“What’s this about?” she asked.

“You’re not in any trouble,” he assured her. “You’re under no obligation to talk to me, but I hope you will. I want to ask you about a gathering of kids, a party you might have attended. Maybe recently, maybe quite a while ago.”

“I don’t go to parties,” she said.

“Your name appeared on a list I have of kids who attended one or more parties I’m checking out. It could have been as long ago as last year. What I’m trying to learn about is a party in which there could have been drugs present.”

“I don’t do drugs.”

“I’m not talking about pot. You might not have known if there were drugs present. Being used.”

“Then how could I help you?”

“This is worth checking. And what you have to say, if anything, goes no further. I know your parents through Jack and, I promise you—I won’t be discussing this with them or anyone else. I’m looking for information about a party at which people passed out or lost consciousness.”

Her pupils shrank at once and her eyes narrowed. “What are you talking about?”

“Have you ever found yourself at a party where that happened? Where people—maybe they were drinking—passed out or lost consciousness? Because that information could help me.”

Brenda just about leaped out of her chair. “Who told you about that? No one was ever supposed to tell about that.”

He made sure his arms were open, that he appeared accessible to her, even if it was only on a subconscious level. “A student I interviewed claimed to have been at a party where this happened to her. I can’t tell you who—it’s confidential. I don’t know whether you were present or not, which is why I’m asking.”

“You’re sure? It wasn’t an adult who told you?”

“No,” he said, shaking his head. “It was definitely not an adult. Have anything for me, Brenda? It’s very important.”

“Why? Why is it so important?”

“Because that sort of thing has happened, and I really have to make it stop before somebody gets… Well,” he said, shaking his head solemnly. “Let’s be honest for a second—the situation could be deadly. If I knew something, I wouldn’t want that on my head.”

“Deadly? How? From getting drunk and passing out?”

“If some kind of drug was used to cause a person to lose consciousness, yes.”

She crossed her arms over her chest. “What do you want me to say?”

“Let’s back up. Have you ever been to a party where that’s happened?”

“I went to a party, once, a long time ago, where people drank too much. I don’t think that’s what you mean.”

He shrugged. “That could be all it looked like, if something was slipped in a beer.”

She took a breath. “Like I said, a long time ago.”

“Do you remember who was there?”

“Why?”

“Because your name came up once, although there were several parties where that happened,” he said. “Now, I’m just a simple guy, but I have an idea that maybe you went once and decided you don’t like those parties too much. I’m not guessing why,” he said, holding up his hands. “All I want to do is get some names from you—confidential—just so I can see if any of the same names turn up at these parties. Regularly.”

A startled look came over her face, then there was a slow transformation—to anger. She was catching on. She knew now. She wasn’t the only one. A guy or guys were going after the girls.

Mike turned a tablet with a pen on top toward her. “And anything specific would help, like whether a certain person was just there for a little while, a long while, was the host of the party, brought the beer, that sort of thing. That would be important. Thank you.”

When Mike sat in his car forty minutes later looking through these lists, he knew Brenda was probably the patient who had become pregnant at a party with no idea how. Then something jumped out at him that spelled opportunity and relief at once. There was one name he recognized. It appeared on Sophie’s list—that party had taken place about a month ago. A young man she remembered being there for a short time. The name popped up once more—at a kegger at the rest stop, again for a short time. But the name did not appear on Brenda’s list, the party she had attended last spring, or on any others. Tom Booth. Tom would know the boys present at the party where Sophie passed out.

Mike could have gone back into the school and asked Mrs. Bradford to call Tom Booth to her office for an interview, but before he had much time to consider that the last bell rang, and he watched students pour out of the building and migrate to cars and buses in the parking lot. Paul had mentioned Tom was helping out at Jack’s homesite after school, and he wondered if he might run into him there.

And he’d also run into Jack out at the job site. In thinking about it, he might be able to take care of two delicate situations at the same time. Brie had spent the night in his bed, in his arms—it had been a lot more intimate than a trip to the coast, or a dance at a festival. If Jack was going to have an issue with that, he’d rather they get beyond it without Brie being present. He was aware that she’d seen her brother that morning and had said the reunion was uneventful; Jack hadn’t seemed to have had any bone to pick. However, that didn’t cover the territory between two men who loved Brie—a protective brother and a lover.

Tom’s little red truck wasn’t there when Mike arrived at the building site, but the place was alive with activity, a lot of noise coming from inside the structure. Jack’s truck was parked near the house.

Inside, Mike found a lot of men at work and Jack in the kitchen on his knees, working baseboards into place around newly installed cabinets. He watched him work for a moment and then said, “Looking real good out here, Jack.”

Jack leaned back, sitting on his heels, and looked up at Mike. He pulled a rag out of his back pocket and mopped the sweat and sawdust off his face. Then he stood. Jack had a lot of expressions—there was the good buddy, the comrade, the steely-eyed killer, and there was one that he seemed to reserve for his role as commander and leader. It was not unlike the expression a father would bestow on the beau of a daughter—not quite deadly, not quite docile, but something in between. Purposely unreadable, giving away no emotion. “Thanks,” he said simply, responding to the compliment.

“I thought if you had anything you wanted to say to me, I’d give you a chance to do that while Brie’s occupied with other things.”

“Yeah,” Jack said. “Yeah, I have something to say. We’ve been over this, but just let me say this once more, so you know where I’m coming from. She’s real special to me and I’ve seen her hurt. Jesus, worse than hurt. You know what I’m talking about.”

Mike gave a nod. “I know.”

“This thing that’s going on with you and my sister, I fought it. It really scared me, got under my skin….”

“I know,” Mike said again. “I under—”

“Because I’m a fool,” Jack said, cutting him off. He shook his head in frustration. “Christ almighty, Valenzuela—you’ve had my back how many times? You’d fight beside me in a heartbeat, put yourself in harm’s way to protect me or any member of our squad. I don’t know why I got my back up like I did. When a woman in your family gets hurt like that—you just want to put her in a padded box with a lock on it so no one can ever get to her and hurt her again, even if that’s the worst thing you could do.” He shook his head again and now his expression was readable. He was open. “I apologize, man. I thought of you as my brother before you even glanced at Brie. I know she’s safe with you.”

Mike found himself chuckling. “Man,” he said. “Mel must have held you down and beat you over the head.”

Now the expression got surly. “I’d just like to know why Mel always gets the fucking credit when I start to make sense. What makes you think I didn’t just think it through and—”

“Never mind,” Mike said, sticking out a hand. “I appreciate it.” Jack took the hand and Mike’s smile vanished. The look on his face became earnest. “Jack, I give you my word. I plan to do everything in my power to make your sister happy. I’ll protect her with my life.”

“You’d better,” Jack said sternly. “Or so help me—”

Mike couldn’t help but smile. “And we were doing so good there for a minute.”

“Yeah, well…”

“You won’t be disappointed in me,” Mike said.

Jack was quiet a moment, then said, “Thanks. I knew that. It just took me a while. Guys like us…”

“Yeah.” Mike laughed. “Guys like us. Who’d ever have thought?”

Jack rubbed a hand across the back of his sweaty neck and said, “Yeah, well, look out. You bite the dust like I did and all of a sudden you’re breeding up a ball team.”

“I’ll be on the lookout for that,” Mike said. “Show me the house, Jack. Looks like it’s coming along real well.”

“Yeah, we’ll find Paul to give us a tour. I was going to make it good—he’s going to make it a masterpiece.”

After about thirty minutes of looking at every detail of Paul’s work, Mike saw Tom Booth’s truck pull up. Tom parked, got out and dug into his job of cleaning up and hauling trash. Mike timed his approach; he shot the breeze with Jack and Paul as the sun was sinking. Jack finally left to get a quick shower so he could help serve dinner at the bar, and Paul went back into the house to check on the crew as they were finishing up.

Mike made his way to Tom. “Hey,” he said. “Could you give me a minute?”

“Sure,” Tom said, dropping the debris at his feet and pulling off his gloves. “What’s up?”

“I talked to you about some parties a while ago and—”

“Look, I told you, Mike—I dropped into a couple, just out of curiosity. What’s going on here?”

“I’m looking for something,” he said with a shrug. “Drugs.”

“Drugs?” Tom asked. “I saw a couple of joints passed around. I cut out. You know my dad. I’d be in some military academy if I’d been caught around that stuff. Maybe a penitentiary. I’d be history. He’s not a liberal kind of guy.”

“Yeah,” Mike said with a smile. “I figured that one out all by myself. Actually, I was looking for something else. Something you don’t see every day.”

Tom’s chin dropped and he looked down. “I didn’t see anything,” he said.

“Son. Look me in the eye and say that.”

He lifted his gaze. “Seriously, I left when I saw a couple of joints come out. I got myself grounded for going somewhere they had beer. My dad, he’s not the strictest dad on the books—I’ve had a beer with him. Innocent beer, no driving, no going out to a kegger in the woods, though. But…”

Mike waited. “But?” he finally asked.

“I was already on my way out, and I suspected something was going on.” He shrugged. “Couple of kids breaking from the crowd, doing something a little sly, not gone long. You know?”

“What did you suspect?” Mike asked, his radar up.

“Have no idea. Ecstasy, maybe? Meth? I don’t know. Something sneaky. Man, I wanted no deeper than a beer, seeing a joint from a long, safe distance. I’d be—”

“History,” Mike finished for him. “Who threw the parties where you saw this?”

Tom lowered his gaze again, shaking his head. Then before Mike asked him to look him in the eye, he raised his eyes and said, “Look, I wouldn’t mind getting the little shit in trouble—I’d love that. But really—I have absolutely no idea what might have been going on. If I knew something and thought someone might get hurt, I’d tell you everything, but I can’t rat out a guy for drugs if he might’ve just been exchanging phone numbers. You know?”