She turned away from her screen, setting her boots on the window sill. Through her window she could see a Japanese container ship slowly bearing down the shipping lane past downtown Seattle.
Corey could just shut down her lovely face, make it hard and lifeless. When she didn’t, her face was like some kind of barometer, giving an instant reading of whatever was brewing inside. At the moment she was thinking, on the edge of something. The corners of her mouth had turned up, just a little; the fine lines around her pale grey eyes had disappeared, and the patch of freckles that spread across her nose had crept onto the gentle rise of her cheeks. She relaxed when she was thinking. She just liked it. Her husband, Abe, guessed it was her time in prison. Corey thought it began earlier, during the long days at sea. Her smile, when it came, was open and warm.
Her boots shifted as she tilted her head back, and the scar running from her ear to her collarbone made a thin pink line. Corey was thinking about her son, Billy. When she’d called earlier Billy was upstairs, “getting it together,” an expression, she’d discovered, that covered almost any activity. She imagined him at his computer, checking out some edgy web site, listening to music, and texting his friends.
On the phone, she and Billy had worked out the timing and the driving for his school’s eleventh-grade family night dinner. It was a potluck, which Corey hated because it meant she had to bring something that other people would eat. Last time she’d come empty-handed, and a mother from the parent organization had explained to her that “potluck” was a Native American word for sharing.
The buzzer was too loud, and unexpected. Corey went through the empty reception area. The half glass door said: Corey Logan, in big block letters. On the glass she saw a woman’s shadow. The buzzer rang again. Who was that?
“Coming,” she called to the silhouette on the glass, then she opened the door. In the hall a skinny, teenage girl was staring at the floor, using her middle finger to twist a knot in her flaming red hair. She wore over-sized black sunglasses. “Annie, what…?”
Annie toed the hardwood floor.
“Come in.”
Annie sat down, took off her sunglasses. There were cuts on her hands, forearms, neck, and face, and sticky mats of blood in her hair. One of her eyes was blackened. “He found me,” the girl said.
“Luther?”
When Annie nodded, ever so slightly, Corey felt pressure inside, like she was overheating. Her skin was cold though, clammy. She sat beside Annie, taking her hand. Corey was a detective who was hired out exclusively to find runaways—on one condition: once found, the runaway became the client. And once found, Corey worked with these young people to make sound decisions about their lives. Usually, they had a reason to leave home, and though returning home was always an option they considered, it was not necessarily the goal.
Annie liked living with her mom when her uncle wasn’t around. But she couldn’t live there if he was stopping by. So she ran away ten days before Uncle Luther was released from prison. When Corey found Annie, four weeks later, she checked in with Luther’s Community Corrections Officer (CCO) who confirmed that Uncle Luther had rented his own room in one of the few buildings that still accepted registered sexual offenders. Corey had talked several times with Uncle Luther and his CCO about staying away from Annie under any and all circumstances. Luther had convincingly promised Corey and his CCO that he would do that. His CCO had vouched for him and agreed to monitor, and, because of these things, Corey had worked with all of them so that Annie could live at home. For just an instant, Corey let down her guard, and her face turned haggard.
Annie took a series of quick breaths, then she leaned over in her chair. When Corey touched her shoulder Annie melted back into the chair, her cut hands covering her face.
Corey put a pillow behind her head, then she gently took off Annie’s shirt. She could see purple bruises on her arms, a bone-deep cut across her left elbow. She lifted Annie’s T-shirt. There were welts snaking across her back. A broken rib pushed out the skin under her left arm.
Corey kissed Annie’s brow, undone.
Abe Stein was reading a file as he sat at the big oak table he used as his desk. He was six feet tall and weighed two hundred and twenty-five pounds. His short salt-and-pepper hair was tousled, his closely-cut beard needed a trim, and behind his old table, he looked puzzled. Blackened pipes and his pipe-smoking paraphernalia held down scattered piles of papers. An abandoned Diet Coke can sat beside a stone ashtray. His favorite tweed sport coat was rumpled, and it had a hole in the pocket where a hot ash from his pipe had burned through.
He reread a portion of the file on Theodore “Teaser” White. Abe was a psychiatrist, and he often evaluated prisoners. Still, this file was unsettling. Something had gone wrong for Teaser in prison. He’d become more unstable and, Abe sensed, even more dangerous.
Lou Ballard, a police sergeant built like a pear, sat in the worn leather chair across from Abe, waiting for him to finish.
Abe looked over at Lou. “This guy doesn’t belong on the street.”
“This guy did his time,” Lou replied.
“I know that. But suppose ‘Teaser’ wants another little girl?” Abe was soft-spoken, and he chose his words carefully. He tapped the open file on his desk. “Suppose it’s what he likes?”
“What are you suggesting here?”
Abe studied a spot on the ceiling. “Make him get help. Put him in a program.”
“I can’t do that. He’s already out. And he doesn’t want to be in a program.”
“Talk to him.” Abe leaned forward, focused. “Lean on him. Be yourself.”
Lou snickered. “I’m the one’s supposed to be the hard-ass.”
Try diplomacy, Abe chided himself. He and Lou helped each other often, though they rarely agreed. Making it Lou’s idea sometimes made it easier to find common ground. Abe lit a pipe, tossed the match into a wastebasket beside his desk. “Why’d you send me the file?”
“His CCO red flagged it. I’ve dealt with Teaser, so it came to me. There’s weird shit in there, so I thought of you.” He sat back, smiling meanly.
Abe nodded, oblivious. “The self-mutilation?”
“Right. How about pulling out his own damn toenails?” Lou cracked his knuckles. “He told the doctor he couldn’t feel anything.”
“He was disturbed when he went in. I’d say prison made it worse. Teaser needs help.”
“And be still my bleeding heart.” Lou shook his head. “Doc, he’s in for drug possession with intent to deliver—not some psycho-crime.”
Forget diplomacy. “A plea bargain. Before the girl ran away, Teaser was charged with rape of a child in the second degree. This girl, Holly, she was twelve and she was pregnant.” Abe set his pipe in the stone ashtray. He thought about what to say. “Lou, he was having sex with her for three months. She was eleven when he took her off the street. In prison he says he stopped feeling things. According to the file, Teaser’s unusually bright. What do you think he’s capable of now?”
Lou pointed at the smoke rising from the fire in Abe’s wastebasket. Abe stood, frustrated and surprised, as always, by his own absent-mindedness.
Lou laughed out loud, a gravelly sound.
The phone rang. “Abe Stein,” he said, pouring the remains of the Diet Coke onto the fire set by his tossed match. “Oh no…” Lou shook his head, watching the smoke. Abe whispered something then hurriedly cradled the phone. “Gotta go,” he muttered and tapped Lou on the shoulder on his way out the door.
Fifteen minutes later Abe ran up the wide stairs of the old hardware