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“What club?” Theo asked, although he thought he already knew the answer.
“She’s the one who introduced him to that kiddie-diddler. I told Leon to stay away from him. I said I didn’t care what that fucker promised him; they weren’t going to put Leon in any movies, and they weren’t going to make him a star. That’s not how the world works. I tried to teach him that.” He looked up. He looked lost.
“Back up. Are you talking about Dalton Weber?”
“I said this piece of shit is twenty, thirty years older than you, and you want me to believe he’s making movies in this shithole? Give me a fucking break. I told him. And you know what he did? He laughed. He said I was old. I was stupid and old and pathetic. And he said, ‘Look who’s talking,’ or something like that, meaning Ambyr because he didn’t understand that Ambyr and I are adults, and we’re in love.” Maybe he heard the dry, mechanical quality of the words. Maybe it was something else, something inside that made him stop. He let out a raspy laugh and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “We were at some fucking teeny-bopper party. They still have them out on the back forty, did you know that? Me, forty-five years old, and I’m in some old lady’s field trying to do a keg stand like I’m in college again, and Ambyr high off her tits and trying to do that fucking dance, like I’ve got any fucking clue what it is or why it matters, and Leon in my face telling me she’s pathetic, telling me I’m a joke. What I told you, when I said I’m only living with one crazy bitch, it had been that day, the day before, and he was mad. He wanted to come back at me, and he did. Told me everything he thought about me to my face. I’m a piece of shit. I’m an abusive asshole. I’m old and sad. I went after him. Because he was right. I could see he was right. Jesus Christ.” He let his hands drop to his lap, and he clasped them there, the pose schoolboyish. “My own son making me see what a fucking loser I am. I tried to take his fucking block off.” He made that noise again that wasn’t really a laugh, and he shook his head.
“And what happened?”
“He ran. He was already emancipated, so it’s not like I could stop him, could I?” The question was a challenge, but he dropped his eyes quickly, and he clasped his hands more tightly in his lap.
“When was that?”
“Like I said, June. End of June.”
“And you haven’t seen him since?”
Merlin shook his head. To Theo’s surprise, though, he started speaking again. “And then that Black girl started coming around, asking questions. What happened to Leon, where’s Leon, when was the last time I talked to Leon? So many fucking questions. I told her he was gone, that was all I knew. But he went with that creep, I know he did. Nobody has to tell me. Jesus Christ, he’s seventeen years old. What the fuck does he know about anything?”
“What happened when Shaniyah came to interview you?”
“Oh no. No way. I didn’t do anything to her. She came, she asked her questions, showed me that fucking video. Then she left. You can ask Ambyr if you don’t believe me—she was here for the whole thing.”
“Mr. Purdue, where were you last night?” Auggie asked. “We stopped by to conduct this interview, but you weren’t home.”
He tilted his head at the change of subject. “Kansas City. I have some accounts out there, and a couple of times a year, I drive out, take the guys to dinner, sometimes take them somewhere after dinner, make sure they know we appreciate their business.”
“Did you spend the night there?”
He nodded, but he said, “What’s going on? Why are you asking about that?”
Theo opened his mouth to ask if they could circle back to something Merlin had said before, but before he could, the door opened. Ambyr stepped into the trailer. She was holding up her phone, shaking out her blond hair, and saying, “I know I’m disgusting right now, but do you see what I mean about how my hair is cuter with that new smoothing serum—”
With the automatic air of someone checking a room, she glanced over at them and stopped. Her phone hand drifted down, ruining the shot. Her gaze went from Merlin to Theo to Auggie, and horror appeared in her face.
“You stupid bitch,” Merlin said, pushing himself up from the chair. “What the fuck did you tell them?”
Ambyr didn’t stick around to answer. Theo wasn’t sure he’d ever seen someone run in wedges before, but that girl knew how to do it. She sprinted out of the trailer, her steps thumping down the deck. Merlin, shouting, ran after her, and a moment later, an engine grumbled—throaty and muscular and undoubtedly the Thunderbird.
“Jesus,” Auggie said with a half-laugh. “What the hell?”
Theo shook his head. He got up and shut the door. A high, whining sound suggested that the trailer’s air conditioning unit was struggling to catch up. He stood there for a moment. Then he flipped the deadbolt on the door.
“What he said about Kansas City,” Auggie said, “do you think he was telling the truth?”
“It’ll be easy enough to check. John-Henry will only have to make a couple of calls.”
“He could have driven back, though, right? It’s, what, a couple of hours away?”
Theo nodded as he started toward the kitchen.
“It doesn’t necessarily mean he’s not the one who attacked us last night,” Auggie said.
“No, it doesn’t.”
Auggie let out a sigh. “We’d better hurry. I’ll start in here.”
They worked quickly. Theo wouldn’t have liked to admit it, but they hadn’t lost any of their rhythm, and they worked well together. It could be one of those articles that came across his feed sometimes, some glitch in the algorithm: “Strengthen Your Relationship by Committing Burglary—Together!” had a nice ring to it.
