It was true. She hadn’t been sleeping, the thin skin under her eyes stamped with inky circles. Her cheekbones protruded. Her hair had tangled so much that when she combed it the little snarls only seemed to get worse, and she’d snipped some out. Her pants sagged on her waist and hips.

“Yeah, I’m not doing so good.”

“Yeah.”

“This couldn’t have anything to do with you,” she continued, getting to it. “Him going missing?”

Joe grimaced. “You still think I’m a tweaker.”

“I never said that.” Though it had crossed her mind in the past. Even if Selma had fucked Joe over, he wasn’t exactly an angel, either. “I have to check everything. Maybe someone out there…angry at you, I don’t know.”

Now Joe just laughed. “No one on the outside gives a shit about me.”

“Can you tell me anything? Please. What if—”

“You check his phone?”

“I don’t know the code. Joe, can you think of anything weird that happened? Anything messed up?”

“Since when? PTS-Dad? My girl gets me thrown in here like a piece of bad meat? Nah, nothing weird at all.”

“But Cyrus. Did you ever think he would—” She made herself say it: “hurt himself?”

His eyes lost their carrion sheen for a moment, and he lowered his voice. “Not for a long time.”

“What does that mean?”

“When something pissed him off, Cyrus used to talk about going down into one of those mine shafts and never coming back up.”

Izzy covered her eyes with her palms, pressed until a mosaic of colors danced. When she removed her hands, Joe smirked and said, “But then he met the love of his life.”

She tried to hold it together. “Please, Joe. I woke up and he was gone. It’s been two weeks.”

He shook his head like a bull’s, as if it weighed too much for his tatted neck. Watched her closely, thinking—she could see by the way his pupils tick-tocked, back and forth.

“The cop made it sound like maybe Cyrus got into trouble as a kid,” she continued. “Maybe drugs or something…” Like Larry had said. Izzy was willing to consider it now.

“Saint Cyrus? All peace and love since the social worker dropped him off at our door? Won’t even crack a beer or smoke weed.” Joe inhaled sharply and closed his eyes like he could taste the marijuana. “Yeah, I don’t know. Maybe Cyrus wasn’t as much of a saint as he seemed.”

Desperation clawed up Izzy’s throat and formed words from raw tissue. She felt the congestion in the corner of her eyes, at the excrescence of the red caruncles, and blinked back tears, no longer trying to manipulate the situation; this was for real. “You need to tell me if you hear anything.”

The guard approached.

“I need to do nothing,” Joe said. “Except get the hell out of here. And you should, too. Since you can.”

She didn’t want to hear any more. She stood to leave. Joe was right; at least she could leave, and he would still be there. Maybe that was why he couldn’t bring himself to help…