Skye Cree 03: The Bones Will Tell (6 page)

“
Not me. But maybe Sadie has.” Jade put her fingers between her teeth and gave out a loud whistle. “That’s our signal to come on the QT. Don’t worry, she’s just down the corner. She’s the only girl who hadn’t got picked up tonight. But she will.”

Skye glanced around, spotted a skinny girl
of about nineteen heading toward them from the corner. Sadie was doing her best to sprint along the sidewalk in what looked like, five-inch bright yellow plastic heels.

“
Here’s my baby girl now.” The minute Sadie reached them, huffing the whole way, Jade handed her the photo. Crushing out her filtered Camel under the toe of her pump, Jade blew out smoke from between her lips. “Skye wants to know if you’ve seen this girl, Sadie?”

Sadie shook her head
as she tried to catch her breath. “Nope. She looks young, too. She a runaway, Skye?”

“I don’t think so.
How about if I leave a flyer with both of you. That way, if you see her, you can give me a call. My number’s at the bottom.”

“You got it, Skye. Good luck finding her.”

“You guys take care,” Skye said as she pushed a twenty into Jade’s palm. “Watch out for yourself, Jade.”

Josh
watched the women go, then grabbed Skye’s arm, guiding her toward Sylvan Street. “We need to go this way.”

Noting his jovial demeanor had morphed into a more serious
attitude in a manner of minutes, Skye veered off down an alleyway behind him. She caught sight of Kiya a good twenty yards up ahead. “She’s onto something.” A sidelong glance at Josh told her they both were.

They turned the corner into a
back street near the waterfront seawall and restoration project. Huge cranes and several dump trucks had been parked overnight in a vacant lot. After another twenty minutes, Skye wasn’t sure whether she was following the wolf’s instincts or Josh’s.

The walked past
more equipment, meandered through the massive construction area around the Alaskan Way Viaduct, crossed another dark lot. They passed in front of an old abandoned church where the homeless had carved out a place on the sidewalk to sleep for the night. People slept under cardboard boxes, tattered sleeping bags, blankets, and even old pieces of carpet, anything that would protect them from the cold and the hardness of the cement. Shopping carts filled with their worldly possessions lined the walkway.

They
crawled over a divider that separated the staging area for the backhoes and haulers from a woody hillside. They made their way between two concrete pillars, dropped down into a larger encampment hidden behind a line of evergreens. Someone had built up a fire where a group of men and women huddled around it for warmth and camaraderie.

Approaching
the campfire with caution, Josh and Skye geared themselves for a hostile welcome. This time, Skye decided to let Josh take the lead. She pulled out several baggies of food from her knapsack and held them out for inspection.

“How’s it going?” Josh said
. “We brought some sandwiches, some fruit, thought maybe we could exchange them for information.”

“
Let’s have the food first,” one of the men groused. “What kind of information?”

Josh
handed the man a bag along with Shawna’s photo. “We’d like to know if any of you have seen this girl.”

Another man stared at Skye then at Josh.
“You two cops?”

“No.
This girl went missing a week ago. We’re trying to find her.” Josh watched while they passed around the picture, each one taking the time to stare at the girl’s image. Halfway around the circle, a woman in her fifties looked up and said, “I saw this girl at the burger joint over on Third and Simonton.”

Josh
frowned, waited a beat. “You mean Pete’s Grill?”

“That’s the one.
Went down there for one of those breakfast tacos they make, tasty way to eat eggs. And after midnight they reduce the price to just a buck.”

“They serve cheap burgers, too, if you don’t add cheese,
” said another man who sat off to the side in the shadows.

One of the other women put in, “The doughnut shop over on Twelfth
gets rid of the day-old stuff for the taking around two in the morning, just tosses it out in the Dumpster.”

“Let’s get back to what happened
when you saw the girl,” Josh prompted.

“Okay.
Anyway, the manager, he had to call the paramedics ’cause that girl you’re looking for fainted right there on the floor in front of us.” The woman turned to the man sitting next to her, elbowed him in the ribs. “You were there, Joe. Take a look at her picture. It’s the same girl, right?”

Joe considered the photograph, held it closer to the light. “
Damn it, Molly, you know I don’t like getting involved. We don’t even know these people.”

But Molly would hear none of that. “She’s got family worried about her, Joe.
You back me up here and tell them what they want to know.”

Joe
grunted, made a menacing sound in his throat. “Might as well, you won’t leave me alone ‘til I do.” He studied the photo, grunted again. “That’s the same girl that fainted, alright, just like Molly said. She was standing in line right in front of us. She swayed on her feet, went down in a heap on the sidewalk. We hadn’t made it inside yet, ’cause there’s always a line out the door ’round midnight for breakfast tacos.” Joe handed the picture back to Molly who gave it back to Josh. “Satisfied now?”

By way of answer, Molly grinned showing her yellow teeth
in need of a dentist.

“When
was this?” Skye asked, stepping out of the shadows into the flickering firelight.

“Hmm,
that would be two nights ago. The girl was all bruised up, like she’d taken a tumble or something. Her eyes looked all glazed over like she was on drugs,” Molly added.

Josh and Skye exchanged looks.

“Any reason you remember this so clearly?” Skye wanted to know.

“
Poor thing looked out of place, like she didn’t belong in our neck of the woods.”

“Why do you say that?”

“She had on a pair of those fancy jeans and no coat like she wasn’t supposed to be outside.”

“
You wouldn’t happen to know where the paramedics took her, would you?”

“No clue,” Molly said
, taking a deep drag on her cigarette.

After
handing out all the sandwiches to Molly and Joe and their companions as a way to say thank-you, they followed the same path as before. When they reached the viaduct, Skye said to Josh, “Pete’s is one of those places open twenty-four-seven, like Country Kitchen. I’ll call and ask if anyone there remembers the paramedics taking a teenager to the hospital. In the meantime, you check which hospital is closest. I’ll Google the number for Pete’s Grill.”

With that, t
hey both took out their cell phones, began separate online searches.

“Closest hospital to Pete’s Grill is
Harborview.”

“How many blocks is that?” Skye muttered as she punched in the number for the burger joint.

“From here? I’d say about six.”

As soon as someone
answered the phone down at Pete’s, Skye relayed the situation, but got nowhere. It seems a different manager had been on duty two nights earlier. Ending the call in frustration, Skye’s temper flared. “Damn it, this is exactly how kids fall through the system. No one gives a damn about a girl who keels over in a dive in the middle of the night obviously sick and injured. We should just head to Harborview.”

“Do you honestly think they’ll give out
personal info on a patient, let alone one who is underage, to two people who aren’t related, to strangers who walk through the door and start asking questions? We don’t even know for sure it’s Shawna. We don’t even know if they kept her there. They could’ve released her by now and she’s out wandering—”

“Don’t say it!”
Skye aimed her lethal glare at Josh. “You know as well as I do, it’s her and she’s still there. I feel it.”

“Okay, but why didn’
t the hospital personnel notify her mother? Tell me that.”

“Oh I don’t know,
” Skye shot back. “Maybe because she had no ID on her at the time, no coat in the cold and she’s been out of it for two days. I don’t know. Okay?”

“Try not to jump down my throat.
Okay? Try to remember, I’m on your side.”

“Sorry
,” she mumbled as they made their way back through the waterfront along the seawall. Her shoulders slumped. “Sometimes this gets old, you know? I get so fed up at all this. I think I know why I loved getting away for two weeks.” She spread her arms wide. “I got away from this, from stories like Shawna’s.”

He
gripped her hand. “I know it’s infuriating to have so many kids on the streets and not be able to help each one. Do you think Shawna ran away after all?”

“
Honestly, I don’t know what to think. Karen, her mother, was so sure her kid wouldn’t bolt.”

“
Like that’s the first time a parent’s been wrong about their child. We have to ask ourselves how certain are we that this is Shawna. What’s your gut telling you?”

“Before I answer that, what led you straight to that
homeless camp tonight? Was it just following Kiya or something else inside you?” She tapped his chest for emphasis. “Because you went there without hesitation, Josh, something led you there other than Kiya.”

Josh breathed in the night air
, looked up at the dark sky. “Okay. Then I guess we do this and see how good we really are. We’ll reserve judgment as to why Shawna was at that greasy spoon until we get some solid answers.”

J
ust shy of two a.m. they walked into one of the largest and busiest public hospitals in King County. Harborview treated hundreds of patients a day. The crowded waiting room was evidence of that. It brimmed with people in dire need of medical attention. Everything from knife wounds to raging fevers.

Skye strolled up to the front desk with the flyer in her hand.
As soon as the woman behind the counter turned around, she wasted no time getting to the point.

“Look, I know you’re busy
with a line of patients waiting, but my name is Skye Cree. Hear me out. That’s all I’m asking. I’m looking for this fifteen-year-old girl.” She held up the flyer and the photograph. “Her name is Shawna Langley. She went missing eight days ago. Today would make it nine. There’s a mother back home frantic to locate her daughter. We have reason to believe that she’s here. Paramedics picked up a girl fitting Shawna’s description two nights ago at Pete’s Grill over on Third—”

The woman held up a hand
to stop, nudged her coworker in the arm. “It’s Skye Cree. Skye Cree is looking for a missing girl.”

“In our hospital?”

Skye blurted out,
“That’s right. Apparently they brought her to Harborview after she fainted. Witnesses said she also looked bruised and beaten, maybe even on some type of drugs or meds. Maybe if you pass around her picture to the ER staff, someone might recognize her, remember working on her.”

“Wait.
What about that girl on three? She looks a little like that photo, hard to tell though since her face is still swollen, black and blue, too. Let me call upstairs and verify the day she was brought in. Be right back.”

The other woman added, “You know we won’t be able to give you anything more than that, not without a court order, right?”

“I know that,” Skye said glancing at Josh. “What’s her condition now? If you could just tell me that in a vague and general way I could convey that to her mother.”

When the first admitting clerk hung up the phone she turned to Josh and Skye. “I talked to the nurse upstairs. The date fits.
The girl’s been a Jane Doe since she was admitted. She was in and out of it and then lost consciousness altogether. She hasn’t been awake at all. You really think our Jane Doe might be your missing girl?”

“How about
we call her mother and let her take a look at your Jane Doe?” Josh said, holding up his cell phone over Skye’s shoulder.

“Bu
t it’s after two in the morning,” the clerk pointed out.

“Trust me.
The girl’s mother won’t mind getting this kind of news in the middle of the night.”

Two hours
after
getting approval from the hospital staff, Karen Houston positively identified the girl who’d passed out in Pete’s Grill as her daughter.

Skye and Josh lingered in
Shawna’s darkened room while Karen sat stoic beside the girl’s bed, clutching Shawna’s pale hand in hers. Finally Karen asked, “What do you suppose happened to her the morning she went missing?”

Skye shook her head. “I have no idea. We’ll have to ask her when she wakes up.”

Tears streamed down Karen’s face. “Do you think she will? Wake up, that is.”

“Yes, I do.
You heard the doctor say that she likely hit her head but that her brain scan looked good. And her tox screen came back clean.”

“Which means she didn’t faint because she was on drugs,” Josh added. “Right now,
Shawna’s brain is resting, getting stronger so that when she does wake up, she’ll be able to tell us what happened.”

“You really think so?”
Karen looked from Josh to Skye. “How in the world did you two find her? You’re both incredible people. You did what the cops were unable to do. Thank you. I’ll never be able to repay either one of you. I’m so glad I got in touch with you, Skye. I almost didn’t.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because Bob, that’s my husband and Shawna’s stepfather, told me it was a waste of time and not to bother.”

“
Bob discouraged you from doing everything you could to locate your daughter?” Josh snorted, bewildered at the notion. He met Skye’s furious eyes. Like two mobile devices syncing up, their signals linked in a like mindset.

But
when Josh opened his mouth to explore that line of questioning further, Skye shook her head and mouthed the words “not now.”

Stymied, Josh did his best to sound light and casual as if making small talk when he asked instead,
“How long exactly have you and your husband been married?”

“Two years last November.
”

“Ah, that almost
qualifies as newlyweds,” Skye proffered.

Karen blew her nose into a Kleenex, tightened her grip on
Shawna’s fingers to keep that fragile bond intact. “If only that were true. The last two years have been rather rocky between us. There’s been a lot of tension in the house.”

“
How so? Some relationships just take more work than others,” Josh tossed out, hoping Karen took the bait. But when she sat there stoic, he simply said, “It’s a shame Bob didn’t come down here with you tonight.”

“He’s out of town. He travels
quite a bit. I called him though. I guess he had that ‘do not disturb’ feature on. It went straight to voicemail.”

“So he
might not know yet that Shawna’s been found?”

“Not yet.”

“Look, Karen, Josh and I should get out of your way and leave you alone with your daughter. Be sure to keep us updated on Shawna’s progress, will you?”

“Oh, I will,” Karen said, dabbing at her eyes. “
If not for you two, I wouldn’t be sitting her with her. I’ll call you the minute she wakes up.”

Out in the hallway, Josh turned to Skye. “
Okay, that isn’t like you to drop a hot topic and run. The stepfather knows more than he’s saying.”

“
Of course, he does. But it wasn’t the right time to confront Karen. We woke her up. She’s raw and vulnerable right this minute. If we go into grilling mode about Bob, she’d likely jump to her husband’s defense. What good would that do us? Besides, without Shawna’s input, we have nothing but a wolf’s instinct and a strong suspicion. I’m betting Karen had no idea the stepfather had the hots for her daughter. So as soon as Shawna regains consciousness, we’ll be back here to talk to her. That’s the best time to enter the fray.”

“But we can’
t give Bob time to show up here and let Shawna wake up to her stepfather standing at her bedside,” Josh argued.

“We won’t. Let’s go talk to the nurse. If we have to, we’ll get
Shawna’s attending physician involved.”

“
Then it’s time to call Harry.”

“Yep.
Harry’s on speed dial.”

“Do you think the hospital did a rape kit when
Shawna was brought in?”

“We’re about to find out.”

Harry was more
than willing to confront Karen Houston about her husband. That’s why around nine o’clock that morning he guided her into one of the offices on the first floor of the medical center. There, he asked her point-blank about Bob Houston.

“Where was he the morning
Shawna went missing?”

As Skye predicted, Karen became defensive. “You aren’t suggesting Bob did this, are you? Lord knows, he
has his faults, but he wouldn’t do something like this to my daughter.”

“Then tell me where he was.”

“He’d gone to work.”

“So he wasn’t out of town?”

“Not then, no.”

For the next forty-five minutes,
Harry put Karen through a series of questions. But Shawna’s mother stuck to the same refrain.

Before
Harry finally let Karen go back to Shawna’s room, he left her with one thought. “When Shawna passed out that night, the paramedics couldn’t have brought her to a better medical facility. They took a rape kit, which is standard procedure. Be sure to mention that to your husband when he comes back into town. As soon as your daughter wakes up, as soon as she’s well enough to talk to me, I’ll be here. In the meantime, I’m leaving orders with the staff that her stepfather is to be kept out of her room.”

“You can’t do that,” Karen argued. “Bob cares for her, too.”

“That may be true. You have my permission to tell him that we’ll be formally requesting a swab for his DNA to clear him of any wrongdoing. At this point, it’s standard procedure. If he so chooses, Mr. Houston can certainly sit with you at the hospital in the waiting room. But until Shawna wakes up, Bob Houston will not be allowed in her room until I get answers from your daughter. Are we clear on that?”

Karen nodded and Harry watched the woman storm out. He checked the time on his watch.
If he hurried, he just might be on time for the meeting with the medical examiner at the morgue where Skye and Josh were no doubt already waiting.