thing with Joshua’s sister turns into a criminal investigation, you could really screw things up by poking around the way I know you like to do. You could wreck the investigation and you could wreck things for us, too.”
The investigation into Judith’s death? Or was Charlie also talking about the missing girls? Lola started to ask, but thought the better of it. She slid under the covers and peeled out of her clothes and kicked them onto the floor. Of course it had crossed her mind that her trip might provide some information about Judith and the girls. Even if she couldn’t do the story herself, she relished the thought of presenting her gleanings to Jan. But she’d be damned if she’d admit as much to Charlie. “Do you take me for a fool?”
Bub leapt onto the bed and burrowed beside her. Charlie’s voice rang emphatic in the darkness. “Promise.”
Lola crossed her fingers beneath the blankets.
“I promise.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
L ola woke at midnight, at two, at three. At four, she gave up trying to sleep and lay sandwiched between Charlie and Bub, stiff with impatience. Dawn was hours away. Twilight would arrive too quickly behind it, grey at four in the afternoon, full black by five. Lola had long used her nighttime sleeplessness to good effect, making mental lists of questions she’d ask in coming interviews. But as much as she tried to focus on the men from the reservation, her mind strayed to the missing girls. In her experience, men who went walkabout tended to show up eventually, sometimes worse for the wear, but not infrequently better. It was different for women, especially young ones. Predators homed in on them like wild dogs to scraps of raw meat, sniffing out their need and vulnerability. Too many ended up like Judith. The lucky ones lived. Although, given what some of the survivors endured, Lola thought that maybe “luck” wasn’t the right term.
“Did the Express ever write about any of those girls who disappeared?” she’d asked Jan.
“No.” Jan avoided Lola’s eyes. “People go missing, they turn up. We’d go crazy if we tracked every single one of those stories.”
“But they never turned up.”
“Right.” Spoken past a larger-than-usual section of braid.
“No story even after the third or fourth girl? Or the fifth?”
“Nobody would talk.”
Jan’s misery was so obvious Lola almost felt sorry for her. Of course they wouldn’t talk. Leaving the reservation was, for all practical purposes, a nonexistent problem. The bigger issue usually involved people coming back. No matter how generous the academic scholarship to the University of Montana—or Dartmouth, or Harvard—no matter how high a college basketball profile, no matter how sweet the offer of full partner in the big-city law firm, the pull of home too often proved more powerful. There was some shame in that, inflicted mostly by the white world, but pride, too. What family wouldn’t luxuriate in drawing their own back home again? A dynamic that made a true disappearance unimaginable, and airing it in the press unthinkable.
Tina’s fingers had rattled over her keyboard, loud in the silence. Lola resisted an impulse to stand and look over Tina’s shoulder, to confirm her suspicion that nothing but rows of x’s marched across the screen as Tina tried to mask the fact that she was once again eavesdropping. “Roy deRoche seems to think those girls are dead,” Lola said.
Tina dropped all pretense of work and spun around in her chair. “Or not. You yourselves said how hard it is to disappear a body. Let alone several bodies. You told me. All of you. So they could still be alive.” Her soft voice shook with the boldness of the accusation.
When Tina first started working at the Express , so nervous she fairly trembled as she walked through the door each day, Lola and Jorkki—and even Jan despite her relatively short tenure in the newspaper business—had treated her to a friendly hazing, regaling her with
The investigation into Judith’s death? Or was Charlie also talking about the missing girls? Lola started to ask, but thought the better of it. She slid under the covers and peeled out of her clothes and kicked them onto the floor. Of course it had crossed her mind that her trip might provide some information about Judith and the girls. Even if she couldn’t do the story herself, she relished the thought of presenting her gleanings to Jan. But she’d be damned if she’d admit as much to Charlie. “Do you take me for a fool?”
Bub leapt onto the bed and burrowed beside her. Charlie’s voice rang emphatic in the darkness. “Promise.”
Lola crossed her fingers beneath the blankets.
“I promise.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
L ola woke at midnight, at two, at three. At four, she gave up trying to sleep and lay sandwiched between Charlie and Bub, stiff with impatience. Dawn was hours away. Twilight would arrive too quickly behind it, grey at four in the afternoon, full black by five. Lola had long used her nighttime sleeplessness to good effect, making mental lists of questions she’d ask in coming interviews. But as much as she tried to focus on the men from the reservation, her mind strayed to the missing girls. In her experience, men who went walkabout tended to show up eventually, sometimes worse for the wear, but not infrequently better. It was different for women, especially young ones. Predators homed in on them like wild dogs to scraps of raw meat, sniffing out their need and vulnerability. Too many ended up like Judith. The lucky ones lived. Although, given what some of the survivors endured, Lola thought that maybe “luck” wasn’t the right term.
“Did the Express ever write about any of those girls who disappeared?” she’d asked Jan.
“No.” Jan avoided Lola’s eyes. “People go missing, they turn up. We’d go crazy if we tracked every single one of those stories.”
“But they never turned up.”
“Right.” Spoken past a larger-than-usual section of braid.
“No story even after the third or fourth girl? Or the fifth?”
“Nobody would talk.”
Jan’s misery was so obvious Lola almost felt sorry for her. Of course they wouldn’t talk. Leaving the reservation was, for all practical purposes, a nonexistent problem. The bigger issue usually involved people coming back. No matter how generous the academic scholarship to the University of Montana—or Dartmouth, or Harvard—no matter how high a college basketball profile, no matter how sweet the offer of full partner in the big-city law firm, the pull of home too often proved more powerful. There was some shame in that, inflicted mostly by the white world, but pride, too. What family wouldn’t luxuriate in drawing their own back home again? A dynamic that made a true disappearance unimaginable, and airing it in the press unthinkable.
Tina’s fingers had rattled over her keyboard, loud in the silence. Lola resisted an impulse to stand and look over Tina’s shoulder, to confirm her suspicion that nothing but rows of x’s marched across the screen as Tina tried to mask the fact that she was once again eavesdropping. “Roy deRoche seems to think those girls are dead,” Lola said.
Tina dropped all pretense of work and spun around in her chair. “Or not. You yourselves said how hard it is to disappear a body. Let alone several bodies. You told me. All of you. So they could still be alive.” Her soft voice shook with the boldness of the accusation.
When Tina first started working at the Express , so nervous she fairly trembled as she walked through the door each day, Lola and Jorkki—and even Jan despite her relatively short tenure in the newspaper business—had treated her to a friendly hazing, regaling her with
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