They were in a neighborhood full of boarded-up abandoned homes and shabby duplexes. Yvonne Howington’s home was a single-story yellow stucco bunker bedecked with stout burglar bars. The yard was weed-choked with a single huge jacaranda tree, whose arching branches with purple blossoms nearly brushed the ground.

Drue looked at the address she’d typed into the Lyft app. “Yes, this is it.”

“Okay,” the driver said. “But I’m not sure this is a real safe neighborhood.”

She nodded toward a group of teenagers loitering on the corner, passing around a joint.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Drue said, climbing out of the backseat.

A set of frazzled exposed wires were the only sign of a doorbell. Drue was about to knock when she heard a deadbolt being slid open. The door opened three inches and Yvonne Howington peered out from behind a chain lock.

“Shh,” she said, opening the door and nodding toward a sofa where Aliyah was curled up under a pink blanket, dozing. “She had a bad night. Come on in the kitchen.”

A window air-conditioning unit blasted cold air into the living room, but the tiny kitchen was oppressively hot. A standing fan directed warm air at the dinette set where Yvonne directed her to sit.

“Okay,” she said, folding her hands on the table. “What do you want to know? I already talked to two other lawyers and ain’t none of them say they can do anything about what happened to my baby girl. Say their hands are tied.”

Looking at Yvonne Howington, Drue was struck by how beaten down she seemed. Her skin, coated in a fine sheen of perspiration, had an unhealthy ashy cast, there were large bags under her eyes and her mouth was bracketed by sagging cheeks. Only forty-eight, she looked twenty years older.

“Tell me everything you know about the night Jazmin was killed,” Drue said.

Yvonne gave Drue a curious look. “Does your daddy know you’re here?”

“No,” Drue said. “In fact, he told me to stay completely away from this case.”

Yvonne got up and went to the refrigerator, reached in and pulled out a can of orange Shasta. “You want something to drink?”

“Maybe just a glass of water,” Drue said.

Yvonne poured tap water into a glass and cracked three ice cubes into it. “Water’s better for you, but I got to have my orange soda,” she said, returning back to the table.

“Okay. So the day it happened. Jazmin called to tell me her car broke down on the way to work, guess that was around two-fifteen. She was supposed to be at the hotel at two. She left the car and called a cab to get there. And that’s the last time I talked to her.”