“But Dylan’s never been happier,” Paulette said before Joel could reply, picking at a fingernail. “Boys, they just need to stretch their legs sometimes.”

Browder flipped open his notebook. Mayfield said, “Ma’am, can you give me the address of the place in Galveston where your son is staying for the weekend?”

There was a pause. “The address?”

“Yes, ma’am. Where they’re staying with...”

Browder said, “KT Staler’s brother.”

“Thank you. With Mr. Staler’s brother. That is where you said he was staying, yes?”

“Oh. Yes. Well—” She broke off for a moment. “It’s just I never asked for the address, Investigator. I never saw any need for one. It’s not like I was the one driving down there.”

Joel gaped at her. Even once he’d bought his first cell phone, when he was Dylan’s age, he’d never been allowed to step out the front door without telling his mother exactly where he would be, who with, the exact minute he would be home. All those precautions had done little good, of course (as Joel suspected these men from the sheriff’s department knew very well), but he still couldn’t believe that this was the sort of lesson his mother had learned from Joel’s youth: to give a teenage boy unfettered run of the entire state of Texas.

“Of course.” Mayfield smiled. “Then you’ll have the phone number for Mr. Staler’s brother? And a name?”

“Frank,” she said.

“Floyd,” Darren corrected her gently.

“Floyd. But he has a different last name, not Staler. He’s a half brother.” Paulette fumbled at her pockets for her phone before she caught sight of it on the edge of the wooden coffee table. “His number is—I know I had it, just a moment—”

While they waited, Mayfield turned to Joel. “I couldn’t help but notice you got some real mud on the tires of that convertible out there. I assume that’s yours?”

Joel considered his answer. “A rental.”

“Well, she’s pretty. What kept you out in that storm last night?”

Mayfield had a hard, sun-browned face, a flat nose, a tiny mouth. Joel caught the way his smile tightened, the concentration it betrayed. This investigator was only acting aloof, half-bored. There was a mind at work inside him.

Do not underestimate this man.

“I was enjoying the chance to drive. Living in the city you come to miss it.”

“She can’t handle nice in the rain.”

“The weather must have gotten worse by the time I made it home. The car handled fine.”

“And when was that, exactly?”

“I have it.” Paulette flashed the screen of her phone at Mayfield. “The number. The Staler boy’s number.”

“Wonderful.” Mayfield’s smile was frigid.

Paulette read the number off her phone, went back and read it over again. “Floyd’s a very nice young man,” she said. “He works in construction.”

“I’m glad someone from that family’s made good,” Mayfield said. “Your son hasn’t had any problems with KT, has he?”

“Problems?”

“Excuse me,” Joel said. “You’ve written that number down wrong.”