by Adan Ramie
Harry’s smug smile was self-satisfied. “What could that have to do with her disappearance now? It’s been almost twenty years. I doubt it’s relevant.”
Cal shrugged as they walked into the diner. “You say it’s irrelevant, and I say you’re not checking all the facts.” He brushed a piece of lint from his shirt. “I might check it out on my own, see what I can scratch up.”
Harry tucked the file under her arm as they approached the bar and took their usual seats. “You want me to get the results of her latest pap smear, too?”
Cal wrinkled his nose. “If it’s relevant, you check it. Did anyone mention her having any woman troubles?”
The waitress walked up with two cups and a steaming pot of coffee. As he finished his thought, she made a face at him. “You two have the strangest cases.”
“Tell me about it,” Harry said, and slapped the file on the counter. It ruffled a couple of loose napkins, and sent the waitress to the floor to snatch them back up and shove them into her apron.
“What can I get for you today?”
“BLT, no mayo. Extra fries. Hot sauce,” Cal said.
“That is not breakfast,” Harry said to him, then turned to the waitress. “Wheat toast and an over-easy egg. I’m not very hungry.”
The waitress gave her a sympathetic look. “Case got you down?”
Harry shrugged. “It’s the job.”
“Anything I can do to help?”
Harry smiled at her and leaned against the countertop on one elbow. “Not unless you’re a psychic who can find missing women.”
“Who’s missing?”
Cal shot Harry a warning look. Harry didn’t meet his eyes.
“I’m sure no one you would know,” she answered.
The waitress shrugged and walked away to put in their orders. Harry swiveled a bit toward Cal on her stool.
“I don’t need a babysitter,” she said.
He chuckled. “Didn’t say anything.”
“Keep it that way.”
She brooded as she sipped the hot coffee in the little tan mug. She knew she could find Barsten if only she could find the right thread to pull. By all accounts, her life, like Sunny Galaviz’s, was typical of a grown abused child, but nothing jumped out at Harry as being the cause of her recent vanishing act. Her friends were as helpful as they could be, but they didn’t know anything, which left Harry to speculate on what paths to search. She just needed a nudge in the right direction to start her investigation chugging again, and get Briggs off her back.
“Here you go,” the waitress said. It seemed to Harry that she had only just left, but she stood in front of them with steaming hot plates of greasy diner fare. They each moved to make room for their food, and Harry caught her eye with a smile.
“Where would you go if you wanted to get lost?” Harry asked her.
Cal’s sandwich, halfway to his mouth, stopped in midair as he turned his head to look at his partner. His mouth was still stretched half open, and he gaped at her like a dumb gorilla.
The waitress frowned for a beat, and tapped her pen cap absently on her chin. After a moment, she answered, “Somewhere no one would think to look for me. Somewhere I didn’t know anyone. Out of town, out of the state – hell, maybe even out of the country if I was in bad enough trouble.”
Something clicked in Harry’s head, and she flashed the waitress another smile. The waitress smiled back, then turned to grab the coffee pot to refill their half full cups. Cal raised his eyebrows at Harry.
“What?” Harry asked Cal.
He turned back to his sandwich, took a bite, and shrugged. “Nothing,” he mumbled through a mouthful of food. “You’re the one looking at me like I just grew D-cups on my forehead.”
Harry rolled her eyes and turned to her plate. She chopped the yolk of the egg and watched it run out onto the stark white of the plate. It pooled against the crust of her toast as she mashed the white of the egg with her fork, her mind on the case that had been slowly slipping through her fingers. As much as she liked her job, she wouldn’t let Briggs stop her from choosing which threads to drop and which to follow. Whether the captain liked it or not wasn’t any of her concern.
CHAPTER 16
Lee pushed open the door to the motel room and walked inside. She sniffed the air, then regretted it; it smelled like bleach, but with a subtle sweaty undertone that reminded her of the first apartment she shared with Josie and Sunny. The place had been a dump, a former motel that had been hastily remodeled into apartments for those in the system too old to be housed with the kids and too young to be pushed out without a plan.
"IT'S PERFECT." SUNNY had been their resident optimist, and she had loved it from the minute they walked in. "I can't believe they're letting us bunk together."
Lee snorted. "Yeah, well, it's easier on them. The more kids they can shove together in a room, the better their numbers look, and the more they get from the government."
"That's not fair, Lee." Sunny put both hands on her hips, bracelets jangling on her arms like shiny plastic shirt sleeves. "They want to help us."
"No one wants to help us," Lee said, dropping onto one of the three cots placed haphazardly in the small room. "We're just easy money."
Josie strutted in all jagged hip bones and gangly legs. "Now you're just being stupid," he told Lee. "Us, easy? Teenagers are about the hardest things they have to deal with. Babies, now they're pretty easy. Old people, too. And animals. Animals are easy as hell. Try to sell them, and if they don't leave the shelter soon, you put them down."
"If they could put us down, they would," Lee said, and propped her head on her arms. "Either that or pimp us out."
"Don't say that," Sunny said.
She came from a long line of prostitutes and boozy bimbos that threatened to sell her once she was old enough to say "no.” She didn’t like where the conversation was going; it hit too close to home. Lee flipped over onto her belly and stared up at her friends. "What the hell are we supposed to do now?"
"Let's go get high," Josie suggested.
"Why don't we eat?" Lee groaned. "I'm starving."
Sunny glared at them. "We can't just bum around. This is our shot, guys, don't you realize that?"
"Our shot at what?" Lee asked, and rolled her eyes behind Sunny's back. Josie snickered.
Sunny whirled on her. "Our shot at getting out of the system. Our shot at never having to look back at the shelter. Our shot at making something of ourselves. We need to get jobs, pay bills, and treat ourselves like no one else ever has—like people." She looked from one friend to the other, huffing from the exertion of her speech. Lee and Josie were staring at each other wide-eyed. Sunny groaned and threw herself down on the bed. "Don't you guys ever want more?"
A tap on the door brought them all out of their reverie. "Do you have room for a fourth?" Lee craned her head to look around Josie. When he turned, Lee nearly choked. In the doorway stood the most beautiful girl she had ever seen. The girl had clear, naturally tan skin, and glowing amber eyes to match that met Lee’s and sent a shock from her chest all the way down her body.
A TAP ON HER SHOULDER brought Lee out of the memory. Ruby stood behind her with two duffel bags in her hands; Lee took a step inside and to the right. As Ruby brought in the bags, then went back out to the car, Lee wondered if maybe she hadn't misjudged her captive.
"Let me help you," she called out the door.
Ruby shook her head, grabbed a third bag from inside the car, and locked it with a key fob that she stuffed into her pocket. She walked in the motel room and put the bag onto a particle-board nightstand beside the bed. She kicked off her shoes, sat on the bed, and stared up at Lee expectantly.
"So, what do we do now?" she asked.
A hundred possibilities flew through Lee's mind as she studied the subtle curves of Ruby's body. She ran a hand through her hair and looked at her feet.
"Any crazy plans?" Ruby grinned at her. "Come on, you have to have something in mind.”
&
nbsp; Lee glanced over at the table beside her. A squat, 90's-style television set lay sleeping, and on top was the battered and taped remote control. She grabbed it and tossed it at Ruby; Ruby flinched, hands over her face, and the remote landed a foot in front of her.
"Let's see what's on TV. I'm tired,” Lee said.
She locked the door behind her and crossed the room. She paused for a moment, uncertain, before she pulled off her boots, got onto the bed, and laid down beside Ruby. Ruby settled back, her head leaned against the headboard, and flipped on the television. It came to life with a zap; a click announced each channel change.
"There hasn't been anything on television since 1993," Ruby complained.
Lee closed her eyes and laced her fingers together across her ribcage. "You'll find something interesting. Or, at least, something dumb enough to watch."
As she drifted toward sleep, Lee listened to Ruby's soft breathing and inhaled the sweet, natural smell of her. She reminded her very much of that girl she had known so long ago: Kay. She had darker skin, with caramel freckles and a wide, plum-lipped smile, but she shared something with Ruby that Lee couldn't quite put her finger on.
"You asleep?" Ruby asked.
Lee opened her eyes and turned her head on the pillow to face Ruby. As she watched, Ruby wiggled underneath the blanket, on top of the stiff sheet, and glanced over at her.
"Not yet."
"A lot on your mind?"
Lee laughed softly. "Always."
LATER THAT NIGHT, RUBY confessed a craving for salt and vinegar potato chips, so Lee drove them to the nearest convenience store that was open past midnight. While Ruby looked around, Lee walked outside and lit a cigarette.
The metal bench was bolted to the concrete, and still hot from the day's sun, so she leaned against it and tried to relax. She breathed in the smoke, focused on the burn in her lungs, and felt her nervous energy dissipate as she let it out with a whoosh of smoky breath. Cars zoomed by on the highway, paying no attention to her.
“Nice night.” The man’s voice startled her, and she coughed hard. He laughed. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you.”
Lee wiped her mouth and pulled herself up straight. “Nah, I’m just tired,” she replied. She glanced inside and saw Ruby hold two candy bars up for the cashier to see. Her smile was wide with innocent laughter.
“Got a smoke I can bum?” the stranger asked. Lee pulled out her pack and handed him one. “Light?” he asked, and she lit it for him with a pink disposable lighter she found in the room.
Lee sucked in one last puff of her cigarette, then stubbed it out in the large, kitty litter-filled tray beside the bench. She wiped her hands on her jeans, conscious that her palms had become clammy, and wondered why the man made her so nervous.
"Don't I know you from somewhere?" The man studied her face. He puffed on the cigarette as if he wasn’t really fond of the taste. He didn’t even inhale the smoke; instead, it pooled, milky, out of his mouth and floated past his eyes.
"I don't think so," Lee said, and searched the inside of the store through the large glass for Ruby's blue hat in vain, her hands in fists at her sides. She didn’t know how she had lost sight of her, but the idea of letting this man near her seemed dangerous.
The man shook his head and put out the half-smoked cigarette. He shifted almost imperceptibly toward her. "No, I'm pretty sure I know you from somewhere. A party?" He tried to catch Lee's eye, but she stared at her shoes as she kicked a pebble and stuffed her hands inside her pockets. He laughed. “Did we date or something?"
Lee looked up and stared him right in the eyes. "Look, man, I'm pretty sure I don't know you. I'm sorry if we met and I forgot, but I used to smoke a lot of weed, so my memory is pretty shit." She backed away; her right hand fingered the knife in her pocket, eyes still on him. "I have to go find my girlfriend."
"Whatever," he said, and rolled his eyes. "You don't have to be so rude."
Lee stopped as her eye caught Ruby moving from the back of the store to the front, her arms full of treats. "Dude, just get over it, okay?"
He stepped forward and grabbed her arm in one strong hand, and pulled her close to him until their noses practically touched. His body weight pushed them away from the window and the view of anyone inside.
"Get off me." Her voice was calm, but her belly boiled with rage. She tasted bile in the back of her throat, and felt a growl growing there.
"Listen, little girl. I don't take any shit, got it? Especially not from some drugged-out dyke." He rubbed himself against her, and she could feel the organ in which all his anger resided. She grimaced at the heat on her leg, and her breath caught in her throat as his other hand clenched around her neck and squeezed her windpipe. "If you know what's good for you, you'll just be a good girl and come with me, nice and quiet. No one else has to get hurt.”
Lee turned her eyes to look inside and saw that Ruby was still waiting in line behind a woman with several sleepy children; one of the children screamed, jumped, and kicked at her, his little red face full of fury.
“I know you don’t want me to hurt your girlfriend.”
Her eye twitched and she let out a long breath. Her gaze swept the parking lot as quickly as she could, and when she was sure no one was around to witness their exchange, she dropped her shoulders. She put her head down and made a face as if to cry, and let him lead her behind the truck stop to the bathrooms with her hands stuffed in her pockets.
A fine mist started to hit their heads and the man sneered. "I guess we're just going to get a little wetter than I thought.” He twisted her arm and shoved her against the grimy wall. Her head knocked against it with a thump. “It’s better for you if you just enjoy it.”
"Please," she said, and pulled her hands out of her pockets, the knife concealed in one palm.
"You don't have to beg," he said, one hand on her throat, the other on her pants. He wrestled with them for a moment before he had them unbuttoned and unzipped. As he slipped his hand under the waistband of her underwear and started to pull them down, the rain began to pour, and Lee's arm came up, slicing him open from one side to the other. His belly gaped wide like a sticky, blackberry smile.
"I don't beg," Lee said as his body crumpled to the wet pavement. "And no one takes anything from me, you piece of shit." She turned, kicked him with one booted foot, and spat on him as he bled. She crouched, the knife in her hand, so he could see the blood that coated its blade. “Don’t fight it. It’s better for you if you just enjoy it.”
"Lee?"
The cry made her twist where she squatted on the wet, bloody cement, and moonlight glanced off the dirty blade in her hand. Ruby stood a few feet away, her mouth open wide with shock. Her snacks lay around her feet, discarded and forgotten.
"Lee, what have you done?" Ruby croaked. One hand covered her mouth, and her head started to shake back and forth as if to wake herself from a nightmare. Lee moved forward and Ruby took a longer step back. Lee stopped, her bloody hand outstretched; it quivered as the chilly rain poured on her head.
"You don’t understand," Lee said. As she watched, the rain washed the blood from the knife, then her hand. "He was trying to rape me. He was a piece of human garbage who would have continued to destroy women if I hadn’t taken a stand," she finished, her voice hollow and soft.
The man behind her groaned. "Stupid bitch," he rasped. "You won’t get away with this."
Lee turned around and crouched onto the concrete, the knife still in her hand. "What do you think, Ruby?"
Ruby chewed one lip as she bent down to scoop up the plastic packages at her feet. The man groaned again, his voice hoarser than the last time he spoke. He took a deep, wet breath that filled his lungs with more water than air.
"I’ll be in the car," she said, then walked away.
CHAPTER 17
"We're paid up through the morning, but we can go now, if you want," Lee said, her body draped over the hotel’s desk chair, her leg swinging lazily up and down. She looked at Ruby
, her head flopped over the seat upside down, spilling hair over the side like creeping moss.
Since their trek to the convenience store, the two had only left the room to jog to the vending machine and back. The air in the room was stale, and hot with built-up tension. Neither had spoken about the deadly events of the previous night past agreement that they both needed to do laundry. Ruby pulled on her jeans, then sat back on the bed, the rest of her clothes momentarily forgotten.
"I don't know. I guess it would be a waste of money to leave just yet." She looked over at Lee. "Don't you think?"
Lee pushed herself up on her elbows in the scantily padded chair. "Let me find somewhere we can go. We can go out and eat, or drink, or both. Maybe we can find a bar or something. Anything to get out of this damn motel room before we go stir crazy."
The scene in the alley—raindrops falling on the bleeding body of a strange man, and Lee hovering over him – flashed in Ruby’s head, but she tried her hardest to push them away. Then, she stood abruptly and bent down to retrieve clean clothes from the bag beside the bed. She slipped off her old clothes, wrestled into the new ones, then walked over to where Lee sat. She leaned forward and dropped a kiss onto Lee's cheek, which turned pink in response. "Take me dancing, and I'll be happy to stay until morning."
When they got to the bar, their emotions were lit like lanterns all over their faces. Ruby was nervous but elated, and Lee was skeptical but impressed. The place was surprisingly full of a lively mix of men, women, and those in between. Lee led Ruby by the hand through a throng of sweating, bubbly people and to the bar to order drinks. The woman standing behind the corner raised her eyebrows and put down the glass she was drying, then jogged over to where they stood.
"Wow, more strangers," she said, and reached a hand over the bar to Lee. Lee shook, then the girl turned to Ruby, who did the same. "I'm Cate. This is my place. Where are you two ladies from?"