Slay Bells Ringing

by Emily James

  She didn’t have to finish her sentence. I knew. Tires could be replaced, but I only had one life. No one would trust me now. I was a snitch in their eyes. My tires might not be the only thing damaged next time.

  The only way to redeem this was to find Dwayne and continue with our plan. We could still retrace Jimmy’s regular route together. Dwayne knew it better than anyone.

  Anything we found would help prove Carla was innocent. And it’d also prove me innocent. It’d show them that I hadn’t turned Carla in.

  That shouldn’t have mattered. I didn’t really owe them anything, not even loyalty. Carla had threatened and coerced me almost the whole time I’d known her.

  But I wanted to be the kind of person others searched for when they went missing. I wanted to be the kind of person who searched for others if they went missing. I didn’t want to be able to vanish again without someone missing me.

  Right now, the only people who’d miss me happened to be two homeless people. I’d made sure to distance myself from Nicole enough that she wouldn’t even realize I was gone.

  Maybe I should say one homeless person since right now Carla would only come looking for me to beat me up.

  I crawled to my feet. Lillian didn’t offer me a hand. It seemed harsh, but I could understand. In her own way, she couldn’t afford to make connections, either.

  Dwayne didn’t seem to be anywhere in the room. But he should have been, since it was meal time.

  Given what had just happened, if I were him, I’d be trying to walk to the station in pursuit of Carla. It was a long walk, but it was my best guess. If he wasn’t at the police station, I’d have to find a way to inconspicuously stake out the mission until he came back.

  Lillian walked me out. She must have been more worried for my safety than I’d realized.

  She watched until I was in my truck, engine started and doors locked.

  I headed in the direction of the police station. I wasn’t far down the street before my headlights illuminated a man in a long, raggedy coat walking along the sidewalk. I recognized Dwayne’s blond ponytail sticking out from under his winter hat.

  I put on my hazard lights and slowed down next to him. I rolled down my window. “Hop in. I’ll give you a ride there.”

  The look he gave me was colder than the air rushing in through my open window. He thought I’d turned Carla in, too. “I’d rather walk.”

  “I didn’t tell the police about the socks.”

  His expression said Sure, and I’m the President of the United States. “You were the only one who knew.”

  I hadn’t been the only one, but Ethan was still volunteering at the shelter. If I revealed that it’d been him, he might not be safe there, either. It wouldn’t be right of me to put him in danger to earn back Dwayne’s trust.

  “We need to stick to the plan, now more than before.” I felt like I was having to scream to be heard. I threw my truck into park, turned it off, and jumped out. I scurried after him. “We can still find evidence of who else might have killed Jimmy. It’ll help her.”

  Dwayne stopped. He turned to face me. “The police aren’t going to look into anything we find now, and a public defender won’t have time, even if they believed her.”

  “I can call my lawyer friend. She sometimes does pro bono work.”

  The words were out before I could stop them, and then I couldn’t grab them back. I had no right to bring Nicole into this. And to offer up her services for free. Though Carla’s case was exactly the kind of thing she thrived on—an innocent person, falsely accused, with all the evidence pointing toward them.

  Dwayne raised an eyebrow. “Your promises don’t mean a lot anymore.”

  I stepped back. This wasn’t fixable. They weren’t ever going to believe me, probably not even if I told them about Ethan. They’d just think I should have worked harder to stop him or that I should have warned them.

  They’d be right. I should have warned them. I hadn’t wanted Carla to run, but I should have warned them. Trying to protect them from the truth had been a mistake on my part.

  A mistake that was going to cost me my only connections in this city. It was stupid of me, but with all the hassle they’d brought into my life, at least I hadn’t felt so alone.

  Maybe alone was all I’d ever be. Maybe alone was better.

  But I couldn’t leave Carla to the wolves. I bore some responsibility for her arrest. I’d pointed out that she’d taken Jimmy’s socks, and Ethan overheard.

  I fished a piece of paper and a pen out of my purse. I wrote down Nicole’s information. “This is her name and number. You can tell her you got it from me or not. But I think you should call her.”

  Dwayne learned backward. His gaze flickered from the paper in my hand to my face and back again. He snatched the paper from my fingers and shoved it into his coat pocket. “I’ll think about it. Whatever happens now, Carla and I will handle on our own. Without you.”

  Chapter 13

  Dwayne refused to even allow me to drive him to the police station. He was probably afraid I would have spent the drive trying to convince him to continue with our plan to go back along Jimmy’s route and check the dumpsters.

  I wouldn’t have.

  The idea had been a long shot. It’d been the only shot we had, but they’d now both made it clear that I wasn’t welcome anymore. I hadn’t really been their ally. I’d been convenient.

  I tried not to let it sting, but for once, Fear’s voice in my head was drown out by the memory of Jarrod’s telling me I was worthless and unlovable and lucky he put up with me because no one else would.

  I drove around for half an hour despite how wasteful it was. I couldn’t stay in any of the places Jimmy, Dwayne, or Carla had told me about. If the police released Carla for whatever reason, she might be angry enough to hunt me down.

  This wasn’t how I’d expected this week to go. I’d almost been looking forward to serving Christmas Eve and Christmas Day meals at the homeless shelter. At least I wouldn’t have been alone for the holidays.

  I gave myself a shake. I’d been alone for most of the last year. Even before that, living under Jarrod’s control hadn’t been emotionally fulfilling. I was better off alone. I knew how to be alone. I could handle this.

  The first order of business was a safe place to park for the night.

  I headed to the opposite side of town from the mission and the areas Dwayne and Carla frequented. It was mostly subdivisions, but there were a few stores with parking lots in the back that would keep me off the street and mostly out of sight.

  I pulled into the lot of a second-hand clothing store.

  The problem with parking in a new spot was that I didn’t know the routines—how early did the first employee arrive, did they have a security company hired to patrol the area, did they have security cameras?

  While I couldn’t control for the first two, I could go back to my method for checking for cameras. Since it was already dark out, it was as easy as pulling out my cell phone.

  I slipped out of the cab of my truck. I didn’t see any pinpricks of light with my naked eye. If I went to the camera screen on my phone and saw one on the screen, I’d know the business had an infrared security camera. The trick had saved me more than once from arousing suspicion by showing up repeatedly on a security video.

  I checked my screen. No red dots.

  I hit the home button on my phone and slide it back into my jacket pocket. This was probably the safest place for me to camp for the night that I was going to find on short notice.

  I headed back toward the back of my truck but stopped. Security cameras. Why hadn’t I thought of it before?

  Maybe we didn’t have to search the dumpsters to see if Jimmy found something that got him killed. We might be able to get lucky and one of the nearby businesses caught something on surveillance video. A lot of businesses now had cameras guarding the backs of their stores.

  The police wouldn’t have thought to check for security cameras alon
g Jimmy’s regular route because they believed he’d died in the train yard. Businesses didn’t look at their footage unless the police asked for it or they’d been robbed.

  And Jimmy wouldn’t have adapted his route to avoid cameras. He must not have known how to check for them because Dwayne and Carla didn’t seem to know how to check for them. They would have offered up that trick as a bribe to get me to help them if they had.

  Unfortunately, it also meant they’d probably think I was making it up. If they’d even listen to me in the first place. If I could find Dwayne. That was a lot of ifs. The police weren’t going to let me visit Carla, setting aside the fact that I didn’t think I was brave enough to go into a police station and try.

  I drove back toward the police station. Even with how long I’d been roaming around the city, Dwayne probably wouldn’t have reached the station yet. It had to be a good ninety-minute walk.

  He wasn’t anywhere along the route that I took.

  I turned back. They wouldn’t have let him see Carla any more than they would have let anyone see Carla. Only her lawyer would have access to her. That meant that if Dwayne had reached the police station, he’d be sitting in the lobby, waiting to find out if they arrested her or set her free for now.

  All I had to do was stick my head inside.

  I wouldn’t have to talk to any police officers.

  No matter how many times I repeated that to myself on the drive back to the station, my heart wouldn’t slow down. It was like it was trying to run away from the station as fast as I was driving toward it.

  I parked in the parking lot and headed for the door.

  Fear had given up on screaming at me that I was heading into a place full of people who’d turn me over to Jarrod and had instead moved down into my stomach, where he seemed intent on making me sick.

  It’s just the lobby, I reminded myself. You don’t have to go any further than the lobby.

  If Dwayne wasn’t there, I’d be reduced to hoping he showed back up at the shelter. But the longer we waited to check for cameras, the more likely it would be that any evidence would be taped over. Most places didn’t keep their tapes for longer than two weeks.

  Two weeks was tomorrow night—Christmas Eve. If we didn’t go tonight, we might lose our chance.

  My arm was so weak as I grabbed the station door that it took me two tries to pull it open.

  Three people sat in the lobby.

  None of them were Dwayne.

  I backed out. One step outside the door, I gulped in a huge breath of cold air.

  In hindsight, it was almost better Dwayne hadn’t been there. I might not have had enough breath to talk to him, and he wouldn’t have wanted to come with me. That would have only drawn more attention to us.

  All I could do now was drive slowly back toward the mission again. Ideally, I’d see him on the way.

  If not, I’d have to get someone to let me in and then find someone else who could go into the men’s dormitories to look for him.

  * * *

  I’d expected to have to try calling to get someone to let me into the mission, but there were extra cars in the mission parking lot when I arrived, and the front doors were unlocked.

  A sign taped to the front door said the weekly AA meeting had been moved to a new room. The meeting had to be why the doors were open when they usually locked after the mission reached capacity.

  Dwayne had said that he and Jimmy met at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. With everything that had been happening, he probably needed a meeting to keep from relapsing. I might find him there, and that’s why I hadn’t been able to find him at the police station or anywhere along the route. He might have turned back after I talked to him, remembering what day it was.

  Thanks to the room change, I knew exactly where to go.

  The halls were empty. The clients would be in the dormitories by now or taking their turn in the showers.

  The door to the room where the meeting was being held was closed. I checked the handle. It wasn’t locked.

  But I didn’t feel right intruding. I wasn’t in recovery. I didn’t belong there, listening to their private stories.

  Based on what I could see through the window, this was the only exit other than out a window. If Dwayne was inside, he’d have to pass by me.

  I leaned against the wall and waited. Ten minutes passed, then twenty. Finally, the door swung open and people filtered out.

  I was so busy watching for Dwayne that I jumped when someone said my name.

  Ethan stood in front of me. Another person came out, and he moved to the side, out of the flow of human traffic. “I heard about what happened tonight. I didn’t think you’d still be here.”

  I wanted to say No thanks to you. Except my brain had been trained to not say what I was thinking. I couldn’t get the words to come out.

  Besides, if Dwayne wasn’t in the meeting, I’d need a man to go into the dormitories looking for him. I couldn’t afford to anger Ethan.

  I leaned to the side slightly to make sure I could still see everyone leaving the room. “I need to find someone. The man I was with in the alley. He has a long, blond ponytail.” I reached my hand up to my own braid. “His name is Dwayne.”

  “Yeah, I’ve seen him in meetings a couple of times, but he wasn’t here tonight. I’m almost two weeks sober now.” Ethan smiled, and his rounded cheeks gave him a weirdly cherubic appearance. “I was getting so bad that I was drunk at work even, while driving my truck. Now I’m counting off the days to my one-month chip.”

  That felt like something I should congratulate him for, but I wasn’t sure if that would be considered patronizing or not. To be safe, I returned his smile, making sure to force it up into my eyes even though the last thing I felt like doing was smiling. “Would you mind looking into the men’s dorms to see if you can find him?”

  Ethan nodded. “Sure, if it’s that important to you.”

  I trailed after Ethan as he ducked into each men’s dormitory.

  He came out of the last one with the look of a man who’d dropped a twenty-dollar bill somewhere and couldn’t find it. “It doesn’t look like he’s here.” He raised his hands in a shrug. “What did you need? Maybe I can help.”

  He should help. This was partly his fault. But it wasn’t like he would know Jimmy’s route. “I don’t believe the woman who took the dead man’s socks killed him.”

  Ethan’s mouth opened, but I shook my head.

  “There’s too much that doesn’t fit, and I don’t think the police have the whole story. I wanted to go look for security cameras along the route where Jimmy went dumpster diving to see if there are any cameras and if they might have caught something. I don’t think he died in the train yard. I think he was planted there. I wanted to find Dwayne so he could take me along the route.”

  Something I couldn’t read flickered across Ethan’s face. Hopefully it was a touch of guilt for turning Carla in sooner than he promised me.

  “That’s a lot of I thinks,” he said.

  Jerk.

  For a second, I thought someone had called him a jerk out loud. Then I realized I’d thought it. It’d been so long since I allowed myself to even think what I really felt if it was negative that I didn’t recognize my own thoughts.

  Ethan sighed. “But I do owe you. I didn’t give you the full time I promised.” His gaze swung along the length of the hallway like he didn’t want anyone to catch him going along with my craziness. “I can take you. I don’t know Jimmy’s route, but this is my neighborhood. I collect here. I know every dumpster he might have gone to.”

  Maybe I shouldn’t have called him a jerk—even if only in my head—after all. Not only would his assistance make sure I didn’t miss one, but it kept me from having to traipse around the city alone in the dark. “Thank you.”

  “Don’t thank me.” The tone of his voice sent a shiver down my arms. “I don’t deserve it.”

  The way he said it made me feel like the jerk. He’d done something
wrong, but now he was trying to make it right. I didn’t need to rub his mistake in his face.

  Instead of saying all that, instead I said, “Your truck or mine?”

  Chapter 14

  Ethan’s pickup truck smelled a bit like stale beer and leftover fast food containers. I regretted taking his vehicle as soon as I opened the passenger-side door. If we’d taken my truck, I would have had to pay for the gas, but I would have been a lot more comfortable. As it was, it took all my self-control not to press my scarf over my nose.

  “I’ll take you along the same route I drive the truck,” Ethan said. “That way we won’t miss any.”

  I nodded. My legs felt like I had restless leg syndrome with the way they wouldn’t stop jiggling and twitching. My body had been on high alert since I climbed inside.

  It was silly. I didn’t need to be afraid in this situation. I’m sure a counselor would tell me that I had PTSD and was nervous around men now. Which was true, but also not true. I hadn’t been nervous around Jimmy. Or around Dwayne.

  Ethan was already driving down the road, and I couldn’t think up a good excuse for why I suddenly needed to back out of something so important.

  And I shouldn’t. If I waited for Dwayne, any tapes on a two-week loop would have taped over any evidence of what happened to Jimmy that night.

  Ethan stopped at each dumpster location and patiently waited while I hopped out and scanned the area with the camera feature on my phone.

  By three-quarters of the way through the route I remembered from my time with Dwayne and Carla, I’d only found two dumpsters caught on camera.

  The owner of the drycleaner was a woman who looked ten years older than I did. She promised to call the police station and find out who to send her footage to right away. Then it took me another five minutes to get away as she told me how she’d tried to convince other businesses on this street to set up cameras as well to deter crime, but she hadn’t had much success.