CJ hesitated a moment, felt like there was something more she should say. Take a step toward mending that bridge, maybe. After all, this woman had taken care of Shelley’s medical needs.
“Use the back door.” Juanita didn’t bother looking up again.
CJ decided they were way beyond any sort of amends. Instead, she walked out.
How was it that she’d been gone for seven years and no one or nothing that mattered around here had changed?
Absolutely nothing.
Except her sister was dead.
CJ would know the reason her sister had been murdered.
She glanced back at the run-down clinic.
Maybe she already did.
That was exactly why she intended to visit the one person who knew Shelley almost as well as she: Ricky Banks. This time the police weren’t getting between them. CJ wanted him alone.
Ricky and his scumbag cronies weren’t the only ones who could play games.
She was about to show him she hadn’t forgotten the lessons she’d learned as a kid.
CJ Patterson could lie, cheat, and steal ... if it meant finding her sister’s killer.
Chapter Fifteen
Juanita didn’t move for a long time after Patterson left. She stared at the mound of files on the desk, her mind frozen yet somehow spinning wildly.
She had work. A ton of work.
She should get started.
“Oh God.”
Shelley Patterson was dead.
A tremor of uncertainty quaked through Juanita, shattering the quivering mass of stalled thoughts.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
She glanced around her office. Tried to think what to do.
This really had nothing to do with her. Nothing at all.
Shelley was dead because she didn’t know how to stay out of trouble. She was always ...
Shit!
Who was she kidding?
Juanita needed a cigarette. Grabbing her bag, she plopped it on top of the mountain of work. Fished around inside until she found her Winstons. Lighter? Where was that damned lighter? Her hands shook.
“Shit!” She turned her bag upside down, let her stuff tumble over the desk, onto the floor. The lighter fell into her lap. Hand still shaking, she snatched it up and lit the cigarette.
She didn’t care that it was a smoke-free environment.
She had far bigger problems.
