the living room. She sat at the end of the couch next to the girl’s feet.
“What is that book?” the girl asked.
“It’s called Slaughterhouse-Five. It has aliens in it.”
The girl made a skeptical face.
“Really. They’re called the Tralfamadorians. Do the Hetrayens know them?”
“Are you joking me?”
“I’m—”
A pounding fist banged the outer screen door. The deputy had arrived. He or she had probably knocked once and Jo hadn’t heard. She’d had the noisy window air conditioner turned on high to hide the sound of the approaching squad car.
The child had frozen like a cornered deer, her wild eyes fixed on the front door. “Who is that?”
Jo put her hand on the girl’s arm. “Don’t be afraid. I want you to know I really care about what hap—”
“You called the police?”
“I did, but—”
The girl sprang to her feet, throwing the blanket over Jo’s arms to ensnare her. She speared Jo with a glare of wounded condemnation, and in the next seconds, a blur of girl streaked into the kitchen. The rear door was unbolted and the screen door thudded shut behind her.
Jo pulled off the blanket and laid it over the warm niche where the child had been. She wouldn’t have used force on the girl. No one had any right to expect that of her.
The fist pounded again. Jo went onto the porch and faced a uniformed man through the screen door. “Thanks for coming,” she said. “I’m Joanna Teale.”
“Did you call about a girl . . . a ‘homeless’ girl, you said?” the man said with a local drawl.
“I did. Come in.” She led the deputy onto the porch. He looked toward the open wooden door, his face sallow in the glow of the bug bulb. “Is she in the house?”
“Come inside,” Jo said.
The deputy followed her into the living room, closing the door behind him to keep in the air-conditioning. Jo faced the man. His nameplate said he was K. DEAN. He was in his midthirties, balding, a little pudgy, and his plain, round moon of a face was eclipsed by a deep scar that ran from his left jaw up his cheek. With the casualness of habit, the man dropped his gaze to Jo’s chest. Certain he’d find nothing as riveting as his scar there, Jo waited for his eyes to return to hers. Two seconds, maybe less. “The girl ran away when you knocked,” she said.
He nodded, peering around the house.
“Do you know of any missing kids or AMBER Alerts around here?” she asked.
“I don’t,” he said.
“There aren’t any missing children?”
“There are always missing children.”
“From around here?”
“Not that I know of.”
She expected him to ask questions, but he was still looking around as if evaluating a crime scene. “She showed up yesterday. She’s around nine years old.”
He turned his attention to her. “What made you think she’s homeless?”
“She had on pajama bottoms . . .”
“I think those pants are what kids call a ‘fashion statement,’” he said.
“And she was hungry and dirty. She wasn’t wearing shoes.”
His slight smile didn’t move his scar. “Sounds like me at age nine.”
“She has bruises.”
Finally, he looked concerned. “On her face?”
“On her neck, leg, and arm.”
Suspicion tinged his green eyes. “How did you see them if she had on pajamas?”
“I let her shower here.”
His eyes narrowed even more.
“Like I said, she was dirty. And I had to keep her busy while I waited for you to arrive. I gave her dinner, too.”
The way he was looking at her, as if she’d done something wrong, was infuriating.
“I still don’t see how you came up with her being homeless,” he said.
“By homeless, I meant she’s afraid to go home.”
“So . . . she isn’t homeless.”
“I don’t know what she is!” Jo said. “She has bruises. Someone is hurting her. Isn’t that all that matters?”
“Did she say someone hurts her?”
The girl’s alien story would muddle the already exasperating situation. “She wouldn’t tell me how she got the bruises. She wouldn’t tell me anything, not even her name.”
“You asked?”
“Yes, I asked.”
He nodded.
“Do you want a description of her?”
“All right.” He didn’t take out a notebook, only nodded more as Jo described the girl.
“Will you look for her—in the morning when it gets light?”
“If she ran, she doesn’t want to be found.”
“So what? She needs help.”
His contemplation of her seemed judgmental. “What kind of help do you think she needs?”
“Obviously she needs to be removed from whoever hurts her.”
“Send her to a foster home?” he said.
“If necessary.”
He mused for a moment, stroking his fingertips on his scar