Sharon Sala - Nine Lives

“I know you two don’t know me, and you also don’t know Mimi. But trust me when I tell you…she would never kill her own child, and she would not leave town without telling me. Never.”

Wilson heard more than anger in Cat’s voice. She was scared—as scared as a person could be and not be screaming.

“Cat…”

She turned on him, directing her fury with one succinct word. “What?”

“Maybe when you turn in a missing person’s report tomorrow and—”

“Tomorrow?” She threw her arms over her head and then slapped her hands hard against her thighs. “Tomorrow. And what about tonight? She didn’t sleep in her bed last night. She won’t be sleeping in it tonight. She’s pregnant. Her life was threatened. She’s missing.” She pointed angrily at Wilson. “You report her missing tomorrow.” Then she jabbed a finger in Flannery’s chest. “Or maybe you do it. Oh, wait. I know! Let’s just wait until there’s no hope in hell of finding her before she rots, and then we can identify her from dental records and the broken arm from when she was seven. How’s that?”

Then she turned angrily, grabbed her coat from the back of the chair, and strode out of the office with her head up and her jaw clenched. She hit the door with the flat of her hand and slammed it shut behind her so hard that a coffee mug someone had left on a nearby file cabinet vibrated off the edge and shattered when it hit the floor.

Wilson looked at Joe. “I think that went well.”

Joe grimaced. “What do you think?”

“I think she’s pissed.”

“What do you think she’s going to do?”

Wilson shrugged. “Hard to say, but I would bet money that whatever happens next, you’ll have to hear it from someone besides her.”

‘What do you mean?”

“She won’t come back and ask for help a second time,” Wilson said. “You saw her face. She doesn’t trust the system, and from the little she just said about her background, you can’t blame her.”

There was a message from Art on Cat’s cell phone. She called him back on her way to her car.

The message was the same old thing. He had bonded out a woman who’d been picked up for writing hot checks, but she’d been a no-show in court earlier that day.

He needed her brought in.

Cat needed something to do to keep herself from going crazy.

She picked up the phone and punched in the numbers. Art answered on the third ring, and, as always, coughed into the phone as he answered. Cat immediately lit into him.

“Damn it, Art, you need to quit smoking. One day that cough is going to be the last thing to come out of your mouth.”

Art coughed again, took a quick drag of his cigar, then put it out in an ashtray already overflowing with ashes and butts.

“Yeah, yeah, that’s what you always say,” he said.

“So fax me the particulars on Charity Ann Kingman.”

“You sound all pissy and fierce. I want her back in one piece,” Art growled.

Fear she wouldn’t admit to was making her sick to her stomach. Here she was, going about her business as if nothing was different in her world, when in truth, she knew it was crumbling about her ears. She just couldn’t make anyone believe.

“That’s because I am all pissy and fierce,” she muttered. “I won’t break your bail jumper. In fact, I won’t even bend her. Now fax the info. I need to be busy.”

“You needin’ money, hon?”

Cat looked down at her shoes, trying hard not to scream. Art thought of himself as her father. Most of the time she appreciated his concern, but not today.

“No. I just need something to do.”

“What’s wrong?” he asked. “And don’t give me no runaround. We’ve known each other too long for that.”

Cat swallowed past the knot in her throat.

“Mimi is missing. I think something bad has happened to her.”

“Oh hell, honey. I’m sure sorry to hear that. You go to the cops with it?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, that’s good. That’s good. Still, I’ll bet she shows soon, and you’ll see that you was all worried for nothin’.”

Cat shoved a hand through her hair as she unlocked the door to her SUV and got in. The cops were as useless to her as a third tit, and Art’s “it’ll be all right” attitude was no better.

“Yeah, sure,” she mumbled.

“So, I’ll be faxin’ that info to you now. Call me if you run into trouble.”

“Okay,” Cat said, and hung up, then headed home.

She was moving fast when she got back to her apartment. She hurried to her office, grabbing the fax that had already come through. She picked up a couple of other pages that had obviously been faxed earlier and walked to the window for a better look.

As always, they were of men with tattoos. She had a network of people all over the United States who, on a regular basis, faxed her mug shots with rap sheets. She was determined to find the man who’d killed her father. So far, she had yet to get a hit, but she wasn’t going to give up.

She tossed the two sheets into a box on the floor that was already overflowing with similar papers, made a file from the papers Art had faxed her regarding Charity Kingman and walked out of the room. She hurried to her bedroom, packed the bag she normally took on a stakeout and left without thinking to check the answering machine in the kitchen. It was a quarter to eleven in the morning. Even though her world felt as if it was coming to an end, the day wasn’t even half over.

* * *

Charity Kingman considered herself streetwise and sharp, although she was facing a second stay in lockup for bad paper, which even she knew didn’t really back up her opinion of herself. However, she knew she was looking good. Her skirt was short; her legs were long. She had rock-hard abs, and what nature had shorted her on, she hid with what she called “personality.”

She knew Art Ball would be mad about yesterday, but she’d never intended to show up for court. She didn’t have any defense. She’d written the hot checks, and she’d gotten caught. But what else was a girl to do when she needed to look good and was a little short on cash? Besides, she had a plan. All it was going to take was a quick make-over at a cushy day spa and she would be set to go.

Cat read the particulars on Charity Kingman while eating most of a breakfast burrito in her car. She passed a lot of time and had a lot of meals in there, and was finishing her coffee as she finished the file Art had sent her. As the last swallow went down, she reached for her cell phone. Her first call was to the nail salon Charity normally frequented, the second was to her landlord. When she found out that Charity was behind on her rent, Cat knew she wouldn’t be hiding out in her apartment. The call she made to the salon where Charity had her nails done was revealing as well. Charity had a standing appointment, but she’d called in and canceled yesterday. After a couple of follow-up questions, though, her nail tech had let it slip that Charity was planning a trip.

The timing added up. Charity Kingman needed to make herself scarce. All Cat could hope for was to catch her before she ran.

But where had she gone?

She went back to the file again and began to study it. Charity was from the Midwest, a little town outside of Cleveland. Since coming to Dallas six years earlier, she had never held a job for more than six months. She’d been arrested for soliciting, for bad checks, and for busting the windshield of a boyfriend who’d dumped her for another woman. She wasn’t what Art called a “bad ass,” but she was constantly in trouble and dumb enough to keep getting caught. The way Cat looked at it, finding Charity had to happen within the next twenty-four hours or it was probably going to be too late to find her easily. She didn’t strike Cat as the kind of woman who would go running home, so she mentally crossed off Ohio as a place she would go.