Goodbye Forever

by Bonnie Hearn Hill

  ‘That smug bastard.’ Richard gripped the steering wheel. ‘I’d like to show him treacherous.’

  Kit glanced out at the sea below them. For a moment, it darkened and seemed to close in around her. She felt as if she were being smothered.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ Richard reached out for her hand, and she forced herself to shake away the feeling.

  ‘It’s desolate out here. That’s all. Yet all of a sudden, it feels claustrophobic. That guy just sucks the oxygen out of the air, doesn’t he? Maybe something that happened to Jessica at that camp caused her to run away.’

  ‘But that was three years ago,’ Richard said. ‘If I had been there for her then, maybe we wouldn’t have to be trying to find her now.’

  ‘You tried.’

  He turned his attention back to the road. ‘I didn’t try hard enough.’

  Her stomach sank, and she tried to fight off the feeling of hopelessness. ‘Because you married me.’

  ‘Don’t blame yourself, Kit. I chose to give up after Mark died.’

  ‘Because you hoped we could have a family of our own,’ she said. She almost added that she was sorry she had been opposed to the idea, but that would not be true.

  ‘You made it clear that you were too young.’

  ‘Let’s not go over it again,’ she said. ‘We’ve had a rough enough time lately.’

  ‘Right,’ he replied in the way he did when he meant something else entirely.

  ‘I’m going to find her,’ she said. ‘And I have a plan.’

  ‘You’ve done your best. We both knew this was a long shot.’

  ‘Richard,’ she said, ‘I’m going pose as a runaway.’

  For a moment, he didn’t reply. She turned away and pretended to watch the sweeping landscape of ocean and forest.

  ‘You can’t.’ Richard glanced over at her, and then back at the road. She knew he was trying to figure out if she could actually get away with it.

  ‘I already talked to John Paul about it.’

  ‘You did?’ He sounded annoyed. ‘He can’t possibly think this is a good idea.’

  You could get in a shitload of trouble. John Paul’s words echoed in her head. ‘He can fill in for me on the air if he needs to, and I can’t see what it will hurt for me to spend one night homeless.’

  ‘Are you saying he’s going along with it?’ Richard asked.

  ‘I’m sure he will.’

  ‘Don’t lie to me, and don’t even think about doing something I’m sure your cop friend has already told you not to do.’

  ‘Former cop. And, Richard, she’s not his niece. She’s yours.’

  ‘But you’re my … I mean, as much as I want to find Jessica, I don’t want to risk your safety.’

  ‘It’s just one night,’ she said. ‘Maybe I’ll get a lead. Most kids do stay there at first if they can get in.’

  ‘I wonder if you could just interview someone from the place,’ he said.

  ‘You know that won’t do it, Richard. I have no choice.’

  ‘Then neither do I. At least take some pepper spray. I’ll bet you haven’t thought about that, have you?’

  ‘I could get searched. They’ll probably just confiscate it.’

  ‘Kit.’ He took the turnoff and stopped abruptly at the stoplight. ‘You do not know how to fake being homeless.’

  ‘Newly homeless, and John Paul will give me plenty of tips.’

  The look he gave her carried a mixture of anger and something else. Fear, maybe. ‘You’ll run into predators in there. You know that, don’t you?’

  ‘No, I don’t, and neither do you. Besides, there’s safety in numbers.’

  He started driving again into the weather—wet and gray, a blur of headlights. Kit felt as if some kind of force pulled them forward. Yet this ride and this conversation felt safer than anything she had experienced in Dr Weaver’s remote camp.

  She settled down into the seat and once more thought of Richard’s niece and where she was at that moment. In spite of the cold, she cracked the window a bit and gulped air until her breathing caught up. ‘Let’s give it twenty-four hours,’ she told him. ‘Between the two of us, maybe we can find out where kids go when they leave a shelter.’

  ‘Give you twenty-four hours, you mean.’

  ‘For now, it’s the only way. Are you with me?’

  ‘I don’t like it.’ His voice broke. ‘I don’t like any of this, Kit.’

  SEVEN

  After an initial argument, John Paul didn’t try to stop Kit from carrying out her plan. He even offered to drive her. Maybe he felt guilty because he was taking her place with Farley on the air, or maybe this was just his way of helping. Either way, his presence comforted her. That he kept his opinion to himself for once pleased her even more.

  This was the first time she had ridden in John Paul’s truck, which smelled strongly of citrus. Then she noticed the little yellow lemon-shaped cardboard air freshener hanging from the mirror and wondered if he had purchased it for this occasion. Although she never wore much makeup, she had put on only sunscreen, and she hoped the very real uncertainty she felt was reflected in her face. The teal knit headband, more suitable for a teen, would add to the deception or at least keep her ears warm.

  ‘Sarah turned over Jessica’s computer,’ John Paul said. ‘It’s not completely clean, but what’s there is in code. “Meet you for cheese enchiladas on Wednesday.” That kind of thing.’

  ‘So at least there’s one other person involved in her disappearance.’

  ‘Don’t assume anything,’ John Paul said. ‘Just be safe.’

  ‘I did buy some pepper spray.’

  ‘Good, but keep it hidden.’ He pulled up close to but not in front of the shelter and handed over a pack of cigarettes. ‘These will buy you a world of information.’

  ‘A world, huh?’ She had been naïve to assume that all of the facts she needed would be handed over.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ John Paul said, misreading her expression. ‘Because you’re coming through Sacramento PD, your processing will be easy. No one is going to search you.’

  ‘I’m not worried about that,’ Kit said. ‘It’s the cigarettes. My dad smoked for years, and I don’t want to contribute to someone else’s habit.’

  John Paul rolled his eyes. ‘The only health I’m worried about right now is yours, Doyle. They’ll come in handy, believe me.’

  ‘So I just walk in the door?’ she asked.

  ‘You’re already checked in as law enforcement referral,’ he said. ‘It will save you some questions.’

  Sitting beside him in the truck, she felt herself shiver.

  ‘Second thoughts?’ John Paul asked, in a voice that conveyed it would be just fine to stop before she started.

  She shook her head hard enough to make her point. ‘If we don’t find her …’

  ‘All I meant was that you don’t even know this girl. No one would blame you for changing your mind.’

  ‘I’ll be safe, John Paul.’ She opened the truck door. Freezing wind rushed in. ‘I guess this is it, then.’

  ‘You look cold,’ he said. ‘You sure you don’t want my jacket again?’

  At first she thought he was mocking her, but the tone of his voice was as serious as that damned air-freshener lemon dangling in front of her. ‘My coat’s fine, and so am I. And you and Farley will be perfect on our shift.’

  ‘Take these.’ He reached across her, rummaged in his glove compartment, and then handed two small bags of pistachios to her. ‘My buddy Jasper’s family markets them. No telling what the food’s like at that place.’

  ‘Thanks.’ She shoved them in her pocket, hopped out, and ran inside the building.

  The chilled air seemed to move indoors with her. Maybe it had just settled into her bones, or maybe that was how unacknowledged fear expressed itself. She paused at the check-in area and wondered what Jessica felt when she first stepped into this place – if Jessica had stayed here, if she had entered the world of teen runaways by
choice. This was a more likely destination than the city’s homeless shelters, and it felt friendlier than Kit had expected, although hardly a place one would linger for long.

  As John Paul had promised, no one searched her, and the woman at the desk seemed to take Kit’s word when she said she had no money.

  ‘Because of the storm, we’re out of beds,’ the woman told her. ‘We’re setting up cots in the kitchen.’

  The zippered clear-plastic pouch the woman handed her contained a toothbrush and a towel worn thin by too much use, too much bleach, or both. Because of the law enforcement referral, Kit escaped the euphemism called ‘processing’ and was led directly to the kitchen. After the shelter worker returned to the front desk, Kit transferred her money and cigarettes from her jacket pocket to the pouch. ‘They’ll steal clothes right off you if they’re desperate enough,’ John Paul had told her. Kit was still close enough to him to hear his words of warning. She looked around the room.

  It bore little resemblance to the smiling photos on the center’s website. Long wood dining tables had been pushed to the walls to make room for the chaotic assortments of cots. They looked like little ironing boards and were probably no more comfortable. Girls in various stages of dress guarded their possessions as they huddled over their phones.

  Whatever drove Jessica must have made those institutional taupe walls and thinly blanketed beds tolerable. The cot Kit would call home that night was functional and with sheets that smelled clean.

  A pale-haired anemic-looking girl in a wool cap strutted up to her.

  ‘You new here?’ she asked, all attitude.

  ‘Aren’t we all?’ Kit tried for a shy laugh.

  ‘Some of us go through more than once.’ The girl looked her over as if evaluating Kit’s level of street smarts and finding it lacking. ‘Not you, though.’

  ‘I was supposed to leave with my friend. Her name’s Jessica. We got separated, and I’m trying to find her.’

  ‘Here’s the way it works,’ the girl rasped. ‘This is a processing place, and we’re like pieces of meat. You either land in the reject pile, the freezer, or they grind up your ass for hamburger.’

  The two girls standing behind her chuckled obediently, as if they had heard all this before.

  ‘Meaning?’ Kit asked.

  ‘They either send you back where you came from, put you in foster care, or, if they decide you’re screwed-up enough, the appropriate facility. And believe me, there’s a facility out there for anything that’s wrong with you. Most of us, though, we just want a bed and a meal before we leave. You wouldn’t happen to have a cigarette, would you?’

  ‘They told me it’s not allowed.’

  The girl slammed a hand on her hip and looked back at her two friends with a shake of her head. ‘Remember what I said,’ she told Kit. ‘To them, you’re a piece of meat in the processing plant. The rules are for them, not you. Doesn’t stop us, though. I got money. I’ll pay you.’

  Which meant she had hidden that money from the people at check-in. ‘Where’d you stash it?’ Kit asked.

  ‘Honey, you don’t want to know.’

  The husky girls on either side of her moved closer. No wonder she was bold. One of them had red hair, shaved on one side, and blackbird tattoos that disappeared down her neck into her jacket. The other had large eyes beneath a wide afro.

  ‘You managed to hide the cash,’ Kit said. ‘You should have hidden the cigarettes too.’

  ‘I did.’ She coughed out a laugh. ‘Already smoked them, didn’t we, girls?’ They smiled but remained silent.

  ‘If I could help you out, would you tell me if you saw my friend?’

  ‘Help me out?’ she demanded. ‘Who do you think you are to try to bargain with me? I’d kick your ass right here and crush the cigarettes before I’d play games with you.’

  The other two girls exchanged looks, and Kit glanced around. The kitchen noises weren’t loud enough to bury a cry for help if she needed it, and two security guards stood just outside the door. Besides, most bullies were cowards.

  ‘I’m not trying to play games,’ Kit said. ‘And what’s wrong with bargaining anyway?’

  ‘Because you assume we’re on the same level.’

  ‘If you know anything about Jessica, believe me, we are on the same level. If not …’ She shrugged.

  A dark-skinned girl in a red plaid shirt stood up from her cot. Kit wasn’t sure whose side she was on, and she could tell the blonde wasn’t certain either.

  Just then, the blonde turned away from both of them and called into the dimly lit kitchen. ‘Who the fuck has a cigarette in this place? I’ll do anything.’

  ‘Shut up, will you?’

  ‘Go to bed.’

  ‘I’m trying to sleep.’

  Moans and curses echoed through the overcrowded room. Somebody began humming a song about getting high and touching the sky. Somebody else began clapping.

  ‘Keep it down, ladies.’ A pleasant but firm female voice broke through the chaos, and a uniformed security guard stepped into the room. ‘You get one warning. Don’t push it, all right? Lots of people out there would like to be in your places tonight.’

  The girl in the red shirt moved closer to Kit. ‘I’m Virgie, and I got the last bed. It’s a bad night to be on the streets. We’re lucky to be here.’

  ‘I’m looking for my friend,’ Kit said. ‘Her name’s Jessica. I’m Katherine.’ That surprised her. Until that moment, she hadn’t even considered using her legal name. ‘We were supposed to leave together.’

  ‘No fun being out here alone,’ Virgie said.

  The blonde came back. ‘I don’t know any Jessica,’ she told Kit. To Virgie, she said, ‘Got any cigarettes?’

  ‘Afraid not. I haven’t even eaten today, and the kitchen’s already closed. Any of you girls got some food stashed?’

  ‘Just suck it up until breakfast,’ the blonde told her. ‘They put it out early. You’ll live.’ She glanced to the right and the left, as if to call attention to her shabby posse, and Kit realized she had gotten herself into some kind of a standoff with this girl.

  Kit reached into her pocket and pulled out the pistachio bags John Paul had given her. ‘Take these.’

  ‘Thanks.’ Virgie tore at the wrapper of one of them.

  ‘Well, ain’t you Mother Teresa.’ The cold way the blonde said it settled in Kit’s back, and she shivered.

  ‘Virgie wants to eat. You want to smoke. What’s the difference?’

  The blonde looked like a dark shadow against the dimly lit images of cots and kitchen appliances. ‘Difference is, she got her food, and I’m still waiting for my cigarette.’

  ‘I’m warning you, girls.’ Kit looked toward the doorway and saw the shape of the security guard outlined by a laser beam of light. If she had held a megaphone, her message couldn’t have been clearer. ‘Lights out, all right? I know it’s difficult with the storm. Don’t make it any worse.’

  ‘Screw all of you.’ The blonde flopped on to the cot beside Kit’s as if fighting with someone, even though she was the only one there. Kit guessed most of the battles in these cots and this place were with internal enemies. She thought about the one time she had tried to run away from the expectations and equally rigid deceptions of her own home. She had soon figured out what a bad idea that was.

  ‘I’ll try to get a cigarette for you,’ Kit said.

  Nothing, and then a sigh. ‘How?’

  ‘Please shut up, you two,’ a female voice whined.

  The girl patted her cot and whispered, ‘Come on over.’

  Kit hesitated and stared into the thin light outlining the shapes and surfaces of the room. The blonde could have a hidden weapon. John Paul had already drilled those warnings into Kit’s head. On the other hand, the girl could be just that – young and scared. And she definitely knew far more than Kit did about where homeless kids went to hide, even if she hadn’t met Jessica.

  Kit put her hand in her pocket and clutched her canister of
pepper spray. Then she walked over and crouched down beside her. She had seen pain before, but she could not remember meeting anyone who embodied it the way this girl did. In the room’s dim institutional glow, her eyes looked like shadows, and her long, pale fingers gripped across her chest as if trying to protect something that had already been taken.

  Kit spoke as quietly as possible to keep the entire room from waking. ‘I have a cigarette in my bag.’

  ‘What do you want from me?’

  ‘I’m alone, and I need to know where to go from here,’ Kit said.

  The girl shrugged as if addressing a much younger sister. ‘In case you haven’t noticed, we’re all alone. Unless you’ve got some guy, who’s going to bail on you anyway when you don’t have a cot and a blanket even as shitty as those in here.’

  ‘I do have a guy who will help me,’ Kit said. ‘Maybe we can help you too.’

  ‘Yeah. For the price of a threesome or whatever else you have in mind.’

  ‘Nothing like that. I’m new at this. All I want to know is where to go once I leave.’

  ‘That’s what we all want to know.’ The girl turned over on her side, her thin back facing Kit. ‘Let me know if you decide to part with that cigarette. Maybe then we can talk about the other stuff.’

  ‘If that’s the way you want it.’ Kit started back to her cot and then stopped. John Paul was right. She needed to use what she had. ‘So I give you the cigarette, and you give me some idea of where I can go next.’

  The girl’s back stiffened even more. ‘I told you, I don’t bargain.’ Her raspy voice wasn’t convincing.

  Kit returned to her bed and reached down for her pouch. John Paul had given her this stuff for a reason.

  She turned and walked back to the girl’s cot.

  ‘One more thing,’ she said.

  ‘Leave me alone.’ She didn’t bother to turn.

  ‘I have what you asked for.’ The girl rolled on to her back, and Kit gave the cigarette to her.

  ‘Thanks.’ She yanked it out of Kit’s hand. ‘Took you long enough.’

  ‘Let’s talk,’ Kit said. ‘You have the smoke, and I need to know where to go.’