Don't Catch Me

by Lorhainne Eckhart

  Chapter 6

  “So tell me again what happened,” said the young doctor who was studying Chase’s arm as it rested on the small surgical table that had been wheeled up to the cot where he was sitting. The curtain was drawn, and he felt the doctor’s latex gloves probe the skin around the wound. A lamp was shining on the injury as the doctor focused all his attention on the bite, moving Chase’s arm so he could see where the upper and lower teeth had dug into it.

  “I was bit, as you can see from the teeth marks. Kind of a long story. Can’t really go into it now because she’s basically my client. I had a hold of her and she dug her teeth into me. How much damage is there?”

  The doctor had dark hair, on the longish side, which had fallen into his face. It needed a good brushing and a cut. He had deep brown eyes, and he wasn’t smiling as he stared up at Chase as if he couldn’t believe what he was saying.

  “Seen all kinds of things. A client, really? What kind of work are you in?” The young doctor stood up from the stool he was sitting on, ripping off the gloves.

  “I’m a lawyer. Was passing through, but now I guess I’m staying. Listen, just clean it up and I’ll be out of here,” he said. It was now after eleven, and his client was still in jail, as the court didn’t run at night. He’d found that out after the pizza had come, and then he’d had to break the news to Billy Jo—not that he knew where she could have gone after she was released, considering no one from Child Services had shown up, nor had the people who were fostering her.

  The doctor was giving him a strange look as if maybe there were more to the story, but at the same time he didn’t really want to know. “Okay, first we need to get you a tetanus booster. Do we know if this client of yours has HIV or hepatitis?”

  He hardly thought it was possible, but then, given what he knew about the girl, which was basically squat, he said, “You better run everything.” He shook his head, hoping this wasn’t his gift for getting involved.

  The doctor nodded as a nurse appeared, holding a chart. She passed it to him. “Clean and irrigate the wound,” he directed. “Let’s leave it open, with no stitches, considering it happened…”

  “Lunchtime or just after,” Chase said. It had been early afternoon when he stopped.

  The doctor nodded and said something under his breath, which Chase thought was about idiots and ignoring medical care, before glancing to the clock on the wall. “And you waited this long because…?”

  Seriously, it was like a game of fill in the blanks. “I had to take care of the situation first,” he said, which basically meant he’d sat with the girl in the interrogation room with the pizza and sodas after slipping into the bathroom to at least rinse the bite under cold water. Then he had talked with her, asked her questions about herself and what had happened, but all she’d done was open her mouth to take another bite and say squat.

  “Okay, so no stitches because of the time that’s elapsed. We’ll need to keep an eye out for infection, but I’m going to get you hooked up to an antibiotic drip now. We’ll need to check it again in a couple days. Just pop into the walk-in clinic, or go see your doctor if you’re leaving the area.”

  So here was Chase after spending another two hours at the emergency, hooked up to IV antibiotics, his arm bandaged after a battery of blood tests to see if he’d contracted any manner of diseases. There was also the fact that human teeth, as had been pointed out by the intern, carried an enormous amount of bacteria, which increased the chance of infection and damage to rates higher than was comfortable. Surprisingly, there was no tendon damage, and Billy Jo hadn’t reached the bone, even though, thinking back, he swore it had felt as if she were taking his arm off.

  Back in his car, his arm bandaged, he checked into a local hotel with his laptop, the notes he’d made, and copies of the report from the sheriff. Then Chase raided the minibar, opted for a chilled Corona, and took a swallow while he read through the reports from the station, from the douchebag Roy, from farmer Vern, and from pink ballcap, Rose, wondering where to begin helping a kid who seemed not too interested in helping herself.

  Chapter 7

  Dust in the distance meant someone was coming this way. Odd, considering Rose didn’t often have visitors to her small place just outside McDermitt, on the Oregon side of the border, a small Cape Cod–style home she was presently gutting and putting back together. Whoever was driving down her driveway hadn’t been invited, so that meant either (A) someone was lost or (B) someone unwanted was visiting.

  Rose didn’t have close friends in this part of the country. She knew people in town, acquaintances, and she listened to gossip to know who was trouble and who wasn’t, a survival skill she’d learned to keep herself off the radar. She touched the 9mm she had holstered and pulled at the edge of her light knit shirt to make sure it was hidden. No point giving anyone a heads up that she was packing heat—not yet, anyway. People out this way could be touchy when they saw someone had a gun.

  She took in the arriving BMW. The windows were tinted so she couldn’t make out who was behind the wheel until it hit her. Of course, it looked like the car from the station, the fancy sweet-talking polished dude who’d walked in to save the day. She rolled her eyes, because guys like him thought the world revolved around them.

  She’d been married to that. Never again.

  He stepped out of the car with his shades on but pulled them off, flashing her that big toothsome smile. Yup, great teeth too. Tall, fit, wearing a dark gray shirt tucked into black pants today. He still looked too good for his own good.

  “You’re kind of hard to find,” he said as he walked around the front of his car. His sleeves were rolled up, and she noted the white bandage on his arm where the girl had bitten him.

  “Why are you looking for me?”

  As he walked closer, she swore his eyes were bluer than she remembered, so she stared at his shoulders instead, but that was a mistake, considering how broad and strong they looked.

  “Because I wanted to talk to you about the girl yesterday at the station, Billy Jo,” he said, looking around at the piles of lumber covered with a tarp by the side door. There was also a pile of sand for landscaping and bricks to build a patio. “You doing some work here,” he said. It wasn’t a question, so she didn’t answer.

  “Why do you want to talk to me about…Billy Jo, is it? So that’s her name.” How had he found her? It wasn’t as if her address was public record. The house was registered to a corporation, not her name, and she wanted to keep it that way.

  “Yeah, listen, I was hoping you could come in and maybe be a character witness for the girl. She has to go before a judge this afternoon, and I’m hoping you’ll speak favorably on behalf of her.”

  “But I don’t know her. How did you find me, anyway?” And why would he think she’d get involved? Bad things happened, and she was still finding her footing around these parts. She didn’t want to make waves or have any attention brought to her. Anonymous was good. It was peaceful and safe.

  “Your address was on the witness statements taken yesterday. The sheriff’s office had to give them all to me, all their notes, evidence…” Maybe because of the confused look on her face, he said, “I’m a lawyer. I just couldn’t leave after what happened. Didn’t seem as if she was going to get a fair shake, so I’m representing her now. You said some things yesterday that made me think you were on her side. I’m hoping that’s true, because she could use some folks speaking kindly of her instead of being made to look like a crazy person who went in to hold up a place when nothing could be further from the truth.”

  The way he said it with such passion, he sounded like one of those do gooders, and Rose wondered what he thought he would get out of this. She should ask, but then, that would get her involved, and that would get her name in more public records, which couldn’t happen. She needed to end this—now.

  “Although I feel for the girl, I can’t get involved,” she said. His smile was now gone, and his expression was pure anger.


  “You know what? That’s just not acceptable. The worst part is that Billy Jo thinks everyone believes that same shitty thing and that no one ever helps others, that it’s everyone out for their own gain. I spent the better part of last evening trying to convince her she’s wrong, that there are in fact decent people out here, people who care, people who want to make a difference, that not everyone is out for number one, that people will, when all the cards are laid down, step forward and do the right thing. Yet here you are, telling me you can’t even give two minutes of your time to help a young girl who just needs folks to give a god damn and maybe give her a break?”

  Okay, she got that he was mad, but geez, did he have to make her sound like a world-class selfish bitch? He was trying to make her feel guilty for something she had no part in. Why the hell had she given in to her craving and stopped at that damn station yesterday? Lesson learned. “Look, don’t put this on me. I have no intention of testifying against her, either. I don’t want to be involved,” she said, hoping he’d get it and just leave.

  “Well, see right there? That’s the problem, because if you think the DA won’t call you as a witness, you’re a fool. You have no choice. You’ll be called, you’ll be forced to testify, and whether you like it or not, you and I both became involved the moment we walked into that gas station.”

  Chapter 8

  The property was an acre and a half, from what he could tell, just outside McDermitt, the town he’d yet to set foot in. Rose Wilcox was pretty, with long hair the color of straw. He wasn’t sure how long it was, considering she had tied it back in a high ponytail, but it swung past her shoulders. She was tall, slender in the right places but curvy where it counted, and she had sculpted arms, not in a body-builder way but like a work of perfection, arms that hadn’t gone soft. The sawdust in her hair told him some of what was going on there. She was renovating or something, and it looked as if it had all been done with her touch. He didn’t see another vehicle or person around, and her ringless finger also told a story, maybe. That didn’t mean there wasn’t a significant other, though.

  He could tell she was considering something. He hoped so, anyways, since she’d gone from someone he could have persuaded to help yesterday to someone who thought too much and found it easier to establish distance between herself and everything in the outside world today.

  “I didn’t ask to get involved,” she said. “I told you I empathize, but I can’t get involved. They can’t make me testify if I don’t want to.” She pulled a pair of work gloves from her back pocket and slapped them over her other hand. Maybe this was her way of dismissing him, and he wondered too whether she really believed that last part.

  “Actually, they can make you. You’re a witness to a crime. You can refuse, but it’s not recommended, as they can arrest you and drag you in then, making you a hostile witness. You’ll just make things ten times harder on yourself. You’re involved, and there’s nothing you can do to get out of it. Me, either, but I’m also curious about something you said. You mentioned you thought she sold herself to some guy three times her age. I saw your face. I know you were affected.”

  She’d been in the midst of it yesterday, just reacting, and now he was seeing a woman who’d had time to think and come up with a practiced story. Not a good thing. Time and distance tended to close people’s minds and shut off their feelings.

  “Of course I was. Who wouldn’t be? I’m human, you know. Why do you need me, anyway? You’re a lawyer. Get her off. Make a deal and keep it out of the courts so I’m not dragged into it. Do whatever you lawyers do to twist things around and make her look like… Just leave me out of it.”

  He wasn’t sure what she was about to say about Billy Jo, but there was so much to learn about the girl. If he could share what he suspected and what he knew, he was positive Rose would be on her side. “She’s a kid who deserves a chance,” he said. Billy Jo was hiding so much from Chase, and she’d said squat about her life, but she’d seemed willing, and he thought he’d make some progress with her only to then find out she’d have to spend the night in lockup. Damn it all to hell! Telling her that had almost killed him. She’d taken it better than him as they ate pizza—one slice for him, seven for her. “Jail is no place for a kid,” he said.

  “And what do you expect me to say that’s not going to make it worse for her? I saw her with a gun. She shoved it in Roy’s face…”

  “But you never heard her demand money, and you said it: Roy is the type who’d take advantage. I mean, for all we know it was self defense. She was protecting herself from a predator.”

  The expression on Rose’s face was priceless. Then his cell phone buzzed in his pocket before she could say anything, and he took in the words Vale County Sheriff’s Department on the display. “Chase McCabe,” he said, worried something had happened.

  “Mr. McCabe, you may want to come on back to the station. We have a bit of a situation here,” the sheriff said.

  Seriously, what now? “What situation? Is Billy Jo okay?” He could feel Rose’s interest.

  “Well, just get back here,” the sheriff said. “The good folks that foster your client have shown up and are demanding we release her into their custody. They’re sitting here in the meantime, waiting to see her, and I remember clearly your instructions: your client, and no one sees her or talks to her without you.”

  Of course, if she hadn’t been picked up by a backwoods sheriff’s department, those foster parents would have been in right now with Billy Jo. Chase was beginning to realize things might happen a different way out here. He had spent the night trying to put together some alternatives for the girl, ones that didn’t get her shoved back into a situation even worse than she’d obviously run from. Yes, he’d picked up on the fact that she’d been planning to leave.

  “Listen, do not let them near my client,” he said. “You hear me? I’m on my way. She talks to no one but me.”

  “Well, that’s the thing. They have rights. She’s a minor in their care, so my best advice would be to get on in here for the girl.”

  It took him a second to pick up on the fact that the man actually sounded as if he cared, when just yesterday he’d been ready to toss her away and lock her up for good. Chase didn’t get the sheriff.

  “I’ll be there as soon as I can, but, Sheriff, see if you can’t stall a bit until then. I’m thinking there may be a lot more to the situation with those folks than we know, and it may be best if Billy Jo isn’t alone with them. Never know what they’d say to her. Could you do that much for me?” He hoped he was wrong about this fucker.

  “Well, I don’t know how long it’s going to take to bring the girl up from lockup. Suppose I could have a conversation and coffee with the mister and missus…”

  Chase couldn’t keep the smile from his face. “Thank you, Sheriff,” he said, then pocketed his phone and took in Rose, who was still standing there. Of course she’d heard the conversation. It was written all over her face.

  “Is there a problem with the foster parents?” she asked.

  What could he say? He suspected a whole lot, but after the pizza last night Billy Jo had clammed right up. She was a tough kid, and he figured the only thing she’d ever been able to count on was herself.

  “You know these Humboldts?” he asked, and Rose didn’t say anything as she glanced off into the distance, her expression filled with a lot, but nothing he had time to figure out. “Please, if there’s something you know or even suspect, tell me. At this point anything anyone could offer up would help.” He pulled his keys from his pocket. He didn’t have a lot of time, considering the miles he had to cover to get back to Vale.

  “Only what I’ve picked up in passing. You know how people like to talk.”

  Yeah, he did, and embellish and lie and all that. He just wished she’d share something. “Seriously, Rose, I’ve got a girl in trouble who just needs someone to give a god damn about her. Please, if there is something, tell me.”

  She nodded and then cr
ossed her arms. “Heard a lot of things about them. They have a lot of kids, a lot of visitors, and a lot of guns,” she said. “I don’t know everything else for sure, and you can take from that what you like, but to me it doesn’t really sound like the kind of place that should have any kids.”

  He took in the bulge at her side and stared at her closed expression again. She was carrying a concealed weapon, and she knew about someone else’s guns. He wondered. “That gun you’ve got hidden under your shirt, you have papers for that, or is it a gun you got from the Humboldts?”

  She was tough, but the flinch and the way she touched her side was enough of a giveaway. “Good day, Mr. McCabe,” she said and stepped back, not offering anything else.

  Chase couldn’t afford to wait any longer. He needed to get to that station, to his client. One problem at a time, and then he’d figure out a way to get Rose Wilcox to open up and come over to their side.

  Chapter 9

  She could hear them, Marty and Elma Mae Humboldt. It had been for only a second when she heard the outer door to the holding cells open and then shut, but it was enough to fill her with the fear of God. Her throat suddenly thickened, and she found it hard to breathe. She was stuck, unable to do anything. She couldn’t hide, couldn’t run. She was trapped in a cage, and they would show up at her door any second. There was nothing she could do, because she’d been caught.

  She had her hands on the grimy steel door. Standing on her tiptoes, she peered through the square hole, which was barred and only about ten inches wide. There was nothing there now except for the sounds of a jail and prisoners in other cells, but that didn’t stop her heart from hammering against her ribs so hard she could hear the echo in her ears. Even her breath, long and deep, echoed. Her arms and legs were shaking, and she had no control over them, because she was caged in a tiny cell with a hard cot and a toilet in the corner, in the back of the jail, where she’d been forced to spend the night. Even though that fancy lawyer had talked his face off and said he was getting her out of here, he hadn’t. Then, she’d never really believed he’d pull that part off. That was just talk, and Billy Jo had heard enough talk from adults who said everything but meant none of what came out of their mouths. It was as if everyone thought words didn’t matter.