Jane made a note of this information. “Is there any chance your sisters could be into drugs, Gloria?”

“Oh, no! You think I’d let that happen after I watched my mama kill herself with that shit? After all I done to raise ’em up good? They wouldn’t dare. They know I’d kick their asses clear to kingdom come.”

Jane believed she would, too. “Where do you think they might’ve driven?”

Gloria’s double chin wagged as she shook her head. “With the price of gas, they had no business goin’ nowhere. We gotta pinch pennies jus’ to survive. Mosta the time, we take the bus. But maybe Marcie decided to buy some doughnuts and a paper. She been talkin’ ’bout gettin’ a new job, a better one. That’s my best guess, since the car was found near Hank’s Donuts. Hank’s is our favorite.”

Jane quickly tried to assemble the scenario in her mind. Car abandoned; girls missing. Both sisters were going to school and working. They were also living in an environment that wasn’t easy by any stretch of the imagination, but it was very apparent that they were at least loved. What could’ve gone wrong?

“What condition was the car in? Did it have a flat, a breakdown?” she asked.

“That car has one problem after another. It ain’t worth but a few hundred bucks. But the police found it parked on a residential street off Franklin Boulevard, a few blocks from the doughnut place, like I said. And it was runnin’ jus’ fine.”

“Was there anything inside to indicate where your sisters had been that morning-some napkins from Hank’s? A grocery sack? A Starbucks cup?”

“Jus’ the books and stuff they leave in there all the time. I keep tellin’ ’em not to leave their backpacks in the car. It don’t even lock right. But sometimes they do. You know what kids are like these days.”

This woman was only in her twenties, but she acted a lot closer to Jane’s forty-six. With so much responsibility thrust on her at such a young age, she probably felt at least forty. “What about cell phones? Have the police checked to see if they’ve been used since Latisha and Marcie disappeared?”

“Their phones were in the car.” Covering her face, Gloria broke into sobs but spoke through them. “That’s another way I knew they didn’t walk off. They wouldn’t leave their phones behind. We got no money for two extra cell phones but they’d rather go without food.”

This wasn’t sounding very hopeful. Jane forced a pleasant expression to cover her concern. “Do you have the phones? We’ll need to check all incoming and outgoing calls. It’s possible they know someone you didn’t realize they know. Maybe that person’s seen them since you have.”

“The police have the phones. A detective’s goin’ through their recent calls.”

“Which detective is that?”

“They gave the case to a white guy named Willis. He a handsome man. But he wearin’ a weddin’ ring. I checked.”

Jane might’ve been tempted to laugh at Gloria’s aside, but she was too distracted by the name. “Did you say Willis?”

“Yes, ma’am, I did.”

Too bad. Willis was Skye’s husband. That would be tricky if Jane wanted to hide her involvement from her bosses, who wouldn’t be happy to hear she’d dived in without permission.

On the other hand, having David on the case was fortuitous, too, since he was cooperative and sympathetic to what they were trying to accomplish at The Last Stand. Not all members of the department were friendly. They believed the mere existence of TLS sent a message to the community that the police weren’t being effective. Some of the unflattering comments Skye, Ava and Sheridan occasionally made to the media didn’t help. “Your husband’s the cop, not you!” someone had yelled at Skye a few weeks ago.

Jane wasn’t a cop, either. She wasn’t even a full caseworker. Not yet. But if she’d learned anything in the past six months it was that drive, determination and sheer hard work could make up for a lot in an investigation.

Gloria was explaining the situation in greater detail. Taking a deep breath, Jane refocused.

“I guess Detective Willis worked them cases down by the American River a few years back.” She wiped her nose. “Murders. They think this might be related.”

Jane felt her eyebrows slide up. If those cases were the ones that sprang immediately to her mind, this wasn’t related. It couldn’t be. Jane knew the perpetrator. She’d been living with him at the time. Oliver Burke was dead. But the memory of what he’d done in the years she’d been married to him still made her shudder. He’d been so good at compartmentalizing, at playing whatever part he needed to play in order to avoid detection. He’d fooled even her, right up until the end.

That was what she had to offer The Last Stand that none of the others could, she reminded herself. She knew how a psychopath thought, how he behaved, how manipulative he could be. Not only had she shared a decade of her life with Oliver, she had a child by him-and was nearly murdered by him, too.

“I’ll give Detective Willis a call,” she told Gloria. “I know him. He’s a friend.”

The chair groaned as Gloria shifted. “You don’t think my sisters are dead, do you? I can’t even imagine what I’d do if they was dead.”

Jane wanted to promise that they weren’t. But Latisha and Marcie had been gone for three weeks. They’d left their car and their cell phones behind, and there’d been no trace of them. What were the chances that they weren’t lying lifeless in the woods somewhere? The only thing they had going for them was the fact that they’d been together. That was better than disappearing alone. Unless the worst had happened. Then Gloria would lose both sisters at once.

“We’ll find them, one way or another,” she said. “Can you get me some photographs?”

“I got ’em right here.” She took several pictures from a large purse, as well as a crudely made flyer. “I been postin’ that flyer everywhere I can.”

Jane accepted these items, stared into the faces of the missing girls and felt a renewed sense of urgency as they became real to her. One had a distinctly darker complexion than the other, cornrows and a nose piercing. The name Marcie was written at the bottom. The other, Latisha, had almond-shaped eyes, a wide smile and an attractive bob. “Good idea,” she said. “I’ll do what I can from here.”

“Thank you.” Gloria dabbed at her wet cheeks. “I-I got no money, but I’ll do whatever I-”

“Don’t worry about fees,” Jane hurried to interject, setting the pictures and the flyer, which had the word MISSING written in large block letters across the top, on the edge of her desk. “Our services are free to those who need them.”

Relief eased some of the tension in the other woman’s bearing. “Hallelujah! Thank you, God.”

“I might require some insight or answers as we go along, however,” Jane continued. “Can you give me your contact information?”

Gloria complied with an address, work number and cell phone number.

“What about their fathers, and your father?” Jane asked. “Can you tell me how to reach these men?”

“What would you want with my no-good father?”

“I’m just being thorough.”

“I don’t want him callin’ me again.” She sank lower in her seat. “But…I’ll do anything if it’ll help. His name’s Timothy Huff. I don’t have a number for him, but you can find him down at the pool hall on Florin Road most Fridays, drunker’n a skunk.”

That was loose contact information indeed. “And Marcie’s dad?”

“He call every once in a while from prison.”

At least they could rule him out. “What’s he in for?”

“Possession.”

“That leaves Latisha’s dad.”

Gloria shook her head. “You don’t wanna bother Luther Wilson. He got a’ anger management problem. We call him Lucifer, but we do it behind his back. That’s how bad he is.”

“Does he know his daughter’s missing?”

“I haven’t told him,” she said. “What’s the use? He don’ care ’bout her. He never has.”