“Let’s go,” Rich said, shifting his backpack. They left as the woman turned, the moon lighting her face into something beautiful.
The street kids crossed the river on the creaking footbridge, smelling the muddy water that ran thick below them. The cars on the bridge above them thudded by. Celia thought about the way life was lived overhead: the tall buildings, the big sedans, the groomed drivers. On the other side of the river rose the freeways, and under them a network of nests. The biggest was called the Caves. The homeless had tunneled underneath the concrete overpass, creating a labyrinth of caves. The Caves were ruled by rape, and the street kids stayed far away. Other overpasses were also viciously fought over, sometimes to the point of death: a crumpled body would roll off the freeway incline, only to be picked up the next day with a shrug by the city trucks.
Celia and her friends had no power and got no mercy from the others. They took what was left, the table scraps. But sometimes they found treasures, including a forgotten freeway ramp behind a closed paint factory, the entrance hidden by bushes. They called this place Nowhere. It was code, a way to keep this sleeping place hidden: Where are you guys crashing tonight? Nowhere.
The kids darted across the emptying freeways, between the whistling cars, until they came to the paint factory, then slipped under the torn cyclone fence around its parking lot. From there they climbed a steep hill to the overpass above, blackberry bushes tearing their hands. Where the rising freeway ramp met the dirt was a hollow the size of a small room. The ceiling was just high enough for anyone inside to stand up straight.
As they parted the bushes, Celia and her friends smelled old sweat and dust and urine. In the darkness they crouched, pulling food from their backpacks, gulping and tearing in their eagerness to be fed. They forced the food down in soft chunks, afraid even of the sound of their own swallowing. When they were done, they collapsed, simply falling over. But sleep didn’t come, not for a long time. The boys lay wide-eyed listening to the cars passing overheard, and as night paled to dawn, these sounds became the metronome of their insomnia and fears. Every rustle of the wind in the bushes outside their cave was a night prowler.
Stoner put his long hand over his eyes and wept in the dark.
Celia lay awake, too. The air around her was blacker than darkness. She thought of the woman they had seen. She felt the jealousy return. The woman was going to sleep someplace, and it was not a dirt hollow under a highway, with spiders biting in the night. It would be a place with a bed that was safe. Not like her—or her sister, Alyssa.
Celia thought of Alyssa. She saw her stepdad, and her eyes glossed with tears. She made herself breathe deep. Butterflies never sleep, she remembered. They rest with their eyes open. This helped her calm down. She focused until she could see them in her mind, flying towards her, surrounding her with gentle flutters. Their wings cupped her ears, soft velvet on her cheeks, their tendrils tracing her closing lids, murmuring reassurance. More of them flew under the overpass, flying in great soft clouds until she was completely covered. They landed on her jeans, her tired feet, her empty middle. They drank her tears. They turned her into a cap of radiant color, and it was only when she was fully covered did Celia finally feel safe.
Chapter 6
“You don’t want me coming with you?” Jerome asked Naomi.
It was morning, and they were standing on Diane’s porch. The charming Victorian was painted bright colors. Their guest bedroom overlooked the street—Diane had the master in the back, above the quiet gardens. Naomi had met Diane when they both were testifying in a case. They became fast friends, perhaps because Diane accepted the way Naomi moved in and out of her life as she traveled the country for her cases. She had even let her store her case files in the empty attic.
But now Naomi and Jerome were broke. The past year had burned through what little savings they had been able to put aside. Naomi had refused to take on any other cases until she found her sister, and the travel meant Jerome couldn’t find work either.
“We need some money, honey,” Naomi said with a smile.
“I’m trying,” he joked, flexing the one arm. The missing arm spoke for itself: You try finding work with one arm.
Jerome, who had been both a soldier and a sheriff, knew he was an excellent officer and investigator in his own right. But that didn’t mean he was going to get hired into a local law enforcement agency, and he didn’t know if they would stay in the city anyhow. He’d much rather live out in the country. But that conversation was waiting until they found Naomi’s sister. If they didn’t find her . . . well, he didn’t want to think about that.
The one option he could think of was to become a private investigator like his wife. He wasn’t exactly sure what Naomi would think of that. The failures of the past year had left them uncertain with each other. For the first time since she had come into his life, Jerome was hesitant to speak his mind with Naomi.
Jerome wished that someone had taught him how a marriage worked. Without a mother or a father, all he had known growing up was their foster mother, Mrs. Cottle, who, bless her soul, had been widowed. He wanted to be a good husband to Naomi.
She came closer, in for a hug. Surprised, he put his one arm around her, remembered the first time they had made love. Her face under him. “It’s going to be okay,” he told her, wishing he felt better about himself.
* * *
In Jerome’s earliest memories of Naomi, she was a new child in their home, first scared but then full of bravado that slowly stilled into courage. Running along the rock ridges outside Opal, finding the miracle stones left by the petrification of time: quartz and jasper, shiny agates they polished with their shirts, and the ever-present opal. Spit and it will shine.
Their other favorite thing to do was search for old Native American artifacts. Parts of his heritage, like pieces of his own bones picked from the ground. Sometimes they found arrowheads—or what they pretended were arrowheads but were probably just triangular pieces of rock. A few times they found what appeared to be ancient campsites in the woods, with unusually large clearings where the plank houses might have stood. In such places were piles of rocks that did bring treasures, which Jerome was sad he had not kept. Horn spoons and rotting skin bags that fell apart at a touch.
Sometimes in the woods the fir trees gathered in a certain way, and Jerome could see on Naomi’s face that there were things she was remembering even if the rest of her had to forget. At these times he took her hand and led her away. He distracted her by telling her about what he had read of his people—information that he would discover was true only some of the time—like how when his ancestors died, their families would tie their belongings in trees.
He and Naomi would walk back to the farmhouse, looking on the underside of every tree, hoping to see a relic from his ancestors. It didn’t matter that they never found anything. He was with her, and that was what counted.
* * *
“If it isn’t the child finder!”
Detective Lucius Winfield rose from his desk, one large hand held out, the office lights glistening in his short natural hair. Naomi smiled right back. She always felt comfortable in his presence. She took the leather chair, moving restlessly. Naomi could feel the clock ticking.
“What’s up?” the detective asked. Winfield had known Naomi for almost a decade—they went back to her earliest missing child cases, some of which had been his cases. Parents often hired Naomi when police cases stalled. Winfield didn’t mind sharing, if it got the job done.