“Might be for the best,” Leanne said again.

Had Leanne always been this crazy? It seemed to have gotten worse the last few years. Izzy’s throat swelled with dust and frustration. She wanted Cyrus, here with her now, more than she wanted water. “Please don’t talk like that,” she said.

Leanne shrugged and patted the doll’s head.

“Don’t speak like that about him, okay?” Izzy repeated.

“I’m sorry, child. I don’t care to see you hurt.”

“It’s too late. And Cyrus is not the one who did the hurting.”

◆◆◆

Izzy couldn’t get back in the truck fast enough.

The cab smelled of Cyrus’s sunscreen and the pine air freshener he liked. Izzy banged the steering wheel with her palms. She’d already exhausted all likely possibilities, and even the unlikely ones.

What the hell, Cyrus? You making me talk to the cops?

She remembered going to the police once, as a kid, after Larry had pulled out his pocketknife. “You sure he wasn’t just showing you the knife?” the officer asked. “You sure you didn’t misread the situation, young lady?” Later she wondered if she’d overreacted, but she still vowed never to ask the cops for help again. Still, this time was different. And, of course, Cyrus and she had always known: she would go anywhere for him, even the Riverside County Sheriff-Coroner’s Department.

◆◆◆

A sand-colored building flanked by electro-shocked palm trees. “Wanted” and “missing persons” posters lined the walls. The felons had eyes that didn’t quite sit right in their heads, eyes that contained what appeared to be a clear vision of the future they intended to manifest. The missing persons posters showed men, women, and children with no hint of what might become of them. Their loved ones had chosen the best smiling pictures so that someone might feel pity, or even remorse, and try to help.

The officer’s skin and eyes had a dull, fluorescent pallor. Sleepless nights, too much caffeine, and human roadkill. He sat her down. His nametag read Decker. She hadn’t realized her hands were shaking until she handed him the picture from her wallet.

She thought she saw the man’s mouth twitch slightly.

“Cyrus Rivera,” she said.

“Yes.” Yes, so… She heard something in the officer’s tone after she’d spoken Cyrus’s name. Brushing her arm across her face to wipe the sweat from her brow, she could still smell the salt and musk of sex on her skin. It was a scent she’d come to think of not as Cyrus’s or hers but as theirs combined.

“You say he just wasn’t around when you got up this morning?”

“Yes. But his truck was outside.”

“What about his ID?”

“He kept it in his jeans.”

Skepticism edged the man’s voice. “So, he might have gotten up, gotten dressed, gone outside with his ID. Seems pretty straightforward. What about footprints or tire tracks?”

“Nothing.”

“What about his cell phone?

“He left it. Charging.”

“You checked it?”

She didn’t want to admit that she’d forgotten the passcode or, worse, that he’d changed it. Had he changed it? Why? She said, “He left his socks. Like he’d been in a rush.”