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Drugs."
    "Yeah."
    "That was a few years ago."
    "I'm looking for her."
    "Ask her PO."
    "Well, that's a problem."
    "Why?"
    "He just dropped dead in the driveway."
    "Oh."
    "Plus …"
    "What?"
    "Well, I don't want to get anyone in trouble."
    "Then don't tell me anything that would get anyone in trouble. You want to ask me something, though, ask it."
    Lafaye was good people. I didn't think she'd be in a hurry to hassle Alexis.
    "No one seems to know where she is," I said.
    "Why didn't you ask Romandetto when you had the chance?"
    "Well, if she's skipped town or something, I would have gotten her in trouble. I mean, with the kid and everything, I don't want social services to get involved. I'd prefer to keep it quiet."
    "So why are you talking to me? I don't have any idea where she is."
    "But you know her past associates and people she might know. If you were looking for her, where would you look?"
    "You talk to that asshole she was shacked up with?"
    "Mule. Yeah, I talked to him yesterday. He didn't give me much."
    "He's a man without much to give," she said. "But I didn't mean him. I meant the other one."
    "What other one?"
    "She was living at his trailer in Indian Head Estates."
    "That big trailer park in North Osotouy?"
    "Yeah, by the beautician's school. The guy's name is Evan Hastings. He runs the park, and for a while there he was helping run drugs into the state with the help of some of his friends. Including Alexis."
    "You bust him?"
    "Tried. Acquitted. No one would testify against him."
    "You know if Alexis's daughter stayed with him after Alexis got shipped to Eastgate?"
    "Kaylee, right? She got hustled through social services and shipped down to her grandmother in Texas, I think." She leaned against her car and crossed her arms. "Why are you looking for Alexis?"
    "Some people want to find her."
    "What people?"
    "This Christian group that runs a rehabilitation program for drug addicts. Supposedly, Alexis went there, found Jesus, got cleaned up, but now she's run off and disappeared. They asked me to find her."
    "Hmm."
    "Does that seem weird to you?"
    "It seems odd that they would ask you instead of just going through Romandetto."
    "But the part about her getting religion. That seem odd?"
    "I don't know. It happens."
    "But does it seem odd?"
    "Well, that kind of thing always seems odd. I guess that's part of what's miraculous about it. Grace is … unusual. That's what makes it special."
    "You religious, Lafaye?"
    "I've worked out my own thing, made my peace."
    "Mule didn't think Alexis would go in for that sort of thing."
    She waved that away like she was waving away Mule's very existence. "That boy took Freshman Philosophy 101 and now he thinks he's fucking Nietzsche. He thinks nothing matters because he doesn't want to spend the energy or effort to care about anything. A boy like that is going to dismiss the possibility of grace before it could even happen."
    "So you think Alexis could really be out there looking for answers?"
    "The world's nothing but questions. How can you not be looking for answers?"
    I nodded. "I guess."
    "What about you?"
    "What about me?"
    "What you going to do now that you're out? Jobwise?"
    "I don't know. I don't know how to do anything but be a correctional officer."
    "Never anything else you thought about pursuing?"
    "All I ever wanted was to be in criminal justice," I admitted. "Used to think I was going to be a cop. Majored in criminal justice in school before I had to drop out."
    "Why'd you have to drop out?"
    I said, "Life."
    I almost said,
a lot of it was my mom's fault
. I didn't tell Lafaye that, though. There's nothing worse than a forty-year-old who still blames her parents for her life.
    Lafaye said, "Well, there's no reason you couldn't go back and finish up school. People have done it."
    I nodded. "I guess so."
    We shook hands, and she climbed into her car. She started it up but rolled down the window.
    "Thanks for the encouragement," I told her.
    "You're welcome. But let me throw