“Joree’s okay, isn’t she? She’s not hurt or anything, is she? Lord, tell me she’s not in trouble. God knows she’s had enough of that already.”

“No, Sandy. Joree is fine,” I reassured her, “but she thought you might be able to help me with something I’m looking into. She tells me that you and Tonya were good friends—best friends, in fact, and that you might be able to tell me something about where Tonya may have gone after she left home. Perhaps where she was living, and what she had been doing recently.”

The worried frown returned to Sandy’s face and a far-away look came into her eyes.

“Tonya,” she whispered. And as though it had been poised there all along, waiting for the right moment of release, a single tear spilled from each eye and rolled down her cheeks.

Sandy wiped her face with the back of a hand and then fixed me with a searching stare.

“What is it that you’re looking for, Mr.—Kennesaw? What exactly is it you’re trying to do?”

From outside came the sound of tires crossing the wet parking lot. Then a car door slammed.

“I want to know what happened to her, Sandy. I want to know how and why she came to her end.”

“And just how is that any of your concern?” she asked in a clear and forthright voice. “Why do you care—when practically nobody else does?”

She did not avert her eyes from mine but held a gaze that lasted several seconds. And with the measuring look that passed between us, I knew Sandy Willis had backbone.

“Because I found her body, Sandy. And because until Joree knows what happened to her, Tonya is still out there—she’s still lost and alone.”

At that instant came the distinctly implosive ploosh of a car window shattering. I looked out the door just in time to see a huge man with a baseball bat in hand as he took a powerful swing at the passenger window of my truck—the back glass was already gone.

Plooosh! The window exploded inward, shattered glass flying throughout the inside of the truck.

I dashed outside yelling, “Hey! Stop that!”

The man paid me no mind but took a few steps forward as he now turned his attention to the windshield. Craccckkk! The bat rebounded off the thick glass of the windshield.

“Hey, you!” I yelled again as, coming up behind him, I grabbed the sweet spot of the bat and gave it a yank, just as the man was limbering up for another try.