“My mother has. My father is still living.” In jail, but living. Tolliver’s mother had died before his father met my mom, and Tolliver’s father was out of jail and drifting…somewhere. Considering my mom and dad and Tolliver’s father had all been attorneys, they’d had a long way to fall. They’d really thrown themselves into it.

Twyla looked a little shocked. “Well, how awful. I’m so sorry.”

I shrugged. That was just the way it was. “Thanks,” I said, but I knew I didn’t sound sincere. Couldn’t help it. When I heard that my mother had died, I was sorry, but not surprised, and not unrelieved.

We were quiet after that until we pulled up by the side of the road. Twyla glanced down at the list she’d taken down during a quick phone call with Sandra Rockwell. Sure enough, Sandra Rockwell had a prioritized list of places to check. This was place number one.

We were behind the high school at the football practice field, a stretch of barren level ground. One of those devices that the boys push around was still sitting by the side of the field, though football season was over. The field house was closed and locked until next year. Basketball would be the sport in play now.

“This is where his truck was,” Twyla said. “We’d just gotten it for him. It was an old second-hand Dodge.”

Sheriff Rockwell had said less about Jeff than about any of the other boys, perhaps because she’d known we’d be talking to his grandmother. Looking around now, I didn’t see anyone. Not a soul. So an abduction at this point wasn’t out of the question, though risky. At any moment, someone might come out of the school. But there weren’t any houses nearby. The lane behind the practice field was just a bare strip of ground before a steep hill that had been sheared away to build the school.