Helena actually stared at me for a second as though she were seeing the outline of a person she had not expected.
Then she said, quietly, “Be careful.”
I walked down the stairs forcing myself not to rush. Through the front window I could see the pickup truck—a dusty old Ford—rolling slowly toward the porch. The man who stepped out of it was large enough to seem bigger than he truly was. Mid-forties, broad shoulders, work boots, a jaw thick with stubbornness and something meaner. Even from the window I could feel the atmosphere around him change the space.
Predatory men carry their certainty like weather.
I opened the front door before he could knock and stepped outside, pulling it shut firmly behind me so he could not see anything beyond my body and the frame.
“Can I help you?” I asked.
He looked me up and down without embarrassment. Not a glance, but an inventory.
“Who are you?”
“Amanda Pierce. I own this property. And you are?”
“Brendan Low.”
He did not offer his hand.
“I’m looking for someone. Blonde girl. Sixteen. Skinny. You seen anybody like that out here?”