A Missing Teenager's Texas Getaway

"What if that's somebody's cat?" Foss asks.

"I don't care," Kenzie says. "It's too late now."

Jason Ryan

Before Mackenzie Foss moved from Minnesota to Flower Mound, she and the missing girl were best friends. Their friendship continued in Texas until Foss' dad, Shelby, unearthed the truth.

Mark Kartarik

Kenzie was staying with her aunt Lisa (above) when she disappeared for the last time.

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More About

• Kristopher Crawford
• Shelby Foss
• Marshall
• Kenzie Facebook
• Malcolm Robbins

I ask "What'd you name her?"

"Kitty Face."

"What?"

"Kitty Face. You know, like I kitty the fool."

"She doesn't have a mohawk," Foss says.

Eventually the conversation veers into what Kenzie is expecting at the police station. Before he picked her up from The Home Depot, Foss' dad promised that, if possible, Kenzie could stay with the Fosses in Texas. Kenzie, retelling her troubled relationship with her father, seems to think that's the best option available. But as we pull into the station, she also seems to understand that it might be a long shot.

"Is that an officer? I don't care. I'll get in his face. Bring it on, bro."

"I'm telling you," Shelby Foss says. "They might be your best friend."

We huddle in the station's "media room," a tiny space with a round table and five chairs. The first officer we meet indicates that the arrangement she's hoping for — to stay with the Fosses — may be possible. She's so happy, she even obliges when I ask her about three dark scars carved vertically down the back of her hand. A battle, she says, with a saw.

But then, after a brief disappearance, the officer returns.

"I have a little bad news for y'all," he says. "I just got off the phone with Officer Stark from St. Paul P.D.," the officer continues. "He's concerned you might flee."

"I won't," Kenzie says quickly, shaking her head once. She may be telling the truth. But she's already lied too much.

Five days after Crawford showed up at that Starbucks, and four days after Kenzie called saying she was in St. Louis, Crawford was pulled over while driving through Cameron, Texas, 150 miles south of Grand Prairie. The officer ran his ID, saw there was a warrant for his arrest and detained him to be extradited to Minnesota, where he will stand trial for deprivation of parental rights and violating a restraining order.

There was a passenger in his car, a teenage girl with purple hair who carried no identification. The officer let her ride back to the Dallas area with the driver who towed Crawford's truck back home.

Back in Dallas, Kenzie called her friend Foss and told her what happened. That's when Shelby Foss started pressing, and when his daughter fell apart: She'd been talking to Kenzie since late February. Skype, mostly, but she'd text Kenzie on Crawford's phone, too. She never knew where Kenzie stayed, but she knew she was always with Crawford, in Texas. She even met with them once, weeks back, when they all hung out at the Grapevine Mills Mall.

So no, maybe she wouldn't run if she were able to go back to the Foss house, back to her pit bull/German shepherd puppy and Kitty Face. But after five months of hiding, of lying, it doesn't matter.

Kenzie's pale face flushes. She folds her arms tightly against her chest, and her whole body seems to collapse inward. She crosses her legs. Her foot starts to shake. Suddenly, she's just a scared little girl with purple hair.

"What we have to do, we have to take you back to juvenile detainment," the officer finishes. "And you'll be transported back to Minnesota."

I search her face, waiting helplessly for her first tears to fall. They never do.

"Can I go to Starbucks first?"

She wants a Peppermint Mocha.

The officer shakes his head.

Later that day, I'll call Aunt Lisa to tell her the news. She'll be ecstatic and relieved, especially when I tell her Kenzie was in the car with Crawford. There will be more charges, more serious charges, she'll say, sounding certain. And Kenzie will be back in Minnesota, where she'll first be punished for truancy at the least. Then, Lisa says, she wants her niece, her beloved sister's daughter, to go to rehab for a couple of months. Maybe she'll get off the Marlboro Reds, the booze, the Peppermint Mochas. Maybe she'll dye her hair again. Maybe even blonde.

The police officer puts a hand on Kenzie's shoulder. She takes a long breath, then stands to hug her best friend. He walks her through a door, to a place where she can't run, while she waits for her father to arrive.