Page 97 of Another Girl Lost

“Maybe you should push her. She might say or do something that’ll break this case.”

“I can do that.”

Her hand slid to his groin, and she angled his growing erection toward her entrance. His hands gripped her hips as he savored her warmth. The case clung to him even as her body pulled him away.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

SCARLETT

Wednesday, July 17, 2024

5:45 a.m.

I’d barely slept last night. And after staring at the ceiling for a few hours, I rose and turned on the lights and moved into my studio. I glanced up toward Margo’s apartment. No lights on. No sign of movement.

I crossed to the Della painting and uncovered it. Rubbing sleep from my eyes, I reached for the tubes of paint. I gripped the stylus and mixed the blues with hints of white. The color I mixed was not from an old, rusted memory but from the vivid blue of Margo’s eyes. I dabbed a clean fine-tipped sable brush into the paint and regarded the canvas. I carefully began to reshape the eyes and shift the color. Slowly Della’s eyes faded, and Margo’s took their place.

Margo had said she was from Newport News. She’d been a cop for eight years in Northern Virginia, and now she was back. Not to Newport News, but to Norfolk, right across the street from me.

Was it an accident that she’d been the cop who’d found Sandra’s body? Randomness was a big part of the universe, but I’d grown suspicious of it since Tanner. Was it a twist of fate that put him in the house across the street from my mother’s house, or had he chosen it becausehe’d already selected me? He was familiar with the neighborhood and my school.

I wiped my hands, shifted focus to my laptop, and searched Margo Larsen. She was listed as a new hire with the Norfolk Police Department and according to her bio was highly decorated. She would be working violent crime and homicides in her new position. She had a two-year degree from community college and her BS from Virginia Commonwealth University, both in the Richmond, Virginia, area. Her degree was in criminology. No record of her high school. She had no social media presence. One article I found said she was a “wrecking ball” in human trafficking.

I sat back and regarded the painting, reconnecting with an awareness that had slowly waned over the last decade.

When my phone rang, I didn’t recognize the number, but for the first time in a long time, I answered it. “Yes.”

“Scarlett.”

The woman’s scratchy voice was barely recognizable. “Tiffany?”

“Yeah. Can you come get me?”

I hesitated, wondering why the shift in attitude. “Where are you?”

“Jail. I was arrested for being intoxicated in public.”

I rose. “I’m surprised you called me.”

“I don’t have anyone else. My roommate isn’t answering. Can you bail me out? I can pay you back.”

She couldn’t. But that didn’t matter. “I can be there in a half hour.”

“Thanks.”

“Sure.”

The drive across town to the regional jail took a half hour, and then it was a series of administrative procedures. I showed my driver’s license and was directed to the magistrate, who then put me in touch with a bail bondsman. Two hours passed from the moment Tiffany called to the instant I saw her move through the double doors, hugging a plastic bag stuffed with her belongings.

When she saw me, she nodded but didn’t smile or look grateful. Maybe she saw this as one more stone in the rebalancing of my debt to her. Maybe she was so tired and hungover she couldn’t summon any emotion.

She followed me out the front door and to my truck. “Where do you want to go? You can crash at my place if you need to get it together.”

“I have an apartment.”

“I can take you there.”

“I guess.”

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