“Yeah.” Jolene rubbed her arm, glancing at her mom from the corner of her eye. “Annabeth snuck out of the house later. I picked her up.”

“What time?”

“It was dark. I don’t know, maybe ten or eleven.” Jolene fidgeted in the chair.

Getting her to talk was like pulling teeth, which usually meant there was more to the story. Jolene was holding back. “What happened next?”

“We wanted to know where Sydney was going and who she was hanging out with. Why she kept ditching us. She wouldn’t tell us, so we sort of, um, we told her if she didn’t we’d leave her out there.”

“You did what?” Ms. Carson emerged from her stupor.

“Out where?” Charlie continued. He didn’t want Jolene to get distracted or change her story for fear of getting in trouble with her mom.

“There’s an old gas station on Coastal Highway. A lot of kids go there and get high or drunk.”

“Was anyone else there?”

“No. We were by ourselves.”

“What were you doing?”

“Drinking.” Jolene bit her lip and glanced at her mom.

Ms. Carson fell back against her chair in dramatic flair. “I assure you, Deputy, this is not how I raised her.”

Jolene narrowed her eyes at her mom.

“Just drinking?” Charlie asked.

“Smoking too.”

“Drugs or tobacco?”

“Marijuana.”

Another dramatic exhale came from Ms. Carson’s direction. Charlie slid forward in his chair. Finally, they were getting somewhere. “What happened next?”

“When Sydney wouldn’t tell us her secret, Annabeth and I decided to play the joke. We ran to the car and locked the doors. Told Sydney if she didn’t tell us the truth, we’d leave her there. She refused, so we left. But we came back,” Jolene quickly added. “We just wanted to teach her a lesson, but she was gone. We figured she’d called someone to come get her.”

“How long were you gone?”

“I don’t remember. We drove down the road a little bit and finished the beers.” Jolene chewed on her thumbnail.

Charlie studied the girl sitting in front of him. Something had been off in her first interview, but he wasn’t expecting this.

“Is Jolene going to get in trouble for this?” Ms. Carson laughed. “I mean, it was a joke. The girls couldn’t have known what was going to happen.”

“Did you drive yourself here, Jolene?”

“Yes.”

“Would you mind if I had a deputy look at your car?”

“Why?” Ms. Carson’s gaze turned suspicious.

“We’d like to search the car for Sydney’s cell phone. It’s missing. We’re hoping there might be a name or number in it that could lead us to the person Sydney had been talking with.”

“Okay.” Ms. Carson’s shoulders relaxed. “But Jolene gets credit for helping you, right? Now you know where Sydney was before she was, um, killed.”