Graves took his boss's place, planting himself in my path.

"What do you want, Stafford?" he said, parroting his boss.

"I hear Sammi and her baby are missing."

"No, they're not!" Riley thundered from the back.

"You know, Don, you can eavesdrop better if you put a glass to the door. Come on, guys. Let's cut the crap. I'm not here to cause trouble – "

"You wouldn't dare," Riley said, striding out. "Not in my town."

I bit my tongue to keep from humming the Western theme again. "I'm worried about Sammi. Tess says she's disappeared."

"Really? Wow. Kid's had a record since she was thirteen, gets herself knocked up at sixteen, and now she's disappeared? There's a shocker, eh, Rudy?"

Riley lumbered to Graves 's desk and thudded his bulk into the chair. He picked up a car magazine and thumbed through it.

"So you think she ran away?" I said. "How did she get out of town? Taxi? No, wait, we don't have one. Bus? Train? Limo service? Hmmm, don't have those, either."

"She probably hot-wired a car," Graves said. "That's what she did the last time. Stole a cottager's SUV and rolled it."

"She went joyriding in a car with the keys left in the ignition. That was four years ago, and she hasn't been in trouble since. Has someone reported a car stolen?"

"That's privileged information."

"In other words, no. Or else you'd be saying Sammi did steal a car." I perched on an empty desk. "Look, I'm concerned, okay? Don't turn this into a pissing match. My employee has disappeared and I want to know if there's any reason to worry. Have you spoken to Janie?"

"Why?" Graves said, crossing the room to stand in front of me. "Sammi Ernst is gone, big deal. The Ernsts don't breed nothing but trash. Never have. If you were from around here, you'd know that. You feel sorry for that little baby? Look at Janie Ernst. I remember when she was a little baby herself, everyone saying how cute she was, how she'd be the one to break the cycle. But she wasn't, was she? Just passed it on to her brat, who passed it on to hers."