Maybe this lady is all right. I mean, she saw what just happened, and she didn't freak, or even say anything about it. Maybe she can answer some of these questions . . . maybe she can explain what in the hell is happening to me.
She followed Elizabet out of the holding cell area, making a wide berth around the crazy man's cell. When they were outside the police station, she couldn't hold back the questions any longer. "You saw, didn't you? Why didn't you tell the cop? I don't—"
"Not here," Elizabet said. "We'll talk at my house." They walked to one of the few cars left in the parking lot next to the station, an old white VW Rabbit convertible. "We can stop by Cedars Sinai Hospital and check on your friend Billy if you'd like," she offered.
"We don't have to. I know he's okay," Kayla said without thinking.
Elizabet smiled at her. "Yes, you would know that, wouldn't you? All right, then we'll just go straight to my house."
She knows! Kayla thought. She knows exactly what happened!
"Bitch!" the man screamed as the police lieutenant left the room. "She's an evil bitch, she's the Devil's daughter!"
Carlos Miguel Hernandez listened to the man's raving for another few minutes, then uncurled from his position on the jail cell's wooden bench and moved to the corner of his cell, as close as he could get to the other man. "Why do you say that little puta is the daughter of the Devil?" he asked conversationally. "She's just a child."
"I saw it, kid!" the man shrieked. "I saw it, I saw it!"
"Please, amigo, calm down. Tell me what you saw."
Carlos listened intently to the man's descriptions of the evening's events, and nodded thoughtfully. "Can you prove that this happened? Do you have proof?"
"I'll show you, kid, but you have to give it back to me, you have to promise!" the other man said shrilly.
"I promise, I promise," Carlos snapped impatiently. "And do not call me kid," he added. "I'm nineteen years old, I'm a man."
For an answer, the man's hand reached out through the bars, holding out his shirt. Carlos pulled it into his cell and looked at it curiously.
"Look on the right side, you'll see the mark," the man said.
Carlos turned the shirt in his hands and saw the bullet hole. The bloodstains around the hole were fresh, not yet darkened to the red-brown color of old blood. He brought the shirt closer to his face and sniffed. Yes, fresh blood.
"I have a hole in my jacket, too," the man said. "But no bullet wound. She healed me, she's the Devil's daughter!"
"I believe you," Carlos said. "If you were still hurt, you would be in the security ward of a hospital, not here in county jail." How remarkable, he thought, And how very useful. Though if that child is the Devil's daughter, it is a kind and gentle Devil who would save the life of someone trying to kill her.
I want to see this miracle for myself, this child who heals friend and enemy alike.
"Do you know who she is?" Carlos asked. "Do you know where she lives?"
The other man mumbled a negative. Carlos pushed the shirt back through the bars of the cell into the other man's grasp and sat down on the bench to consider what he had learned.
She could be very useful indeed, this healing child. Tomorrow morning, he would stand in front of the judge and pay his fines to leave this place. After that, he could begin searching for this child. Somehow he did not doubt that he or one of his homeboys, the Tyrone Street Boys, would find her, one girl in all of the city of Los Angeles. He stretched out on the bench and listened in silence to the incoherent words of the man in the cell beside him. Tomorrow, he would find her. . . .
"Nice place," Kayla muttered, looking up at the darkened house. She glanced at Elizabet. "How much does the police department pay you, anyhow?"
"I also have a private practice," Elizabet said, unlocking the front door. "Besides, child, I bought this house fifteen years ago, before the rich folks decided that Laurel Canyon was the perfect place to build a fancy house. You'll see, it's not much on the inside."
Maybe you think so, Kayla thought, walking into the wood-paneled room, But I can sure spot a few things that would get me some good bucks at Mel's Gun and Pawn. She paused to look at a collection of crystal dolphins on a shelf in the hallway. I wouldn't even think of hocking those—they'd probably break when I was carrying 'em out. But the VCR, that looks like it's new, and it's one of the better brands . . . that could be worth something. . . .
A moment later, she noticed something else: the house was quiet. Not just from noise, but from the jangling pressure she'd felt for the last months, the sensation that the world was tightening down on her and making her crazy. Her headache faded as she looked around in surprise. Totally weird.