by Adan Ramie
"Should we just go to the hospital? I can turn myself in. They can save you," she whispered. She tried to keep her voice steady, but tears had already started to pool in her eyes, and her throat contracted with grief. "I don't want to lose you, man."
"Save your -" Josie started, then hacked out a dry cough. His eyes seemed to focus for a second, then fluttered closed again. "Yourself. I'm gone." He squeezed her fingers gently.
"You're not," she said, and pushed a stray clump of hair off his sweaty forehead. "Just let me take you to the hospital."
"For what?" His voice was so quiet, she had to lean until her ear almost touched his lips. "I'd rather die here than in a jail cell with a bunch of homophobes.”
She pulled away from him. "No, Josie, I won't let you. You can make it." She squeezed his hand too tightly between her own, and let the tears fall down her cheeks and onto his. "I don't want to do this without you."
"You have to," he whispered.
Josie sucked in a shuddering breath, choked on another cough, and then let the breath out with a groan. She waited for him to suck in another, but his chest was still. Her two best friends were dead the same day.
CHAPTER 11
Ruby watched Lee walk away. Something between friendship and longing tugged at the center of her, but she ignored the feeling; the idea that she could be anything other than captive to Lee's captor was a line she didn't want to cross. She stood with both tumblers, and Taya hopped to the floor beside her. They walked to the kitchen. Ruby washed and dried the tumblers with Taya twisting in circles through her ankles, then put them away. The click of the cabinet door closing was lost in the deafening slam of the front door.
"Oh, God," she whispered. She picked the kitten up, opened the kitchen door, and tossed it unceremoniously outside into the backyard. She would be safer away from his rage.
"Ruby! Where are you?"
Truman stood in the front hallway. His voice echoed through the stillness of the house, a bear's roar in the quiet forest. Ruby swallowed the boil of horrified sick that crept into her mouth. Lee and Josie were just in the other room, and if he found them...
"Your stupid bitch. Didn’t you hear me?"
He stood outside the open doorway of the kitchen, his feet set wide, and his fists curling and uncurling with pent-up rage. His broad shoulders rose and fell inside the hand-tailored charcoal suit with each violent breath. Ruby took a step back. A lock of his shiny, black hair had fallen out of its slicked bonds, and hung loose on his forehead. That was never a good sign.
Her hand dropped onto the doorknob behind her, and she wished that her backyard wasn't walled in on every side with the tall, sharply pointed fence.
"You come when I call," he said, his eyebrows pulled together and his mouth drawn in a snarl that showed most of his impeccably straight front teeth.
The drop of his voice to a whisper chilled her; it meant she could expect pain to shoot through her at any moment. He took one large step, and Ruby squeezed her eyes shut to block out the sight of him as he advanced on her with his fists ready to split her skin and crush her bones. She did all she knew to do: she crouched and wrapped her hands around her head to minimize the long-term damage.
Before he could get across the kitchen to put his hands on her, Truman yelped, stumbled, and slammed onto the kitchen floor with a thud. Ruby opened her eyes just as Lee lunged forward and thrust the blade of a large steel-handed knife into his back.
Ruby recognized it as one of Truman's decorations; there would be an empty spot under the stuffed face of a large boar in the guest bedroom. Truman contorted on the floor, and, despite his injury, there wasn't much blood. Lee crouched behind him, her arms and torso covered in blood.
"I had no choice." Lee's voice was surprisingly calm through the adrenaline, and her eyes were fixed on him. She stared for a few moments as if she couldn't look away from the sight of him, then blinked and looked up at Ruby.
Ruby crawled on rubbery limbs and skirted around the still body of her husband toward Lee. She settled in behind Lee on her hands and knees, ready to flee at the slightest movement. She spoke in a stifled whisper usually reserved for holy places. "Is he dead?”
Lee reached out a shaky hand to Truman’s throat, and then turned to look at Ruby. “He’s still got a pulse."
“What are we going to do?”
"What do you mean, 'we'?" Lee stood up; her eyes didn't leave Truman's still form. "I'm getting the hell out of here."
“I want to go with you. I can’t stay here.”
Lee watched Truman's shallow breathing to avoid Ruby's glistening eyes, then sighed and showed her palms in defeat. Ruby didn't miss the gesture, or the wet blood coating her hands. "Fine. We need to leave now." She studied Ruby another moment, then reached out a hand. Ruby took it and let herself be pulled to her feet. Lee's grip was strong, but it had a gentleness that never existed in Truman's touch. "Get whatever you need—and clean yourself up. We have to get out of here before this bull gets back on his feet."
While Ruby washed, dressed, and packed, Lee stood guard over Truman. The blood had coagulated around the knife, and only trickled lightly with the unsteady rhythm of his back as it rose and fell under his jacket. Ruby came back to the kitchen, but stopped just outside the doorway with two full duffel bags slung over her shoulders. She had cleaned as well as she could under the time constraint, but she hadn't put too much effort into it. She knew they would have to hoist Josie, and that promised to be a strenuous, dirty affair.
“Another inch to the right, and I would have killed you, stupid bastard,” Lee mumbled, and gave him a swift kick to the ribs. Truman groaned, and Lee crouched down. “If you so much as look at her again, I’ll kill you like the swine you are.”
Something warm rose in Ruby's chest, but she tamped it down in horror. She couldn't let herself get emotionally attached to Lee. Whether her intentions really were good or not, Ruby didn't dare getting tangled up in her. “We need to go get Josie," Ruby said after a beat. "How much longer do you think he will be unconscious?"
Lee stood, but didn't turn toward her. "Josie's dead."
Ruby gasped and raised a hand to her mouth. "Are you sure?" Guilt poured over her in waves that threatened to overtake her in a faint.
Lee spat on Truman's back then turned around and walked to the kitchen doorway. She stopped right beside Ruby and looked into her eyes. “Are you sure you want to go with me? You can always say this was a home invasion. Call the cops, call an ambulance, and go back to your shiny, sterile life."
Her eyes unfocused, with the vivid image of Josie lying in the bed in her mind, Ruby nodded. There was nothing left for her here.
"Then let’s do this,” Lee said.
Ruby tossed one last glance over her shoulder as they left. The two turned a corner and Lee jogged forward to open the door for her. Ruby managed a weak smile. As she shut the door behind them, Lee turned to her. “Are you all right?”
“I’m just glad to be alive.”
Lee surveyed the neighborhood with a clenched jaw. No one was outside. Not even a dog barked in the still, night air. She ducked her head. “We need to try to act normal,” she said through gritted teeth.
Ruby fished in her pocket for her keys, then turned to the door to lock it. “What are we going to do?"
"We need a plan," Lee said. She pulled the bags from Ruby’s arms and piled them on herself.
Satisfied Truman was locked inside, Ruby turned to Lee. “Just lead the way.”
CHAPTER 12
"Okay, this is what I have so far," Cal said, and tapped through a few screens on his phone. He looked up at Harry, who had her eyes on a waitress leaned over a table across the room. He kicked her under the table, and she turned to him with a sore look on her face.
"What the hell? I'm listening," she said, and turned her attention to him.
"Sunshine Christina Galaviz. Born August 8, 1986. Went into foster care as a kid and aged out of the system. No living relatives." He looked u
p at Harry, who still had her eyes on him, though she looked straight through him. "Sounds like more of the same."
"Keep going," Harry said.
Cal settled back into his chair and tapped to a new screen. "Arrested several times for drug possession, public indecency, prostitution, and assault." He grinned. "Cat fighting."
"That's sexist." Harry gave him a dirty look.
"How come when I say it, it's sexist, but when you say it, it's okay?" he asked her over his phone.
Harry pulled a hangnail off her thumb and dropped it into her empty plate. "Because I'm part of the minority group."
He snorted. "I don't think it works like that, Thresher. I'm pretty sure you can be a woman and sexist against women, just like you can be racist against your own race. No distinctions there."
"Do you think we would find out more about Sunshine Galaviz if we followed up this lead on Malena Barsten?" Harry asked him as she watched the same waitress bus a table nearby.
Cal tucked his phone into his pocket and reached a hand across the table. Harry grabbed it without taking her eyes off the waitress. "Stop manhandling me," he whined.
"You are a big baby," Harry said. She stood, tossed a handful of bills on the table as a tip, and walked toward the door with her partner right behind her.
HARRY JOGGED UP THE concrete steps to the little alcove and tried to fight the feeling of squeamish dread that crawled up the back of her throat. She had never been to this youth shelter in the middle of the city before, but it still rang true, old and familiar, like a sore that festered too long and never quite felt healed.
The woman behind the front desk had a tight, wide smile. She pointed the way for Harry as though relieved to have her out of the way, out of her sight, so she could get back to wringing her hands in desperation at the extensive list of names on her clipboard.
When Harry reached the main hall, she stopped short in the doorway. Ahead of her, chairs clustered tightly around tables, and in them sat a variety of haggard children, teenagers, and young adults. At first glance, the only thing any of them had in common was the look of immediate and intense distrust on their faces. Harry remembered the feeling from her own misspent youth.
“Can I help you?”
The young man who came forward didn’t look much older than some of the kids in their chairs, and Harry took a moment to look him over. Tall and wiry, his face still bearing witness to years of teenage acne, Harry pegged him at under 25, underfed, and as underprivileged as his charges. She winced out a smile.
“I’m Detective Harrison Thresher,” she said, and angled away from the kids at the tables when she flashed her badge. “I wanted to talk to someone about a couple of girls who might have roomed here a few years ago.”
“I’m David. I’ve only been in charge here for the past six months, but we keep good records. Do you have a name and a picture?”
Harry nodded.
“Come with me to the office, and I’ll do what I can to help. I assume these girls are in some kind of trouble?”
Harry followed as he led them down a narrow hall, past a door locked with a security code, and into a tidy, if cramped, office space. He indicated a metal folding chair, then sat down in an office chair too small for his frame.
“One is missing. The other was found dead in her apartment."
"Overdose?" he asked.
Harry shook her head, then handed him the picture of Sunny and Lee. "Homicide."
David grabbed the photo without looking at it, and put it on his desk. He wrapped a pair of plastic glasses across his face, and started to type on a computer Harry recognized as obsolete. “Names?”
“Sunshine Galaviz and Malena Barsten,” Harry said.
His head bobbed up and around the monitor, and his hands fell away from the keyboard. "What happened to them? How long ago?”
“You know them?” Harry pulled out her notepad and pen. “I thought you’ve only been here a short time.” She jotted down his name, and beside it, a note.
“Yeah, as a youth counselor, I’ve only been here a short time. But as a kid, I spent a lot of time here. Lee was here about the same time I was, give or take a year. She’s tough. I always thought I’d be more likely to get swallowed up by the streets. And Sunny, well, Lee had her back. I can't imagine she would have let anything happen to her.”
“That’s what I keep hearing,” Harry said, staring at her notes. She glanced up at him. “What else can you tell me about them?”
The youth counselor leaned back and stretched out his long legs. He pulled off his glasses and pinched the piece of skin rubbed shiny on the bridge of his nose. “Sunny is hard as nails, but tended toward bad drugs and even worse guys. Lee is quite a character. As I remember, she was always performing. She lived to make people laugh, especially pretty girls.”
"Well, I hate to be the one to tell you this, but Ms. Galaviz was murdered."
"Jesus," he answered, and shook his head. "I can't believe it. Lee was very protective of her, like a little guard dog. They used to be stuck together like glue." He put his glasses back on, and struck a few keys. "So, I guess that means Lee is missing."
“She is." Harry scratched down a few observations, then turned her eyes back to the youth counselor. "I'm wondering about what you said, about Ms. Barsten being a performer. That's strange to me, because from what I understood, she’s kind of a loner. Quiet, keeps to herself.”
He shook his head. “Maybe now, but when we were young, she wanted all eyes on her. There wasn’t much she wouldn’t do for attention, and that sometimes got her in trouble here.” He grinned and wrapped his hands behind his head.
“I remember once, I was probably 15, which I guess would have made her 16 or 17, the power was cut. It was in the middle of a dead heat, probably one of the worst summers I can remember from back then. Lee finds this busted water gun in a dumpster behind the YMCA, and she fixes it. For two days, she’s sneaking around, catching people off guard and hosing them down. Most of us took it in stride, but the youth counselor, Laura, didn’t like Lee, and she hated being wet.”
"Laura..." Harry started, her pen poised above paper.
"Oh, she's long gone. She married her boyfriend when he joined the Marines, and they're somewhere overseas right now."
Harry wrote the name, a question mark, then looked back to the counselor. "Anything else you can tell me that might help me find her? I'm hoping that when I find her, I can start putting some more pieces together to solve this murder."
He shook his head, and sat up. “I really don't know anything else I could tell you. She used to hang out at karaoke bars and skate parks, but that was when we were kids. I haven't seen her in over five years. I hope she’s all right.”
Harry jotted down a few more notes, then tucked her pad and pen into her coat pocket. “I really do, too.” She stood and held out a card. David took it, and stood up across from her, dwarfing her with the sheer length of his legs. “If you can think of anything that would help, will you give me a call?”
“Of course,” he said. He took the card, then shook her hand. “If she’s anything at all like she used to be, you should find any place that women gather to commiserate being single. Lee likes the broken ones. From what I recall, she likes to try to fix them.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
CHAPTER 13
The interstate stretched out like a concrete serpent, each dash of the lane divider more perfect than the last, and the women in the car matched the road’s silent passage. An unspoken understanding hung in the air like the aftermath of a treacherous storm; neither would address the gruesome tragedies behind them in an effort to move forward without facing the trauma.
Lee fought the doze that was building in her eyes as she watched the lights pass by. She let out a belch and wiped a hand across her mouth. Ruby made a face.
“What?” Lee asked.
“You are disgusting,” Ruby said, then laughed. “But it's almost cute." She blushed and turned to fac
e the window.
Lee grinned. “I need to stop and pee and get some kind of caffeine.” She shook her head to clear it, the image of blacktop and yellow lines firm in her eyes.
"Good idea," Ruby said softly.
Lee put on a blinker and turned off the next exit. She pointed the car at a filling station and convenience store, and parked beside the fuel pump. "We can fill up the car, and grab some snacks for the road. The more distance we put between ourselves and home, the better."
Ruby unbuckled and stepped out onto the blacktop. The stench of gasoline filled the air. "Ugh, we're going to smell like gas now," Ruby complained, and Lee laughed at her. "What?"
"There are worse things to smell like," Lee said, then her face fell. She stared into a void for a moment, then snapped out of it and slammed her door closed. "Let's go inside. We can grab some food and drinks, use the bathrooms, and pay for the stupid gas."
Ruby closed her door and followed Lee into the convenience store. The two walked past each shelf like ravenous animals and filled their arms with all kinds of sticky, sweet, salty, and meaty wares. They made two trips to the register counter before Lee was satisfied they would have enough.
"Long trip?" the register jockey asked, and Ruby laugh. Lee could hear the delirium in her laugh, but kept her eyes on the cashier. "That will be $35.76." He ran his eyes over Ruby while she counted cash under the counter.
"That's $36," Ruby said, and handed the wad of cash over. "Keep the change." She smiled, and he smiled back.
Lee glared at him. "Are you going to bag the stuff, or do we have to?" she asked.
He gave her a dirty look until their eyes met. He grabbed a bag and started to fill it quickly.
"Do you have a bathroom?" Ruby asked him. He gestured with his head at a grimy door near the back of the store. Ruby looked at Lee. "Want me to go first?"
