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often out nights dealing with drunks and wife-beaters, so he catches naps when he can. Ian himself doesn’t count that as laziness.
    ‘Chief,’ he says.
    Chief Davis groans and wipes at a bit of drool at the corner of his mouth.
    ‘Chief.’
    Davis sits up and tilts back his Stetson. He knuckles his eyes, pulls his glasses from his pocket, and sets them on his nose. He rubs the palm of his hand down the front of his face, then looks up at Ian, blinking.
    ‘Ian.’
    ‘I just got a call.’
    ‘Yeah?’
    ‘From Maggie.’
    ‘From—’ Blink, blink. ‘From your daughter ?’
    Ian nods.
    ‘You sure?’
    Another nod. ‘She called from a pay phone front of Main Street shopping center. She’s alive. I sent Diego down just now, and county guys are on the way, but I’m going too. Maybe you could keep point on the phones?’
    Davis shakes his head.
    ‘No,’ he says. ‘You know I gotta deal with Sizemore. Thompson can handle the phones.’
    Steve Thompson is Bulls Mouth’s other daytime police officer. He’s good police, so far as Ian can tell, when there’s something happening, but otherwise he tends to wander off. After four o’clock, there are only two officers on duty at a time—one of the three part timers to take calls and a guy in a radio car. And of course they call Chief Davis if necessary. Four to midnight is Armando Gonzales and one of the part timers. Used to be Diego Peña, but Peña switched to days a while back. Went from part time on the phones to full time to days in quick succession. From midnight to eight is Ray Watkins.
    Ian nods. ‘All right. Where’s he at?’
    ‘Out back washing my truck. Tell him to get on the phones and then let’s go.’
    Ian nods.
    ‘What are you wearing?’
    ‘What?’ She looks over her shoulder and can see Henry’s Ford Ranger speeding toward her, and behind the glass Henry’s large frame hunched over the wheel like a bear over its prey. ‘He’s coming!’ she says.
    ‘What are you wearing, Mags?’
    ‘A dress. A blue dress with pink flowers.’
    The truck pulls into the parking lot, tires screeching. Smoke wafts from burned rubber and the foul stink of it hangs in the air. The door swings open, engine still running. She can hear Henry’s footsteps behind her. She looks over her shoulder and he is making great steps toward her. He curses under his breath. His hands open and close at his sides as he walks.
    Open and close, open and close, open and—
    ‘Do you know the man’s name?’
    ‘It’s H—’
    But that’s all and that’s it. Henry grabs her around the waist. She screams. Henry puts his hand over her mouth. He pulls her away from the phone. She tries to hold on to it, to maintain her connection to Daddy, oh God, Daddy, please, but her hands are too sweaty and it slips away and swings down on its cord and bangs against a phone book hanging from a metal ring. She tries to scream again but to no end. The hand over her mouth keeps the sound trapped in her throat.
    Henry carries her while she kicks and claws at him. She grabs his fingers and tries to pull them away from her. She tries to contort her body so that she can bite him. Nothing works.
    ‘You little bitch,’ he says, ‘don’t you ever run from me again.’
    He throws her into the truck through the open driver’s side door. She lands lengthwise across the beige vinyl bench seat and hits her head on the passenger door. She pulls herself up to a sitting position and looks around in a daze. She is disoriented and for a moment lost. Everything feels unreal to her. Then she sees the open door and knows once more where she is and what she must do. She crawls toward escape.
    Then Henry’s large frame fills the opening and he slides into the truck. He pulls the door shut behind him and releases the hand brake. The truck turns toward the street. Maggie looks out the window to the phone. It is still swinging from its cord. Daddy.
    She grabs the passenger’s side door handle and pushes open the