by The Awethors
* * *
“What about the girl?” asked Detective Jack LaCrosse.
“Abbey? That’s her name as far as I can tell,” Bernie Stevens said with a southern drawl. He sighed and walked away from the apartment towards the detective waiting for him in the hall. “I heard her momma yellin’ it once or twice.”
Detective LaCrosse seemed shocked. “That was her mother?” he said, pointing down the building’s ratty hallway littered with trash and flickering light bulbs.
Bernie lowered his head slightly, trying to erase the image of the dead woman’s body he wouldn’t soon forget. “Well, if she wasn’t her momma she was the closest approximation to family I gather Abbey had. It’s a damn shame.”
“Do you think you can find her again?”
“She’ll find her way to us. She’s almost ready.” The southerner scoffed. It was apparent the detective didn’t know much about what a shepherd actually did. “I’ve been watchin’ her for a while now.”
The young detective scratched his head. “So, she’s a neophyte then?” he asked, waving another uniformed officer over who had sworn the girl was one of them. “You’re sure, Bernie?”
Bernie looked at Detective LaCrosse.
Shrinking a little under the seasoned guardian’s gaze, LaCrosse waved the uniformed officer away. “Of course you’re sure...Why-How did she end up like this?”
Bernie looked around, waited for a few dociles from the precinct and coroner’s office to pass, and then whispered to his fellow guardian. “The Court may’ve been built of stone and mortar, but there are cracks in any foundation, my friend. Sometimes people slip through.”
LaCrosse let a few more dociles pass then whispered, “Well, whoever she is she’d make a damn good hunter.”