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because no man at the paper had been crazy enough to want to go to Afghanistan—or if one had, his wife’s objections had trumped ambition. She pressed her fingertips against her temples, erasing the memories. She needed Charlie’s attention while he was at least half-awake. “I went over to Joshua’s tonight. He doesn’t think his sister ran away.” Lola turned onto her back and lifted herself on her elbows. Cold flowed beneath the tented quilts.
    Charlie snatched at them and drew them tight. “Dammit! I was almost asleep.”
    Lola lifted the quilts again. “The women tonight were talking about some other girls who ran away, too.”
    Charlie pulled her back down beside him and wrapped the covers tight. “There was a rash of them for awhile. These things come in waves. A few years back, it was suicides. That was bad.”
    Lola took his hand and held it to her lips, warming it with her breath. “How do you know they ran away?”
    “Because it’s what kids do. And because nobody turned up dead.” His words caught on a yawn. “I’m off the clock. And you’re off the beat. Let it go.”
    Lola lay quietly, doing math as Charlie’s breathing slowed again. Half a dozen girls, maybe, from a school of about six hundred kids. Half of those students, girls. Probably the girls who went missing were older, maybe juniors or seniors. By the higher grades, the classes would have been decimated by the reservation’s gut-punch dropout rate. So, maybe six girls out of a hundred, max. A number to be noticed, absences keenly felt. Lola jostled Charlie. “Just because I’m asking about something doesn’t mean it’s for a story. Anybody would be curious. Four or five girls go missing in a year, that’s scary.” He lay motionless beside her. “Faker,” she said. “I know you’re not asleep.”
    He put his hands on her shoulder and turned her to face him. His hair still smelled of cold. “These were very troubled young ladies. I was aware of them before they went missing and I’m even more aware of them now. Painfully aware. But I’m not going to share the details with you. Look. We promised each other we wouldn’t talk about work. That’s the only way to keep either of us from getting in more trouble than we’re already in. Everybody already expects this thing to blow up in our faces.”
    Lola knew he was right. Dating a source broke every rule in the book. Except that she hadn’t been working for the Magpie paper when she’d started seeing Charlie. The job came later, and she’d almost lost it on her first day, when the editor had expressed relief that he’d finally have someone to cover the police beat, vacant since the murder of Lola’s friend Mary Alice. Lola had looked at the editor’s expectant face and gave two seconds thought to not telling him about her budding relationship with the sheriff. The words were out of her mouth before the thought was even completed. “I’m afraid the police beat won’t work,” she’d said.
    The editor had cursed so vehemently that she’d been halfway out the door, lecturing herself that she’d been a fool to consider working even temporarily in a place like Magpie. Then he called her back. “You’ll cover the reservation. I’ll put Jan on cops. I’m going out on a limb here. You so much as look sideways at a crime story and you’re gone. Got that?”
    Lola got it. His caution was fair, she had to admit. But she hated the feeling of being on some sort of long-term probation, of having to tiptoe around any number of topics with Charlie. She pulled the covers all the way over her head and let them muffle her words. “If we don’t talk about work, then what are we going to talk about?”
    Charlie dove beneath the quilts and ran his hands, warm now, from her shoulders to her thighs. “We’re not going to talk at all.”

CHAPTER FOUR
    A row of tricked-out double-cab duallies took up the parking spaces in front of Nell’s Café. Lola parked her own pickup down