“First thing—we order DNA tests. If there’s a match, we’ll at least have something to go on as far as identifying the girl. You and the rest of the team can ask around, show pictures, see if anybody recognizes her. I can’t peg her as a local, but that doesn’t mean she isn’t. People come and go all the time, like they do any other place.”

“That will take time. The DNA thing, I mean.”

Sometimes Melba, in her thoroughness, could be pedantic.

DNA tests always took time because every lab in the country was perpetually backed up. Sad commentary on the state of the nation, in Eli’s opinion.

“Yes,” Eli replied evenly. “So the sooner we get the swabs, the better.”

“You remember Bethanne Schafer?” Melba asked, ignoring his statement, as they approached their vehicles, hers a cruiser, his the SUV. “She was older, so I didn’t know her very well, but it was pretty clear that she and Russ and Shallie had it rough at home. Shallie was a foster child, wasn’t she?”

“Yes,” Eli replied. Then he smiled at the memory of Shallie as a kid, a dichotomy of a girl: rough and tough, soft and pretty. Once, when Russ had been bullying her, she’d broken his nose with a well-aimed right hook. “Might be a good thing if you go and talk to Shallie. See if she’s been in contact with Bethanne over the years. If she has, she’ll know if that girl could be Bethanne’s daughter. She’s a little old for a runaway but, then again, she might have been on her own for a long time.” He thought of Carly, a seventeen-year-old kid on the run, risking her life at every turn as she hitched her way across the country, carrying everything she possessed in a shabby backpack, looking for her dad, hoping to find a home and a family.

A chilly ache formed in his guts.

That dead girl could have been Carly.

Or Hayley.

Or one of Melba and Dan’s spirited, beautiful daughters.

His fingers curled into fists and inevitably an image of Freddie Lansing formed in his mind.

Was Lansing capable of a crime of that magnitude?

Almost certainly.

Was there a connection? A motive?

Maybe. Guys like Freddie probably didn’t need much of a motive. They tended to be narcissistic, easily offended, whether the slight was real or imagined. Figuratively, and sometimes literally, they shot first and asked questions later.

Or never asked questions at all.

Slow down, Eli told himself silently. He was on treacherous ground here, making a case against Lansing simply because he wanted a case against him, any case.

A completely human reaction? Yes.

In line with his personal values? No.