Grace felt like she was recovering from a virus. The last few hours had been … she hadn’t thought she’d make it out alive. Hammond’s best move would have been to get rid of the four of them. Anyone could see that. She’d hoped if she warned Hammond about Mick and JJ coming, he’d trust her again and take care of her. Didn’t work out that way.
Originally he might have sent Grace away like he outlined in the “good deal,” but as she watched Hammond think through his possibilities with Mick and Fitz, she’d realized that bringing more people into it had eliminated that option. He’d just been blowing smoke. He’d never risk turning Mick and JJ and Fitz loose. He didn’t know them, couldn’t be sure they’d hold up their end. And he’d wonder if Grace had a bigger alliance to one of them than to him. He wouldn’t take that chance. Grace had to go, too.
Would he really have done that? Kill or get Larry to kill four people? She thought so. Would Larry have gone along with it? Maybe. Probably. Self-preservation. In too deep to quit. In a way, Mick and his dad saved her life by giving the sheriff time to find her. She hoped they never discovered she’d ratted them out. Actually, Mick would forgive her. That’d be a quick fix. Kiss or two or a little more.
Fitz. He’d be a problem.
She’d had a couple of narrow escapes. She could be in a California prison for killing her brothers. She could be decomposing, scattered in bits and pieces around the Cabinet Mountains Wilderness. Did the sheriff have anything on her? She was safe from the runaway complication now that she knew her mom would never have filed a missing person. And Grace hadn’t done anything too illegal. One way or another she’d earned the money she’d saved. She was small potatoes compared to Hammond.
When she got to Missoula they’d ask her a bunch of questions. She’d play dumb. Afterward, they could release her right there as far as she was concerned. The main thing was getting her money back and leaving. She didn’t really need the extra three thousand Hammond had offered. She already had enough to go someplace and start a business.
Earlier when Hammond had left the destination up to her, “somewhere big and far away,” she’d realized she wanted to get out of state. Get distance from these people. Everybody. Someplace she couldn’t be found. Denver sounded good. Or maybe all the way to Phoenix. Lot of older people there that might want her services.
Let’s say Phoenix. How hard would it be to find another obit? Some college girl in a neighboring state. Take the name. Grace Herick would disappear and the new person could enroll in a university. Maybe even transfer courses if the other girl had been a decent student. New school, new city, new work. Piece of cake, really. Grace thought she might be pretty good at a career in law enforcement. So many possibilities in a field like that.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The idea for this book emerged as I drove down a small town’s alley toward the Clark Fork River and was surprised by the living conditions I encountered not fifty feet off a manicured main street. I imagined the people I’d met in schools and hospitals who might wash up on such shores, and Dead Girl Moon began. I owe a great deal to teenagers who literally inspired me with their bravery, perseverance, and resourcefulness. The setting depicted, the community, and its business and politics are fiction.
I am most grateful to my editor, Wes Adams, for his encouragement, savvy recommendations, and humor that makes each literary project a many-smiled collaboration. Also, to Karla Reganold and FSG’s superb copyediting staff for helping make this book accurate and cohesive, and to Jay Colvin for proving you can tell a book by his covers.
Huge thanks to my agents Tracey and Josh Adams at Adams Literary, whose elegant support and advocacy I cherish.
I received finely tuned feedback from the world’s best writing group: Jim Dowling, Kathryn Gessner, Carla Jackson, Melinda Kashuba, and Robb Lightfoot. I’m lucky to have a larger writing community: Steve Brewer, Chris Crutcher, Tony D’Souza, George Rogers, Bill Siemer, and Jamie Weil.
Special appreciation goes to northwestern Montana Highway Patrol officers for their strategic information, to Dr. Paul Swinderman for relevant medical consultations, and to Manuel J. Garcia, Attorney, for advice pertinent to the story’s legal areas.
I’m forever endebted to and enriched by the loves of my life. My darling psychotherapist/artist wife is always my first reader, and my bright, beautiful daughter, Jessica Rose, edits from afar in Portland.
BY CHARLIE PRICE
Dead Connection
Lizard People
The Interrogation of Gabriel James
Desert Angel
Dead Girl Moon
Farrar Straus Giroux Books for Young Readers
175 Fifth Avenue, New York 10010
Copyright © 2012 by Charlie Price
All rights reserved
First hardcover edition, 2012
eBook edition, October 2012
macteenbooks.com
The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:
Price, Charlie.
Dead Girl Moon / Charlie Price. — 1st ed.
p. cm.
Summary: Grace, a scheming runaway, JJ, her fostercare sister, and Mick, the son of a petty thief, become entangled in the investigation of a teen prostitute’s murder in a small, corrupt Montana town.
ISBN 978-0-374-31752-2 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-0-374-31753-9 (ebook)
[1. Murder—Fiction. 2. Runaways—Fiction. 3. Foster home care—Fiction. 4. Political corruption—Fiction. 5. Montana—Fiction. 6. Mystery and detective stories.] I. Title.
PZ7.P92477Deg 2012
[Fic]—dc23
2012004992
eISBN 9780374317539
Dead Girl Moon Page 21
