by R. H. Herron
He coughed, a raspy sound.
Jojo twisted in her seat. “Hey! Are you okay to be out of the hospital?”
Her father paused and looked down at himself. His shirt was buttoned crooked. He pulled the hem. “I feel pretty busted. But you’re okay, and that’s all that matters.”
“But how did you know to come?”
“Steiner was visiting me. His radio was on. I heard your transmission.” Dad stopped talking, his voice all weird and knotted.
“Are you hurt? Dad?” Had he been stabbed, too, like Kevin, and they didn’t know it yet? “Dad?”
“I’m fine, Car 143.” He cleared his throat. “I’m just fine.”
Mom mumbled that she didn’t get it, but for once she didn’t demand an explanation.
Dad shook his head. “You’re amazing. You’re both amazing.”
Jojo looked out the window as Mom finally started to back up.
There she was.
Harper was being walked out, Officer Connors at her side. Her hands were cuffed in front of her, but her face was bright, her head high. The streetlights had just gone on, and night had fallen, but Harper still glowed, all the light drawn to her. As always.
Mom said, “It’s okay, Jojo. You’re okay.” But her voice wobbled.
Jojo’s gaze didn’t budge from Harper.
Harper’s eyes met hers.
Then Harper smiled and blew her a kiss with both hands.
“No, no, no.” Jojo had been so scared to love Harper, so frightened of what it meant. More than that—and worse than that—she realized now there’d always been a low-level thrum of fear that Harper would stop loving her.
Now it was broken.
Whatever it had been, whatever Jojo had prayed it would become—that was in the past. Gone.
Harper needed help.
And Jojo knew she wasn’t the right kind of help. Maybe if she did it now, like ripping off a Band-Aid, Jojo could let go of her broken heart.
She grabbed the ring at her throat and tugged the chain. It came apart with a painful snap. The windows were down, and as Mom pulled away from the curb, she threw it into the street. Now neither she nor Harper had a ring.
She could—she had to—release Cordelia.
“What was that?” Mom twisted to see, gasping as she did so. She pressed a hand to her side.
“I stole a ring when Harper did. I never told you.”
And instead of going off on her, Mom looked at Jojo.
And for once Mom seemed to really see her.
“You poor things,” said Mom. Her voice made Jojo want to cry again.
The car moved through the night. Mom reached out and took her hand, and Jojo didn’t pull away. Behind them Dad tapped his cell phone with one hand.
“Don’t you need to go back to the hospital?” Jojo asked.
“I suppose so. Eventually. First the station, though. I have an investigation to open, and you both need to finish your full statements. Not that either of you needs my help with that.”
“We don’t.” Mom paused, and Jojo heard her take a breath. “But, holy crap, I want you there.”
Jojo swallowed hard and touched the place at her neck where the ring had been. “Me too, Daddy.”
“My girls.” He leaned forward and touched Mom’s hair, then Jojo’s. “My girls.”
“Your women,” Jojo said. “Get it straight.”
AUTHOR’S NOTE
Dear Reader,
I’m a queer, white middle-class woman who lives in Oakland. While I did work 911 for seventeen years in the Bay Area before switching to writing full time, I had to use my imagination to dream up a police department as broken as the one in this book. There are bad actors in every department, and I believe policing in America is broken in deep, systemic ways; but I continue to have hope that most men and women in law enforcement want only the best for the nation and all its people. I also firmly believe that Black Lives Matter, and I stand as an ally, lifting my voice when I can from my particular place of privilege. CapB is not a pseudonym for BLM, and Kevin Leeds is drawn from no one in real life except a very nice baker I once knew. I had to imagine my way into Jojo’s head, knowing nothing of what it’s actually like to live in America as a person of color. The only part I really know is what it’s like to “share” lip gloss with your best friend. Thank you to my sensitivity readers. Any mistakes I’ve made are purely my own.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
After I got my master’s in writing, I took a 911 job because I thought it would be a good job to do while writing on the side. It was. (It also paid four times what teaching did, and I was deep in student-loan debt.) The job allowed me to hear and participate in the most emotional moments of many people’s lives, an honor I never saw coming, an honor every writer could learn from. I learned from that job that fear sounds the same in all languages, but so does love. My deep thanks go to all three 911 ComCens I worked in over the years. Thank you, my old co-workers, you nutty kids! Whichever people you think I based these characters on, you’re wrong, but I love you for thinking so stubbornly that you’re right (a mark of a true dispatcher, a stubbornness I will myself continue to enjoy until my dying day). Thanks, always, to the good men and women in police enforcement and the fire/medical profession, the ones actively working to make our world safer in all its glorious diversity. Thanks to my amazing agent, Susanna Einstein, without whom I would never have had the chance to tell this story (and thanks for her help in revision after revision after yet another revision. You knew what it needed to be). And to Stephanie Kelly, thank you with all my heart for understanding this story and bringing out the very best in it. You made these characters sing. To everyone at Dutton—thank you! What a team! I’m honored to work with every one of you. To Sharon Monroe and Jasmin Canty, thank you for amazing sensitivity reads. To my friends and family, thank you. You’re my heart.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Stolen Things is the first suspense novel by R. H. Herron, the pseudonym of an author who lives and teaches writing in California. For seventeen years she worked as a 911 fire/medical dispatcher, and this book is inspired by actual events.
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