept time to music. “Can’t wait to see him lose his badge.”
They rode in silence for a few minutes. But the desire to know what Danny had been doing and who he’d been doing it with ate at her. “So, have you been dating?”
He took his eyes off the road and glanced at her. “You mean have I been fucking someone.”
Her lids pricked with unshed tears. His sly look of amusement told her everything. She saw her chance of leaving here and being with him slipping away. While she’d been faithful, he’d probably been banging every girl who’d let him.
“Your old man ain’t shit. You know that, don’t you?” He looked over at her, studying her face. “Telling me I wouldn’t amount to nothin’.”
His lips tightened. “When he threw me off the Rez, I said to myself, I’m gonna show him. Make him eat his words. He’s gonna choke on ’em.”
She kept smiling, even as her stomach churned, threatening to bring up the burrito she eaten for lunch. She didn’t want to discuss her father with Danny. The subject had turned him into a rabid dog. Why did he hate her dad so much? He should hate Zora. She’d killed his old man.
∞
The sound of Mrs. Neville’s sobs filled the silence. Her husband sat with his head in his hands. John rested his hand on the woman’s shoulder before stepping outside.
Pulling his cell out of his pocket, he called Special Agent Iles. “I have a name for the body out at the quarry.”
“What is it?”
“Cheyenne Henry. Her parents thought she’d run away.” John paused to make sure he had Iles’ full attention. “She’s been missing for two months.”
“What? Had they filed a missing person’s report?”
“Nope. I’m bringing them in.”
“I’ll meet you there.”
John disconnected and stepped back into the house.
The couple sat where he’d left them.
“Mr. and Mrs. Neville, I’d like you to accompany me to police headquarters.”
The husband’s head snapped up. “What for?”
John cocked his head, studying the guy. “There’s a formal statement to be given, questions to be answered, and if the coroner is finished, a body to be claimed.”
And priors to be checked.
Shifting his attention, John went to Cheyenne’s mother and helped her up. “Let’s find you a coat.”
An hour later John had them seated at the station. They’d just come from formally identifying the body. Mrs. Neville had collapsed, and Foley had brought her around with smelling salts.
“Maggie, would you get Mr. and Mrs. Neville some coffee?”
His dispatcher moved as quickly as her bulk would allow.
Iles and Watanabe walked into headquarters at that moment. When John made the introductions and informed Mr. and Mrs. Neville that the men were FBI, Dave Neville’s face drained of color.
“I’d like to interview Mr. and Mrs. Neville separately,” John said. Iles about to sit, froze. He and John exchanged a look. John hoped the agent would go along without questioning his decision.
The agent stood, adjusted his suit coat. “Watanabe, would you get Mr. Neville another cup of coffee?
Neville opened his mouth but shut it firmly when John speared him with a warning glare.
“Mrs. Neville?” John placed a hand under the woman’s elbow and led her into his office. He placed the only chair in front of the desk so she could sit. He leaned against the wall and Iles, who had followed them, took up a position by the door.
“For the record, will you identify yourself?” John asked.
“Martha Neville.” Her voice came out shaky and as thin as a frayed rope.
“Your daughter’s name?” John asked.
“Cheyenne Henry,” Mrs. Neville stated.
“How many children do you have, Mrs. Neville?”
“Three,” she whispered. “Two boys and...”
He didn’t want to give her a chance to deteriorate into tears, so he pushed on with the questioning. “Your children are from your first marriage with Mr. Henry?”
She nodded. “He died.”
“No children with Mr. Neville?”
“No.”
“Where are your boys?”
“Tom is here—here on the reservation. Brent’s gone.”
“Gone where?”
“Memphis, I think. Haven’t heard from him in over three years.”
“How old was he when he left?”
“Seventeen.”
“How long have you been married to Mr. Neville?”
“Four years.”
John bet there’d been a lot of discord in the house when she’d married.
“When was the last time you saw your daughter?”
Tears had started to slide down her face again. John had been prepared this time. He reached for a box of tissue Maggie had placed on the corner of his desk.
“The last time you saw your daughter?” John prompted as he handed the woman the box.
“In August, just before school started.”
“How old was she?”
“Sixteen.”
“Where were the two of you when you last saw her?”
“At...at home. I went to her room to say goodnight. I went to bed, and the next day she was gone.” The last words were said into a wad of tissue.
“What time did you go to bed?”
“Around eight.”
“And she was in her room?”
The mother nodded.
“Tell us about your daughter. What was she like?”
A faint smile flickered across the woman’s face. “A happy baby.”
“And recently?”
Mrs. Neville shrugged.
“Still a happy girl?” John asked.
He thought of his own daughter. If Cheyenne was anything like Laurie, she wasn’t a very happy young lady.
“Was she still happy, Mrs. Neville?”
She gave a brief shake of her head.
“Why not?”
The woman’s fingers opened and closed compulsively. “I don’t know.”
“How was your relationship with your daughter?”
Without meeting John’s gaze, she started to shred the tissue. “It was fine.”
“Define fine. You were the best of friends, talked occasionally, or didn’t talk at all.”
Iles shifted his body slightly. Was that a signal of some kind? John didn’t have time to analyze it. He didn’t want to break the line of questioning. He wanted to keep Mrs. Neville talking.
“Talked occasionally,” the woman whispered.
“But she didn’t tell you why she was unhappy?”
Mrs. Neville turned her head to stare out into the hall and then dropped her gaze back to her lap.
John didn’t question her further but let the silence hang heavy in the room. The sound of his desk clock tick-tocked. “Is there something more you want to add?”
She shook her head adamantly.
“Mrs. Neville, why didn’t you file a missing person’s report when your daughter left home?” Iles asked. His posture appeared casual, but John heard the steel under the words.
She glanced in the direction of the main room as though she expected someone to walk into the room at any minute. “Dave said not to, ’cause she’d come back in a couple of days.”
“And when she didn’t?”
Mrs. Neville started to cry in earnest. Her long gray hair fell forward again, hiding her face. Her shoulders shook. Iles lips tightened as he moved into the woman’s space.
“Why didn’t you file a missing person’s report, Mrs. Neville?” Iles asked.
“I—I didn’t want—want her to come back.”
John frowned. Had he completely misjudged the woman? He figured Dave Neville had been abusing his wife, but he hadn’t thought Mrs. Neville had been abusing her daughter.
“Why didn’t you want her to come back, Mrs. Neville?”
Martha Neville’s head jerked up from her cupped hands. “I didn’t want her back because she was safer away from here. Away from him.”
It didn’t take an Einstein to figure out him was Dave Neville.
“Mrs. Neville, was your husband physically abusing you?”
She stared back at him with eyes sunken into her head and a sickly pallor to her skin. If he examined her covered arms, he knew the bruises would be there. Fresh ones and ones fading from blue to yellow.
“I can find you a safe place to stay.”
Tears streamed down her face. “He’d find me.”
John shook his head. “No, he wouldn’t. No one other than the FBI and I would know where you are.” He waited a beat. “Was he physically abusing you?”
She wrapped her arms around her body and started to rock. Finally, she nodded.
John took a deep breath. He didn’t have the time to pretty up his next question. Once he’d met Dave Neville, the thought had been running in his head. “Was he sexually abusing Cheyenne?”
Tears fell on her work worn hands. She lifted her head slowly. Her eyes didn’t meet his but stared at a place on the wall behind him.
“Yes.”
∞
John pulled his service vehicle into his drive. Except for a faint light from the kitchen, the one-story house appeared asleep for the night.
His and Zora’s studio, with its big picture window, looked out over the front of the house.
Zora.
His life had been fuller this past year with her in it. She might not be satisfied with the professional part of her life—hell, she might not be satisfied with the private part of her life—but he was glad she was here in South Dakota with him. On a night like tonight he wanted to come home to her smile and soft body. To seek comfort in nearness. To forget, for a while, about the ugliness of his job.
He taken Martha Neville to Lydia’s house. Dave Neville had outstanding warrants, and it had been John’s pleasure to put him in lock up, but not before Neville had admitted to being the last one to see his stepdaughter the night she disappeared. According to the autopsy she’d been dead less than twenty-four hours. So where had she been for the last two months?
John wanted some dinner, grab a few hours of sleep and tomorrow morning start looking into the other girl whose name Emma had given him.
He opened the door and dragged himself out of the vehicle. When he stepped into the kitchen Zora glanced up from a magazine. The smell of tomato sauce and cheese made his stomach growl.
She stood and gave him her lopsided grin that he loved. “Hungry?”
He grabbed her around the waist. “For you first and then the”—he peered at the dish on the stove—“the lasagna.”
“Right,” she mocked.
He buried his face in her neck and inhaled the scent that was uniquely her—lavender and something floral. When he released her, she moved to the cabinet and pulled out two plates.
“What are you reading?”
She flushed. “Just some magazines I picked up in Rosemount.”
He didn’t say anything about the pad filled with her notes that sat beside the stack of magazines. She’d been studying them. He didn’t know a lot about what she’d done in her life before him, but as an artist he shared her love of color and light.
“Strange, out at the Little Feather place, I didn’t find anything like that.” He gestured toward the magazines on the table. “No photos, no girly stuff, no makeup. According to the grandmother, Destiny didn’t even have a cell phone.”
“Friends?” Zora asked.
“One. A pimply face kid named Robbie.”
Zora placed two plates on the table. “Introverted.”
“Destiny?” John asked.
She cocked her head. “Yes, Destiny. That’s who we’ve being talking about.”
“Yeah, I’d say introverted—big time. But what would you know about being introverted—Ms. New York City editor?”
“I wrote the book on being introverted.”
John chuckled. “Riight.”
She looked at him over her shoulder—her expression serious. “I was an only child with parents busy with their own careers.” She smoothed out the placemats. “I’ve told you that before.”
John nodded. But how did that apply to Destiny? “If she was so introverted, how did she have the courage to run away?”
“Shy girls don’t usually go off by themselves. They need a strong motivator. They’re not that adventurous. They need security. Another partner in crime. Probably someone bolder.”
“But that doesn’t fit. According to Robbie, he personally took her to the bus station and watched her get on the bus—alone.”
“Then someone met her at the other end,” Zora said.
John stared at her, mouth agape. She never failed to amaze him. “Damn, I should fire Oscar and hire you.”
She laughed. “Let’s have dinner.”
He looked down at the two plates. “Laurie already ate?”
“She’s not here.”
He stiffened. His gaze flew toward the hall that led to his daughter’s room. Pulling his cell from his pocket, he looked for two things: the time and a text. It read 7:30—past her curfew for a school night—and there was no text.
“Where is she?”
Zora shrugged. “I haven’t the slightest. If she didn’t contact you, you know she’s not going to call me.”
“Well, she doesn’t have a car—” A red haze filled his vision. “Goddammit.”
Zora jerked. “What?”
“Danny Matisse is back.”
Her jaw dropped, then her head swiveled to look down the hall just as he’d done a second before. “Well that explains that.”
John frowned, mouth tight. “Explains what?”
“In the car with me earlier this morning, she told me she’d been with Lydia.”
“And?”
“I was with Lydia most of the morning, packing and shipping merchandise. Do you think she’s with him?” She said this in a whisper as though Laurie was in the next room and could hear her.
Blood pounded in John’s ears. “I’m sure going to find out. And when I do—”
Zora gripped his arm. “Let me come with you.”
“No way in hell.”
“John, you can’t go through Little River knocking on every door. Sit down and think.”
She pushed him down into one of the kitchen chairs. After taking the seat opposite his, she took his hand in hers. He resisted the urge to snatch it away. He didn’t want to calm down. He wanted to wrap his hands around that punk’s neck and squeeze.
“Where do you think they’ve gone?” Her eyes regarded him steadily. “Matisse’s house has been sold, right?”
“Yes.” John half rose from his chair. “What if they’ve been together all day? What if she didn’t go to school?”
“John,” Zora said in a quiet voice. “If she’d skipped school, the attendance office would have called. There’ve been no calls.”
He scraped a rough hand over his stubble. “All his buddies from last summer have left. That only leaves the Café or—”
“Starlight Motel,” they said at the same time.
