“Every person you see tonight, you ask them about a girl named Jessica,” I said. “I don’t care if you’ve talked to them before. Ask them again. She’s the key. We need to know who she is and why she needed money.”

Stevie nodded, but Boyd looked skeptical.

“What?” I asked him. “What’s the problem?”

He took a deep breath. “Lot of people don’t like us. Because of what we do.”

“Then figure out a way to make them like you tonight,” I said. “Take food. Take drinks. Blankets. I don’t care. You guys know better than I do what’ll get people to talk.”

They exchanged anxious looks.

“What?” I asked again.

“It’s money,” Boyd said. “Money works better than anything.”

Stevie nodded in agreement. “He’s right.”

I pulled my wallet out of my jeans. I took out a handful of bills and handed them to Stevie. “Don’t overpay until you’re sure you’ve got someone who can tell you something legit. They’ll want more up front. Don’t flash the money. Separate it in your pockets so you don’t pull too much out at once.”

Stevie spread the bills around to the four pockets in his jeans, then handed what was left to Boyd, who did the same.

“If all that money’s gone, you better have something to show for it,” I warned. “Don’t pay unless you think you’ve got something. You can pay for small things. But don’t pay for nothing.”

Stevie nodded. “We got it.”

“You have my cell,” I said. “You call me the second you get anything. I’ll come to you. Otherwise, I want to hear from you every two hours. Just to check in.”

Stevie pushed up the sleeve of his coat, checking his watch. “Two hours. Got it.” Then he looked at me. “What are you gonna do?”

“I’m gonna drink coffee and stay awake and wait for you to call me,” I said, looking at each of them. “If I go out asking, I’ll spook people. Between you guys and Isabel that’s plenty of people asking questions tonight. Throw me into the mix and I’ll just make it worse. So I’m gonna find some coffee, sit in my car, and wait for you to call.”

They both nodded.

“So get going,” I said. “Turn something up.”

I watched them walk off into the snow. Wondered if they’d find anything. Wondered if Marc was alright. Wondered who Jessica was.

And wondered if Elizabeth was out there somewhere, too.

THIRTY

Four hours later, my phone rang for the second time.

“Think we got something,” Stevie said.

I shifted in my car seat, stiff and cold from sitting for so long. They’d called two hours earlier with nothing to tell me and I’d drifted off after that, the coffee not doing its job.

“Tell me,” I said.

“Probably be better if you just come,” he said, the wind whistling through the phone.

“Where are you?”

He gave me directions and told me it was probably fifteen minutes from the diner. I plugged the intersection into the GPS and told him I was on my way.

The wind and snow had picked up while I’d fallen asleep and it blew horizontal across the windshield. The streets were coated with blindingly bright white snow, split in half by fresh tire tracks. I stayed in the lanes created by the other cars, unsure if the road had frozen or not.

I moved from well-lit streets to roads with busted out streetlights, jagged slashes of light across the white streets. Boarded up windows glared at me from the neglected buildings. Groups of people huddled together in heavy, ill-fitting clothes.

I drove slowly on the icy streets, listening as the voice on the GPS guided me. I spotted Boyd on a street corner. He was squinting into the snow, staring at my car, then held up a hand. I pulled to the curb, the tires crunching against the frozen snow.

The wind slapped me in the face as soon as I opened my door, the snow stinging my eyes and cheeks. I ducked into my coat and shut the door behind me.

Boyd motioned for me to follow him and we trudged down the street. He led me up a block and then around a corner. He hopped up the steps of the second house on the block, a narrow home with a high pitched roof and a sagging front porch. He opened the screen door and then a weathered-oak door.

My eyes adjusted to the dark interior. It smelled like smoke and urine. Several mattresses were off in the corner of the otherwise bare room.

“They’re in the back,” Boyd said, brushing the snow from his arms and shivering.

I followed him through a dingy kitchen and the floor creaked with each step.

Stevie was huddled near a black stovepipe furnace, the flames illuminating his face and the rest of the room. Two girls sat on the other side of the furnace, their arms wrapped around their knees, staring at me, their eyes probing and nervous.

Stevie lifted his chin. “Hey.”

“Hey,” I said, pulling my gloves from my hands and shaking them out.

“That’s Amanda,” he said, pointing to the girl closest to the fire. “That’s Mary.”

I nodded at them both. They stared back at me, their arms locked tightly around their knees.

“They know Jessica,” Stevie said.

Boyd sat down next to Stevie, holding his hands out to the crackling flames. I joined him on the floor, which felt nearly as cold as the air outside.

“But they think you’re a cop,” he said.

I looked at each of the girls. “I’m not a cop. I promise. I used to be. I’m not anymore.”

They exchanged anxious looks, unsure of how to take that.

“All I want to do is find Marc and Jessica,” I said. “That’s it. And I don’t want to hurt them. They aren’t in trouble. If they need help, I’ll help them. But I need to find them first.”

Amanda whispered something to Mary. Mary’s eyes darted toward me, then back to her lap. Her cheeks glowed in the firelight.

Mary nodded and rocked a bit.

Amanda studied me. Her eyes were small beneath a thick, red wool cap. She had an oversized green ski jacket on over jeans and dirty black boots. Strands of greasy blond hair peeked out from the cap.

“Stevie said you had money,” she said, her voice low, raspy.

I looked at him.

“Took all we had to get to them,” he said, shrugging. “But we’re here and they know her.”

“Tell me what you know,” I said to Amanda. “Then I’ll pay you.”

She shook her head. “I need to see the money or we can all sit here and pretend to roast marshmallows.”

Her stony expression told me she was serious. I yanked out my wallet and pulled out all of the cash. “Here it is.”

She held out her hand.

I shook my head. “No way. Talk first.”

She folded her arms across her chest. “Hope you like imaginary marshmallows.”

There was no way I was handing over money until I knew what I was getting. But she didn’t trust me and I didn’t blame her. She had no reason to.

“Let’s meet halfway,” I said, then reached across Boyd and handed the cash to Stevie. “He holds. You tell me what you know about Jessica, then he gives it to you.” I nodded at Stevie. “Give them each twenty now.”

He pulled off two bills and handed them both to Amanda. She quickly handed one to Mary and the money disappeared into their jackets.

“She’s a junkie,” Amanda said. “Heroin.”

I nodded.

“Guy named Laser, he’s her dealer,” she continued. “She was buying on credit. He finally cut her off, told her it was time to start paying. She didn’t have the money. He beat the shit out of her, told her she had two days to get it to him or it was gonna get worse.”

Mary rocked a little quicker.

“She’s new out here,” Amanda explained. “She didn’t know better.”

“What about Marc?”

“Tall guy? Dark hair, that helper guy?”

Sounded close enough, so I nodded.

“Yeah, she’d been hanging out with him,” she said, the fire crackling and popping next to her. “I guess he was her boyfriend or something, but I’m not sure. I know she was hiding the heroin from him, though.”

“How?”

“Careful about her tracks,” she said, shrugging. “Not doing it when he was around. Like I said. She’s new out here. She still looks new.”