Concealed in Death (In Death #38)(94)

“Seems like it. Always with a pack. Girlfriends, laughing, talking, going home or out somewhere. I envied that. She had nice clothes, seems they all did. I hated wearing those hand-me-downs, and I noticed clothes on girls around my age.”

“Then you ran into her in Times Square.”

“That’s right. I was set up with my box, and truth be told Shelby was working the crowd for wallets. Telling the truth, back then it was fun, an adventure. We didn’t have many. But this time, this sharp-looking girl here, she stopped, and we had ourselves a little duet. Then another, before she went off with her friends. I remember because it felt good to sing with somebody, and because I offered her part of the money, and she wouldn’t take it. She said she hadn’t done it for money, but for the song. And damned if she didn’t put five dollars in the box.

“Good, clear voice,” Lonna murmured as she studied the photo. “Gone now, too.”

“She has a grandmother, who raised her, who loved her,” Eve said. “It’s going to mean something to her when we tell her that.”

“Tell her . . . her girl could sure sing, and she had a kindness to her. Lots of girls that age with nice clothes? They’d look down on someone dressed like I was. She didn’t.”

“I’ll tell her. Tell me a little about The Club. Sebastian’s.”

“Well, Sebastian saw we got food. I was getting fed just fine by the Joneses. They saw to it you ate healthy and didn’t go hungry. But some of the girls in The Club would’ve gone hungry without him. You need to know that.”

“Okay.”

“We learned to street snatch, pick pockets, learned a few cons. It was exciting, and I was pretty good at it. I liked having a little secret money of my own, even though it belonged to somebody else. I’d never had my own. Couldn’t do the bjs, and Sebastian wouldn’t have liked it anyway. But I couldn’t do them the way Shelby did, even though she tried to teach me that, too.”

She laughed a little, gave Derrick a wink out of watery eyes. “Not then I couldn’t. I was a little younger, and I told Shelby no way I was doing that. It was nasty. She just laughed, said I should think of it like medicine. Just get it done. But I wouldn’t.”

“Did you ever get caught?”

“Nearly, lots of times. It added to the thrill, I guess. Mr. Jones and Ms. Jones ran things pretty tight, but most of us had had some street time—and I was getting more of it—so we found ways around and through. And we always had each other’s backs.”

“Do you still? Do you know where T-Bone is?”

“He did the same as me, got his name changed. Then he lit out. He wanted to see the world, that’s what he wanted. And he has. He got some education, and that’s thanks to Mr. Jones and Ms. Jones and the rest. He got on a boat, worked on the crew and went all the way to the South Pacific. He’s still seeing the world, and I hope you’ll let him be. We talked after I heard about the girls, and he said he’d come back if I needed. I don’t want him to have to.”

“We’ll let that stand for now. If it turns out he’s needed, I’ll want you to tell him, or give me a way to contact him, to talk to him.”

“I can do that, but he’s probably going to come anyway. We go back. You know how it is when you go back.”

Not as far, Eve thought. But she thought she knew.

“Tell me about when Shelby left.”

“We had it all planned. I still remember being so scared it wouldn’t work, then so happy—and so unhappy—when it did. She got out, she’d set up our place, and would get the rest of us out. I’d have to go. Part of me wanted to so much, and another part just wanted to stay where I knew it was safe. And the new place? It was so nice. I’d never been in such a nice place.

“But she got out, just like she said she would. But then Mikki had to go back to her mother, right on top of it. That wasn’t the plan. We had a meeting—Mikki, T-Bone, and me—and decided Mikki would need to wait it out with her mother for a few days, maybe longer, and we’d wait to hear from Shelby.”

“And you never did.”

“We never did. Now it was just me and T-Bone. And he got in trouble for mouthing off. He was wound up tight—we both were—because he usually knew how to keep a lid on it. He was on restriction and kitchen duty—and they really buttoned down the new place, so it wasn’t easy to slip out like before. But we figured I had to. We had to find Shelby, get some direction.”

She took a long drink now. “I was a skinny little thing. One night after bed check, I climbed out the window of my room. The windows only opened partway, just for that reason, but I wiggled my way out. Then I had to climb down, and I’m lucky I didn’t fall and break my leg, or my neck. Then I ran to the subway. I’d taken Matron’s swipe card out of her purse and I’d have to get it back. I’d have to climb back up, wiggle back in, but all that was for later. In that moment, I was free as a bird, and running to my best friend ever.”

“To The Sanctuary.”

“I took the subway, and I got off at the stop. It’s just a couple blocks to walk, and I ran. I ran, and it was a nice warm night. I remember thinking Shelby would be so surprised to see me. She’d be proud of how I got out the way I did when the new place was so buttoned up. She’d laugh, and we’d laugh, and she’d tell me what to do next. I thought of that. I remember thinking that, and how fast my heart beat.