“Now that that’s out of the way, tell me about the Amy Cherny articles you wrote.”
A confused expression crossed his face.
“Sixteen-year-old girl from Abilane . She went missing about eighteen months ago.”
He nodded, remembering. “S-She was a runaway. What are you talking about kickbacks for articles?”
I snorted. “Can’t bullshit a bullshitter. Back to Amy. How do you know she was a runaway?”
“I all but wrote it in the article. She’d been in at least three different foster homes that she ran away from.”
“Therefore, you assumed that she ran away from the last one?”
He nodded. “Pretty logical conclusion.”
“Except, she’d been in that foster home for a little over a year. She was thriving there. Her grades improved, and she even got a part-time job at a local fast food place.”
His mouth dropped open.
“None of that was reported in your articles. So tell me,” I paused, lowering my legs from the desk and standing to my full height, “why would a girl who seemed to finally be on good footing up and decide to run away?”
He shrugged, holding his arms out. “Who knows why teens do half the things they do?”
I gave him a deadpan expression. “That’s the best answer you could come up with? She was sixteen, and it was your job to provide as much information to the public on her disappearance.”
“Look, man,” he said, holding up his hands and shaking his head, “I did what I was supposed to do. I went to the deputies over in Abilane , asking about the girl. They provided me with all the information they had.”
I nodded. “And what about the foster mother?”
“The deputies said she refused to be cooperative.”
His facial expression tensed as I stepped closer.
“You didn’t bother trying to speak to the woman yourself?”
His lips thinned as he looked toward the floor. “I assumed she didn’t want to get in trouble with child protective services or whatever. She had another foster kid in her home at the same time. You know a lot of those parents do it for the money. If she spoke to the cops and it looked like her home was unsuitable, which was why the girl ran away, she could lose her paycheck.”
I snorted at the bullshit he was spewing. I drew closer, standing about two feet from him, and folded my arms across my chest, gun still in my hand. “That’s the shit you tell yourself to let you sleep at night, isn’t it?”
He inhaled deeply, looking offended.
“Fuck out of here with that look. You and I both know you did jack shit for this case. The bare minimum. You labeled her a runaway and said fuck it. Why?”
His eyebrows rose well above the lenses of the glasses he wore. “I did my job.”
Sick of his pathetic excuses, I unfolded my arms, grabbed him by the shoulder with my free hand, and placed the barrel of my gun underneath his chin. “I didn’t come here to fuck around with you. This case is of high importance to me, and you seem to have answers that you’re withholding, so you can either tell me now or you and I are taking a walk outside of this fancy house of yours and into some woods where bodies from forty years ago are still being dug up.” I pressed the gun into his neck deeper, though my finger wasn’t on the trigger. He didn’t need to know that.
“I-I—”
“Full sentences.”
“I got a call. A few days after the girl went missing and I began questioning some officers about it, I got a call.”
“From who?”
“Said his name was Joe.”
I grunted. “Joe what?”
