Horse seemed so solid and dependable, but apparently he was spending all his family’s money on treasure-hunting expeditions while Kitty snuck around selling off family heirlooms to pay camp fees. Blue would grow up to go to college and play sports and meet a nice girl one day who would never know he was once so obsessed with Nazis he couldn’t talk about anything else.

She knew that Carter spent so much time at the hospital because he wanted to be head of psychiatry, but she wondered what else he did there. She was relatively sure he wasn’t seeing a woman, but she also knew that since his mother had died he was spending fewer and fewer hours at home. Was he at the hospital every time he said he was? It shocked her to realize how little she knew about what he did between leaving the house in the morning and coming home at night.

What about Bennett, and Leland, and Ed, who all seemed so normal? She was starting to wonder if anyone really knew what people were like on the inside.

She ordered pizza and let Blue watch The Sound of Music after supper. He only liked the scenes with the Nazis and knew exactly when and where to fast-forward so the three-hour movie flew by in fifty-five minutes. Then he went upstairs to his room and closed the door, and did whatever it was he did in there these days, and Patricia’s mood darkened while she washed the dishes. It was too late to run the vacuum cleaner and vacuum her curtains, so she decided to take a quick walk. Without meaning to, her feet took her right past James Harris’s house. His car wasn’t out front. Had he driven up to Six Mile? Was he seeing Destiny Taylor right this minute?

Her head felt dirty. She didn’t like thinking these thoughts. She tried to remember what Grace had said. James Harris had moved here to take care of his sick great-aunt. He had decided to stay. He wasn’t a drug dealer, or a child molester, or a mafia hit man in hiding, or a serial killer. She knew that. But when she got home she went upstairs, took out her day planner, and counted the days. She had taken the casserole to James Harris’s house and seen Francine on May 15, the day Mrs. Greene said she went missing.

Everything felt wrong. Carter was never home. Mrs. Savage had bitten off a piece of her ear. Miss Mary had died terribly. Francine had run away with a man. An eight-year-old boy had killed himself. A little girl might do the same. This wasn’t any of her business. But who looked out for the children? Even the ones who weren’t their own?

She called Mrs. Greene and part of her hoped she wouldn’t pick up. But she did.

“I’m sorry to call after nine,” she apologized. “But how well do you know Destiny Taylor’s mother?”

“Wanda Taylor isn’t someone I spend a lot of time thinking about,” Mrs. Greene said.

“Do you think we could talk to her about her daughter?” Patricia asked. “That license plate you saw, I think it belongs to a man who lives here. James Harris. Francine worked for him and I saw her at his house on May 15. And there are some funny things with him. I wonder if we could talk to Destiny, maybe she could tell us if she’d seen him out at Six Mile.”

“People don’t like strangers asking after their children,” Mrs. Greene said.

“We’re all mothers,” Patricia said. “If something were happening to one of ours and someone thought they knew something, wouldn’t you want to know? And if it turns out to be nothing, all we’ve done is bother her on a Friday night. It’s not even ten.”

There was a long pause, and then:

“Her light’s still on,” Mrs. Greene said. “Get out here quick and let’s get this over with.”

Patricia found Blue in his room, sitting on his beanbag chair, reading The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich.

“I need to run out for a little while,” Patricia said. “Just to the church. There’s a meeting of the deacons I forgot. Will you be okay?”

“Is Dad home?” Blue asked.

“He’s on his way,” Patricia said, although she didn’t really know. “Will you answer the phone? I’m going to lock the front door. Your father has his key.”

“Okay,” Blue said, barely looking up from his book.

“I love you,” Patricia said, but Blue didn’t seem to hear.

Patricia hesitated in her bedroom for a moment. She had never lied about where she would be before, and it made her feel nervous. She decided to leave a note for Carter on their dresser telling him where she was and giving him Mrs. Greene’s phone number. On it she wrote, Need to give Mrs. Greene a check. Then she got in her Volvo and hoped Grace was right and this was all just a product of the overactive imagination of a stupid little housewife with too much free time on her hands. If it was, she promised herself, tomorrow she would vacuum her curtains.

CHAPTER 16

There were no other cars on Rifle Range Road and the drive felt lonely. The streetlights stopped at the state road, and the narrow, crumbling one-lane road winding through the trees and chain-link fences felt too narrow. Patricia’s headlights brushed across mobile homes and prefabricated sheds and she worried she might be waking people up. She checked her dashboard clock—9:35 p.m.—but the absolute dark of the country road made it feel much later.

She parked in front of Mrs. Greene’s and, after looking around to make sure no one was on the basketball court, she stepped out of her Volvo and into a buzzing, razzing night, furious with insects. Scattered streetlights glowed orange over the cinder-block houses and trailers, but they were spaced so far apart the darkness felt even more vast and lonely. When Mrs. Greene opened her front door Patricia felt relieved to see a familiar face.

“Would you like something to drink?” Mrs. Greene asked.

“I think it’s best if we see Mrs. Taylor before it’s too late,” Patricia said.

“Jesse?” Mrs. Greene called back into her house. “Look after your brother. I’m going across the way.”

She closed and locked her door behind her, the plastic holly wreath scratching against the aluminum door as it swung from side to side.

“This way,” Mrs. Greene said, leading her down the sandy path in front of her house.

They walked onto the dirt road that circled the little church, then stepped over the ankle-high railing in front of Mt. Zion A.M.E., cutting through the center of Six Mile. They crunched over the sandy soil, their footsteps loud in the night. No one sat outside on their porch, no one called to their friends, no one passed them on the way home. The dirt roads of Six Mile were deserted. Patricia saw curtains drawn over most of the windows. Others had cardboard or bedsheets tacked up over them instead. From behind all of them came the cold, blue shifting light of television.

“No one goes out after dark around here anymore,” Mrs. Greene said.

“What should we say to Mrs. Taylor so we don’t upset her?” Patricia asked.

“Wanda Taylor gets out of bed upset,” Mrs. Greene said.

Patricia wondered how she’d react if someone showed up on her doorstep to tell her Blue was on drugs.

“Do you think she’ll be angry?” she asked.

“Probably,” Mrs. Greene said.

“Maybe this is a bad idea,” Patricia said.

“It is a bad idea,” Mrs. Greene said, turning to face her. “But you told me you were worried about her little girl and now I can’t stop thinking about that. She may not roll out the welcome wagon, but you convinced me we’re doing what’s right. Don’t convince me to come out halfway and then go back in.”

A yellow bulb burned over the door of Wanda Taylor’s trailer, and before Patricia could ask for a moment to gather herself, they had walked up the rotten front porch and Mrs. Greene was knocking on the rattling metal door. The rickety porch swayed back and forth beneath their feet. Moths tapped at the yellow lightbulb. Patricia could feel heat radiating off it, making her scalp and forehead prickle. Just when she couldn’t stand the warmth anymore, the door opened and Wanda Taylor stared out at them. She wore a drug company T-shirt and stonewashed blue jeans and hadn’t done her hair. Behind her, Patricia heard a TV playing.

“Evening, Wanda,” Mrs. Greene said.

“It’s late,” Wanda said, then took in Patricia. “Who’s that?”

She spoke to Mrs. Greene as if Patricia weren’t there.

“Can we come inside?” Mrs. Greene asked.

“No,” Wanda Taylor said. “It’s almost ten o’clock. Some people have to get up in the morning.”

“You came to me about Destiny and I thought you might have a few minutes to discuss the health of your little girl,” Mrs. Greene said, her voice prickly.

Wanda screwed her face up in disbelief.

“I came to you about Destiny and you told me to go to the doctor if I was so worried,” she said. “That’s what I’m doing, first thing tomorrow morning, we’re going to the clinic.”

“Mrs. Taylor,” Patricia said. “I’m a nurse from the clinic. I thought Destiny’s condition might be urgent so I came to see you tonight. How old is she?”

Wanda and Mrs. Greene stared at Patricia, both for different reasons.

“Nine,” Wanda finally said. “You have some ID?”

“She works at the clinic,” Mrs. Greene said. “She’s not the police. She’s not from DSS. She doesn’t have a badge.”

Wanda studied Patricia, her face shadowed by the yellow light.