by Adan Ramie
"I don't really think she's missing," Evangeline said. Truman swore, but Harry kept her eyes on his sister. "A woman can never really be happy in catering to an Isles man." She turned to face Harry, expressionless. "If I were her, I would have begged her to take me."
"WELL, THOSE TWO WERE the creepiest people I've ever met in my life," Cal said as they drove back out of the picturesque neighborhood. "And I've met all kinds of psychopaths and weirdos."
Harry chuckled uneasily. "You got that feeling, too?" She signaled, turned onto a side street, and the neighborhood around her started to darken and go to seed. "What do you think she meant by that thing she said?"
"What? The, 'I wish I could be kidnapped, too,' thing?" he asked. She nodded and turned down another, seedier street. Cal whistled. "That girl was a whack job. Whatever happened to her in her childhood, it was rough."
Harry pulled out onto a larger street, and they were downtown again. She twisted through traffic like a snake, and they pulled up to the station in record time. "Neither of them seemed too worried that the wife-slash-sister-in-law was missing."
They walked up the steps and through the decaying copper doorway. They said their hellos to each passing suit, uniform, and coverall-clad CSS as they made their way to the elevator.
"You know what I don't get?" Cal asked, as he leaned up against the elevator wall and stared at the woman in front of them.
"Hm?" Harry asked. She recognized the D.A. but didn't want to garner any attention.
Cal cleared his throat, stood straight up, and watched as the door numbers lit up then dimmed in a slow procession. "Why would his sister stay around if she hated him and all the rest of the men in the family so much?"
Harry sighed. "It's hard to explain. With old money and old values like that, sometimes wills and trusts are written a certain way to, uh..."
The D.A. turned to look over the shoulder of her turquoise-edged gray jacket. "What Detective Thresher means to say is that the old bastards write their wills in such a way that their female heirs get nothing unless they're taking care of the men in the family, until they marry someone pre-chosen for them, at which point their husbands will take over their portion of the family estate."
As the detectives watched, she turned back to face the front. The elevator chimed and the doors pulled open. "It's called 'living in the past,' and wealthy assholes are extremely good at it." She adjusted her briefcase in front of her and stepped out of the elevator. "Good day, Detectives."
The doors closed and Cal turned to Harry, his mouth agape. "What was that about?"
"That was D.A. Shandra Castenby," Harry told him as the elevator started to move again.
"You mean the Shandra Castenby that was cast out of her family and their wills when she refused to quit practicing law and start pumping out Castenby-Dugrass heirs?"
"The very one," Harry said.
Cal chewed on a hangnail and looked at Harry through the corner of his eye not very subtly. The floors ticked up quietly, and he chewed until he had pulled the nail off his hand. He spat it onto the floor, then turned his head toward her and grinned.
"Oh, what?" Harry asked. Their floor number lit, the elevator settled, and the door pinged to warn that it was about to open. "Just ask."
"You used to date her, right?"
The door opened and Harry stepped off. She marched steadily through the hallway toward her desk without a word. Cal stayed on her heels like an overexcited puppy until she sat down in front of her computer. He plopped onto her desk and crossed an arm over his torso. The other arm propped at the elbow on top of it, and his fingernail went back into his mouth.
"You did, didn't you?"
Harry typed in her credentials to log onto the computer. As it loaded, she didn't answer, but pulled out the notepad on which she had scribbled down everything the two detectives remembered from their interview with Truman and Evangeline Isles. When the computer was ready, she opened a program, typed in her credentials again, then flipped to the page with their personal information written on it.
Cal dropped his hand and gave her a steady glare. He chewed a stray fingernail between his front teeth loudly. When she didn't respond, he groaned and nudged her with one sneakered foot. "Oh, come on, Thresher!"
Harry typed in Truman's information, then turned to face him with a sly smile. "Why is it so important?"
"I don't know," he said, and his hand returned to his mouth. He popped off a fingernail, then pulled his hand back out to examine the raw, bleeding edge. "I just like to know who my partner has done the nasty with so that I can be prepared when we get blindsided."
Harry snorted and turned back to the computer. She searched the file in vain, then entered in Evangeline's information. Nothing. "You're not going to be blindsided, especially not by Shandra. She's discreet." She tilted her head and gave him a pointed look. "And not a lot of people know about it, so I would prefer to keep that on the down-low for her sake and mine.”
Cal held up his hands in a gesture of no harm. "Hey, I'm a lockbox. No fire, no gun, no lock pick is getting into this brain," he said with a tap to his forehead.
Harry pushed back from the keyboard with a grunt. "I don't understand it. What do the Isles have to do with Sunny Galaviz and Lee Barsten? I can't find any connection, at least not one with a paper trail."
Cal spat out the last fingernail and let his arm drop. "Yeah, it's weird, right? It's like they just bumped into each other on the street or something."
Harry stared at him for a moment, then her face broke in a wide grin. "You're a genius, Cal."
He smiled back, then faltered as she got up and jogged toward the elevator. He struggled to catch up with her as the elevator doors were opening and she stepped inside. "What gives?"
Harry grinned up at him as they climbed onto the elevator. "I think I figured out a way we could possibly connect them all."
"Where are we going?" Cal asked.
The doors closed, and Harry mashed the button to take them to the next floor down. "We need to comb traffic footage. Where else do you bump into people more than in your car?"
Cal shook his head as the doors opened. "With the Moon Cycles case going, I doubt we can get any screen time with the IT guys. That internet weirdo has them scrambling."
"That may be true," Harry said as she glanced around. "But I think I know someone who would help me."
When her eyes lit on the person she was looking for, she licked her lips. Cal followed her eyes, then groaned and rubbed a hand over his face. "Are you really going to bother that girl? She's not going to help you. You're a total..." He cleared his throat as they passed a pinch-faced CSS with a low tolerance for depravity, then lowered his voice. "You're a total dick to her every time you see her."
"We've made our peace," Harry told him.
They walked up to a little desk in the south corner of the CSS division. Her head was down, but Harry recognized the shiny mass of barely-tamed mane from across the room.
"Busy," she announced as they stepped up to the desk.
CSS Busy Biznicki glanced up from the tablet she was unlocking with a wary look on her tired face. "Detectives Thresher and Gafferty. What can I do for you today?"
CHAPTER 22
Lee shoved a wayward lock of hair behind her ear and stared out over the frigid, wet parking lot. She and Ruby had walked through half the little strip mall before they plopped down on a bench together with expensive flavored coffees from a chain store.
"It's stupid cold out here," Lee said with a groan, and rubbed her hands together.
"What do you want to do? If we go back in any of those stores, they'll think we're shoplifting.” Ruby tangled her fingers with Lee's, pulled their hands into her lap and dropped her head onto Lee's shoulder.
Lee searched the parking lot with her eyes for something to keep them busy and warm. When she saw it, something pinged in her chest like a tuning fork. She pointed at the little salon and raised her eyebrows. "Do you want to get makeovers?" sh
e asked.
Ruby lifted her head to look at Lee's face. "Are you joking?" she asked, eyes narrowed. “No, really. You’re kidding me.”
"No, ma'am, not joking. I need a haircut." She ran a hand through her messy mane. "I've needed one for about a year and a half now," she said with a forced laugh. In truth, she had been trying to grow it back out, but they both needed a change. They could avoid being recognized and maybe live a few days longer.
Ruby pushed her long hair over her shoulder. "You’re right. A change is just what we need to put the past behind us for good.”
Lee smiled and stood with a hand out to help Ruby up from the bench. "What do you think you're going to do?"
Ruby linked her hand with Lee's as they walked toward the salon. "I guess I'll get it all cut off. Maybe I'll go really short." She grinned, the smile only half put on, and waited for Lee's approval like a child. “I always wondered if I could pull off a pixie cut.”
Lee wrapped an arm around her shoulders and pulled her in close to drop a kiss on her forehead. "You will be beautiful no matter what you do.”
When Lee and Ruby walked back out of the salon an hour later, they looked like different people. Lee's wild curls were tamed, straightened, dyed a darker shade of brown, and chopped to her chin. Ruby's long, chestnut tresses transformed into a buzz in the back and a shock of blonde in front. Both were confident that they didn’t bear much resemblance to the women who had left Truman’s house days before.
"Now," Lee said, walking them to the car. "We need some new clothes to complete the transformation."
Ruby shot her a look that Lee pretended not to see.
"NOW, WHAT YOU NEED to do is simpler than it sounds, so let me know if I lose you."
The Robert Redford lookalike in the cowboy hat put one calloused hand on the small of Ruby's back and turned her so that she faced the dusty road. He raised his other arm and pointed in the direction they came from. The easy swagger of his hips in tight jeans as he directed her was like sand in Lee’s throat.
"You got lost somewhere back in town, I imagine, so you need to get back that way. Take a left at that tree, a right after the third house, another left where it dead ends, and another right before the road turns into Main Street. Be careful through the neighborhoods, because they’re not lit up like you’re probably accustomed to."
Somewhere along the way, Lee had taken a wrong turn. They were hopelessly lost, but stubbornly Lee refused to ask for directions. Almost two hours in, Ruby forced her to pull over at a filling station. Lee stood by the car, arms crossed and feet planted wide. She wanted to walk over and end this man for his easy manner with Ruby, and for the way he looked at her – as if he wanted to bite into her like a ripe peach.
"Then, if you take a left, you'll hit the interstate in a few minutes. Take a right, and you'll be back here talkin' to me," the man said, and winked at Ruby. She laughed and thanked him; Lee could swear she saw Ruby blush. He nodded and tipped his hat, then watched her walk back to the car, his eyes trained on the back pockets of her jeans as if he were recording the sway of her hips with his mind.
Ruby cocked her head to the side and held her hands up, a question in her face. "What's wrong, Lee?" she called.
Lee shook her head dismissively and stared daggers at the man. He noticed her, frowned and turned, then walked behind the truck stop. Bathroom? He had no other business going back there. In Lee’s mind, either the man had to piss, or he was going to jerk off thinking about Ruby. Lee tried to fight the scene playing in her head, but she couldn't. She could feel her eyes narrow to slits.
"You can go ahead and get in. I'm just going to go use the bathroom," Lee said as Ruby got to the car. “Stomachache.”
"Are you okay?" Ruby asked. She searched her face, and Lee tried to empty the rage from her eyes.
"I need to handle something." Lee rubbed her stomach for effect. "It might get ugly. The kind of garbage you find at a truck stop can upset the digestion."
Ruby laughed uneasily and wrinkled her nose. "You're so gross," she said, and opened the car door. "Hurry up, okay?" she asked, her voice urgent.
Lee stepped forward and patted her arm, then walked away from the car and behind the building. She slipped the switchblade out of her jeans and into her palm, and then searched the dimly lit square for the man. Two doors, sure enough, and both were closed, but only one had a light on. She closed in, pulled back far enough for the door to swing open, and waited. Her blood rushed in her ears like a river in a thunderstorm. Euphoria hit her; before the pervert in the alley, she hadn’t felt this good since Josie got his hands on a fistful of Molly and shared them with her and Sunny.
Light spilled out into the darkness, and his shadow loomed in the glare. The switchblade slid open with a dull click. He didn't acknowledge her, but the feeling that welled inside of her like a bubble popped. As he came around the door, she plunged the knife into his chest. He made a noise like a frog croaking, and she knew she had punctured a lung. She pulled out the knife and stabbed him again. His blood poured hot and sticky on her shirt. She stabbed him until there was nothing in his eyes but the blank stare of death.
"It's a good thing I wear so much black, amigo. Well, I guess it’s bad for you." She wiped the knife on his jeans and pushed it back into her pocket. She hefted and pulled the man back into the bathroom, careful to wipe everything she touched, then locked and closed the door behind her and went into the next bathroom.
She had her t-shirt scrubbed, wrung out, and back on, and all the blood washed off her when there was a knock at the door. Frozen, she stood, mouth open, words not coming to her dry lips.
"Lee, are you okay in there?"
Ruby. Lee choked through the lump in her throat. "Yeah, I'm just finishing up. The sink totally hosed me. Just a sec and I'll be out."
"Okay, I'll be in the car," Ruby said.
"Good idea. Hurry up, and be careful," Lee replied. "The crazies come out at night, you know."
CHAPTER 23
Ruby drew a map of the confusing directions the man at the little convenience store had given her while she waited for Lee to get back from the bathroom. Something had seemed off, Lee had had a darkness in her eyes, but she had brushed her off and gone out behind the building. She tried to not worry while she found a radio station that wasn’t lost to static.
When Lee got back to the car, she pushed wet hair behind her ears and brooded. Ruby tried to talk and laugh, to lighten the mood, but Lee only grunted in response to her chatter.
"Hey, what's going on?" Ruby asked after an hour of noncommittal 'yeah's and 'uh huh's.
Lee looked over at her with a scowl. Ruby pulled back a little and ran a hand through her short-cropped hair. Since she got it cut, the gesture had become a habit.
"What made your life turn out the way it did?" Lee asked. She readjusted in her seat and focused her eyes on the road, but Ruby could see she was ready to listen, and some hidden dam inside her broke.
"I guess it started when I was a little girl," she confessed, and pulled her legs up underneath her in the seat. "My father got sick when I was nine years old. By the time I was ten, he was gone."
Lee nodded, her eyes still on the windshield in front of her, but she dropped a hand from the wheel across the seat and onto Ruby's leg. Ruby covered it with her own, and looked out into the night. Inky darkness interspersed with dim flecks of light. She watched as the twisted, shadowy shapes of trees and old, ramshackle houses passed by the window.
"My mom and I struggled. We had Dad’s pension, of course, but Mom hadn't worked since I was born. It was hard for her to adjust to life as the sole breadwinner of a household without my father. He had shielded her from so much, and me, too, I guess. We had no idea what we were up against."
Ruby watched the faded yellow line on the narrow, two-lane road as it melted by. She sighed, squeezed Lee's hand, and then let her head rest against the window. Her breath fogged the glass.
"What did she do?" Lee prompted after a moment.
"Hm?"
A light drizzle began to fall. Lee cleared her throat and turned on the windshield wipers. "What did she do so that the two of you could make it?"
"Oh. She worked for a while as a secretary at a local law firm, but they had to let her go. I kept getting sick and missing school, so she would have to call in to work. Those were really tight times."
"Did you blame yourself?" Lee asked.
Ruby turned to look at her. "How did you know?"
"Kids always blame themselves," Lee said with a shrug and a rueful smile. "Then what happened?"
Ruby traced the shadow of Lee's jaw with her eyes. "Then, she met a man. They got married, and he moved in with us."
Lee clenched her jaw and wrapped her fingers more protectively around Ruby's own. "How did that go?"
Ruby wondered at the response. "It was fine, really. She got to stay home again, he had a decent job, and we got to keep the house. Did I tell you about the mortgage? Mom told me later that she was just months from losing the house when she met Stephen."
"Was he good to you?" Lee turned off the windshield wipers, then flipped on the heat to clear the fog from their warm breath against the cold glass.
Ruby smiled. "Actually, he really was, and I think that's why I was so keen on the idea of getting married. Stephen was a saint. He helped me with my homework, kept my mom happy, and he really took care of us. The rest of my childhood was absolutely perfect."
Lee gave her an incredulous look. "So how did you end up with a chump like Truman?"
"I don't know." Ruby groaned and tucked her bangs out of her eyes. "I've thought about that a thousand times, and I just can't explain what was happening. I guess, when my mom died, I was lonely. I still had Stephen, of course, but it wasn't the same. I wanted that love back. And, like an idiot, I thought that Truman really loved me. He told me so."