Baby Girl Doe (Stephanie Chalice Thrillers Book 5) (19 page)

Raven: April 2007

Kim stood at the bar in a dance club with two of her friends.
They were all wearing tube dresses and platform shoes. Their hair was teased and heavily sprayed. They wore their makeup heavy, almost circus-sideshow heavy. They were practically carbon copies of each other. In fact, it looked as if a 3D printer had produced three identical bimbos.

Kim looked nothing like the little girl who Celeste Thax dressed in rags and ordered about like an indentured servant. She was tall and thin with sultry brown eyes. She had aged out of the social services system and was now sharing an apartment with her girlfriends. She was making money working in the cosmetics department at Macys but not enough for the tempting frock and pumps she wore, which she had borrowed from Bebe. The price tag was still on and the dress was going back after the weekend.

“
Hey
, you look familiar. Do I know you?” Kim said to the guy standing next to her at the bar.

One of her girlfriends nudged her shoulder, drawing her attention away from her new acquaintance. “Ready?” her friend asked.

Kim nodded and the three girls dropped layered shots of Jameson and Bailey’s into their Guinness lager. They simultaneously hoisted their glasses and chugged. Kim couldn’t get it all down and giggled as the concoction dribbled down her chin.

“Boilermakers?” he asked.

“Irish car bombs,” she replied with an embarrassing smile on her face. She grabbed a napkin from the bar and dried her chin. “Classy, huh?”

“Looks like you’re having fun.”

“Fun? Oh yeah, tons of fun. I don’t know why you look so familiar.” The club was dark. Strobe lights flashed over the dance floor backlighting the stranger and making it difficult for Kim to see his face clearly. She squinted, trying to get a better look.

He shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess I just have one of those faces. Can I buy you another car bomb?”

“Really?”

He nodded.

“Are you going to do one too?” she asked.

“Absolutely!” He called to the bartender and ordered a round for everyone.

Kim introduced her friends to him. “And what do they call you, mystery man?”

“Ray,” he said most matter of factly. His eyes widened. “Here they come.”

The bartender placed a tray on the bar and served the four glasses of stout and paired shots.

The girls looked from one to the other, their expressions saying,
are we really going to do this again?
One of the other girls shouted, “Let’s get crazy!” They all dropped the shots and chugged with determination.

Kim only made it halfway before she paused to take a deep breath, but Ray coaxed her to finish. She drew a few deep breaths like someone preparing to hold their breath underwater and then finished off the brew. She was breathless by the time she put her empty glass down on the bar. “That’s insane,” she said. “Did you like it?”

Ray grimaced and rubbed his forehead.

“Brain freeze?” she asked.

“Migraine,” he replied. “Been getting them since I was three years old.”

“Will it go away on its own?”

“Eventually.”

“Can’t you take something for it?”

Ray’s eyes widened. “Another car bomb?” He nodded enthusiastically and summoned the bartender. “Hit us again.”

“Are you kidding?” the bartender asked.

“One last time,” Ray insisted.

“You’re insane,” Kim said teasingly. “I . . . I can’t.”

“Don’t wimp out on me now,” he said, daring her to accept the challenge.

“But—”

“No buts.”

The third round was placed on the bar, and the ritual was repeated. “I’m going to throw up,” one of Kim’s friends said. “I’m going to the bathroom—time to cop a squat.”

“Me too,” the third girl said. She turned to Kim. You coming too?”

“In a minute,” Kim said. “I’ll catch up.”

The two girls were drunk and wobbly on their feet. They had to walk arm in arm to keep from teetering. “I think she likes you,” one of the girls whispered in Ray’s ear, with a silly expression on her face.

“Come on,” the other girl insisted and yanked her friend away from Ray.

Kim smirked as her friends staggered away. “They’re wasted.” She blinked in an exaggerated manner. “You know what? So am I.” She tottered and grabbed Ray’s arm for support. She buried her face in her hands. “All of a sudden, I—” When she looked up her eyes were bloodshot, and it was an effort for her to focus on Ray’s face. “Christ, my head is spinning.”

He looked around the room and then led her by the arm. “There’s a chair. Come over here.”

~~~

When Kim awoke it was morning. She had no sense of where she was or how she’d arrived there. The bedroom was bright with sunlight, bright enough to sting her eyes. Her head was still spinning, and her stomach burned. In the next moment, she realized that Ray was lying next to her in bed. She gasped with worry before realizing that they were both still fully dressed and lying on top of the blanket.
Oh my God
, she thought, rubbing her eyes, hoping to clear the cobwebs from her mind. The evening’s events started coming back to her. She heard the sound of snoring coming from the next room. She sat up in the bed and looked around until she saw one of her friends passed out on the sofa and the other asleep in a recliner.

She took a few deep breaths, and her pulse slowly returned to normal. Looking at Ray, she realized that she knew nothing about him.
What was I thinking? I was with him less than half an hour before . . .
She pressed her memory. It was blank.
I must’ve passed out.
It then dawned on her that Ray had seen all of them safely back to his apartment.

Gee, what a good guy.

She searched his face. Something about him still reminded her of someone she knew. She stroked his hair and his eyes opened. “Thank you,” Kim said.

Ray was still half asleep. For a minute it looked as if he might go back out again, but then he smiled. “For what?” he asked in a sleepy voice.

“For getting us all—”

Ray was out again, snoring lightly.

Kim smiled.
This one just might be a keeper.
She watched him sleep, noting the contours of his face. There was something about his eyes that was familiar to her. His lashes were very long, and there was a delicate slope to his nose.
He looks more like a—

Her breath caught in her lungs, and her eyes widened alarmingly.
Can it be? The headaches . . . that face. Oh my God.

“Raven?”

“Okay, see you later.”
Kim waved to her friends from the doorway of Raven’s apartment. She watched until they were all the way down the stairs. A few seconds later, she heard the heavy apartment house door slam shut.

“Thanks for staying,” Raven said. “I guess we’ve got a lot to talk about.”

“Ya
think
? Jesus, Raven what’s going on?”

Raven closed and locked the door to her apartment. She looked at Kim and shrugged. “I don’t know. It all happened pretty fast.”

“For God’s sake, Raven, we were in bed together.”

Raven smiled softly and ran her fingers through Kim’s long hair. “It’s not the first time, now is it?” she said with a smug smile.

“That was different,” Kim exclaimed. “We were kids then. Kids do that kind of thing, especially when there’s no heat and you feel like you’re going to freeze to death.”

“I know. The old battle-axe was pretty cheap with the heat.”

“This is unbelievable.” Kim stormed off and sat down on the living room sofa. She tucked her dress under her legs for modesty. When she looked up, Raven was sitting down next to her.

“So let’s talk,” Raven said. She looked into Kim’s eyes. “Okay?”

Kim nodded.

Raven continued, “We’ve both been through a lot. I don’t know how we survived those days living with Thax. She was such a monster.”

“We looked out for one another,” Kim said. “You were all I had. Things were actually worse before you moved in. I think that in some way you kept Thax on her toes.”

“Me? How did a three-year-old scare a snarly, old ogre like Thax?”

“By putting flour in her coffee instead of creamer and by putting ants in her underwear drawer. She knew better than to mess with you.” Kim became quiet. “You know she’s dead, don’t you?”

“Know? I was still living there the day she died.”

Kim’s mouth dropped. “Get out of here . . . really?”

“Yeah, she was falling apart bit by bit. Her liver was going and the diabetes . . . they had just chopped off two of her fingers the day she died.”

Kim shuddered. “So she died in the hospital?”

“No. She made it home.”

“So what happened?”

Raven looked at Kim and then averted her eyes. There was a long guilty pause before she answered. “I told you,” Raven said with modest irritation. “She was really sick.”

“Oh . . . I see.”

“You’re lucky you got reassigned to another home when you did. How long has it been?”

“Got to be six or seven years.” Kim thought for a moment. “I think I was fifteen when they moved me out of there.”

“Looks like you turned out okay.” Raven’s attempt at a segue was clumsy and obvious.

“Thanks.” Kim blushed. “Where’d you go after Thax’s home closed?”

“O’Neil’s.”

“Any better than Thax?”

“Miles better. O’Neil’s a really good person.” Raven became pensive. “He made me really happy.”

“But . . . why are you dressed like a guy?”

Raven shrugged, her guilt apparent in the expression on her face. “I don’t know. My life has been so confusing. One day I want to be a boy, the next day I want to be a girl. O’Neil helped me to find out some stuff about my family—some pretty terrible stuff.”

“What kind of stuff?”

“Like my mother died from a complication of childbirth.”

Kim recoiled. “Raven, I’m so sorry.”

“As if I wasn’t crazy enough before. Do you have any idea how guilty that made me feel? O’Neil helped me to cope with all of my issues.”

“But it wasn’t your fault, Raven. How can you blame yourself?”

“There’s more.” Her throat tightened. “I had a twin brother, only . . . no one knows what happened to him. He was born with all kinds of problems and was put into a special care facility. I haven’t given up, but that’s all I’ve been able to find out so far.”

“That’s terrible. Really terrible,” Kim said with compassion.

“Yeah, it’s pretty messed up. Hey, it’s been so long. Let me buy you some breakfast. I’d like to catch up with you.”

“Maybe,” Kim said warily. “But first answer one question: bumping into me at the bar, was that by accident or was it intentional?”

Kim knew the answer before the words left her mouth. Raven’s expression was a dead giveaway.

April 2007

Kim waited for more than hour for Detective Smote to return to the police station.
She rubbed her hands together nervously while she passed the time. The desk officer glanced at her every few minutes; it didn’t help to make her feel any more at ease.
It’s the right thing to do
, she told herself. She sighed nervously.

When the door opened, Smote burst in to escape the wind and rain that pursued him through the parking lot. He was dripping wet, and his gray trench coat was so completely soaked that it appeared black in color. His umbrella had turned inside out. He pulled on the edges until it snapped back into shape and then tamped it on the floor to remove the excess water. He wiped the rain from his face and turned toward Kim. “Sorry I’m late.”

Kim waited patiently while Smote removed his coat and stomped his feet on the floor. She was surprised to see that his suit was dry beneath his saturated coat. His wet shoes squished on the vinyl tiles as he approached.

“Thanks for coming in,” he said. “It’s been years.” He looked her up and down. “You certainly grew up.”

She blushed.

“This way,” he said and motioned for her to follow.

She followed him into an interrogation room and sat down while he neatened his coat and laid it on an empty chair.

He shuddered. “I’m frozen,” he said. “Coffee?”

“Thanks. That would be great.”

“Milk and sugar?”

“Just milk.”

“Make yourself comfortable. I’ll be right back.”

She began to tremble when the metal door clanged shut, and again sighed nervously.
This is it.
She wrung her hands together.
There’s no turning back now.
She looked around the room. It was painted two-tone green, light green from the ceiling to just past the top of the door and dark green from there down to the floor. There were no windows, and the requisite one-way mirror reminded her of an episode of
Law & Order, Special Victims Unit
.

Smote had been gone for a full ten minutes.
Is he doing it on purpose? Is he watching me through the mirror? You haven’t done anything wrong. Take a deep breath and relax.

She jumped in her chair when Smote returned. He placed her coffee on the table in front of her. His feet still squished on the linoleum, but he looked otherwise dry.

“That’s better,” he said as he gulped his coffee and sat down in a chair. “I take it you’ve got something to tell me?”

Smote was now in character, poker-faced and intent. His eyes were cool and unnerving, as she had remembered them from their last meeting all those years back. “Did you ever find the person you were looking for, the one you thought killed Mrs. Thax?”

“No. There haven’t been any new developments since then. I’m actually very surprised that you’re coming forward now. As I told you, Celeste Thax was murdered or committed suicide. The level of OxyContin in her system stopped her heart. I interviewed all of the children who were living in the foster home at the time, as well as some like you, who no longer lived there, but had been in the victim’s care for a long time. Everyone was capable of poisoning her, and from what I’ve learned, they all had sufficient motive to want her dead. You yourself told me that Thax was a nasty foster parent who pretty much cared nothing for the children she was responsible for. So short of a
Murder on the Orient Express
explanation, I’ve never been able to prove who did it. It’s been years, and no one has talked.” He took another gulp of coffee.

“What do you mean by a
Murder on the Orient Express
explanation?”

“Jesus. What do people your age read these days?” Smote asked rhetorically. “It’s a classic novel—thirteen suspects on a train . . . they all did it. They all took turns stabbing the victim.”

“Oh.”

“So why are you here today?”

“Did you question Raven Gallagher?”

“I certainly did.”

Kim searched his eyes. They were all business. “My two friends and I went out the other night, and we met this guy. We all hung out for a little while, and he bought us drinks.”

“Yeah. So?”

“Well, we all got pretty shit-faced.” She looked at Smote apprehensively.

“Go on, Kim. You’re not the first girl who went out and had too much to drink. Tell me about this guy, the one who bought the drinks.”

“Well, that’s just it. I can’t remember what happened after that, but we all woke up in his apartment.”

“Do you think he drugged you?”

“No. That’s not the point. The point is that when I woke up I realized that this guy was Raven.”

“Whoa.”
Smote looked at her disbelievingly. “And you had no idea until you woke up?”

“No! The club was dark and my head was spinning from all the alcohol.”

“All right, whatever. So you woke up and then what?”

Kim rubbed her forehead. “I hadn’t seen Raven in like seven years, but I was sure it was her. She had her hair combed like a guy, and she was dressed like a guy, but I knew it was her. I stayed with her after my friends left the next day, and we talked. I asked her if she knew that Thax was dead and—”

“Did she admit to killing her?”

“No, but . . . I could tell that there was something she wasn’t telling me. She just seemed so damn—”

“Guilty?”

Kim nodded. “Oh God, I hope I’m doing the right thing.”

“Drink your coffee. You’re doing exactly the right thing.”

“God I’m so nervous. I didn’t know what to do, but her bumping into me like that . . . well, she admitted that it wasn’t a coincidence and the whole dressing up like a guy thing . . . She made me feel really uncomfortable and I mean, if she did kill Thax . . .” Kim was rambling and finally looked into Smote’s eyes, confessing, “We all hated Thax so much. We’d put stuff in her food.”

Smote narrowed his eyes. “Poison?”

“No. No,” Kim said nervously. “Just kid stuff like cat poop and stuff like that.” A tear drizzled down her cheek. “She was so mean to us.”

“Take a deep breath. I’m not going to arrest you for a prank.”

Kim sniffled. “I’m just so afraid. If she killed Thax, do you think Raven would kill me too?”