The Lost Ones Read Online Free

tears faced a brand-new flat-screen television. Stacks of Us Weekly and People magazine littered the ground next to wrappers for Jenny Craig weight-loss bars.
    Kenny ventured down the hallway. Quinn heard doors opening and closing.
    The house looked to be stuck in time, with appliances nearly thirty years old. The gas oven contained half of a pizza. The pizza waited, stale but not covered in mold. It looked like some squatters had entered a time warp, not bothering to change anything, only trash what was there. An old hi-fi system sat in the corner loaded down with a Peggy Lee 33.
    Quinn followed Kenny into the back rooms.
    “Quinn?”
    Quinn stopped at a closed door, opening it wide with his knuckles.
    The room had been painted pink several decades ago and splattered with wallpaper murals of bunnies, chickens, and baby frogs. There were rainbows and big shining suns. Most of the murals hung halfway off the wall, the glue weakening from years of summer heat. The room stank of fermented urine and the open jugs of spoiled milk on the filthy blue carpet.
    Kenny moved ahead, tripping on the toy trucks and stuffed animals worn down to the thread. He turned to Quinn. The big man’s eyes filling, unable to speak.
    Thirteen rickety cribs patched from lumber scraps filled the room.
    All thirteen were empty.

4

    “WHAT’D YOU DO THEN?” JEAN COLSON ASKED.
    “Not much to do,” Quinn said. “They’d shagged ass out of the county, probably the state. We’ve got bulletins out on their vehicles.”
    “And the children?” she asked, out of earshot of her grandson Jason, who’d wandered over to an old shed where Quinn kept the cane poles and fishing tackle.
    Quinn shook his head, watching Hondo following the boy, nudging him at the butt to hurry up. Both boy and dog impatient to get to the pond.
    “Memphis police are keeping watch,” Quinn said. “Girl’s in rough shape, Momma.”
    Jason returned and tugged at Quinn in the fading golden light, a stretch of pecans behind him. He wore a snap-button rodeo shirt and Wranglers with knee-high rubber boots. Sometimes when he was with Quinn or his grandmother, people would stare. He was a light-skinned black child with the eyes of Quinn’s father, an over-the-hill Hollywood stuntman who no one had seen in years.
    Jason had been with Quinn’s mom now for the last three weeks, left for the fifth time by Quinn’s sister, Caddy. There were excuses, legitimate reasons, and promises to return at Christmas. A cell phone number she’d left turned out to be disconnected.
    “He doesn’t have to stay,” Jean said. “I know y’all are busy.”
    “I’ll call if we get word on the Torres folks.”
    “Is Lillie coming over?” she asked.
    “Why do you ask?”
    “No reason.”
    “You asked.”
    “She’s not as tough as you think.”
    “Lillie was the top shooter on the Ole Miss rifle team,” Quinn said. “I’ve seen her knock a three-hundred-pound man to his knees. You want to me to buy her roses?”
    Quinn’s mother grinned and walked back to her Chevy, wearing a new sweatshirt she’d bought on a recent trip to Graceland for Elvis’s seventy-fifth birthday. After a few glasses of cheap wine, she’d recount that time in ’76 when The King touched her hand at a show at the Mid-South arena, sighing his signature finale of “Can’t Help Falling in Love,” draping a yellow scarf—that she still owned—around her neck. Romantic to a fault.
    Jean waved and drove off, Quinn waving back and reaching into his old Ford to the gun rack for his Remington 870 pump. He pocketed a few 12-gauge shells, and then snatched the cane poles from the shed.
    “Ready?” Quinn said, pulling Jason’s ball cap over his eyes.
    Jason nodded, taking the poles from Quinn, serious on the walk down the well-worn path, through the rows of cedar and oak, scrub pines, and gum trees that had grown tall in the neglect of the old property. They stopped at the edge of the levee, sun setting over the