Concealed in Death (In Death #38)(95)

“And then I don’t remember. It’s all a dark blur. I remember waking up in the morning, in my bed in my room, in the new place. Feeling sick and so tired. And scared, because I wiggled out and climbed down—I was sure I had—but I never remembered climbing back or wiggling in, or laughing with Shelby. And my window was closed tight and locked. I was wearing my uniform pajamas, and I hadn’t been.”

“Do you remember seeing anyone, talking to anyone?”

“I remember just like I told you. Except . . . I had dreams for a while. Dreams where I see myself walking around in there, calling out for Shelby. And everything gets dark, and in the dream I hear someone preaching about cleansing. The mind, the body, the spirit, sort of like what we talked about at The Sanctuary, but not. Cleansing for the bad girl, so . . . she could come home. It’s mixed up. And I was cold, and I was naked, and scared, but I couldn’t scream or run or move. I had that dream a long while.”

She gave a little shudder. Instantly, Derrick put an arm around her, drew her into his side.

“Sometimes in them I hear shouting and yelling. Sometimes I feel like I’m floating, and not scared, just floating away with this soft, soft voice telling me it was all right, to just forget, to just forget.”

“Whose voice?”

“I don’t know. But now I think—” She gripped Derrick’s hand. “Now I know what happened to Shelby and Mikki was going to happen to me. But it didn’t. I don’t know why it didn’t, and how I woke up safe, dressed in my uniform nightgown, in bed with the window tight shut.”

“No one ever asked you about that night?”

“T-Bone. I told him what I remembered, but he figured I’d dreamed it all. That I never climbed down at all. I started to think the same, and I felt awful about it. I’d been a coward and let down my friends. But they’d let me down, too. I held on to that so I wouldn’t feel so ashamed.”

She turned her head toward Derrick, just a little. He brushed his lips over her hair.

“Shelby abandoned me, like everybody, so I wouldn’t care. I’d just get through it, get by. I’d do what I had to do to get through and get by until I was old enough to get out. Nobody was ever going to take me on—scrawny, skinny, odd-looking girl like me. I just had to get through until I could walk out. Then I’d be whoever I wanted to be.”

She finished off her water. “That’s what I did. I changed my name. I didn’t do it legal, Sebastian helped me. If you do it legal, there’s a record. I wanted to just be new, be me. So I was Lonna Moon. I thought it sounded like a singer. It’s all I wanted to be. I did all right. Sang for my supper, and paid the rent singing, waiting tables, whatever. After a while, I didn’t have to wait tables so much. Then I met Derrick. And I’m with Derrick. That’s the best thing I’ve ever been. The only thing I ever want to be.

“Shelby and Mikki, they never got the same chance.”

“I want to show you some other pictures.”

Her hand tightened on Derrick’s. “The other girls.”

“We have all but one identified. I wonder if you remember any of the others. Peabody.”

“I just want to say, Ms. Moon, I admire what you’ve done. I admire someone who can take the pain and the hard from the past, and make it into the strong and the good. I just wanted to say.”

“Thanks for that. It feels good to hear that.” Then she looked down at the rest of the pictures Peabody laid out.

“Oh God. Oh God! That’s Iris there. Sweet Iris, oh God. And this one, she was in The Sanctuary with us. I don’t remember her name.”

“Lupa Dison.”

“Yes, Lupa. She was nice. Quiet, but nice. I know these faces, almost all. Not names of the others. I think I knew some of them on the street, either with Sebastian or just on their own. Mostly they’d have street names or made up ones anyway. I don’t remember this one at all.”

Eve nodded when she touched Linh’s picture. “Okay.”

“I’m sure of Iris, and this one. Lupa. And the one I told you I brought to Sebastian, and the one I sang with. We looked for Iris. I helped when I heard she’d left. She wasn’t . . . she was special, and Sebastian worried something would happen to her on her own. Something did.”

“Yeah, something did. Lonna, would you be willing to work with a doctor? Someone who could help you remember what happened that night?”

“No.” Derrick rapped his free fist on the tabletop. “She’s not doing that. She’s not letting someone poke around in her head, try to make her remember something that still makes her wake up crying some nights.”

“I understand how you feel,” Eve said. “I know what it’s like to block something out, something bad and frightening. Something that comes back at you in dreams when you can’t block it so completely.”

“Do you?” Lonna murmured.

“Yeah. And I know what it’s like to have a man who loves me just want to make it stop. Just want me to have some peace. I know it can tear just as much at the one who has to hold you when you wake up from it. But it won’t stop until you pull it out, look at it square. It won’t just stop until you can look at it, then learn to deal with it.

“You’re the only one we know of who survived. The only one who might have something buried down deep that can lead me to him so he can pay.”