Where the Lost Girls Go

by R. J. Noonan

  The Prince.

  “So you’re part of the group camping in Stafford Woods?”

  “We’ve been there for a few months now. Since the spring. The summer was really nice in the woods, but now it’s getting cold at night, it rains all the time, and everyone’s getting cranky. Except for the Prince. He never complains about the rain or the cold, and I know he must be hungry sometimes.”

  “I like a clean bed at night,” I said.

  She smiled. “Me, too. Do you think my sister is okay? She’s never left me before, but I made her go. I can’t let her get in trouble over me.”

  “Why do you think she’ll get in trouble?”

  “Kidnapping. Our mother said that if we ever turned up, Morgan would go to jail for kidnapping me.”

  “That doesn’t sound right to me. First, your sister is still too young to be tried as an adult. And I’ve never heard of a case of sibling kidnapping. Are you sure that’s what your mother said? Maybe she was trying to scare you into coming back.”

  “No.” Her jaw clenched as she probed at the clip on her fingertip. “The last thing she wants is us coming back. But I don’t want to talk about her. Makes me even sicker.”

  “Then tell me how you met the Prince. How did you find the group in the woods?”

  “The Prince found us in Portland. Morgan and I were with our friend Maya.”

  Maya Williams? The African American beauty from the list of Lost Girls. I wanted to pounce on this with a million questions, but I didn’t want to freak Ellie out.

  “Was Maya her real name?”

  She nodded. “The Prince called her Genesis.”

  The name rang a bell from something I had seen recently, but I couldn’t place it. “The Prince chose a name from the Bible?”

  “He said it just meant the beginning. Maya was African American. He said she was one of the original people on Earth because she had dark skin.”

  “Interesting.” This had to be the Maya I was looking for. “What’s Maya’s last name?”

  “I don’t know. We met her in California and came to Portland with her.”

  “Where were you living in Portland?”

  “When the Prince found us, we were sleeping in doorways and stuff. One of us would be the lookout while the others slept. Before that we slept in the back of this hair salon. Maya had a key to clean it at night, so we helped her clean, and then we slept on the floor. That was nice, ’cause we had a bathroom and we could do each other’s hair and that shampoo they use smells so sweet, like strawberries. But then the owner came in late one night and caught us. That was a bad night.”

  The three girls had earned some money by picking fruit down in California, though they’d had to sneak around because Ellie was noticeably underage. Morgan had gotten a fake ID, but people were suspicious of the threesome. Before that Ellie and her sister had traveled through Montana, Idaho, and Nevada. Occasionally they found odd jobs. Sometimes they shoplifted or stole from trucks, gardens, clotheslines, stores. I was trying to press on for more information about Maya when the doctor appeared.

  “What’s this gabbing going on?” a bald man in green scrubs called from the other side of the curtain. “You two sound like you’re having way too much fun in here.” He offered his hand to Ellie, then to me. “I’m Chris Riggs, the doctor at the moment here in the ER. And you”—he pointed to Ellie—“seem to be a very sick young lady. Let’s take a look.”

  I stepped back as he examined her and asked her questions about her medical history. She told him she had been diagnosed with leukemia when she was eight. She had one round of chemotherapy but left Wyoming before the second round.

  Dr. Riggs examined the glands in her neck with his fingertips. “Sounds like you picked a bad time to skip town.”

  “Not really. My parents couldn’t afford the first treatment, but people in the town pitched in to help. They were pretty mad when they found out their money went to a hot tub and a camper.”

  Dr. Riggs brows lifted. “That’s quite a story.”

  “It’s true. That’s why I can never go back.”

  “Well. It’s not your fault the money was squandered.”

  She shrugged. “That’s how people see it, and I’m okay with that. I’m never going back to Wyoming. It’s a very lonely state.”

  “And you’re a people person,” he said with a hint of a smile. “Good for you.”

  Dr. Riggs ordered some blood tests and told Ellie that she would probably be admitted to the hospital. “At least for the night, until we can get a better gauge of what’s going on with you. Right now you’re dehydrated and you’ve got a fever, and our preliminary test shows that your white blood cell count is high. You need to hang out and rest. I’ll see if we can move you to a room sooner than later so that you’re not in the middle of this circus down here.”

  After the doctor left, Ellie turned her pleading gaze toward me. “Can you stay with me? Please? I hate hospitals, and I’m so worried about my sister. Maybe I shouldn’t stay. Morgan isn’t safe.”

  “I’ll stay with you,” I said. “But you need to relax, like the doctor said. Morgan will be okay back at the camp.”

  “Maybe not.” Ellie’s lower lip trembled.

  “What do you think will happen to her?”

  “The woods are a dark, scary place. It wasn’t so bad for us because we had each other, but the other girls . . . Maya and Blossom. I’m just so scared for her.”

  “She’ll be fine,” I said.

  “You don’t know that.” Suddenly she tossed the sheet aside and swung her legs over the side of the hospital bed. “I have to get back to her. Can you get this needle out for me?”

  “Don’t mess with that, Ellie.”

  Ellie stared down at the IV line inserted into the back of her hand. “I bet I can do it.”

  “No, you can’t. Don’t. The tip could break in your vein. Don’t touch it.”

  “But I have to go.” Her voice was louder and high-pitched now, her panic heightened. She seemed to be spiraling out of control, delirious.

  I stepped to the other side of the curtain and waved at a young woman in bright elephant-print scrubs. “Need some help here.”

  “Morgan needs me. Something’s going to happen if I’m not there. I know it.” Ellie peeled back the edge of the surgical tape. “I have to get back to the woods to save her. I need to save my sister. Please, Laura, take me back to my sister.” She gave the tape a yank as the nurse came rushing in.

  * * *

  In Stafford Woods, a handful of people grunted and strained as they packed the truck under dripping trees.

  Like ants digging in a colony, mindless and obedient, Lucy thought. Breaking camp in the aftermath of a pounding storm was a disgusting, cold process. Lucy had her silver Titanium jacket zipped up to her chin, her hood over her head, but still, the cold seeped into her bones. Everything she touched was either damp or soaking wet, and the dirt gathering under her nails made her long for a hot bath and a salon mani-pedi.

  Maybe she should go back, dodge this whole scene. It was a lot of work to move the entire camp, and half the people weren’t helping. Wolf and Eden were off working at the ranch. Light was gone now, not that she was much help, being sick and weak all the time, and Melody was sobbing about missing her sister. Pax moved around like a zombie, and True kept calling to Melody that Light would be fine, telling her to get her ass over there and help pack up.

  Guardian and the Prince did most of the heavy lifting. The truck was nearly loaded with tents, bedrolls, sleeping bags, and supplies. No room for anyone to ride, but Lucy didn’t mind the walking. She’d walked these woods for years, long before the Prince came along, and though she wasn’t the outdoorsy, survivalist kind of chick like True, that bossy bitch, Lucy had come to learn that the woods held a hell of a lot more peace than any camp or house or purebred boarding school.

  “We can’t just leave without her,” Melody said, back on her sister again. “She’s coming back. The police
got no reason to arrest her. She never did anything wrong. And nobody can say no to Light. She’ll be back, and we need to be here or she’ll . . . Oh, God, can she find her way back? There’s, like, miles of forest out here.”

  “Four and a half square miles,” Lucy said. “But it’s getting smaller every time we have to pack up and find some new, pristine space.” Actually, many of the acres of the enormous state park were uninhabitable marsh areas along the river; woodlands too dense to walk in; and hills, cliffs, and gullies that were too steep to negotiate unless you were a deer.

  “We’ll find a place.” The Prince lifted a bag of tent poles over one shoulder as if it were a sack of feathers. He was so calm, so undisturbed, while everyone else was stressed. That was the thing about the Prince—he liked moving on.

  “What about when Wolf and Eden get back?” Pax asked, looking from True to the Prince for an answer. “They’re going to wonder where we went. And they’ll never find us in Stafford Woods.”

  “But we know how to find them,” the Prince said. “Lucy will drop in on them at the ranch and tell them our new location. She’s going back soon.”

  “I don’t think so,” Lucy muttered.

  “You know you will,” he teased at her. “Everyone here has a job, and yours is peacemaking and gathering. Thanks to you, the cops stay away.”

  Well, thanks to my father. But she would never say that aloud. She couldn’t give the other girls ammunition to use against her.

  “I don’t want to go,” Melody sobbed for the hundredth time. “I’m going back to get Light. I’ll find out what hospital they took her to, and I’ll bring her home. Or I’ll bring her to the new location. Who’s going to help me?”

  “Let it go!” Lucy barked. This girl was wearing her patience. “Can’t you see what an idiotic idea that is? You’ll get arrested for sure. They’ll ship you back to bumfuck Wyoming and you’ll never see your sister again.”

  Everyone stopped working as they turned their gazes on Lucy in the awkward stillness.

  “Just shut your pie hole and think about the facts, Melody. Your sister was sick, very sick. Probably going to die out here. Now she’ll get help from the doctors. They’ll probably save her life. So stop crying and be grateful that your sister is going to live a good life. And when you’re ready to leave here, then you can go hunt her down.”

  “You don’t understand,” Melody said in an accusing tone. “Light needs me.”

  Lucy narrowed her eyes and stared at Melody as if she were speaking gibberish. “Then go to her. Nobody’s stopping you. But don’t expect this whole group to go running into the police precinct because you miss your sister.”

  “That’s pretty harsh,” True sneered.

  “Lucy’s right.” The Prince stepped into the center of the group, looking from one to another. “Sometimes you have to sacrifice one to save the rest.”

  “But not my sister,” Melody begged in a timid voice. “Not my sister.”

  21

  For a wisp of a girl, Ellie could certainly put up a fight. It took the strength of two of us and a stern scolding from the nurse to keep the girl from ripping out her IV and walking out of the hospital. But the outburst was a glimpse into her fragile state of mind. The years of poor health and transient living had taken their toll on the girl, not to mention whatever home situation had driven her and her sister away years ago.

  While Ellie was being moved from the ER to a room, I called the precinct and got Z on the phone. “You are never going to believe this,” I started.

  “Oh, my God! Like, it’s amazing,” Z said in a poor imitation of a vapid teenage girl.

  “I met three runaway girls from the Prince’s group of campers,” I continued. “I think one of them is a Lost Girl. The other two must be on the national registry of missing children. And get this: she’s friends with another African American girl named Maya. I think it has to be Maya Williams.”

  “What? How did you . . . Shit, Mori. This is your day off.”

  “I followed up on a tip that couldn’t wait.” I explained about my mother’s information about the girls visiting the food pantry, my close brush with Nicki Welsh, and my trip to the hospital with Ellie. “I’m thinking that once Ellie is released, maybe she can lead us to the camp. She wants to reunite with her sister. And it sounds like Nicki and Maya are there. Maybe some of the others.”

  “When are they going to release her?”

  “Probably not until tomorrow. But while I’m here, maybe you can do a search for me. I’m wondering if you can do a check on the girl and her sister. She says their real names are Ellie and Morgan Watson, from Sheridan, Wyoming.” I had driven through parts of Wyoming years ago when our family visited Yellowstone Park. There was a desolate beauty to the yawning red rock canyons, the green-and-gold meadows, the broad mountains rising to the skies. I understood Ellie’s comment about loneliness. It strikes from within.

  I got coffee and a hot pretzel from the hospital cafeteria while Z did the search. My cell phone jingled before I’d finished the pretzel, but it wasn’t Z. The call came from the Evergreen County Lab. It was Rex Burns with some test results.

  “We’ve been able to isolate two different drugs in Kyra Miller’s system at the time of the crash. There was a small dose of diazepam, commonly known as Valium, and a toxic dose of GHB. That’s the common name for one of the big three date-rape drugs.”

  “So maybe the sex wasn’t consensual?”

  “That’s a possibility. But let me emphasize the amount of GHB in her blood system was certainly enough to kill her.”

  “What does GHB do?”

  “It’s used to treat narcolepsy, but often it’s made on the streets. It’s a dangerous drug, known to cause seizures, blackouts, breathing problems, and a slowed heart rate. Usually in liquid form, it kicks in fast—in fifteen minutes—and the effects last three to four hours. If you wake up. It’s easy to overdose on GHB.”

  “Sounds absolutely horrible.”

  Rex was sending a copy of his report to Omak and me. I asked him to copy Z, realizing that it felt good to know someone else was trying to think through this case.

  I was polishing off a container of frozen yogurt with walnuts when Z called me back.

  “The girl wasn’t lying to you. Morgan and Ellie Watson, reported missing fourteen months ago. From the online profile, it looks like four other children were removed from that home around the time the girls were reported missing. I’ve got a call in to Sheridan’s local law enforcement and a social worker for more background.”

  I thanked him and told him to look for Rex’s report. “Call me if you need anything else. Everyone’s in a foul mood here over . . . well . . . things. I’ll tell you when I see you. I wish I was out in the field, too.”

  * * *

  Ellie’s new room in the pediatric ward was quiet and clean, with gleaming tile floors and colorful walls stenciled with bamboo trees and pandas. While I’d been waiting, she’d been given a more thorough exam and blood had been drawn. She’d showered and changed into a hospital gown and robe that hung like a sheet on her sparse frame. Her clean hair, long and straight, was the color of sand, and it seemed far too thick for a tiny girl. She sat picking at a food tray with a turkey and mashed potato dinner.

  “Look at you, propped up in bed with a hot meal.” I smiled. “You’re getting the princess treatment.”

  “I feel bad. I won’t be able to finish. Do you want some? You can have the bread.”

  “I ate downstairs, and I brought us apples. You can save yours for later.”

  “Good idea.” She put her apple on the nightstand. “I learned not to waste anything.”

  “Do you guys get most of your food from the church pantry?”

  “A lot of it comes from there.” She stabbed a few string beans with her fork. “The Prince and Guardian do some hunting, and we gather fruit from the neighbors’ trees and wild blackberries in the summer. Right now we have two people working on the Jameson ranch, so
they get money and sometimes food. And then Lucy brings stuff. Food and sometimes money. She steals from her father, but it sounds like he doesn’t care.” She looked up from her tray of food. “Do you know who I’m talking about? Lucy Jameson?”

  “I’ve heard of her.”

  “I thought so, since you’re a cop and everything.” That pensive look had returned; her mouth was a slash of tension. Her fork dropped to the tray, and she pushed it away. “There’s something wrong with Lucy.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Morgan says she’s just a mean, spoiled brat, but it’s worse than that. I think she’s evil. The girls who go live at the ranch with her? Lucy acts like she’s doing them a favor. But they never come back. None of them.”

  “And you think . . .”

  “Lucy has been killing them, and her rich parents probably pay someone to cover it up.”

  I took in air, surprised to hear her spell it out so clearly.

  “That’s what happened with Blossom,” Ellie went on. “You know, the girl in the car crash? The girl who died?”

  “Yes . . .” I waited.

  “Did Lucy kill her?” she asked.

  Her question threw me. Here was a girl who knew nothing of the investigation—the compromised brakes, the two cans of gas Lucy had purchased, the drugs in Blossom’s system—and yet she thought Lucy was the killer?

  When I didn’t answer, she went on. “I know that Andy was arrested, but that’s wrong. Wolf and Eden say he’s a good person. I think Lucy caused her death. Lucy gets rid of anyone who gets in her way, and Blossom was starting to do that with the Prince.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “There’s something between Lucy and the Prince. Sometimes he calls her his queen, and sometimes she acts like she likes him. She’s really jealous of any girl the Prince looks at, and I think he had his eyes on Blossom.”

  I perched on the edge of the heater by the window, wondering if Ellie was a bit psychotic or extremely insightful. “But people get jealous all the time without killing someone.”