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car.
    J. R. Thomas grabbed the dogs. “Yeah.” He hemmed and hawed. “She was, but she left a while ago.”
    “When?”
    “Noon, maybe.”
    The detective glanced at his watch. It read 5:45 p.m. He knew LeBlanc had been paged by the police at 4:45 p.m. “Who with?”
    “Some friends.”
    “I know that not to be true.” Hunt stared J. R. Thomas straight into his eyes—blue eyes like J. R.’s momma’s. “I know she was here later than that.” His voice was deep and gravelly.
    “Uh.” J. R. Thomas was scared, “Maybe she’s inside.”
    “Well, let’s go look.” Detective Hunt took a step forward.
    The dogs jerked on their collars. J. R. held them tightly.
    “Why don’t you go put up the dogs first.”
    J. R. Thomas put up the dogs. Then he said to Detective Hunt, “I’ll go get her.” He started into the house. Detective Hunt followed. J. R. glared nervously at the officer. “I said I’d get her!” The cop followed J. R. into the house anyway. “Kim!” yelled J. R. He looked up the stairs. Detective Hunt stopped in the kitchen. Deputy Nelson of the Bastrop County Sheriff’s Department and the two Travis County Sheriff’s Department deputies started up the stairs.
     
     
    They found Kim LeBlanc in bed with Justin Thomas. They woke up the couple. “Downstairs,” they said to Kim.
    The officers carefully watched Justin Thomas. He was hollow-cheeked and intimidating with a protruding brow that was made even more prominent by a Mohawk haircut. “Come downtown and answer some questions.”
    “I ain’t going nowhere,” said Justin. “I don’t want to answer no questions.” Even though he’d lain in bed, he hadn’t slept for days. “If you ain’t got a warrant, you can’t do this.”
     
     
    Kim LeBlanc reached the bottom of the stairs just as Detective Hunt started up them. He stared at the young woman. She was gaunt and frail. She wore shorts and a dark-colored tank top. Her eyebrows were perfectly plucked, but she wore not a lick of makeup.
    “Are you Kim LeBlanc?” asked Detective Hunt.
    “Yes,” she answered softly. She was dazed with the sleep of Valium.
    “I need to talk to you about your friend Regina Hartwell, who’s missing. Would you like to come voluntarily with me down to the police station? You don’t have to. You aren’t under arrest.”
    “Yes.” Her voice was still quiet, but her dazed state was moving toward detachment.

    She was still dazed and detached when Deputy Nelson came down the stairs with Justin. Detective Hunt couldn’t help but stare—Thomas looked like Yul Brynner in The King and I , bald except for one black, top knot of hair.
    “Justin Thomas,” said Nelson to Hunt.
    “Is he coming downtown?” said Hunt.
    “He is,” replied Nelson. “Let’s place them in separate patrol cars until we talk to them.”

CHAPTER 4
    Amy Seymoure and her parents moved into their comfortable home in Pasadena, Texas when she was just three years old. Not long thereafter, Mark, Toni, and Regina Hartwell moved next door. It was a 1970s, middle-class neighborhood of sidewalk-lined streets, oak trees and yards big enough for touch football.
    The Hartwells’was a modest, one-story, pink, brick home with three white columns on quiet San Jacinto Drive. But the quiet outside of the house was nothing like the inside. Inside, the home was volatile. Amy sensed the explosiveness, even as a child.
    She and Regina played doctor at Regina’s house. Amy, trying to be a good little play doctor, once took a Q-tip to Regina’s ear to remove a pretend blockage from it. But the little girl with child hands probed too deeply and Regina yelled.
    Regina’s grandmother, who was watching the children, became furious. She ordered the two little girls onto opposite ends of the couch and then screamed at them. It was nothing like what Amy was used to. Regina’s grandmother berated the two little girls so loudly and so strongly that twenty years later, Amy still vividly remembered the