by Adan Ramie
"Sure," Lee said. "I'll be waiting for you right here." She kept her eyes on the cashier, who filled a second bag with drinks, as Ruby made her way back to the bathroom.
"Are you two sisters?" he asked, his eyes on the bottles as he bagged them.
"No."
He cleared his throat as he pushed the bags toward her. "Can I do anything else for you?"
"Yeah," she said, and pulled a wallet out of her back pocket. "I need a pack of smokes."
"What kind?" he asked, and turned his back on her to walk to the plastic wall of cigarettes.
"Got anything on sale?" she asked. He held up a two-pack of blue boxes wrapped together with clear plastic. She gestured for him to bring them over, then slapped cash on the counter.
"$8.96." He pulled the cash to him and hit a couple of keys on the register. It popped open, he made change, then handed it back to her. "Have a nice day," he said.
"Likewise," she answered as Ruby walked back up to her.
"We ready?"
Lee nodded, grabbed the bags, and followed Ruby back out to the car.
RUBY HADN'T REALLY slept, so she was cranky and quiet. Lee, on the other hand, was full of energy and life. She chattered here and there, smoothly talked up the waitress to get a discount on the check, and even played a few songs on the old jukebox the diner had in a corner. Ruby glared at her from across the diner, and Lee tried to avoid her gaze. She didn't want to draw any attention to them.
She had just sat down from playing another song when the waitress came back to refill their coffees for the tenth time. Lee smiled up at her like a happy puppy. The waitress winked.
"Did you guys have a rough night or what?" she asked.
"What the hell does it look like?" Ruby snapped and turned her glare on the waitress. Lee winced. The waitress looked put off, but turned her eyes back to Lee and put a smile back on her face.
"I guess I can take that as a yes," she said, and slid the check to Lee so that their fingertips touched. "Do you need anything else?" She raised an eyebrow, and her lips curled into a seductive smirk.
Lee shook her head and pulled her hand away, then twined her fingers with Ruby, who only resisted for a moment. "No, thanks," she replied, "I have everything I need."
The waitress made a face and picked up a few of their empty plates. "If you say so." Her hips swung as she walked away. Lee rolled her eyes, then grinned at Ruby and pulled her hand back. She downed half her cup of coffee with a gulp and a wince.
"We need to pay," Ruby said, and nudged Lee out of the booth and onto her feet. Ruby went to the cash register to pay with Lee close on her tail. Their waitress's smile was all bared teeth, but Ruby’s was a self-satisfied smirk.
"Was everything okay for you today?" the waitress asked. Her eyes looked past Ruby and at Lee; Lee turned her eyes to a window and pretended to yawn and stretch to avoid eye contact.
"Oh, it was fine," Ruby said as she handed the waitress a crisp twenty-dollar bill. The waitress gave her the change and closed the register. "The service was a little trashy, though," Ruby finished, and the waitress let out an outraged gasp. "Have a wonderful day." Ruby walked away with confidence. Lee laughed and chased after her, then wrapped an arm around her shoulders as the door swung closed behind them.
CHAPTER 14
Ruby whistled as she got out of her car. She closed the door, walked around to the trunk, and pulled out half a dozen shopping bags. The decision to buy the gifts had been spur of the moment, but she felt a sense of pride: she was going to make a difference. When she got to the house, the door pulled open from inside, and the look on Truman's face told her she had made a huge mistake.
"Get in the house right now," he whispered.
Her stomach dropped down to her feet. She hadn't anticipated this. He had only struck her a few times, and each time he had promised he would try not to do it again if she would try not to do things to make him so angry. She stood quaking on the doorstep, not sure whether to comply or run.
Truman grabbed her by the arm and pulled her inside. He shoved her toward the kitchen and she almost lost her footing while he locked the door behind them. "Go into the kitchen and show me what my stupid wife bought today."
She knew she should obey, but she couldn't make her feet move.
"I said get in the fucking kitchen!" he yelled, and slammed the back of his fist into the wall. It crumpled under the force.
The stunned woman complied, her keys still in her hand, her lips pulled together in a pout that threatened to turn into a sob. She put the bags onto the counter, then stepped back with her head down like a chastised dog. Truman stepped up next to her. He put one hand on the back of her neck while he dumped out each of the bags.
"What is all this crap, Ruby?" In his hand, he held a box of wooden toy blocks and a pack of candy necklaces like they were alien artifacts.
"They're gifts for the children at the hospital," Ruby whispered, and Truman narrowed his eyes at her. His lip curled in what looked to Ruby like disgust.
"How easy it must be to be giving with someone else's money."
"I just thought it would be a nice gesture,” she plead, but clamped her teeth shut just before he slapped her in the face. Tears welled and fell from her eyes as blood pooled in her mouth and along the line of her bruised lips. "Baby, I -"
He raised his hand again and she clamped her mouth shut so hard she drew fresh blood. "We have no children, Ruby. We don't know any, and we decided we didn't want any." He punctuated the statements by banging the wooden box on the milky marble counter. "Do you remember that conversation, Ruby?"
"I remember," she said, her eyes on her shoes like a scolded, terrified child. "I'm sorry. I just thought..." she started, then shut her mouth.
His mouth twisted into a cruel smirk, and he dropped the toys back onto the table. His arms crossed over his broad chest, he leaned his weight back onto the counter and regarded her with eyes so crystal blue that she had once thought him a sweet, misunderstood god of a man. "What did you think?" he asked, his words dripping with condescension.
She shook her head in defeat. "Nothing. I'll take it all back tomorrow," she said, her voice low and near breaking.
She walked toward him with the intent to grab the bags and return them to the car. He shoved away from the counter as she neared him, his eyes on the door and his shoulders squared like a running back. When they met, his shoulder crashed against hers, and she was flung back against the refrigerator on her right with a sick thud that brought tears to her eyes and her stomach contents to her throat. He marched past her and stopped in the doorway. "Make dinner. I'm fucking starving," he said without turning to look back at her, then went on to his study and slammed the door shut behind him.
RUBY WOKE UP WITH A start. Her body instinctively jerked away from the bonds that kept her held fast until she blinked and the world around her came into focus. She was in the car, and the bonds were only the straps of her seatbelt. She turned her head and Lee looked back with wide eyes.
"Bad dreams?"
Ruby nodded. She rubbed the heels of both palms in her eyes, then squinted all around her. "Where are we?"
"We're at a motel just outside of a town whose name I can't pronounce. I thought we could maybe take a break from driving and get some rest in a real bed." She held the keys in her hands, but she didn't move to get out of the car. She watched Ruby and waited.
Ruby looked at the shabby facade of the little motel. "You're going to trust me not to run when you fall asleep?"
"At this point, I think maybe you realize that neither of us is safe," Lee said, hesitant. "You have to understand that the people who may or may not be coming after us are monsters in different but equal ways."
"Yeah." She watched the motels Vacancy sign flicker neon pink against a dark sky that threatened rain. "I don't have anywhere to go."
They sat in silence for a moment before Lee opened the door. "Let's go check in." She stepped out onto the rocky parking lot, then leaned back
down and rested her arms on the roof. She dropped her head and peeked through the open door.
"I can do it," Ruby started, but Lee shook her head. "Oh, you really don't trust me not to run."
Lee stared at her a moment, then pushed off the car and gestured with a hand for Ruby to get out of the car. Ruby got out, and they closed both doors with echoing finality. As they walked, Ruby cast a glance in her direction and found that Lee's eyes were on her.
"You're right, you know."
"How's that?" Lee asked.
Ruby stopped before they walked in the motel lobby entrance. She shoved a hand in her back pocket and chewed on her lip. "Whatever this is, and whoever you are, I'm safer with you than I am without you. Truman is going to kill me if he ever finds me."
Lee nodded and opened the door. "After you."
They walked into the motel lobby, and Ruby was thankful for the dim lighting. The man behind the counter stared at his phone; a greasy mop of sun-bleached blond hair hung over his forehead and obscured his face. Lee walked up to the desk while Ruby waited behind and turned to stare out the grimy window into the dusty parking lot. Their car was one among only four in the lot. When the desk clerk didn't look up from his phone, Lee pushed down on the rusty bell marked "Ring for Service."
The clerk sighed and put his phone down on the desk behind the counter. He tossed his hair, but it fell right back onto his face. Ruby turned in time to see Lee slide a hand over the gun tucked into the back of her jeans before she grabbed for her wallet.
"I need to reserve a room," she said.
The clerk stared at her. Ruby took a few steps toward them and glanced around for cameras. She couldn't see any, but that didn't mean they weren't there.
"One bed, one night," Lee said, her wallet in hand.
"Oh," the clerk said, and pulled out a paper register. "It's after three, so it would cost the same to do two nights as it would to do one."
"We only need one night." Lee's teeth clenched. Ruby stepped forward and put a hand on her bicep. Lee turned wide, angry eyes on her, and Ruby gave her a soft smile. Lee sucked in a slow, deep breath.
"I'm sure we wouldn't mind two nights. That gives us more time to sight-see, right, honey?" Ruby squeezed Lee’s arm.
"Right," Lee said after a tense moment. Her teeth were still bared, but the muscle in her jaw had slackened, and Ruby hoped they could leave without a fight. Ruby didn’t want to see the similarity between Lee now and Truman at the beginning of her marriage, so she pushed the thought out of her head.
"How much?" Ruby asked the clerk.
He looked them over, tossed his hair away from his face, and looked down at the register. "That's thirty-five. Forty with breakfast."
Ruby rubbed the pad of her thumb across Lee's bicep as it flexed with the pressure of her tightened fist. "I don't think we'll have the breakfast. We can go have breakfast in town. Where do we sign?"
The clerk plopped the register book on the counter, and pulled a pen on a chain up from where it was stuck on the desk. "Just one of you needs to sign." He looked around them as if to check that they were alone, then leaned forward. "Most people don't put their real names. That's cool; we don't really care. But management gets pissy if you write something obvious like an actor's name, so can you make it believable?"
Ruby wrote down the first name she could think of: her mother's. Lee handed him thirty-five dollars, which he rang up and stuffed into the ancient cash register. He plucked a key strung onto a small piece of 2"x2" painted wood from the pegboard behind him and handed it to her.
"Thanks for your business, Miss," he said, and pulled the ledger to him. "Miss Stonestreet. You ladies have a nice night."
They turned to leave, and he plopped down, hair like an oily waterfall in his face, and resumed thumbing the screen of his phone.
"Pleasant," Ruby said as they walked out. From the corner of her eye, she saw Lee smile, and she relaxed her grip on Lee's arm. Another volatile situation managed. She was almost getting good at it.
CHAPTER 15
“So, you really don’t have a clue yet on what happened to your missing girl.”
Harry dropped the notepad onto her desk and crossed her arms. “It’s not that I don’t have a clue. I don’t have an answer, but that’s not stopping me.”
Briggs tapped a finger on her forearm, her eyes squinted as she scanned Harry’s face. Then she dropped her shoulders. “If you don’t find something soon, we’re going to have to move on. There are other cases you could be working – like the dancer homicide.”
“If I find Barsten, I find out more about the sicko that killed the dancer. It all traces together.” She clenched her fists tight at her sides, and a vein stood out on her forehead. "I know what I'm doing, Captain."
The older woman took a step forward, and stopped in front of Harry with her head turned away from the sight of the other officers in the room. “Continuing to speak to me as if I’m not your superior will be very dangerous for your career, Detective Thresher. That sort of backtalk might have worked where you came from, but it won’t go over here. There are consequences to insubordination in my house. Are we clear?”
Harry gave a curt nod, and Briggs smiled. “Am I free to go?” Harry asked.
“You are. I want a progress report by the end of the week. On the murdered dancer, not the junkie who is probably laid out in a flop house somewhere with a needle in her arm."
“Yes, Captain.”
Harry stood fuming as Briggs walked back into her office. Her teeth squeaked with the force of her grinding, and she cracked her neck twice in succession. When a hand dropped on her shoulder, she had to stop herself from swinging a fist without looking.
“Whoa, whoa!”
Her partner, Cal, stood behind her with one arm raised to protect himself and a goofy grin on his face. She hopped to her feet and punched him hard in the shoulder, then strode across the room to the elevator. His long, slow strides matched her fast, purposeful ones, and they reached the doors at almost the same time.
“You’re begging for a beating, Cal,” she said.
He snorted. “Not likely, compadre. What’s got you so jumpy?”
She clenched her teeth again as the elevator doors opened. CSS Biznicki stepped off the elevator in front of them. As they stepped in, she reached out an arm to Harry.
“It's nice to see you again, Detective Thresher.” The girl oozed excitement from her barely managed curls down to her glossy black loafers.
Harry shook her hand roughly before she dropped it and mashed the button for the ground floor. The girl bounced on her heels in front of them while they waited for the doors to close.
“I’ve read all about you. You have an amazing record, you know.”
“Yeah?” Harry asked. “Did my record say I needed a cheerleader, too?”
The doors closed, but not before she caught sight of the hurt look on the eager rookie’s face. Harry pushed down the twinge of guilt that burst in her gut. Cal gave her a sidelong glance.
“Damn, what did she do to you?” he asked
“Another one of your little pet projects?” Harry shot back with a sneer.
He turned his eyes back to the door. “I don’t know her any better than you do, but you didn’t have to bite her head off.”
The doors opened and Harry stepped out onto the ground floor. Cal kept pace beside her as they walked across the lobby and outside to the parking garage. Harry pulled open the door to the car and slid inside. Cal got into the passenger seat without another word. Harry cranked the car and started the air conditioner on high. The two listened to the hum of the car for a moment before Harry turned an inch in her seat to look at him out of the corner of her eye.
“Briggs said if I don’t make any headway on this MP case by the end of the week, she’s going to make me drop it. But I know there’s something here. This girl didn’t just run away like a cranky adolescent, and especially not the day one of her best friends gets savaged to death in her apartment
. It’s not true to form, and it feels weird. And we didn’t get anywhere with that positive identification. Turns out Barsten was a twin and never knew it.”
Cal grinned. “Damn, Thresher. You’re getting nowhere fast. I guess it’s a good thing I’m here. We can put the pieces together, link the disappearance to the murder. It's cake, Thresher."
Harry laughed out loud. “You think you can solve something I can’t? In your dreams, Gafferty.” She put the car into reverse and backed out of their usual parking spot. As they left the garage, she tipped her head to the guard on duty.
“You think it’s a coincidence that you can’t make headway the week I’m out on brother bear duty? In your dreams, Thresher. You need me.”
“I need you like I need a pain in my ass.”
“Yet here we are,” he answered.
“How is Cynthia?” she asked.
“Baby Liliann is doing great, but Cyn still can’t really get around. She swore she would be up before I got back, though,” he said, though he sounded unconvinced.
Without taking her eyes off the road, Harry pulled the file out from between the seats and handed it to him. “This is what I have on Barsten and Galaviz. See if you can figure out a new lead.”
As Cal went through the file, Harry drove the cruiser across town and went through the contents of the file in her head. By the time they reached the diner, they had both perused the facts. Harry parked the car, then reached out a hand for the file. Cal handed it back open, and mashed one long, stubby finger down on a notation in the juvenile record file inside the larger case file for Malena Barsten.
“What is it?” she asked. As much as she wanted to solve the case, she would be sore for weeks if Cal found the clue that led them straight to the missing woman.
“You think we should try to get more information on the last set of foster parents? They both died when she was a kid. That might have something to do with why no other fosters wanted to take her in after that.”