Trina was six inches taller than me, statuesque and athletic, like a blond model out of a Dale of Norway ad. She had a natural beauty that could make you self-conscious about your own flaws. Pale blue eyes, sharp little nose, a face so symmetrical that each side looked like a mirror of the other. At forty years old, she’d given almost nothing back to time, except for the faint lines that bent around her lips when she smiled.
However, to me, she’d been at her most beautiful five years earlier, when she was completely bald and hugging her daughter as Anna cried into her shoulder in a hospital bed. I was crying, too. So was her husband, Karl. The one who should have been crying was Trina, but instead, she held all of us together with an inner strength that I envied. She had every reason in the world to be bitter, but I never saw one ounce of anger or self-pity from her throughout the entire experience.
“Anna told me that she and Jeremiah aren’t friends anymore,” I said. “Did you know about that?”
“Yes, it was pretty obvious. They haven’t spent time together in months.”
“Did you ask her why?”
“I did, a couple of times, but she wouldn’t open up to me about it. I didn’t want to push her. I figured she would talk about it when she was ready.”
“Well, if you can get her to tell you anything more, that would be helpful.”
Trina cocked her head in surprise. “Why?”
“Just in case it’s related to something going on in Jeremiah’s life that led to his disappearance. At this point we have to consider everything.”
“I suppose so. That’s an unpleasant thought.”
We stood in silence for a while. Where the trees began, I saw a young doe feeding on the leaves, its body barely kept upright by spindly legs. Looking at my best friend, I debated whether to ask her what was wrong. If she was keeping a secret from me, she had her reasons, and like Anna, she would talk about it when she was ready. Except Trina rarely opened up to me. She was happy to let me lean on her, but she resisted being vulnerable herself. For a while, I’d assumed it was because she still saw me as a teenage girl and that she was more open with her other friends. Then I realized that I was wrong. Trina had acquaintances, coworkers, and neighbors, but in many ways, I was her only real friend.
“Anna thinks something is going on with you,” I murmured.
Trina was staring at the doe. “She said that?”
“Yes. She said the two of you have been crying.”
“Karl. Not me. I don’t cry.”
It always puzzled me that she was so proud of that. “So what’s going on?”
“Now isn’t the time, Shelby. You have other things to think about.”
That was classic Trina. She was always pretending that she was protecting me when she was really protecting herself. It was a defense mechanism, a way to keep emotions at arm’s length. I could have let the subject drop, but I’d learned long ago that I needed to keep knocking on the door until she answered.
“Is it you and Karl? Are the two of you having problems?”
“Oh, no. Karl is wonderful.”
“Then what?”
Trina swayed slightly on her feet. She would do that beside the volleyball court, too, when she’d seen us making a mistake and was gathering her words for how to tell us. She never spoke off the cuff. She thought about everything so that she wouldn’t have to regret it later. I was still struggling to learn that lesson myself.
“It’s back,” she said.
That was all she told me, but she didn’t need to say anything more. There were not two words that could have frozen my soul more than those. It gets cold around here in the winters, but never as cold as that moment on July 17.
“Trina, I—”
That was all I managed before my throat closed up. I had so many things to say, but I didn’t say any of them. I took two steps to close the distance between us and wrapped my arms around her. I held on for a long time. She reacted stiffly, as if embarrassed by our closeness. Physical displays of affection made Trina uncomfortable, but I didn’t care.
When I found my voice, I said, “What do you need? How can I help?”
“There’s nothing you can do right now, Shelby. But thank you.”
“I’m here. Day or night.”
“I know that.”
“Any time you want to talk, we can talk. Or not talk. If you want to sit there and say nothing, that’s fine, too.”
Trina put a hand on my shoulder, as if she wanted to comfort me. Then she pointed at the back porch of the Sloan house. “You’re sweet, but we’ll have to do this later.”
“What? Why?”
“Ellen’s here.”
I turned around and was jolted back to my other reality.
Ellen stood on the house’s redwood deck with a cigarette in her hand. I hadn’t even realized that she smoked. In the porch light, her face was all bone and shadow, like a skeleton’s. She stared at the sky, as if she needed God to give her answers. Eighteen months ago, she’d lost her mother, and then two weeks ago, her father. And now her youngest son was missing. It would test anyone’s faith.
She saw the two of us on her lawn. She saw me on her lawn. I knew this wouldn’t be good, and it wasn’t. She crushed her cigarette into a flower pot. She stormed down the steps and stalked toward me. With every step, she fell to pieces. By the time she was in my face, tears flooded down her cheeks, and her skin was beet red with fury, and her whole body quivered. She screamed at me in the darkness from six inches away.
“How dare you even show your face here? Where’s my son? Where’s my son? Your father promised me he would find him. Why isn’t Jeremiah back here with his family? I told you! I told you, and none of you listened! I told you I wanted roadblocks and helicopters, and all Tom Ginn could do was stand there and tell me everything was going to be all right. It’s not all right! Jeremiah is gone! He could be anywhere!”
Ellen’s arm reared back like the cocking of a gun. She was going to slap me, and I tensed, waiting for it. Then she stopped herself at the last moment. Her open hand sank back to her waist, and her eyes squeezed shut. Her knees buckled beneath her. She slid down to the wet grass and buried her face in her palms.
Trina knelt and put an arm around her shoulders. Ellen leaned against her. They were two mothers, both staring into their own versions of hell.
“Ellen, I swear to you, we are doing everything we can to find Jeremiah.”
Ellen’s cries died out slowly, and her eyes opened. With Trina’s help, she stood up, and I could see that her pant legs were soaked with dew from the grass. Her fever had broken; she’d cried herself out. She wiped her nose and cheeks with her hands, and she took a loud breath. She was calm again, in control, in charge. I had to admire her for that.
“I talked to Violet,” she told me. “I conveyed my concerns to her.”
“What concerns?”
“Simply put, Tom’s not competent to handle this investigation. I know he’s your father, Shelby, but we’re talking about my son’s life. I’m not going to sugarcoat this. I want him off the case. I want this handled by professionals. I should have insisted on that from the beginning. As it is, we’ve lost the most important time we had to find Jeremiah.”
I tried to take my emotions out of it and not be defensive. I was a deputy, not a daughter. “Ellen, bringing in strangers isn’t the way to go. Nobody knows Mittel County and the people around here better than my father.”
“Maybe so, but he doesn’t have the experience or resources for a case like this. This is bigger than Mittel County. Plus, let’s not kid ourselves, Shelby.”
“Kid ourselves about what?”
Ellen stopped, as if she’d gone too far. “Nothing.”