“You don't belong here,” were her first words to me.
Just as I was about to get pissed off, she added, “Where you belong is naked on your back with me sitting atop you, riding you hard.”
I probably should have been pissed off at that, too—what was this, sexual harassment—but, fuck, I was young and the image aroused me.
When she winked at me and said, “Sorry. It's just that you have such nice muscles in your arms, so I started imagining how built the rest of your body must be.” Then she held out her hand as if to an equal and added, “I'm Hadley. What's your name?”
So I told her. Before the party was over, she'd given me her number. I almost didn't call. What was the point? But I kept remembering that merry, come-on look in her eyes. She seemed like a girl who really enjoyed life, so what the fuck, why not take a chance?
We started hooking up the next week. She didn't care that I was a townie, that I worked construction, that I'd been in trouble a lot as a teenager and wasn't exactly primed for a bright future.
In fact, she accused me of having a big old chip on my shoulder. “You live in the fucking U S of A. You can do anything, be anything. Try living in one of the poorer nations in Africa and then come complain to me about your lack of opportunities.”
She was right, of course. She was planning to be an international aid worker when she graduated, and she had a head full of ideas about all the great things she wanted to do with her life. She was brimming with enthusiasm. It still seems impossible to me that such a larger-than-life spirit could be extinguished from this Earth.
She loved sex, too, and she would do anything, try anything. She was sexually adventurous and, in that respect, she lived on the edge.
That's what I was upset about the last time I saw her—her dark edge. I liked the rough stuff, too—she had gotten me into BDSM, but some of the things she wanted to try were dangerous. When I wouldn't do them, she hung out with people who would. Some seriously sketchy people. I tried to get her to stop, but no way was she taking advice from me.
Our evening ended early on the night she disappeared. She told me to drop her off at her apartment. And no, she did not want me to come in.
As soon as she stepped out of the car, I slammed off, pissed, wheels skidding on the wet pavement. I drove around for a while, just like I was doing tonight. The rain was torrential, and there was a storm inside me, too.
Bursting with unspent energy, I stopped to pick up a six-pack to help me mellow out. I knew the dude who was working at the convenience store where I bought the beer. Not well, but enough to shoot the shit for a little while. We discussed the Red Sox's chances for a winning season, and the guy remembered it later when the cops questioned him.
After that I went home. I logged into this computer game I play and hung out with some MMO friends, which also helped my ass later. Then I went to bed.
I was alone for the rest of the night, feeling sorry for myself and mad at Hadley. It was not until afterwards that I felt guilty. I'd dropped her off without even checking to make sure she'd gotten safely inside the dark apartment. I hadn't called or texted her. I hadn't made sure she was safe.
I hadn't protected her. That was the worst. I could almost hear my dead brother scolding me: you’re not a man if you can’t protect your girl.
Sometime that night Hadley had vanished, and to this day, no one knew what had happened to her.
Griff
Without really paying attention, I'd driven to the outskirts of Boston. I didn't know where the fuck I was going—sometimes I just like to drive. But the fuel tank indicator lit up, reminding me that cruising without purpose wastes money.
I exited the highway and drove around looking for an open gas station. The neighborhood was crappy, but I didn't care. I almost wished some freak would try to carjack me so I could beat his head in.
I found a gas station, pulled in, entered my one lousy credit card that was always close to maxed out, and started pumping gas. The rain was brutal and the pump island didn't offer much shelter.
I noticed, without paying much attention, that an argument was going on at the next island. Man's voice, girl's, heated debate, punctuated with curses. Couldn't see them through the slashing rain. I wanted to get as much gas as I could afford and hop back inside my vehicle where it was dry.
I had just stashed the hose and climbed in when something streaked toward me through the rain and crashed into the side of my car. The passenger side door jerked open. Before I could react, this skinny, soaking-wet girl flung herself inside, spraying me with rainwater as her long stringy hair flew all over the place.
She whipped her head around, looking for a split second at me then back at whatever she was running from.
“Drive!” she screamed. “What are you waiting for? Put your foot on it and get me out of here.”
“Who the fuck are you?”
Someone or something beat on the outside of the car, and I started the engine reflexively. There was another crash as an object that looked like a shovel slammed against the side of my car. I stomped on the brake, and was about to leap out and attack whoever was damaging my car, but the girl grabbed my arm.
“He's got a gun. Just drive. Please.”
I don't take orders from anybody, especially strange women, but another whack of whatever the crazy man had in his hands helped me make up my mind. I didn't have a weapon, and I could hear yelling and cursing behind me. I couldn't see the asshole with the shovel, but it sounded as if he was foaming at the mouth.
“Go, go!” she cried, turning around in the seat looking out through the pouring rain. There was a boom that sounded like a shotgun. The girl threw herself on her belly on the seat, her head practically in my lap. “Fuck! He's gonna kill us!”
I hit the gas, and we sped out of the parking lot. I drove us up the road and swung back toward the highway. “Who is that guy? Has he got a car? Is it just the one or are there more of them?”
“Yeah, he has a car, but I disabled it. You gotta lose him. He's fuckin' crazy.”
I wanted details. If some crazy dude with weapons was gonna be on my ass, I needed to know how soon. “Disabled it how?”
“When he went in to pay and buy some smokes, I ripped his keys out of the ignition.” She held up a set of keys. “I don't know if he has a spare.”
“Let's assume he does.” I didn't see any pursuit, though. I found the on-ramp back to the highway as quick as I could and took it. Once we were up to speed and getting farther away from the psycho every minute, both me and the girl started to relax.
I scowled at her. She had moved away from me, settling into the passenger's seat like she belonged there. “Can you turn the heat on? I'm freezing.”
I ignored the request. “Why was that guy chasing you? Did you rob him?”
She shot me a wary glance. Her hair was all mashed down across her face, so she combed it away with her fingers. More rainwater splattered around. She wasn't as young as I'd first thought. Not a kid, although I wouldn't say she looked much like a woman, either, given how small and skinny she was; no curves, all angles.
“No, I didn't fucking rob him.”
“So why's he after you?”
She pushed more sopping dark hair out of the way—she had a full mane of the stuff—and considered me. Her eyes were large and round, like a curious owl. I saw no trace of the eye makeup gunk that most women use. She looked alert and intelligent and maybe a little calculating. “He's Mom's client or boyfriend or something.”
“Client?”
“She's a whore,” the girl said.
“Your mom is a whore.” Yeah, I was sarcastic. I wasn't sure how much of this I was buying.
She grinned. It completely changed her face—she had a huge smile that made her look both charming and cute.
“She prefers the term sex industry worker. Or Negotiable Pleasure Engineer, that one's even better.” Her smile turned to a husky laugh. “'Hello, I'm your Negotiable Pleasure Engineer for the evening. You want me to blow you or fuck you? Anal's extra.'“
I cleared my throat. I hoped she was quoting “Mom,” and not making me an offer. “How old are you?” Maybe I could drop her off at the nearest office of teenager welfare, or whatever it was called. Except I didn't think any welfare offices were likely to be open at this hour of the night.
“Don't worry, dude, I might not look it, but I'm legal. I even got ID to prove it.”
“Sure you do. I can take you to a bar where everyone in the place has ID, even though most of them are underage.”
“Well, I don't drink or shoot up or take pills or any of that shit anyway, so chill.”
“How old?” I snarled.
“Jeez, take it easy. I’m a fucking adult.” She dug around in her pants pocket and pulled out a beat-up wallet. I wondered if she'd stolen it. Out came a Massachusetts driver's license that looked real enough. She handed it over and I took a quick glance. It was clearly her picture. The DOB put her at twenty, turning twenty-one this summer. The name on the license was L. Rory McKay.
I handed it back. “You don't look that old.”
“Yeah, well, I feel about thirty-five.” She shot me a curious glance. “How old are you?”
I didn't answer. If she was trying to get friendly with me, forget it. I was already regretting letting her in my car, and I wanted to get rid of her as soon as possible.
Digging out her license seemed to remind her of something. She had a battered backpack with her, and she began to root around inside it. She pulled out a cell phone and pried the cover off.
“I don't want anybody tracking me.” She unscrewed part of the casing with one of her long, black-painted fingernails and jerked out the SIM card. “These things are like your own personal NSA beacon,” she said, still fiddling with the device. The next thing she removed was the battery. She dropped these two items plus the now-dead phone back into her pack.
“You got feds after you?”
“Nah. I just wanna be off the grid for a while.” She glanced over at me again. “You know my name now. What's yours?”
I felt the reluctance that always hits when someone asks my name. I'm infamous around these parts. No point in scaring her by telling her she'd jumped into the car of a psycho killer. So instead of saying Jeremiah Griffin O'Malley, which was an accused murderer's name, I said, “Folks call me Griff.” Which was true enough.
Then I wondered why I'd even told her that much.
“Griff? I like that.” She reached forward, found the heat, and turned it up. “It's different. Rory's kinda different, too. I hate those girly names like Jennifer and Ashley and Megan.”
Like I cared. I'd been checking the rear-view mirror, and there was no sign of pursuit. “Looks like you've escaped. Where am I dropping you?”
She tipped her head back against the headrest. “No idea. Where're you headed? New York City would be good if you're going that far. I can lose myself there.”
“Not going to New York.” No way. I had to work tomorrow.
“Well, how far are you going?” We were driving west. “Worcester? Springfield? Chicago?” She laughed. “Shit, I'll go anywhere as long as it's far from here.”
Great. “I took the first on-ramp to get you away from the guy with the shovel and the shotgun.”
“Yeah, that was a freaky combination, wasn't it? We could both be six feet under by now.” She laughed softly. “I got nine lives, but I should warn you I've used a few of them up already.”
“You must have somewhere to go.”
She shrugged. “I kinda don't. I was supposed to crash with a friend, but she took off.” She yawned deeply, and then glanced over at me with that appraising look. I wasn't sure if she was checking me out, or just trying to figure out how much bullshit she could sling in my direction. Probably the latter.
“If your mom's a sex worker in that part of town,” I nodded back in the direction we'd come from, “how come you're so—” I gave her the once-over “—you know, white?”
She launched that big boisterous laugh again. “Mom's not my real mother. That's just what everybody calls her, because she takes care of folks. Her real name's LaVerle.”
“So where's your real mom?”
Her laugh died away as if a door had slammed on it. “She's the one I'm trying to get away from.”
She obviously didn't want to talk about that, so I asked her anyway. Yeah, I'm a dick. I was sheltering this runaway, for the moment, anyhow, so I figured I had a right to know what I was dealing with. “Why? What did your mother do to you?”
She didn't say anything for several seconds. She shifted uneasily in the passenger seat. Then she combed some of her wet hair away from her face in a gesture that was already becoming familiar and said, “Okay, you wanna hear what she did when I turned seventeen? She tried to auction me off to a bunch of creepy guys she was in business with. There may have been a chick or two in the mix. I guess they thought I was a virgin. Some old dude offered her $10,000 for me, and, man, was she pissed when she couldn't take him up on it.”
10K? Bullshit! For this scrawny little thing? She started laughing again and I felt myself cracking a reluctant smile. I knew my next line, so what the hell, I spoke it: “And why couldn't she take him up on it?”
“'Cause the stupid bitch didn't know that I'd already held my own virginity auction. I didn't get 10 big ones, though. Should have held out for more.”
Yeah, right. The girl was a liar, but I had to give her this much: she had a certain flair.
Truth was, I didn't know what to do with Rory. Her clothes were soaked through, and despite the blasting heater, I could see her shivering. If she didn't warm up soon she might get hypothermia.
She was also hungry, given the way she tore into a packet of crackers she found in my glove compartment. I hated to think how old they were, but she didn't seem to mind.
I could have dropped her off at the nearest police station, but my experiences with cops have not exactly made me a fan. No way I was entering a cop den of my own accord. And I wasn't going to drive back to Boston just to dump her off on some rainy street there.
I could take her to my place for the rest of the night, feed her, get her warm, give her a couch to sleep on. But after everything I'd gone through with detectives, investigators, FBI agents and so on, I wasn't real comfortable with the idea.