all about drama, thanks to his mother. Only a damaged
person would be attracted to someone like me, so I
don’t mind.
She wasn’t mean or neglectful like my parents. Luke’s
mom is mentally ill, though she refuses to admit it or
get help. She was a whirlwind of intensity when he was
growing up. Manic and obsessive and focusing all her
energy on Luke and his brother. That’s why he likes my
cool remove now. I’m a gentle breeze on burned skin.
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“There wasn’t much drama,” I finally answer. “My
mom just wanted money, of course. But my dad seemed
sort of happy I dropped by. He told me I looked good.”
“That’s nice.”
I grin at the absurdity of that one passing comment
making things okay. “I’m sure I’ll get my notice about the
homecoming parade they’ve arranged any moment now.”
“Have you seen anyone else you know?”
“Just my jailbird brother.”
“Right,” he says on a chuckle, and I’m laughing too,
thrilled that he sees the humor in it and I don’t have to
hide my morbid giggles. It’s all so ridiculous.
“What’s your next step?” he asks. “Have you talked
to the cops?”
“No. I can’t imagine I’ll bother. I know exactly what
they think of troubled teenage girls. They can say she ran
away, put her picture up on a website, and wash their hands of it. I’m checking out a couple of other leads tonight. If nothing pans out, this may be the end of it.”
“Be careful.”
“I will.”
“Call me again tonight?” I can tell by the purr in his
voice that he wants more phone sex, and I’m sure I’ll be
in the mood to give it to him, but better to leave him
hanging for now.
“We’ll see.”
We sign off just as I pull up to the grocery store,
which is doing its best to compete with Walmart by
offering a drive-up pharmacy and “free cones for all
kiddos!” I head right inside and serve myself a free
cone before I wander the store to look for the assistant
manager. If I discover he’s recently disappeared too, I’ll
start to suspect my niece of murder.
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That would be kind of fun, actually. A tiny little
killer in my family. I’m just settling into the fantasy of
that when I come to an open doorway and peer in to see
a sandy-haired man behind a computer. “I’m looking for
Frank,” I say.
He brightens up and stands quickly. “Hello! I’m Frank!
What can I do for you?”
Crunching into my cone, I study him for a moment.
Frank looks about thirty-eight, maybe forty. He’s got a
little gut, but he has the healthy good looks of a guy who
played a lot of sports in high school. He’s white and tan
and still has a full head of hair, which he spends a little time on in the morning. But there are broken blood vessels in his nose. I’m thinking he drinks at least a six-pack every night. Anything to get through this life, am I right?
“You’re in charge of the soccer league around here?”
I ask as Frank skirts his desk to come shake my hand.
“That’s right! You found me!”
“I’m so sorry to bother you at work. Is this okay?”
“Absolutely! Come on in!” He shakes with a good
grip and his hand doesn’t linger. I smile up at him, but he just waves me toward a chair, not the least bit desperate
for female attention. “The bosses don’t mind,” he assures
me. “It’s good for the community. Good for the store.”
“Of course.”
“Looking to get your daughter into soccer?”
This league had better include five-year-olds or I’ll
be pissed. I definitely couldn’t have a teenage daughter.
Then again … of course I could. Several of the girls I
went to school with do, assuming everyone is still alive
and kicking. Ha. I made a soccer joke.
“Actually…” I watch as he takes his seat and folds his
hands patiently on top of his beat-up metal desk. What
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in the world did my hell-raising niece want with this
guy? I cross my legs and lean forward a little. “I’m here
“Kayla?” His tan face goes grayish white so suddenly,
I almost think the bad fluorescent lighting experienced
a surge, and I glance up to see if something popped.
“Who?” he croaks.
“Kayla. I believe you know her…” He can’t possibly
fake his way through ignorance when all the blood has
left his head. He must be getting dizzy by now.
“Kayla?”
“Yes!” I repeat her name one more time, because each
utterance lands like a bullet in his body. “Kayla. Average
white girl. Really skinny. Just turned sixteen, looks much
younger. Has she been by recently?”
“That was four months ago!” he says too loudly.
“Oh. Okay. What was four months ago?”
“She … She … I mean, she came here. Yes, I remem-
ber her. Kayla.” He laughs for no reason at all, the sound
a high barking that floats up to the metal rafters of his
office. “Yeah, she was hoping to join the league, but she …
I guess she didn’t have much support from her family. She
didn’t have the fees, so she hoped maybe she could…”
Sweat is gathering on his upper lip as he stammers
through his explanation. This man definitely had sex with
this teenage girl, or something close enough to sex that
he can see his life flashing before his eyes.
He coughs hard and the blood finally rushes back to
his face, turning it bright red. “She was hoping there was
paid work she could do for the league, but it’s run by vol-
unteers, you understand. Nobody gets paid or anything.
Even I don’t get paid.”
“So what happened?”
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Problem Child
“Nothing! Nothing happened! I mean, we talked
about her working here at the store, maybe, to try to raise funds, but it didn’t pan out. She wasn’t … you know.” A
wave of hard swallows works along his throat as if he’s
choking down a stuck chicken bone. “You have to be
sixteen to work at the store, and she wasn’t…”
“She was only fifteen, huh?” I raise my eyebrows and
meet his gaze to watch the panic swirl inside him. “So
did you make some kind of deal with her so she could
get those league fees waived?”
“No. No. Definitely not. She didn’t join a team.”
“And you never coached her?”
“Never. It didn’t work out. Haven’t seen her since.”
“Really? Because she’s missing.”
Oh my, there goes his color again, though now there
are red spots left behind, as if his face is a huge lava lamp, big splotches of color floating in his cheeks before getting smaller and fading. “Missing?” he croaks.
“Yes. She disappeared a few weeks ago, and we suspect
foul play.” The we will make me seem more official and more d
angerous.
His mouth forms an O like the opening of a dry cave.
“Do you know why anyone would want to hurt this
girl, Frank?”
“Uh…” I see his tongue working like a dying worm
inside that cave. Gross.
“Listen.” I lean forward and mold my face into under-
standing. “We both know she’s not some average teen-
age girl, right? She’s got issues. Real issues. She was … a challenge.”
That’s the refrain. That’s the reason we give when
a grown man has sex with an underage girl. She was
troubled. She was fast for her age. She was the aggressor.
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She wanted it. She wasn’t even a virgin. She thought she
was grown. She’s done this before.
We all know the reasons, because pussy is made to
slide into; and if a young girl is there, tripping a man
up, he can’t help but fall straight into it. What are they
supposed to do? Say no? They’re just men, after all. Just
men walking around like untrained puppies, semen
dribbling on the floor with excitement just like a dog’s
urine. We expect nothing better of them. So here I am,
having a conversation with this grown man about fast
young girls.
I learned to work that system. I learned to be the one
fucking instead of getting fucked. If men were going to
do it, I was going to get something out of it.
But Kayla may have just been another victim. You let
your guard down once and it’s all over. Now you’re not
clean enough to save.
I wink at Frank. “Are you gonna tell me what hap-
pened, sir, or do we have to turn this into an official
interview?”
His wormy little mouth finally snaps shut. His jaw
tightens. I can almost see the thoughts turning like gears
in his eyes. He’s realizing now that he might be safe. If
Kayla is missing, there’s no one to ever tell the truth.
Damn it.
“Nothing happened.” He takes a deep breath and nods.
“We talked about her joining the league, but she didn’t
have money for the fees. It sounded like her family life
was pretty bad. Sorry to hear something has happened
to her. Maybe they had something to do with it. She said
her mom was on drugs.”
“We’ll be looking at her phone records, you know.”
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Problem Child
“I…” A little croak before he composes himself. “Of
course, we spoke several times about her fee options. Of
course we did. But it didn’t work out.”
“You’ve said that.”
“I need to get back to work. I’ll call the sheriff’s office if I hear anything.”
“Oh, I’m not a cop, Frank.”
“What?”
I let my mask fall for a moment so he can see the icy
predation in my eyes. I don’t care about him. I don’t even
care about Kayla. I care about the hunt. The stalking. The
triumph. I smile. “Do I look like a cop, Frank?”
Lips parted so he can fit bigger breaths into his straining lungs, he shakes his head, then he nods, then he shakes
his head again. “I don’t know,” he finally whispers.
“I’m just a friend. I’m just a helper.” I put on a little singsong voice. “When you see a helper, ask for help!”
When I reach to touch his hand, he jerks back, his chair
screeching in protest. “I see you have a wedding ring.
Do you have girls of your own, Frank?”
He blinks rapidly, over and over, as if he’s trying to
clear dust and horror from his blue eyes. “No,” he bleats
like a lost little lamb.
My heart beats harder, awakening every nerve in my
body. I haven’t felt this good in months. I lick my lips and lean closer, like a sultry movie vixen. I wish I could see
myself right now. I wish I could record this and watch it
later for fun. It’s been a while.
“You just like coaching them, huh, Frank? You just
like watching them run?”
“No. Yes. No! I’m just a coach! She was … This wasn’t
my fault.” Tears fill his eyes now, despite his fluttering eyelids.
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“What wasn’t your fault?” I croon.
“I just wanted to help her out. She was desperate. That
was all. I gave her what she asked for! I don’t want any
trouble!” He’s crying now. Big, ugly cries, wet cheeks,
and sucking breaths. His sobs are muffled but violent, like they’ve been trying to escape a long time. “I don’t want
any trouble!” he pleads.
“What did you do, Frank?”
“It was a moment of weakness!”
“Did you hurt her?”
He chokes on one last sob and suddenly his red, wide
eyes meet mine. “No. Never. I haven’t seen her since. I
paid the guy and that was the end of it.”
I cock my head in surprise. “You paid who?”
“I dunno. That scrawny boy. He had ‘Dog’ tattooed
on his hand.”
“Little Dog?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know. Please leave. Please.
Please. Please just leave!”
He’s turned into a pitiful puddle of weakness, and I
don’t want to get his fluid on me, so I roll my eyes and
sit straight. “Fine. But I will be in touch again.”
“Please don’t. I made a mistake. I’ll never do it again.”
“Eh. Hard to believe. But do yourself a favor and try
to keep your perversion confined to the age of major-
ity. You’re getting old, Frank. Eighteen or nineteen has
got to be filthy enough for you. Come on. Use your
big head.”
I leave him behind whispering “I’m sorry.” I predict
he’ll stay away from needy teen girls for well over a year
after this.
Look, we can’t all save the world, but I do my part.
So … he paid Little Dog after sleeping with Kayla.
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Problem Child
This whole thing is confusing and muddled. Was Little
Dog just pimping out my niece? There’s some undercur-
rent I’m not grasping, and I don’t like that. Maybe I’ll
track old Frank down at his house tomorrow for follow-up
questions. That will either knock loose more information
or send him into the fetal position. Either reaction will
make my day a little brighter.
From the grocery store, I drive straight to the equip-
ment rental company to investigate that last business card, but the place is locked up tight. There are no trucks or
strange machinery secured behind the high chain-link
fence, and the office is closed, with no helpful sign on
the door to indicate when they’ll be back.
Not an unusual sight in this town. Everybody wants
to make a buck, and not very many people actually have
a good head for business, especially the risk-taking types
looking for a quick fortune. Even those who do make
it like to take risks in other ways that don’t make them
reliable business folk.
I get it. I like taking risks too.
I stare at the logo for Morris Equipment for a few
mi
nutes, wondering about yet another missing member
of this business card coven. Curious, I google the guy’s
name. Roy Morris. There’s another business listing for
him in Oklahoma City under Morris Industries, but the
listing shows that business as closed too. The only ad-
dresses that show up are PO boxes.
When I call the number on the card, it goes to voice
mail, so I hang up and head to the last stop on my tour.
The Big Ol’ Truckstop.
It was a magical place when I was a kid. So many
lights and colors and a million opportunities for happiness.
Huge trucks, giant sodas, strangers from everywhere, and
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individually wrapped candies that fit easily into sneaky
little hands. A dreamland.
My mom always slapped my fingers and told me to
stop touching every damn thing, but any tantrum I threw
was a good distraction for her own shoplifting. In fact, I
later wondered if she started drama so my dad could grab
a couple of forty-ounce beers and slide on out the door.
The place has gotten even bigger since I left. The
KFC is gone and has been replaced by three different
fast-food chains all crammed into one spot. There’s a
big natural gas pump for fuel-efficient vehicles. And the
giant parking area for semitrucks has been expanded to
twice its original size.
Since it’s getting to be dinnertime, I park and take a
quick stroll around the surrounding area, just getting the
lay of the land. In the few minutes I’m walking around,
at least four more trucks pull in for a break, most of them hauling oil, though there’s a big frozen-food truck too.
I spy a woman smoking a cigarette near the entrance
to the shower facilities. She’s wearing skinny jeans and
flip-flops and a yellow sweatshirt. Not exactly how people
picture sex workers, I guess, but I’m all for comfort, and
these men don’t need a pair of high heels to turn them
on. Any warmish body will do.
“Hey,” I say to her.
She looks at me and flicks her cigarette, her pale cheeks
tightening as she clenches her jaw.
“I’m looking for my niece. She went missing a few
weeks ago. Do you think you might have seen her?” I
hold out my phone to show the picture I downloaded
from the website.
The woman shrugs and edges closer to squint at the
phone. “That looks kind of like Kiki.”
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Problem Child