“Did you know she’s missing?” I ask.
The girl’s expression falls. “I heard.”
“We’re trying to find her.”
She looks down at the bag in her hand.
I spot a ripe berry growing low on the bush, pull it off, and eat it. “They are good.”
“My datt says it’s because of all the rain.”
I pluck a few more berries and drop them into her bag. “I understand you and Annie are friends.”
“She’s my best friend.”
I nod. “Her mamm and datt told me Annie has some English friends. Did she ever talk about them?”
The girl steps away from me, as if the act of distancing herself will make me and my questions go away. “I don’t know anything about that.”
I tilt my head to make eye contact. “Are you sure?”
She begins picking berries at a frantic pace, pulling off leaves and small branches and throwing them into the bag.
“You’re not in any trouble,” I tell her. “Neither is Annie. We just want to find her. Her parents are worried.” I pick a few berries and drop them into her bag.
The words seem to get through to her. She lowers her hand and gives me her full attention. “She has too many English friends. She’s been riding in their cars. Smoking. You know, Englischer kind of things. I told her it was against the Ordnung, but…”
I nod. “Sometimes young people do things. They make mistakes.”
For the first time, she looks at me as if I might not be the enemy.
I’m aware of Tomasetti in the Tahoe a few yards away, waiting, watching us. “Did Annie ever mention a boyfriend?”
She moves a branch aside and pulls off a big purple berry. “Ja.”
“Do you know his name?”
She stops what she’s doing and looks at me. I see in her eyes a tangle of misery and confusion and the terrible weight of a fear she doesn’t understand—all of it tempered by the hope that her friend is okay. “She asked me not to tell.”
“We think Annie could be in danger.” I wait, but she doesn’t respond, so I add, “Honey, you’re not in any trouble. Okay? We just want to find her. If you know something, please tell me.”
Her brows go together and for the first time I get a glimpse of the full scope of the war waging within her: the need to be loyal to her friend; the tenet to remain separate from me; the need to tell what she knows because Annie could be in danger. “His name is Justin Treece,” she says finally.
“Thank you.” I pull out my pad and write down the name. “Is there anything else you can tell me that might help us find her?”
She bites her lip. “Annie has a phone,” she blurts. “I saw her talking on it.”
“A cell phone?”
She nods. “I’m scared for her.”
“Why?”
“I just am.”
I reach out to touch her, to reassure her and thank her for her help, but she snatches up her bag and pushes past the bushes with such speed that I hear the stickers snag on her dress. She runs toward the house without looking back.
I watch until she disappears around the side of the house, and then I slide into the Tahoe and tell Tomasetti what I’ve learned. “Why are the parents always the last to know?” he growls.
“Probably because they don’t ask enough questions.”
“Or maybe some teenagers are pathological liars.”
“Such a cynic.” I tsk. “You should try having a little more faith in our youth.”
“I could, but there’s this pesky little detail called reality.” He’s already got his phone to his ear, calling Goddard. “We got a name,” he says without preamble. “Justin Treece.” Tomasetti’s face darkens and he scowls. “Shit. You got an address on him?” He listens for a moment and ends the call.
“That didn’t sound good,” I say.
Tomasetti drops his phone onto the console and puts the Tahoe in gear. “Treece did a year in Mansfield for beating the hell out of his mother.”
CHAPTER 6
Justin Treece lives with his parents in a run-down frame house on the outskirts of Buck Creek. The neighborhood is a downtrodden purlieu of postage stamp–size houses with ramshackle front porches and yards with grass trampled to dirt. Several houses are vacant, the windows either boarded up with plywood or open to the elements. The roof of the house next to the Treece place is fire-damaged; a hole the size of a tractor tire reveals blackened rafters and pink puffs of insulation.
“Damn, looks like Cleveland,” Tomasetti says as we idle past.
“Welcome to the other side of the tracks,” I mutter.
A beat-up Toyota pickup truck with oversize tires sits in the driveway next to an old Ford Thunderbird. “Looks like someone’s home.”
In front of us, Goddard’s cruiser pulls over to the curb two houses down from the Treece place, and we park behind him. Tomasetti and I meet him on the sidewalk.
“Vehicles belong to the parents,” the sheriff tells us. “Trina drives the Thunderbird. Jack drives the Toyota.”