The man smiled blandly, shifted himself from one large haunch to the other on the Whitley family’s sofa. He had introduced himself a few minutes before as Investigator Grady Mayfield. He’d brought muscled Deputy Browder with him, the younger man reeking of body spray and chewing tobacco.
The two officers read the message that had arrived from Dylan, traded almost imperceptible shrugs.
The message was time-stamped 10:53 a.m. this morning.
joel im sorry but i cant stay in bentley right now theres something i gotta get away from somthing u cant fix dont worry im fine i will call when things r settled love u talk 2 u soon.
“He sounds bothered by something.” Mayfield accepted a sweaty glass of iced tea from Paulette. Browder settled himself against the door frame and pinched his reddened eyes. “Which is a good thing.”
“A good thing?”
“It means he’ll calm down. Where else is he going to go but home? You folks don’t have any other family, do you?”
“He’s not bothered,” Joel said. Mayfield and Browder exchanged looks again. Joel tried to calm himself: sounding like a hysterical queen wouldn’t do his case any good. He cleared his throat, deepened his voice like he was back in a boardroom. “I know how my brother texts when he’s upset. He gets worked up but he punctuates.”
Mayfield sighed through his nose. “Are you saying that someone else texted you from your brother’s phone?”
“But Dylan’s never been happier,” Paulette said before Joel could reply, picking at a fingernail. “Boys, they just need to stretch their legs sometimes.”
Browder flipped open his notebook. Mayfield said, “Ma’am, can you give me the address of the place in Galveston where your son is staying for the weekend?”
There was a pause. “The address?”
“Yes, ma’am. Where they’re staying with...”
Browder said, “KT Staler’s brother.”
“Thank you. With Mr. Staler’s brother. That is where you said he was staying, yes?”
“Oh. Yes. Well—” She broke off for a moment. “It’s just I never asked for the address, Investigator. I never saw any need for one. It’s not like I was the one driving down there.”
Joel gaped at her. Even once he’d bought his first cell phone, when he was Dylan’s age, he’d never been allowed to step out the front door without telling his mother exactly where he would be, who with, the exact minute he would be home. All those precautions had done little good, of course (as Joel suspected these men from the sheriff’s department knew very well), but he still couldn’t believe that this was the sort of lesson his mother had learned from Joel’s youth: to give a teenage boy unfettered run of the entire state of Texas.
“Of course.” Mayfield smiled. “Then you’ll have the phone number for Mr. Staler’s brother? And a name?”
“Frank,” she said.
“Floyd,” Darren corrected her gently.
“Floyd. But he has a different last name, not Staler. He’s a half brother.” Paulette fumbled at her pockets for her phone before she caught sight of it on the edge of the wooden coffee table. “His number is—I know I had it, just a moment—”
While they waited, Mayfield turned to Joel. “I couldn’t help but notice you got some real mud on the tires of that convertible out there. I assume that’s yours?”
Joel considered his answer. “A rental.”
“Well, she’s pretty. What kept you out in that storm last night?”
Mayfield had a hard, sun-browned face, a flat nose, a tiny mouth. Joel caught the way his smile tightened, the concentration it betrayed. This investigator was only acting aloof, half-bored. There was a mind at work inside him.
Do not underestimate this man.
“I was enjoying the chance to drive. Living in the city you come to miss it.”
“She can’t handle nice in the rain.”
“The weather must have gotten worse by the time I made it home. The car handled fine.”
“And when was that, exactly?”
“I have it.” Paulette flashed the screen of her phone at Mayfield. “The number. The Staler boy’s number.”
“Wonderful.” Mayfield’s smile was frigid.
Paulette read the number off her phone, went back and read it over again. “Floyd’s a very nice young man,” she said. “He works in construction.”
“I’m glad someone from that family’s made good,” Mayfield said. “Your son hasn’t had any problems with KT, has he?”
“Problems?”
“Excuse me,” Joel said. “You’ve written that number down wrong.”
He nodded at the notebook in Deputy Browder’s hand.
Investigator Mayfield raised an eyebrow to Joel. “Is that right?”
“Look for yourself. The last digits. He’s got them backward.”
Browder handed Mayfield the pad. He didn’t bother to suppress a scowl. “We’re gonna have fun with you in town, ain’t we?”
Mayfield cleared his throat. He set his glass on a table coaster, produced a pen and corrected the number himself. The investigator stood and smiled. Joel and his family rose after him. In the commotion, Joel noticed, Mayfield slid Browder’s notebook into his own pocket.
“We’ll get in touch with this Staler boy in the afternoon, see if we can’t get Dylan on the horn for a few minutes. He might still be there, you know, at the coast. Or if he’s gotten it in mind to run off, maybe he’s told his friends where he’s headed. Either way, y’all let us know if you hear from him in the meantime, yes?” Mayfield extended his hand to Paulette, to Darren. “I’ll bet you a nickel he’ll be walking through that door the moment we’re walking out.”
—run Joel run Joel RUN—
“Don’t you want to see his room?” Joel said.
“No sense disturbing the boy’s privacy till there’s a call to.” Mayfield ambled his way to the house’s little parquet foyer. “Just by the by—when was it you said that you got in last night?”
Joel didn’t hesitate. “Eleven o’clock. Maybe a minute past.”
“Is that right?”
“Of course it is. I heard that car pull in right after the night news.” Paulette’s arms were barred across her chest, her chin jutted out, every inch of her suddenly ready for a fight.