“They were assholes.”
“What made them assholes?”
“Nothing,” she says. “I was better off on my own.”
I don’t debate that. I don’t know the full story, and I don’t want to quiz her about potential abuse. That’s for the cops to sort out. It’s important I don’t doubt her, or alienate her; she’ll be off like a shot if I do. Probably taking the bowl with her.
“You got a place to stay?” I ask her. I know she doesn’t; if she did, she wouldn’t have been sneaking into our house.
“Little place in the woods,” she says. “More of a lean-to. It ain’t a palace.”
“Doesn’t sound very safe,” I say. “You want to stay here? With us?”
Her eyes widen. She looks around, as if she can’t believe anybody shares in such luxury. I just see a regular middle-class house with a fairly comfortable couch and a good on-sale TV. But mileage varies. “Here?” she says. “Where?”
“My room,” Lanny says, at the same time that I say, “The couch folds out,” and that’s awkward. But I’m damn sure not putting a lovestruck kid in bed with Vee Crockett and trusting nothing’s going to happen. I’m pretty sure Gwen would say the same. Which reminds me, again, how much I miss Gwen’s presence in this conversation. I’d expected J. B. to call by now, but when I glance at my phone, there’s nothing yet.
“She’s staying with me. In my room,” Lanny declares, as if she’s the decision-maker here.
“Nope,” I say, and eat some more spaghetti. I’m not going to argue about it, and she knows that. She glares. “The couch bed is comfortable. I should know, I slept there for a couple of months.” Gwen and I had things to work out after she discovered how involved I was with the Lost Angels. That wasn’t fun, but I’m not lying about the comfortable bed.
“It’s fine,” Vee says to Lanny. “Not that I don’t like your bed.” She winks, and I open my mouth to ask how many times that’s happened, but then I think better of it. Lanny’s face has blotched scarlet, and she looks deeply shocked that Vee’s said that in front of me.
“Vee,” I say instead of running after that bait, “are we going to be getting a knock on the door from the police, looking for you? Would anything you’re running from cause that? I don’t mean just bouncing from the foster home—I grew up in the system, and I bounced from a few too. I mean actual crimes they can tie back to you.”
She stops eating. She looks at me, and I remember that flat, simmering resentment in her eyes. It hasn’t changed since Wolfhunter. “I ain’t killed nobody recently,” she says. “If that’s what you’re asking.” It’s sarcastic. Vee Crockett was accused of her mother’s murder. As far as I know, she’s never actually killed anyone.
Doesn’t make me trust her.
“I was clear,” I say. “Straight answer, Vee. If you want to stay.”
She’s aware that I’m serious. I see her calculating. She’s a smart kid—not book-smart, but she reads people well. It’s something kids who live on the edges develop early. Some turn it into pure con artistry. Some use it defensively, like she does. She’ll try to game me if she thinks that will work.
She must see it won’t, because she says, “I done what I had to do. Some of it might not be strictly legal, I guess.”
“Bad enough to have warrants out?”
She just shakes her head on that one. I don’t think she’s lying. “Okay. You can stay until Gwen gets back. Then we have a deeper conversation. Finish lunch. You three get to Roshambo for who does dishes.” I eat the rest of my spaghetti and check my phone. No calls from Gwen. I text her one-handed. Funny story, we have a new houseguest. If anything will make her get back to me, I figure that will do it.
I watch the screen.
No answer.
I start feeling that tension creep up my spine, knotting muscles as it goes. The kids are talking. I’m not listening. My focus is all on that screen.
Nothing.
“Cleanup duty, all of you,” I tell them as I stand up. “I need to make a call. Lanny, put the window back on the alarm circuit and lock it up. Vee, that alarm stays on all the time. You’re free to leave if you want to, but you ask before you open that door. Understand?”
She gives me a tired salute. “Yes, boss.”
“Don’t be a smart-ass, we’re full up.” I’m already walking for the office. Gwen’s added soundproofing, since so many of her phone calls are confidential. I don’t want the kids to hear me right now.
I call J. B.’s number, and she picks up on the first ring. “Sorry, I was about to call you. The court isn’t quite running on time. Gwen’s being arraigned in about an hour, and then I can post her bail.”
“I was hoping the whole thing would be dismissed.”
“I know. I was hoping for that, too, but the local DA is getting his fifteen minutes of press attention before he lets it fall apart; Carol’s already disappeared, and the phone number Gwen used to track her is already dead, so they’ve got nothing. I doubt the cops are going to find her again; this girl seems to have a real talent for vanishing. Did Gwen tell you about—” She leaves it for me to fill in. So I do.
“About the cult the girl’s running from? Yeah. It sounds familiar.”
“There are definitely similarities to the Wolfhunter cult, but that got cut off at the knees. It’s very possible that the Wolfhunter location was just one of several, though. You should check with your friend Mike Lustig. FBI, right?”
“Right,” I say. Mike was intensely involved in our Wolfhunter problems; he saw how it all worked firsthand, and knowing Mike, he’d still be digging into that cult if there were anything left to find. “I’ll ask him about it if it would help.”
“It might,” she admits. “Okay. I’ll get back in touch once Gwen’s free. Just take care out there. Fallout from this is inevitable, I’m afraid.”
“Copy that. Tell Gwen—ah, hell. She knows.”
I hang up after polite goodbyes and pull up the Knoxville criminal courts docket. If the reporters haven’t already recognized her name, the firestorm will start burning our direction soon. I have until then to make sure the kids—including Vee Crockett, now, because I just made her our responsibility—are safe and our defenses are solid.
The first call I make is to Kezia to alert her; she’ll notify the rest of the Norton PD that we’re going to need eyes on our house to control any journalists who stampede this way. We’ve got protocols, so I’m not really worried until Kez says, “I was hoping not to talk to you, Sam.”
I don’t like that. At all. “Why?”
“Because the statements that our suspects are giving contradict what Lanny told us. They say that they knew nothing about Candy, but that they only chased Lanny because they thought she was the one who did it and they were—I’m quoting a Belldene here, remember—trying to bring her to justice.”
“Bullshit,” I bark.
“And they’re shoveling it high and deep. Anyway, we’re going to need that girl in sooner rather than later.”