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If she’d simply said her brother lived in ‘Whistle Stop Village: A Manufactured Home Community,’ Gia would have known how to get there, but that was not information Zelda shared. She spent most of the ride silently, her head slack against the back of the car seat, either staring through her slitted eyes out the side window or with her eyes fully closed. Gia did not push her to be any more talkative than she wished to be.
Following Zelda’s directions meant a few backtracks, when she wasn’t paying enough attention to call a turn out in time, but once they drove past the ‘Whistle Stop’ sign, her attention perked up a little, and she got them directly to Zaxx’s unit.
Gia pulled onto a gravel drive that led into a carport. Two bikes were parked under its cover, one under a tarp at the back, and the LiveWire Zaxx rode daily at the front. An old Honda Prelude, its blue paint badly faded, was parked on the grass beside the drive. There was a Battlefield Betties sticker in the rear window, and Zaxx had told her that Zelda did roller derby, so she assumed the Honda was hers.
There were no other vehicles parked on the drive, the carport, or in front of Zaxx’s house.
It was pretty cute for a mobile home. The building itself was an average rectangle, but it was painted a nice medium-dark grey, with white trim, and it had a big deck off the red front door. On the deck was a home-store-special table and chairs set and a Weber grill. He had half-barrels full of petunias and pansies on either side of the deck steps, big mounds of hostas under the window at one end, and several other pots and small beds of annual flowers. The still-young morning sun broke over the roof of the trailer and gave his yard a golden sheen.
The scene was so peaceful after so much horror, a horror probably continuing into the day, that for a moment Gia was transfixed.
Her feelings about Zaxx had grown very complicated in the past twelve hours or so, swinging sharply from suspicion to affection to anger and around again, but in this moment she was charmed. He’d made a cute little home for himself.
A gusty wind kicked up, shaking the trees, making their leaves chatter. Zaxx’s screen door swung open, slamming back on the wall of the trailer. A second later, the front door itself swung open.
And then closed.
Not a slam, the way wind would close it again. A measured, quiet closing.
Somebody was in that house.
Was it Zaxx? His bike was right there. But his truck wasn’t, and it was his truck he’d been driving. No other vehicles were around, except for an old VW van in his neighbor’s carport, an even older Ford Galaxy up on blocks in the yard across the street, and a black Dodge pickup parked on the street in front of that trailer.
But somebody was in Zaxx’s house.
Zelda was reaching for the door handle. Gia grabbed her arm—too fast, too hard; Zelda gasped sharply. “Ow, hey!”
“Sorry. But don’t get out yet.” Not wanting to worry Zelda after all she’d been through, she added simply, “I just want to make sure everything’s okay in there.”
Zelda frowned and looked over to the front door. The screen door was about halfway open, swinging lightly in the steady breeze, much more gentle than that one gust.
“Why?”
Deciding that the woman who’d rather her brother be off killing the men who’d hurt her than keeping a vigil at her side was tough enough to hold steady, even with this new potential danger, Gia went ahead and told her, “I think somebody’s in there, and I don’t think it’s Zaxx. Could anybody else be in there when he’s not?”
Was he dating someone? The thought came with an acid wash through her belly, so Gia pushed it away.
“Um ... his neighbor. I can’t think her name, but she lives there”—Zelda indicated the next-door unit, where the vintage VW was parked. “She takes care of Doof when Zaxx has to be away.”
Doof. Zaxx’s dog. Half husky, Gia recalled.
A husky would be kicking up a fuss if there were a stranger in his house. He’d also be kicking up a fuss to have a strange car in his driveway. That suggested it was the neighbor inside Zaxx’s house.
Gia relaxed a little, but not completely. “Can I ask you something that might be painful?”
Zelda turned and considered her. “You can ask. Might not answer.”
Gia nodded; that was more than fair. “How did you get away yesterday?” Had she disabled the men?
Under the bruises and wounds that marred her face, Zelda’s complexion paled to translucence. Gia regretted (yay, more guilt) asking and came close to taking it back, but then Zelda’s bruised jaw set firmly and she sat up a little straighter.
“They grabbed me outside the library and dragged me into the dumpster cage. That’s where they did it. Danvers had a nightstick. They used that on me, too, and then ... one of ‘em dropped it. It landed right by my hand. I don’t know how I did it, but I rolled and cracked Danvers across the head, and he fell. The other one ...” She stopped, swallowed, and went on, “Had his pants around his ankles, so I got up and just started running. I don’t know if they even tried to chase me. When I got to my car, they weren’t behind me. I don’t know after that. I hurt so bad, and it was hard to see and think and breathe. I don’t remember how I got to Zaxx’s, but I guess I drove here.” She gestured toward the Honda.
That moment when Gia had almost relaxed was entirely gone. Zelda’s robotically recounted horror had reminded her that at least one of her attackers was a cop. A cop could find an address easily. Zelda hadn’t wanted to go to her own home, but Zaxx was her brother. It didn’t require a logical leap to guess they’d collected more than one possible address if they meant to hunt her down.
It was probably only the neighbor in there, taking care of Doof. But if it wasn’t ...
“Yeah, I need you to wait here. I’ll leave the keys in the ignition. Lock the doors, and if anybody comes out of that trailer who isn’t me, the neighbor, your brother, somebody you know is safe, get yourself into the driver’s seat and get the fuck out of here.”
