Brody returned and sat down, and this time he didn’t hide his annoyance. “Here’s the thing,” he said brusquely. His breathing was heavy, strained from even this simple movement, and he smelled like the earthy sweetness of the chew tobacco he kept hidden behind his cheek. “We didn’t find evidence of anybody in the house except for him. Not even you. So, if someone else was there like you say, who was it? How come we can’t find them?”

“I don’t know,” Mira whispered. He was intent on her confirming whatever story he’d fashioned together in his mind. She frowned, looked at the dirty floor below her, and waited for this to be over.

“How long have you two known each other? You and Jesse?” he asked, refusing to move away. “Have you known each other for long?”

“We’ve been friends since we were little,” Mira answered.

“A long time.”

“Yes,” Mira muttered, agreeing.

The sheriff sucked air through his teeth and sat back in his chair. It squeaked from his weight. “Good friends, you’d say, yes?”

“Yes,” Mira repeated.

“Good friends. Maybe more than friends?”

“No, I— He—”

“What? He what?”

“We’re not.”

“But you like him, no? Maybe want to be more than friends?”

“I don’t understand what this has to do with anything.”

“This is how I see it. I see a girl who can’t seem to answer any of my questions with any sort of specifics. A girl who is maybe trying to concoct some sort of story to help her friend. Maybe it’s because she likes him. Maybe it’s because she wants him to like her back. That’s what I’m seeing from the looks of things.”

“No, we were both there! You can ask Celine!”

“Oh, we will.”

At that moment the door opened and Mira’s mother appeared, yelling loud enough that Mira jumped. “Come on, Mira, we’re leaving. Get up, let’s go. Whatever this is, it’s over.”

“Sure is,” the sheriff uttered. He waved his hand in the air. “Go on, get your kid out of here. Wasting my time with her stories. You know lying to a police officer is a crime.”

“I wasn’t lying,” Mira yelled.

“Hush, Mira.”

“I wasn’t,” she told them both.

Mira’s mother yanked her from the chair, her grip strong enough it bruised. She pulled her through the musty hallways, hurrying along with a force of a hurricane. Everywhere bodies crammed together, leaving the air smelling of their sweat and stench from the day’s heat. Salvation was outside these walls and they needed to find it. “Don’t look at them. Don’t look.” Mira followed her mother, keeping her eyes down, which meant not seeing the anguished faces of men and women who looked like her, who she could have been with a slight shift in circumstance.