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“What?”
“Shaniyah’s disappearance. Her uncle says she’s back in Kansas, but I’d bet money that’s just Cleve covering for her. He did the same thing when I had her in class—he always had an excuse if her work was late, if she was tardy, whatever. And that means nobody’s looking for her, not really.”
Auggie waited a moment. “We are.”
“What are they going to do? Look at those videos and tell us that’s kids doing kid stuff.”
“Is it?”
Theo turned his head then, blue eyes hard. “Don’t do that.”
“Ok, fair enough. I don’t think it’s kid stuff. It feels weird to me. Seriously weird. Even just now, knocking on the door, that felt weird.”
Theo grunted. “Somebody was in there.”
“Right? I mean, something is wrong. That’s what I think. What do you think?”
Theo scratched his beard, his gaze shifting to the passenger window. The Audi’s air conditioning whispered moderately cool air through the car. Outside, the afternoon sun came down so hard that even the little patches of shade looked like they were melting.
Theo took out his phone. He navigated through the school’s online learning management system until he found Leon’s record from before he had withdrawn himself. There was a phone number for the boy’s father, and Theo placed the call.
“Hello?” The man’s voice was even, professional. The kind of guy who answered calls from unknown numbers, Theo guessed, because of work.
“Mr. Purdue?”
“Who’s this?”
“My name is Theo Stratford. I’m a teacher at Wahredua High School, and I wanted to talk to you about Leon—”
“Fuck off. And don’t call me again.”
The call disconnected.
Eyebrows raised, Auggie gave Theo a look.
“Well?” Theo said.
“My professional opinion?”
Theo nodded.
“That was weird as balls.”
Theo nodded again, tapping the phone against his hand. “I think we need to go to Leon’s house.”
Auggie nodded and shifted into drive.
It was a brick bungalow that had seen better days: the tuckpointing crumbling, the white paint peeling back from the trim, one doglegged downspout twisted around like somebody had kicked it. It sat in a neighborhood of similar houses—the yards gone mostly to crabgrass and clover and bare, yellow earth; chain-link fences bowed and sagging; carports and two-track parking pads empty at this time of day. Under one of the carports, a sectional sofa in olive upholstery was set up around a kerosene heater. When a gray-striped tom moved under the sofa, poking his head out to stare at them, Auggie startled.
Theo didn’t laugh, of course, because he was Theo. He did catch Auggie’s arm, though, and say, “Keep driving.”
Auggie craned to see what he’d missed, but Theo squeezed his arm, and Auggie kept going.
“Ok,” Theo said.
Auggie parked at the side of the road. Then he twisted around.
On the porch of Leon Purdue’s house, two women were arguing. Or rather, one woman appeared to be arguing. The other woman appeared to be doing an impersonation of a mannequin. At that distance, Auggie couldn’t get more than an impression that they were both white. Theo popped his door, and voices rolled in.
