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“With a friend.”
“Who’s that?”
She shrugged.
“Do you have an address?”
Another shrug. She thumbed at her cheek.
“When was the last time you talked to Leon?”
“He came by a few weeks ago.”
“Why?”
It was the way she hugged herself tighter, the way her eyes tried to fall through the floorboards again. “Just to visit.”
So, Auggie thought, he wanted money. Or he wanted something.
“And you haven’t talked to him since?” Theo asked.
“He doesn’t like talking on the phone. He likes to text.”
“When was the last time he texted you?”
Her nails rasped against the polyester again.
“Could you check?” Theo asked.
Elise pushed off from the refrigerator and crossed the room. From a hook near the door, she took down a massive purse and, after a few moments of fumbling around, pulled out a phone. She checked it and put it away and wrapped her hands together and stared at them. You could tell something about a person from their hands, Auggie thought. Hers were rough, the knuckles red.
“When did he text you?” Theo asked.
“June.”
For a moment, Theo didn’t seem to know what to say.
“That’s more than a few weeks,” Auggie said. “That’s almost two months.”
She shrugged.
“Did he come by a few weeks ago?” Theo asked.
“It might have been longer.”
“Before or after he texted?”
One more in that infinite supply of shrugs.
A hint of color came into Theo’s cheeks.
Auggie decided to speak first. “Maybe you could tell us about Shaniyah. You said she wanted to talk?” He got nothing, so he asked, “What did she want to talk about?”
“Leon.”
“What did she want to know about Leon?”
That seemed to stir something again. “Where is he, where’d he go. I told her he moved out. She just kept talking. She wanted to see his room.”
