Problem Child (Jane Doe #2) - Victoria Helen Stone Page 0,29

passing it won’t leave it behind. It’ll be there in my rearview mirror for the next ten miles.

You can’t ever forget where you come from when the land is so mercilessly flat. On a clear, cold day that steam follows you forever, calling you back.

“Assholes,” I say to no one in particular, then I focus my eyes on the one windmill I can see peeking over the road ahead.

No, not windmills. Wind turbines. I looked them up last night. Wind turbines. I keep my eyes on my big robot friend and drive on toward the next town over to dig up dirt on Little Miss Kayla. I smile at the first sign that warns me not to pick up any hitchhikers because they could be escaped convicts.

The area I’m heading to is mostly populated by prison guards and their families. On the far side of the town limits is a small Oklahoma state prison. Ricky has never been housed there, because they try to keep inmates out of their own stomping grounds for fear that escape would be too tempting. Plus they don’t want your troubled buddies gathering around the exterior fences to wave and hoot at you during yard time.

Let’s be honest: I probably would have done that to Ricky, given such easy opportunity. A little payback for all those years of making fun of me every time I walked anywhere near him in the house.

Of course, the best revenge is living well, but really the best best revenge is living well while mocking him to his face. Why not have it all?

The apartment complex I’m looking for is at the closest edge of town, a big semicircle of two-story buildings constructed sometime in the early nineties. Most of the patios are empty but for rusting charcoal grills and a chair here and there. The one I park in front of is screened in, and two cats sit on a couch looking out scornfully at me. The sight of them makes me wonder what my own cat is doing and whether she misses me.

She doesn’t. I dropped her off at Luke’s, and she’s far too busy enjoying new, strange environs and getting into all the high hiding places and fun shadows to be found in his converted loft. She probably won’t even want to come home with me, but that’s too bad for her, because I’m not leaving her there.

Would she like a little house in the suburbs with a white picket fence? Yeah. She would.

But then there’s me.

Maybe I should just try it. I can leave anytime I want. Maybe I can even secretly keep my place in the city and escape there when I need to get away from my loving, supportive boyfriend.

Damn it. I hate him so much.

I get out of my car and head toward the building number Ricky gave me. As I approach apartment B, I’m surprised to see a tidy little patio overflowing with potted plants, including a few that are still flowering, the old buds neatly nipped off. Between the pots nestle colorful ceramics of bejeweled fish and animals with big eyes. Several bouncy balls and a plastic trike take up the rest of the cement space. Not what I was expecting from a family that doesn’t care that a daughter has gone missing.

The faint sounds of cartoons dance through the door as I knock. Just a few seconds later the door opens to reveal a tall Native American woman I’m sure I’ve never seen before. She has a brown-haired young boy on her hip and a spatula in her hand, and she’s still wearing her state prison guard uniform. “Yes?” she prompts.

“I’m looking for Kayla.”

“Kayla?”

I don’t really need her answer to know I have the wrong place. The apartment behind her is clean and neat, and I smell something delicious cooking in the kitchen. “She’s a teenage girl who went missing a few weeks ago. I was told her mother lives here.”

She shrugs her free shoulder as the boy lays his head on the other. “Maybe try the next building?” She points with the spatula. “I’ve seen cops over there once or twice.”

“Yeah, that sounds about right.”

I walk around to apartment B of the building she indicated, and I find a moldy old love seat on the porch, the cement beneath it strewn with dead leaves and dried-out cigarette butts, and my Spidey senses tingle. This place feels like home.

The patio door is cracked open, and the sound of a raucous