“Girls like me. Brandi and Coral.”

“We don’t know. We’re here investigating the death of Fawn Blacksmith.”

“Toad killed her. Probably would’ve killed the rest of us eventually if it hadn’t been for Matt.”

“Mathias Paavola?”

“Matt,” she said with a nod.

“What’s your name?” Dross asked, wrapping sterile gauze around the girl’s right foot.

“Jade. At least that’s what I’m called here.”

“What’s your real name?”

The girl hesitated. “You gonna send me to jail?”

“As I told you, if you were being trafficked, no. You aren’t the criminal here.”

“You’re not lying?”

“I’m not lying.”

“Margot Lachance.”

“Why aren’t you with the other girls?” Cork asked. “Brandi and Coral.”

“We were playing cards when Billy came. Something was wrong. He was acting crazy. I mean, I’ve seen him mad before, but this was something else. He was screaming, waving a rifle around.”

“Matt wasn’t with him?”

“No.”

“When you say Billy, is that Billy Bones?” Cork asked.

“Yeah.”

Dross said, “And did he take the other girls away?”

“Yeah, last night. He just kept hollering. I mean, he was out of control. This was scary like I never seen before. Told us to get our things, that we were leaving. Didn’t say where. Just”—and her voice dropped, imitating Boyle—“get your damn stuff together now!”

“Why didn’t he take you?”

“Like I said, he was out of his mind. I told Brandi and Coral we needed to get away, but they wouldn’t go.”

“Too scared of Billy?” Cork said.

“Probably. And probably still a little in love with him. That’s how we all felt, at least at first. They wouldn’t go, but I hid out in the woods.”

Dross said, “You indicated Adrian Lewis killed Fawn. Tell me about that.”

“Owww!” Margot said and pulled her foot from Dross’s grasp.

Dross was seeing to the girl’s other foot now. “You’ve got a bad cut here.”

“Sorry,” Margot said, and let Dross resume her care.

“Tell us about Fawn,” Cork said.

“Nobody called her Fawn. She was Ruby here. But we got close, and she told me her real name. She was Lakota. Me, I’m White Earth Ojibwe. She came after me.”

“Here to the cabin?”

“That was before the cabin. We were outside Thief River Falls then, working out of the trailer. Brandi and Coral came after Fawn and Sapphire, when we got down here.”

“Sapphire?”

“Yeah. She didn’t last long. Billy told us she ran away. Which was strange. None of us got anywhere to run. Me, I always thought Toad might’ve had something to do with that.”

“What happened to Fawn?” Dross said.

“We all had to take turns with Toad. Part of the bargain with him and Billy. None of us liked it, but nobody said no to Billy. There was something wrong with Toad. He liked to hurt you. He was with Brandi, there in the back room, and he was going to burn her with a cigarette. She screamed and Fawn ran in and pulled him away. He grabbed her by the throat and…” She didn’t finish but instead closed her eyes as if replaying the scene in her mind. “He called Matt, and him and Adrian took her body away. That’s all I know.”

“This was when?”

“Couple of months ago, maybe. I don’t remember exactly.”

“What about Billy?”

“Was he ever pissed. I thought he’d kill Toad. He just told Matt to make sure Toad never hurt any of us. Christ, like that was going to stop Toad.”

“You’re from White Earth,” Cork said. “How’d Billy Bones get his hands on you?”

“I ran away. Ended up in Duluth. Had no money, no nothing. Billy kind of rescued me. Or that’s how I thought of it.” She gave a grim laugh and shook her head. “Rescued.”

“Why didn’t you leave?” Dross asked.

“And go where? Back to my uncle? That pervert was worse than Toad. Girls like me and Brandi and Coral, we don’t have anywhere else to go. That’s why we stay.”

Cork said, “Do you have any idea where Billy Bones took the other girls?”

“Nope.”

“What about Matt?”

“I haven’t seen him for a while. He came three or four days ago, really freaked out. Something to do with Fawn. Somebody found her body, I guess. He went away, then a day or so later, Billy got a call from him and went ballistic. Something about another dead girl. Billy left us here alone for a whole day. When he came back, he was acting crazy. I don’t know. He could’ve killed Matt, I suppose. He sure seemed crazy enough. Screaming, hollering. Shouting about taking care of loose ends. I’m lucky he didn’t shoot me.”

Cork looked at this girl, who was thin, tired, scared, bitter, lost, abandoned. At that moment, she seemed to him the most ancient seventeen-year-old he’d ever seen.