Page 119 of Concealed in Death

“Well, Sebastian saw we got food. I was getting fed just fine by the Joneses. They saw to it you ate healthy and didn’t go hungry. But some of the girls in The Club would’ve gone hungry without him. You need to know that.”

“Okay.”

“We learned to street snatch, pick pockets, learned a few cons. It was exciting, and I was pretty good at it. I liked having a little secret money of my own, even though it belonged to somebody else. I’d never had my own. Couldn’t do the bjs, and Sebastian wouldn’t have liked it anyway. But I couldn’t do them the way Shelby did, even though she tried to teach me that, too.”

She laughed a little, gave Derrick a wink out of watery eyes. “Not then I couldn’t. I was a little younger, and I told Shelby no way I was doing that. It was nasty. She just laughed, said I should think of it like medicine. Just get it done. But I wouldn’t.”

“Did you ever get caught?”

“Nearly, lots of times. It added to the thrill, I guess. Mr. Jones and Ms. Jones ran things pretty tight, but most of us had had some street time—and I was getting more of it—so we found ways around and through. And we always had each other’s backs.”

“Do you still? Do you know where T-Bone is?”

“He did the same as me, got his name changed. Then he lit out. He wanted to see the world, that’s what he wanted. And he has. He got some education, and that’s thanks to Mr. Jones and Ms. Jones and the rest. He got on a boat, worked on the crew and went all the way to the South Pacific. He’s still seeing the world, and I hope you’ll let him be. We talked after I heard about the girls, and he said he’d come back if I needed. I don’t want him to have to.”

“We’ll let that stand for now. If it turns out he’s needed, I’ll want you to tell him, or give me a way to contact him, to talk to him.”

“I can do that, but he’s probably going to come anyway. We go back. You know how it is when you go back.”

Not as far, Eve thought. But she thought she knew.

“Tell me about when Shelby left.”

“We had it all planned. I still remember being so scared it wouldn’t work, then so happy—and so unhappy—when it did. She got out, she’d set up our place, and would get the rest of us out. I’d have to go. Part of me wanted to so much, and another part just wanted to stay where I knew it was safe. And the new place? It was so nice. I’d never been in such a nice place.

“But she got out, just like she said she would. But then Mikki had to go back to her mother, right on top of it. That wasn’t the plan. We had a meeting—Mikki, T-Bone, and me—and decided Mikki would need to wait it out with her mother for a few days, maybe longer, and we’d wait to hear from Shelby.”

“And you never did.”

“We never did. Now it was just me and T-Bone. And he got in trouble for mouthing off. He was wound up tight—we both were—because he usually knew how to keep a lid on it. He was on restriction and kitchen duty—and they really buttoned down the new place, so it wasn’t easy to slip out like before. But we figured I had to. We had to find Shelby, get some direction.”

She took a long drink now. “I was a skinny little thing. One night after bed check, I climbed out the window of my room. The windows only opened partway, just for that reason, but I wiggled my way out. Then I had to climb down, and I’m lucky I didn’t fall and break my leg, or my neck. Then I ran to the subway. I’d taken Matron’s swipe card out of her purse and I’d have to get it back. I’d have to climb back up, wiggle back in, but all that was for later. In that moment, I was free as a bird, and running to my best friend ever.”

“To The Sanctuary.”

“I took the subway, and I got off at the stop. It’s just a couple blocks to walk, and I ran. I ran, and it was a nice warm night. I remember thinking Shelby would be so surprised to see me. She’d be proud of how I got out the way I did when the new place was so buttoned up. She’d laugh, and we’d laugh, and she’d tell me what to do next. I thought of that. I remember thinking that, and how fast my heart beat.

“And then I don’t remember. It’s all a dark blur. I remember waking up in the morning, in my bed in my room, in the new place. Feeling sick and so tired. And scared, because I wiggled out and climbed down—I was sure I had—but I never remembered climbing back or wiggling in, or laughing with Shelby. And my window was closed tight and locked. I was wearing my uniform pajamas, and I hadn’t been.”

“Do you remember seeing anyone, talking to anyone?”

“I remember just like I told you. Except... I had dreams for a while. Dreams where I see myself walking around in there, calling out for Shelby. And everything gets dark, and in the dream I hear someone preaching about cleansing. The mind, the body, the spirit, sort of like what we talked about at The Sanctuary, but not. Cleansing for the bad girl, so... she could come home. It’s mixed up. And I was cold, and I was naked, and scared, but I couldn’t scream or run or move. I had that dream a long while.”

She gave a little shudder. Instantly, Derrick put an arm around her, drew her into his side.

“Sometimes in them I hear shouting and yelling. Sometimes I feel like I’m floating, and not scared, just floating away with this soft, soft voice telling me it was all right, to just forget, to just forget.”

“Whose voice?”

“I don’t know. But now I think—” She gripped Derrick’s hand. “Now I know what happened to Shelby and Mikki was going to happen to me. But it didn’t. I don’t know why it didn’t, and how I woke up safe, dressed in my uniform nightgown, in bed with the window tight shut.”

“No one ever asked you about that night?”

“T-Bone. I told him what I remembered, but he figured I’d dreamed it all. That I never climbed down at all. I started to think the same, and I felt awful about it. I’d been a coward and let down my friends. But they’d let me down, too. I held on to that so I wouldn’t feel so ashamed.”

She turned her head toward Derrick, just a little. He brushed his lips over her hair.

“Shelby abandoned me, like everybody, so I wouldn’t care. I’d just get through it, get by. I’d do what I had to do to get through and get by until I was old enough to get out. Nobody was ever going to take me on—scrawny, skinny, odd-looking girl like me. I just had to get through until I could walk out. Then I’d be whoever I wanted to be.”

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