CJ’s gaze meshed with hers.
The woman’s dark eyes confirmed CJ’s worst fears.
“Some don’t come back.”
Corner of Governor’s Drive and the Parkway
CJ parked in the lot on the west side of the Medical Plaza. East of the overpass where the homeless gathered at night, Governor’s Drive flourished with massive, prestigious medical clinics and plazas. The overpass served as a kind of border. To the west of the overpass it was like crossing into another country. Dive businesses. Run-down housing. Nothing pleasant or attractive.
When had the Parkway become that dividing line? The wealthy and socially elite built enormous mansions on the east side, the ritziest of retail shops and restaurants were erected on that side.
Misery and poverty survived on the west. The landfill, most of the homeless missions ... all on the west.
Wasn’t anyone out there paying attention?
CJ checked her pockets. Keys and cell phone in the left, pepper spray in the right. The sun had dropped behind the mountains, leaving the city of Huntsville cloaked in dusk, and still the heat simmered from the concrete and asphalt. Sweat dampened her skin. Moments from childhood: running barefoot down the street, the sun baking the asphalt that in turn broiled her and Shelley’s feet. But they didn’t care. It was summer, no school, and all the kids in the neighborhood were outside from daylight until well after dark.
Her chest ached with the memories. Even in the clutches of poverty, life had been so simple then.
The future had been an open window of possibilities. They could be anything, could go anywhere.
Except Shelley was dead.
Murdered.
CJ’s jaw tightened. She prayed her determination to solve her sister’s murder hadn’t caused the death of another woman.
One who had already suffered far too much.
Tyrone Nash had to be stopped.
Another memory flashed across the screen of her retinas. Tyrone cornering her in her own house. Her mother passed out on the sofa. Shelley locked in her room crying with the music blaring because of something Tyrone had said to her at the bowling alley. CJ had confronted him. He’d backed her into her own living room and tried his best to rape her. Her mother hadn’t heard a thing. Shelley hadn’t heard a thing.
But unluckily for Tyrone, CJ’s mother always kept a butcher knife on the floor just beneath the skirt of the ratty old sofa. When he’d thrown CJ to the floor, ripped off her shirt, and started dragging off her shorts, her fingers had sought and found that knife.
The slice across his cheek had been a mistake. She’d meant to cut the son of a bitch’s throat. He’d let her go, grabbed at his face. She’d scrambled away from him and threatened to do more damage if he didn’t get out. He had stomped out, cursing her and threatening to come back and finish what he’d started.
But he never had.
From that day forward he’d stayed clear of CJ and her sister.
Until a few years ago, after CJ had moved away.
She wondered now if Tyrone had lured Shelley in just to get back at her.
Nausea roiled in CJ’s stomach at the idea. Leaving had been the best thing for her ... and the worst for her sister.
Twenty-five, thirty women and men, mostly men, sat or stood around under the bridge. Some were eating the leftovers they hadprobably discovered in trash cans; others were drinking from bottles camouflaged in brown paper sacks. Conversations lulled as she walked past the huddles. No one said anything to her, just looked. The fingers of her right hand were tucked in her jeans pocket. The cool, metal cylinder was comforting.
The roar and bump of the traffic overhead was rhythmic, almost soothing. Was that why, other than the obvious shelter from rain, the homeless gathered here?
So far, she hadn’t seen Celeste. CJ’s pulse kicked into overdrive. This wasn’t exactly the place to be at night, but she had to find that girl. Had to know she was okay.
A wild mane of red hair drew CJ’s attention to a huddle on the opposite side of the underpass. Her heart rate picked up, urging her pulse to skip. Dodging traffic, she darted to the other side. The girls in the huddle stopped talking and stared at CJ.
“Hey, ladies.” CJ walked right up to the group as if she belonged. Her heart sank when she could see that the redhead was not Celeste. “I’m looking for a friend of mine.”
“What the hell you doing under this bridge, bitch?” one of the women demanded.
