I drove through the dull-colored streets back to Lorna’s, hoping for directions to the Jenkins’ place. I also wanted to gauge the reaction of the Peale women when I tossed out Aidan’s accusation that they’d hidden Kayla with the couple. The two of them were expert reactors, a useful quality when attempting to shake truth out of a family tree.

Vicky met me at the door in designer coveralls and a lightweight cotton hoodie. The soft glow from the porch light illuminated her girlish freckles and cast shadows in her electric blue eyes, which had the effect of exposing an imperishable anger. 

“Your mother around?” I asked.

“She went to the grocery store.” Vicky told me this while blocking the doorway. Her diaphanous frame trivialized any attempt to keep me from entering.

“So, she’ll be back soon?” A query meant to unlock the ridiculous impasse. 

“She’s shopping.” Information was at a premium with this one. 

The more I studied Vicky’s face in the dim glow, the more it resembled a porcelain figurine. Brittle Barbie hair cut in a bob gave the impression of a child’s first time with scissors. I wanted to ask her, Am I hired or not? But I didn’t. No need to create more opposition to her paying me for this aggravation.

“How about I wait?”

“Sure,” she said, showing no intention of shifting out of that guardian stance.

“Inside?” I asked, emphasizing the question mark. 

She huffed, turned her back on me and went deeper into the shadowy kitchen. Sharply honed shoulder blades nearly cut through the gray cotton hoodie.

“You know the Jenkins?”

“I know them,” she said to a coffee cup on the counter before giving it a stir. She sat at the kitchen table and sipped the steaming beverage. “They babysat me when I was Kayla’s age.”

“They watch Kayla, as well?” I pulled out one of the plastic-upholstered chairs across from her and settled in.

“I don’t think so.” Vicky’s gaze bounced around the small space, finding interest in everything but me. A shift from cup to cupboard to countertop and past my eyes with a light brushing. The illusion of acceptance without commitment. “You need to be going after my father.”

“He says she’s not with him.”

“So you just walk away? Is that how you sell cars? It’s no wonder you’re going out of business.” Her sneer was unnecessary. The comment cut deep enough on its own.

“Your mom wouldn’t take her to the Jenkins?”

“No way that she would take Kayla to the Jenkins. That’s just stupid.” She still refused to look me directly in the eye. “You should know that.”

Now she was just trying to confuse me. I did a lightning search of my memories to find any bits about the Jenkins. I had never heard of them before Aidan’s comment. If I didn’t regard every step, this family would have me chasing madness through the mountains along with them.

“Your father said she probably dropped the girl off so she could play,” I said, letting her decide who Aidan had accused of cavorting like a child.

Each mention of her father made her shoulders flinch almost imperceptibly, as if someone had physically struck her. Her voice hardened a degree with each blow. “Of course he said that.” 

“Because your mom would take her there.”

“Because he doesn’t want you snooping around the junkyard. We haven’t used the Jenkins as babysitters since I was a child. Besides, Faye doesn’t have time to watch her.”

My mind glitched on something familiar, but I needed all attention on Vicky. “Dad seems to think your mom hides Kayla over there to make him look guilty.”

“Like I said, it wouldn’t happen.” 

“You sound very certain.”

She toyed with the edge of her cup. “Whatever went on between them when I was a kid I don’t know. They just stopped going, taking me over there. When we’d see Faye or Hugh at the occasional barbecue or ho down, my parents didn’t talk to them.” She took another sip of coffee and tried to give me the icy stare. That’s a hard trick if you don’t hold someone’s gaze. She gave up. “What is it makes you wanna try to find another avenue? You talked to my father, didn’t you? It should be easy to see that he’s guilty.”

“Yes, I talked to your father.” The lobes of my ears grew hot. Her words tingled just below the skin at the back of my neck. “Just because a man is crazy doesn’t make him guilty.” I kept my eyes locked on, checking body language. Her bitterness toward Aidan felt too familiar. Mother ignited the same ire inside of me. It clouded my discernment of Vicky. What would make her so angry at her father that nothing but his guilt seemed plausible? “I follow the leads,” I went on. “There was no sign of your sister at your dad’s, and there was no way I could just start digging around the junk pile to try and find her. Where do you think she would go if she ran off? Or where would he hide her?”

Her gaze had wandered off from the attempt at a stare down, focused on the cup and the contents it held. “If I knew that, I’d just go get her.” She lifted the cup for a drink and caught my evaluative scrutiny over the rim. Her face flushed, making the light freckles stand out. She bit her lower lip as if to hold on to her defenses. A hint of vulnerability, or calculated misdirection?

“She’s just hiding. Kayla likes her pranks. It’s a waste of your time to try and find her. She’ll show up when she wants.”

“So you want me to search your father’s property, but there’s no way I’ll find her. What are you paying me for?”

“My mother is paying you.” Her desperate need to find out what I was thinking finally overrode the evasive bounce around the room. Those bright irises captured me, held me hostage with a depth so blue and clear, it was like staring into the ocean abyss. As cold and full of secrets as any briny deep, too.

“Look, I get it, Vicky. My mother pisses me off in ways you can’t imagine. But you can’t let—”

She flared like a cobra. “Don’t think you know me! You don’t! If you can’t see that my father’s guilty you should just quit. You’re better off home with your own family.”

When she released my gaze, it left a seared spot on my psyche. Whatever wound Aidan left her with went deeper than a glacial lake. She wasn’t letting me anywhere near it.

“You’re right,” I said. “I don’t know you. Anymore than you know how to find people. So I go check the next thing. I talk to the Jenkins. They don’t have Kayla, I get something else out of them. That’s how the game works. In a missing child case, we do it as fast as we can.” I left the implication to her imagination.

She remained stuck in her hatred. “You’re an idiot, wasting time with the Jenkins. You already got all you’re going to get from them and you’re too dense to realize it. I told Renée not to send for you. You should just go crawling around up in that junk pile of my father’s. You might even find some dead bodies or Canadian contraband up there too. He’s crazy. He’s crazy like a badger.”

The way she bunched up when she spoke of him, her body told more about her grudge than crazy could account for. Aidan’s brand of madness had cut deep wounds in this girl. She didn’t want the same for her little sister. She’d protect her at all costs. The idea stirred compassion like a wooden spoon, thickening the recipe into a bitter concoction that filled my chest cavity.

“I do the thing,” I said, starting my spiel once again, partly arguing with myself. Outrage had grown over the years of Aidan’s failures. My puny words were unlikely to shake fruit out of that tree.

Renée burst through the door. A hint of burnt cigarettes wafted in with her. “Did you find her? Did you find Kayla?”

Vicki answered for me. “He didn’t find her. He wants to go gallivanting around the valley.”

“I don’t want to go anywhere except what I might find that girl.”

Lorna stood behind with a young dude beaming at me over her shoulder.

Vicky wrinkled her nose at Renée. “Have you been smoking?”

“No! I told you I quit.” Renée’s scowl was a combination of anger and hurt. “Who cares about that right now?”

“Sorry,” New Guy chirped. “That’s me.”

“Connor?” Renée squared off with me. “What are you doing? Kayla only has so much time. You have to find her.”

“I know that, Sis. I have to find her. No one else was able to find her, so you called me and I mean to find her.” I took a breath.

New guy inserted himself again. “Probably should let him do his job.”

Lorna spoke in agreement. “I want him to find her. We haven’t found her. I want him to find my baby girl.” Cracks in her voice threatened to shatter it and shower her worst fears all over us.

“I was telling Vicki here,” I said. “That your husband, crazy as he is, gave no indication that he has that child.”

New guy bristled slightly at the mention of Aidan.

I went on. “He pointed me in the direction of the Jenkins. I don’t know why he did that, but it is the best thing I have to grab ahold of.”

“I told him it was ridiculous,” Vicky spat out. “We haven’t been around the Jenkins in forever.”

Lorna appeared to shiver at the mention of her daughter’s old babysitters. “It’s OK, Vicky. He needs to look wherever. We don’t know what he might turn up or where she might surface.”

“That’s exactly the point,” Vicky said. “He’ll go up there and chat with Faye again, and Uncle Hugh, and that’ll send him on some other wild goose chase and meanwhile what’s happening with Kayla?”

That oddly familiar connection jangled at the back of my mind, but continued to evade capture.

“He’s no uncle of yours and it’s better than anything else we have,” Lorna told her in sharp tones. “Let him do what he needs to find my baby.”

Renée opened her mouth to speak, but decided against it.

New guy raised his hand in the back. “Listen, I can take you out there so you can get right on it. Then you can drop me off over at penal colony number 5793. Since my car is in the shop.” He had one of those grins that bad car salesmen rely on. 

“It’s not a car. It’s a pickup truck,” Vicky barked at him, gaining back the power she’d lost to her mother. “And if you could avoid crashing it, we wouldn’t be stuck hauling your ass around town.”

New guy leaned back at the force of her denunciation.

“Good idea, Derek,” Lorna said, turning to lay an overtly friendly hand against New Guy’s cheek. “I appreciate it.”

“We can talk about that later,” Derek said. His eyes held the puerile twinkle of a rutting male.

“All right, Derek,” I said, pushing past the pack of lady wolves. “Let’s get to it.”