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“I don’t disagree,” he says, pulling the sleek black tires onto the dirt path of the trailer park. “I offered my place. My parents are in the city, and you’ll both be safe. Safer than…” He lets his distasteful glare run over the trailers all around.
Before he can go on, Billie taps the dashboard. “Here is good.”
He rolls the car to a stop, but turns a frown on her. “You sure? You live a few blocks up that way.”
“Yeah, I wanna make a stop.” Carmine’s trailer, but she doesn’t feel like sharing that—or saying her name aloud. “Thanks for the ride.”
The glance he throws her way is an obvious one, one brimming with the question he doesn’t voice: ‘Dressed like that?’
But the trailer park is what it is, and she won’t be the worst dressed running around here, not even with the blood spatter on her jean-shorts.
“Talk to Kate,” Trevor calls out as she clambers out of the car. “About staying at mine tonight.”
Billie just thumbs-ups him, then runs around the flat trunk. She cuts through the joined lawn-strips between trailers, down to Carmine’s.
On the way, she passes some kids playing ass-naked in metal bins filled with hose water; the gossips leaning over their porches with coffee mugs all cracked and chipped; some shady work going on with a fancy car that doesn’t belong in the park.
Eyes follow her. Folk stop what they’re doing just to watch her jog by, vodka sloshing around in the bottle.
But she doesn’t slow down until she sees Carmine’s trailer come into view—and she staggers when it dawns on her. Why the fuck is she here?
What, did she think she would just pop by and visit her parents? Tell them sorry, tell them all about the blood she slipped in, how she closes her eyes and sees their daughter slashed up?
Not her best idea.
She’s about to turn back and head to her own trailer when she notices she’s not the only one who acted on a poorly thought-out plan. She spots a familiar BMW parked around the corner.
Kate sits on the hood.
Her face is buried in her slender hands.
It’s unlike her, but she wears the same clothes as yesterday. Looks like she didn’t go straight home after getting her car from Grace’s.
“Hey.” Billie slows to a wander as she approaches the car. “How long you been sittin’ out here?”
Kate drops her hands to her lap. She looks up at her with weary eyes. Tired. Not a tearstain in sight. Just tired.
Nerves of steel. Tough as nails.
It’s just how she is.
Kate’s the kind of gal who cries on the inside but has her shoulders back and her head held high.
‘Never let her see you cry,’ Kate told her once when Billie’s mom beat the crap outta her back in school days. One of the many beatings, so many that all the reasons for them get lost over time. ‘When she sees you cry, she’s won.’
“A while.” Kate slides off the hood. Glancing at the trailer, she adds, “No one’s home.”
They share a look, and in it they have their unspoken guesses:Probably at the morgue. Organizing Carmine’s funeral already. Talking to the cops.
“Come on.” Kate moves for her car door. “We’ll go to yours. Get you out of… those.” Her eyes linger over the frayed hem of Billie’s jean-shorts.
Silently, Billie follows. She jumps into the passenger seat. The drive to her trailer is less than a minute, slowed down by dogs chasing cats and feral kids chasing soccer balls.
Good thing Billie left the door unlocked, since her keys are gone for now.
Kate follows her inside—and locks the door.
Just in case.
