The Rivers Run Dry (35 page)

I reached over, turning it off.

“Hey!” she said.

“I don't like rap.”

“How come?”

Because it sounds like barbarians pounding at the gates. Because it sounds like a prelude to tribal warfare. Because if music speaks to the soul, and rap speaks to so many people, what are the chances beauty will survive?

But I didn't say anything of that to Felicia. Maybe I was tired. Maybe I was done with lectures for the day. Maybe, maybe, maybe. “I just don't like it, Felicia. Why don't we talk instead?”

“About what?”

“You.”

She looked out the window. “I'm dumb.”

“You're not dumb.”

She was stubborn, yes. Sullen. She carried a self-destructive hatred for her father that ensured low-life continued his abuse. But these were matters of the heart, not the mind.

“You're not dumb,” I repeated. “Where did you get that idea?”

Headlights from oncoming traffic painted her skin with strobes of chalk. “I wouldn't be living this way unless I was dumb.”

“Felicia, you put yourself in this situation, you can take yourself out. Where we're going tonight, they serve hot meals, they have counselors. I hear they even have a free dentist.”

There was no response. And I didn't have energy for another lecture, a lecture that might lose her again. Finally, I said, “You want your kids back, right?”

“I can't explain it to you.”

“Try.”

“You'd never understand.”

I opened my mouth to protest, but the sound under the hood interrupted.
Whap-whap. Whap-whap. Whap.
I cocked my head, then glanced at the console. No blinking dashboard lights. The sound was gone. I said, “Why don't you explain it to me.”

Her face was stolid, set like granite.

“I got a war inside my head,” she said. “I got all kinds of thoughts and none of them line up. I think about my kids and the next thing I need is a hit. A drink, a shot. Anything. I want to hit the jackpot, just once, and get us a real house, with furniture, but the next thing I know, I'm strung out and hung over and still broke.” She looked over. “You know where I been sleeping? In the ladies, on the toilet. You're wrong. I'm dumb.”

The whapping sound returned, louder, and now we were losing speed. I pushed the gas pedal to the floor. The speedometer drifted down . . . forty-five . . . forty . . . thirty-five . . . Snapping on my blinker, I drifted over to the right shoulder, the car's wheels sinking into the soft sediment.

The engine clunked, once. Then died.

“Why are we stopping?” Felicia said.

We were fifteen miles outside Seattle, two exits before Issaquah. Cars whipped past, the speed drawing the frame of the Barney Mobile, then releasing it. The car shuddered. I punched on the hazard lights. It was dark now, sunset was gone. I pulled out my cell phone.

“You don't have to tell me no more.” Felicia sounded scared. “Just keep driving. I'm ready to go, really.”

“It's the car, Felicia.” I wondered who to call. Technically, it could be argued that I had a civilian in my car—against Bureau rules—since Bookman Landrow's case was closed and Felicia was no longer a source. I could call Jack since it was his fault I was in this predicament, but if he came to get us, Felicia would turn mulish, refuse rehab, and the whole ordeal would be a wash.

“Oh crap,” she said.

A sudden blue light filled the car. I heard the siren wailing, followed by one blat of warning. In the rearview mirror, the police cruiser's headlights were blinding.

“Oh crap oh crap oh crap.” Felicia kicked the duffel bag under her seat.

“What's in the bag, Felicia?”

“Nothing.”

“Felicia—”

“Don't talk—he's coming!” She froze, hands clasp in her lap, and stared straight ahead, the picture of false innocence.

The officer rapped on my window. He stood behind my left shoulder, his body turned defensively. Two cars whooshed past as I rolled down the window before slowly raising my hands, holding them above the steering wheel.

“Officer, I'm with the FBI. My badge is inside my blazer, and I'm carrying a gun. It's holstered on my right hip.”

He took one step forward, pivoting, almost lunging, and shined his flashlight into the car. The beam lingered on Felicia. When I glanced over, her eyes were wide, she didn't blink. Combined with her pallor, the vapid stare made her look embalmed.

The beam moved to my face. I blinked, keeping my hands up.

“I guess you gals need a ride into the city, right?” He lowered the flashlight.

I looked up. It was Officer Lowell.

Felicia sat in the back of the police cruiser, clutching the duffel bag, and I sat in the passenger seat, watching Officer Lowell tag the Barney Mobile's rear window with a Day-Glo orange sticker, notifying the other troopers that the vehicle had been radioed in and would be towed within twenty-four hours.

He climbed in behind the wheel.

“Good thing I saw you when I did.” His mood was buoyant, riding the white horse. “My shift ends at six. I was just taking my last cruise down I-90 for the night when I saw your hazard lights. Any later, I might've missed you.”

I nodded.

We passed Issaquah, Felicia silent behind the grated partition separating the front and back seats.

“Must feel pretty dang good,” Lowell said suddenly.

“What's that?”

“Everybody's talking about how you found that girl.”

“She's home. It's a good thing.”

“Who's home?” Felicia said.

Lowell glanced in the rearview mirror, eyeing Felicia care-fully. He didn't appear to trust her. He glanced back at me. “Any idea who the perp is?”

“We're still working on it.”

“Can't she tell you?”

“She suffered some real trauma, like a bomb went off inside her head.”

Felicia grabbed the grate, her fingers lacing into the metal. “Who are you talking about?”

Lowell glanced over, waiting for a signal to elaborate, but I stared out the windshield. He was flying down the carpool lane at an easy seventy miles an hour. To my right, traffic backed up for the I-405 interchange.

“I heard he kept her in a cave, is that true?” he asked.

I didn't want to get into the difference between caves and shafts and tunnels. I didn't want to talk at all. But I owed him something, it was common courtesy. And he had worked part of the case as well. “From what we can piece together, yes, he kept her in a tunnel and then took her out at night and hunted her in the woods.” Like he hunted me that night.

“What?” Felicia said. “You're scaring me.”

It scared me too. And I was even more concerned that we hadn't caught him. Although we believed he abducted her from the Cougar Mountain parking lot, we still didn't know whether he appeared out of nowhere, or if she met him there, as Lucia believed, a kind of date. Stacee said Courtney never mentioned a new boyfriend, or anybody she was hiking with. And it would be a long time before we could interview Courtney VanAlstyne. If ever, given the psychiatric orders.

Lowell seemed to be reading my thoughts. “You guys don't have any ID on him, nothing?”

“Not enough.”

“How did you figure out she was up there?” he said.

“Lowell, look,” I said, trying to sound conciliatory, “the case is still open. I really can't talk about it.”

“Yeah, sorry. I just want to help.”

The highway curled to its conclusion, slipping down beside the steel arches of Qwest Field, home of the Seahawks. Tonight the stadium lights glowed blue and Lowell drove three blocks into Pioneer Square. Night had fallen like a black velvet cloak and the neighborhood's imitation gas lamps looked almost quaint. He circled the block until he found the load/unload zone near the shelter. I started to get out, then looked over at him.

“You really helped me out tonight, Lowell. Thank you.”

He grinned. “That's what I'm here for. You want me to wait while you take her inside?”

I glanced into the backseat. Felicia's hands worried the frayed cotton handles of her duffel. Her skin had a putrid appearance. I'd seen that look before.

I quickly opened the back door, grabbing Felicia by the arm and pulling her out before she puked. She moaned. I leaned her against the load/unload sign, then turned back to Lowell.

“This might take awhile,” I said. “You better take off.”

“I don't mind waiting.”

“What if you get a call?”

“I'm off in ten minutes,” he said. “You don't have a car. Why don't I come back in what—an hour? Let me take you to dinner. You can tell me about the Bureau.”

Felicia moaned again.

I closed the back door of the cruiser. Just days before, I had treated Officer Lowell with prideful disregard, fully convinced that my position in the Bureau elevated me above him. Now that pride tasted bitter in my mouth.

“Sure,” I told him. “That'd be great. I'll see you in an hour.”

I shut the passenger door and led Felicia down the sidewalk, hoisting the duffel strap onto my shoulder. She walked with the weariness of old age as we passed a group of men huddled against the stone building. Their restlessness was palpable, as tangible as the biting odor of urine that hung in the air. Their faces were florid, bruised, and distorted. They watched Felicia. She dropped her chin, sending the long greasy curtains of hair forward to conceal her face. For one brief moment, I thought I could hear the invading army inside her head.

When we reached the corner, I opened the door to the Gospel Mission. A bell rang.

Felicia stopped, green eyes narrowing.

“You've got to be kidding,” she said.

She was staring at an area above the door, where a plaster cast of Jesus was affixed to the building. Jesus leaned out over the urine-soaked sidewalk, his robed arms open, his white garment dusted with city soot.

“No way,” she said. “Uh-uh. I know how these Christians work. They start out all nice and loving, then they turn around and beat the living hell out of you. And you're supposed to thank them for it. I might be dumb but I'm not that dumb.”

I let go of the door, the bell ringing with identical good cheer as it closed. I started walking down the sidewalk.

“Where are you going?” Felicia demanded.

“Back to the casino,” I said over my shoulder. “You can prob-ably still get your stall in the bathroom.”

“Hey, at least the people in the bathroom don't pretend they're doing something nice for you.”

And that's when I saw it, the precise mechanism that turned the crank on Felicia's behavior. Hypocrisy. Duplicity. It launched her into this spiral of self-destruction, beginning with the church-going father who abused his children, and the pimp named Bookman who promised to take her off the streets but put her to work on the corner. And the white knight named Jack Stephanson who coaxed her into testifying but never did get her kids back.

“Felicia, people will always disappoint you. Always.”

“Oh, here we go.”

“What?”

“This is the ‘come-to-Jesus' speech, isn't it?”

I glanced down the sidewalk. The addled men along the wall grinned savagely, enjoying the show. Nothing better than a cat-fight. I walked back to where she stood, to where Jesus hung over a doorway that could change her life.

“Give it three nights, Felicia. After that, you decide what to do.”

When I opened the door, the bell ringing, she spit out a curse. Then stomped inside.

At the front desk, a woman with two long braids of brown hair watched Felicia approach with a stomp that sounded like elephants. The place smelled of bar soap and boiled green beans.

“Hello!” the woman said. “You're just in time for dinner.”

“Bread and water,” Felicia grumbled.

“Just for the people in the dungeon. Every body else gets spaghetti.”

Felicia's mouth fell open.

The woman laughed.

I extended my hand, introducing myself. “This is Felicia Kunkel. She needs a place to stay for a while.”

The woman was named Cynthia Youngblood and she placed a clipboard on the counter, explaining the rules to Felicia, who glanced around the room suspiciously while I filled out the forms, giving what information I had available. I put down my cell phone number for an emergency contact, then pressed the pen into Felicia's hand. She scowled. But she signed at the bottom of the page.

“Are you staying for dinner too?” Cynthia asked me. “We like guests.”

“Actually, I have to leave—”

“Don't you dare,” Felicia growled.

Cynthia reached up, tugging a long chain connected to a metal door, which she locked to the counter, and we followed her across an old fir floor worn down to deep grooves.

“Two meals, chapel daily,” Cynthia was saying, tossing the long braids over her shoulders.