“No,” Quinn said, nodding toward the open door to the trailer. “We got stolen credit cards, a drug stash and paraphernalia, plus a buncha shit boosted from the Walmart in Marshall. I’m gon’ hold him on that while we try to figure out what happened to that kid.” He glanced back toward the green hills on the other side of Hopetown. “Not feeling hopeful, Ranger, I’ll tell you that.”

Darren lifted his hands in an apology. “I was truly only trying to help. Just wanted to get a sense of the man, Page, see how he reacted to a picture of Levi.”

“Aw, hell, he’s known that boy his whole life.”

Darren nodded. “I keep coming back to the water. We sure the boy didn’t get lost out there? Maybe he ran into some kind of trouble with the boat?”

Quinn stared at the weather-beaten boat shed fifty yards or so near the shore, wood feathered gray with age, rotted across the roof, and shook his head.

“The boat was returned, Ranger. Everything says Levi made it back to shore, including Page’s own statement. If he says he saw him, I got no good reason not to believe him. And that makes him the last one to see the boy alive. Period.”

In the end they carted them both away, Gil for the credit cards and drugs and Marnie for whatever the Texas penal code for acting a damn fool, hollering and swearing and mouthing off to anyone in a fifty-foot radius. The show over, Bo and his wife, girlfriend, sister, or whoever stopped filming and returned to their van. Darren watched as it listed sideways, as they climbed in one after the other. The dusty lane that ran between the trailers, vans, and houseboats grew quiet then. There were still a few deputies who’d been ordered to stay behind while Darren got his look inside the trailer. And the white residents of Hopetown seemed content to let the drama trail up the road behind the two cruisers carrying Marnie and Gil. No one seemed interested in drawing the curiosity of cops anywhere near their patchwork abodes. Darren heard doors behind him slam shut. Heard locks click. Alone, he walked up the stairs of Marnie’s trailer.