The words were delivered with such sincerity that, for a moment, Darren worried that his cynicism, home-brewed over years of living in a culture of double-dealing and dishonesty, was clouding his judgment, that his distaste for Joseph Fuller bled into a blanket distrust for Thornhill and a near instant dislike of Carey-Ann Thorn.
To the man in the red sailboat tie, she flawlessly worked all of this into what was now, to Darren, clearly a sales pitch. “We put people to work here, we support families, we educate the next generation,” she said. “This family didn’t ask for the circumstances that brought them to Thornhill, but this company, this unique community, has a way of doing business that puts families first. The Fullers know this intimately.”
“But where is she?” Darren said, repeating out loud a refrain in his mind. “Where is your daughter, Mr. Fuller? Because no one seems to have seen her at school or her sorority. What’s more, Ms. Thorn, why has Thornhill Police tried to stop inquiries into the whereabouts of one of your residents?”
“I told you, she’s at school,” Joseph said firmly.
“What’s this about police?” the man with the sailboat tie said, sitting up in his chair. E. J. Hill set his phone down on the table and shot Carey-Ann a look. Wrap this up.
“You know, I think it’s about time for your shift, Joseph,” Carey-Ann said. She smiled placidly and stood to signify the end of the meeting. Joseph stood too, so quickly that he nearly knocked Iris to the floor, as if he’d forgotten his wife was sitting on his lap. “I thought I might meet with some of the others,” Joseph said, smoothing his shirt.
Darren kept going. “The thing is, though, campus police has no record of Sera living anywhere but the sorority house, and those girls said she —”
“Sweet girl, Sera,” Carey-Ann said, turning to smile at Iris. “I can only imagine what it’s like with kids in college. Can’t ever get a hold of them half the time.”
She looked at the man in the red tie and added, “She’s a busy girl.”
“I still want to speak at the KAW fundraiser in a few days,” Joseph said.
E. J. Hill looked at his wife and ever so slightly shook his head. Absolutely not.
Darren kept an eye on Iris through all of this. She wore the same look of unease that she’d had the day before when Darren first asked about her child. He felt again a desperate need to talk to her alone, away from her husband. By now, the man in the red sailboat tie was shaking Iris’s and Joseph’s hands as he prepared to leave. He paused long enough to smile at Benny. From his pocket, he pulled out a tiny toy construction hat and offered it to the boy: “Just a small little thing my office gives to smart young fellows like yourself.” Benny palmed it while his parents said goodbye to Carey-Ann. E. J. Hill was already on the front lawn, heading for a second black car on the street, a Cadillac that had newly arrived for him and his wife.
Joseph followed Carey-Ann down his porch steps.
He still wanted to “help with the whole thing,” get his story out there to folks.
“Best way you can help Thornhill now is to put on your uniform and clock in.”
Carey-Ann patted his shoulder and then joined E.J. in the Cadillac. The man in the red sailboat tie was already in the Mercedes with his driver. The two cars pulled away from the curb and rode off down Juniper Lane. Joseph, his tie thickly knotted and hanging too high above his belly, grabbed a nearby bicycle that was leaned against a tree. Iris let out a huff as she brushed past Bell and Darren on the porch and down the steps to her husband. She grabbed one of her husband’s arms and said, “Don’t go down there, Joseph. They already picked another family. Leave it alone. Just go on to work.”
“I come too far with this thing —”
“They don’t want you —”
“We’ve come too —”
“They don’t want us anymore,” Iris said. “Don’t go where you’re not wanted.”
She was pleading with him in a way that made not only Darren uncomfortable but also Benny, who was watching from the porch, watching Iris appeal to Joseph’s pride by wounding it. It seemed to embarrass the boy. The suit, the way his father was awkwardly squatting on a kid’s bicycle. “Dad,” his son said softly. People were watching. A few neighbors at the bus stop. A young mother who had come out of her house with a toddler on her hip. On the grass, Iris had a grip on Joseph’s arm, which he shook off roughly. Iris’s eyebrows knit together. She looked confused and hurt, Darren thought. She watched as he took off on the yellow bike, going past the communal park, past the bus stop. He made a right turn onto Hill Street, the main road that led to the churches and the medical center, the schools, and the offices of Thornhill Industries.
Iris watched him pedal away on the too-small bike.
Then she turned back to her house, her jaw tight. Darren thought he saw exasperation rippling through her entire body. His eyes followed her as she came up the porch steps, took her son by the hand, and entered the house, the door to which hung open for a few seconds. This was their chance to get Iris alone, he thought. Darren turned to look for his mother but didn’t see Bell anywhere. He felt a moment of panic and a pang of guilt over the fact that he’d so easily dropped her from his consciousness, that he hadn’t been paying attention to where she was in the world.
Then he heard his mother’s voice coming from inside the Fuller house.
“And these shelves, they’re all built-in? They come with the place just like this?”
She’d slipped past him and already let herself in, was already asking questions about Thornhill’s housing and amenities before she’d even given Iris her name.
20.
DARREN THOUGHT the only way to gain Iris’s trust was by telling the unfettered truth. Yes, he had been a Texas Ranger for over a decade. But he’d recently voluntarily turned in his badge because he had a hard time coloring inside the lines of white folks’ ideas of justice for people like them, he said, gesturing between himself and Iris. They were sitting at the kitchen table on a banquette that was decorated with yellow throw pillows. Benny was in the living room, which they could see from here. He was in the same position as he’d been in when Darren had first seen him — on his stomach, playing and watching cartoons. Meanwhile, Bell was moving around the perimeter of the living room, calculating square footage in her mind and running her hands along the walls to gauge if they were plaster or drywall. Having been in her and his uncle Pete’s place, Darren understood the allure of the Fullers’ bungalow: rich wood floors, braided rugs, sconces, and a staircase to a small second floor, those built-in bookshelves, plus a dishwasher in the kitchen. Bell quietly oohed and aahed as she surveyed the home, which Iris, Darren noticed, tolerated without a word. Iris’s spirit seemed coiled in on itself, radiating a quiet but intense heat. She kept clasping and unclasping her hands, her gaze unfocused, her mind a million miles away.
“Ma’am,” Darren said.
Iris looked at him as if she had no recollection of inviting him into her home. She glanced at Bell and frowned at both of them. Darren was aware his frank honesty could backfire — for all he knew, Iris Fuller didn’t trust him any more than her husband did.
“When was the last time you saw your daughter, Ms. Fuller?” he said.
Iris sighed, and Darren thought she might be stalling.
“You said you were a Texas Ranger?”
“Was, yes,” he said. “You don’t owe me nothing, don’t have to answer me none.”
Iris didn’t say anything right away. She twisted her hands together again and glanced into the living room at her son. Darren couldn’t easily place Iris’s age. Her skin was smooth and deep in color. There were no feathered lines around her eyes, no creases around her bow-shaped mouth. But there was a whole ocean of lines across her forehead, waves that rose and fell with her many unspoken trials and worries.
“I’m trying to find your daughter. I believe she’s missing.”
She shivered at the word missing. Her right hand gripped the edge of the kitchen table, but she shook her head. “She’s at school,” she said, repeating a comforting script.
“I found some of her things,” Bell said. “What started all this.”
She had stopped her covetous inspection and was standing in the kitchen, leaning on a countertop. “I work at the sorority house, and a few days ago now, I found a bunch of her things thrown out in the dumpster behind the building.”
Iris sat up a little straighter at the same time as some unseen force of gravity pulled at her shoulders and all the muscles in her face. She seemed to both rise and sink as Bell went on. “I come to Darren because I hadn’t seen the girl in a while. Something didn’t sit right in my soul about the whole thing. So I went to him.”
