Dead Girl Moon (26 page)

Would Grace be grateful he’d saved her and want to be with him? He thought about that while road noise washed over him, while he breathed the smell of the patrol car: bleach and old vinyl, dust vibrating off the floorboards. Out his window to the south, summer wheat looked ready for harvest, and farther, the Bitterroots, long empty of snow, were dark with fir.

No. Grace wouldn’t be grateful. She probably didn’t even realize he’d been trying to save her. She wouldn’t want to stay at JJ’s with him. He didn’t have any money and he wasn’t smart enough for her. Grace had been going out with older men before this all went down. She was so hot and so … hidden. He could live a million years and never know her. A really good daydream, a piss-poor girlfriend.

80

JJ
WAS SURPRISED
to find herself in the back of a sheriff’s car. Why her? She’d been the key to the arrests. Dovey thought of the transmitter, but JJ’d worn it. Who’d think? She didn’t notice her cruiser alone had turned toward Portage.

The rest of the summer should be fun. There hadn’t been any other applicants when they hired her, so her job was probably still open. Didn’t seem like Gary was coming back anytime soon and JJ was too young to be responsible for Tina or Jon. She had no idea where they’d wind up or what would happen to them but she called herself a Stovall, Tina’s niece, so wasn’t the trailer hers? If they caught Gary, what would happen to the money in the suitcase? Maybe she could afford a really good college after all.

JJ didn’t believe Grace would stay in Portage. Her home and job were messed up and her benefactor would be gone. In some ways she’d outgrown the town, but JJ hated to think of her prossing in a city. Would she do that? Like always, Grace was hard to predict.

Mick? He was easier. He’d stay, find some work and play ball when school started. That’s what he’d talked about. She wasn’t sure where he’d live. Didn’t seem like he’d be with his dad anymore. And he’d left his bags of clothes in her trailer. Right now Dovey was like JJ’s temporary guardian. She probably wouldn’t let JJ and Mick stay together even with separate bedrooms, so a lot was up in the air.

JJ caught herself humming. Felt happier than she remembered being since she was back with her real mom years ago. Finally! She had a clean place to stay. Dovey’s or the empty trailer. That was big. And Mick. They’d pal around when everything settled down. Maybe even go swimming again. Someplace different. And when school started, a new ball game. Literally.

She’d not only be a little older, she was already stronger, taller than last year. Even if they didn’t return her bail bond since Gary ran away, she still had a little money left in her college fund. And she’d decided. She was going to get a scholarship. Hammond said Cunneen got a sports scholarship and he was mainly big and mean. She was coordinated. She hadn’t tried much volleyball but she would this fall, and if she worked on it, she knew she’d start. Same with swimming in the winter. And softball? More hitting practice and she could be all-state. Now that was a plan!

The driver’s radio squawked, interrupted her thoughts, reminded her what a tense afternoon this had been: dealing with Gary, running to Paint’s office, making the scary undercover plan, arguing with Fitz, stealing a boat, getting caught by Hammond and Larry. That was enough excitement for one day.

Ahead, she caught glimpses of the pale moon barely visible on the eastern horizon. Right now it was a ghost moon. Good luck just when she’d needed it! But in an hour or so, while it was still low in the sky, it would become a butter-orange smile. The next cycle after the Dead Girl Moon. What would this one be?

Silly. She wanted to call it the Mick Moon, but that would never do.

81

S
INCE THEY WERE EACH IN SEPARATE CARS
, Grace couldn’t ask Mick or JJ what had happened, how Paint knew where she was. She could guess. Larry didn’t search them. Big mistake! Mick or Fitz wore a wire. Fitz might have cooperated with the sheriff if he’d made a deal to get out from under the interstate theft investigation. Mick could have cooperated in order to beat whatever charges Paint had filed. She could hardly wait to have a moment alone with JJ and find out which it was.

JJ. Poor girl. Put herself in danger schlepping after Mick. Some girls just didn’t have it. Never would. She liked her younger roomie, but JJ would always be a follower. Never do anything on her own, always staring at the moon, never dealing with what was right in front of her. Grace wished she’d taught her how to be sneaky. Well, she’d learn or she wouldn’t.

Grace felt like she was recovering from a virus. The last few hours had been … she hadn’t thought she’d make it out alive. Hammond’s best move would have been to get rid of the four of them. Anyone could see that. She’d hoped if she warned Hammond about Mick and JJ coming, he’d trust her again and take care of her. Didn’t work out that way.

Originally he might have sent Grace away like he outlined in the “good deal,” but as she watched Hammond think through his possibilities with Mick and Fitz, she’d realized that bringing more people into it had eliminated that option. He’d just been blowing smoke. He’d never risk turning Mick and JJ and Fitz loose. He didn’t know them, couldn’t be sure they’d hold up their end. And he’d wonder if Grace had a bigger alliance to one of them than to him. He wouldn’t take that chance. Grace had to go, too.

Would he really have done that? Kill or get Larry to kill four people? She thought so. Would Larry have gone along with it? Maybe. Probably. Self-preservation. In too deep to quit. In a way, Mick and his dad saved her life by giving the sheriff time to find her. She hoped they never discovered she’d ratted them out. Actually, Mick would forgive her. That’d be a quick fix. Kiss or two or a little more.

Fitz. He’d be a problem.

She’d had a couple of narrow escapes. She could be in a California prison for killing her brothers. She could be decomposing, scattered in bits and pieces around the Cabinet Mountains Wilderness. Did the sheriff have anything on her? She was safe from the runaway complication now that she knew her mom would never have filed a missing person. And Grace hadn’t done anything too illegal. One way or another she’d earned the money she’d saved. She was small potatoes compared to Hammond.

When she got to Missoula they’d ask her a bunch of questions. She’d play dumb. Afterward, they could release her right there as far as she was concerned. The main thing was getting her money back and leaving. She didn’t really need the extra three thousand Hammond had offered. She already had enough to go someplace and start a business.

Earlier when Hammond had left the destination up to her, “somewhere big and far away,” she’d realized she wanted to get out of state. Get distance from these people. Everybody. Someplace she couldn’t be found. Denver sounded good. Or maybe all the way to Phoenix. Lot of older people there that might want her services.

Let’s say Phoenix. How hard would it be to find another obit? Some college girl in a neighboring state. Take the name. Grace Herick would disappear and the new person could enroll in a university. Maybe even transfer courses if the other girl had been a decent student. New school, new city, new work. Piece of cake, really. Grace thought she might be pretty good at a career in law enforcement. So many possibilities in a field like that.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The idea for this book emerged as I drove down a small town’s alley toward the Clark Fork River and was surprised by the living conditions I encountered not fifty feet off a manicured main street. I imagined the people I’d met in schools and hospitals who might wash up on such shores, and
Dead Girl Moon
began. I owe a great deal to teenagers who literally inspired me with their bravery, perseverance, and resourcefulness. The setting depicted, the community, and its business and politics are fiction.

I am most grateful to my editor, Wes Adams, for his encouragement, savvy recommendations, and humor that makes each literary project a many-smiled collaboration. Also, to Karla Reganold and FSG’s superb copyediting staff for helping make this book accurate and cohesive, and to Jay Colvin for proving you can tell a book by his covers.

Huge thanks to my agents Tracey and Josh Adams at Adams Literary, whose elegant support and advocacy I cherish.

I received finely tuned feedback from the world’s best writing group: Jim Dowling, Kathryn Gessner, Carla Jackson, Melinda Kashuba, and Robb Lightfoot. I’m lucky to have a larger writing community: Steve Brewer, Chris Crutcher, Tony D’Souza, George Rogers, Bill Siemer, and Jamie Weil.

Special
appreciation goes to northwestern Montana Highway Patrol officers for their strategic information, to Dr. Paul Swinderman for relevant medical consultations, and to Manuel J. Garcia, Attorney, for advice pertinent to the story’s legal areas.

I’m forever endebted to and enriched by the loves of my life. My darling psychotherapist/artist wife is always my first reader, and my bright, beautiful daughter, Jessica Rose, edits from afar in Portland.

B
Y
C
HARLIE
P
RICE

Dead Connection

Lizard People

The Interrogation of Gabriel James

Desert Angel

Dead Girl Moon

Farrar Straus Giroux Books for Young Readers

175 Fifth Avenue, New York 10010

Copyright © 2012 by Charlie Price

All rights reserved

First hardcover edition, 2012

eBook edition, October 2012

macteenbooks.com

The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:

Price, Charlie.

Dead Girl Moon / Charlie Price. — 1st ed.

    p.   cm.

Summary: Grace, a scheming runaway, JJ, her fostercare sister, and Mick, the son of a petty thief, become entangled in the investigation of a teen prostitute’s murder in a small, corrupt Montana town.

ISBN 978-0-374-31752-2 (hardcover)

ISBN 978-0-374-31753-9 (ebook)

[1.  Murder—Fiction.   2.  Runaways—Fiction.   3.  Foster home care—Fiction.   4.  Political corruption—Fiction.   5.  Montana—Fiction.   6.  Mystery and detective stories.]   I.  Title.

PZ7.P92477Deg 2012

[Fic]—dc23

2012004992

eISBN 9780374317539