“She from the hospital, woman!”
“What hospital?”
“Ms. Smith?” She quieted and glanced over at me.
“Get the fuck outta here, Terrence.” She slapped at the inspector’s leg.
“I’m going, but I’m getting paid first.” He walked to me, smiling as if he’d just won the lottery.
I pulled the hundred-dollar bill from my pocket but didn’t hand it over yet. “Don’t let anything happen to my car.”
“That wasn’t part of the deal.” He frowned.
“I’m making it part of the deal. Got it?”
“Shit.” He held his hand out, the palm crisscrossed with deep wrinkles. “I won’t touch it.”
“You better not, Terrence.” I held out the bill. “I’m tight with NOPD, and now I have a name to track you down by.”
He snatched the bill from my hand and walked away. “Nice doing business, rich bitch.”
I hit the lock button on my car again, just to make sure, and focused on Ginger Smith. “Ms. Smith?”
“Yeah?” She leaned back and pulled a dirty white sheet over her lower half. “You from the hospital? What you want?”
I squatted down to her level. “I’m not really from the hospital. Sorry about that. I’m an attorney.”
She crossed her thin arms over her chest. She was like a frail bird, far too thin. Tracks marked her arms, and her cheeks were hollowed out. “What you want?”
“You aren’t in trouble. I just wanted to ask you about something that happened a few months ago at a halfway house near here. You got hurt?”
She laughed, the sound harsh and grating. “I get hurt a lot. You gonna need to be more specific.”
“A man was arrested for hurting you. Rowan Ellis? And there maybe was another man. Tyler Graves? Or maybe a Gene Rourke?” I pulled Rowan’s mug shot and then Tyler’s up on my phone and showed them to her. She flinched when she saw Tyler’s face.
“You know him?”
She shuddered and drew her knees up. “You need to leave.” Her dark eyes watered.
“What did he do?”
“Go.” She turned her face away from me.
I dug in my bag, pulling out the last cash I had—two twenties. “I can pay for information.” I held my hand out.
She slapped my wrist away. “Money don’t help dead people. Get the fuck out of my house.”
I recoiled at her sudden anger. “Please, I’m just trying to—”
“You just trying to get me killed. You just trying to get you killed.” She turned back to me, a tear rolling down her gaunt cheek.
I dropped all the way to my knees, the rotten wood sagging under my weight. “Please, just tell me what you know.”
“I’ll say this, and then you need to get the fuck out, rich bitch.” She wiped her tear away with the back of her hand. “They will cut you and they will kill you and no one will ever find you. Leave.”
“Who?” I held the twenties out again.
She seemed to wrestle with hitting my hand away again, but then let out a long, defeated sigh. “Tyler and Chip.” Lifting her shirt to her protruding ribs, she showed me a mark. I leaned closer. It was the outline of some sort of animal, made entirely of scars. Someone had carved it into her flesh. She dropped her shirt and snatched the money.
“Now get out!” Her scream was like a bomb blast, sudden and intense.
I fell back and scrambled up.
“Out! Out! Out!”
I backed away, my heart slamming into my ribs, and turned to run. My heel caught in the floor, and I fell against the wall. Ripping my shoe free, I careened out the front door, down the steps, and into my car. The men were nowhere to be seen as I cranked it up and squealed tires out of the neighborhood.
“You what!” Mr. Granade slammed his palm on his desk and stood, leaning over and boring into me with his eyes.
I cringed back in my chair. “I, well, I thought I would follow up on that lead, so I—”
“So you went to a dangerous neighborhood all alone and spoke to a hooker and God knows what other sort of shady characters?”
I shrugged. “I was just trying to follow up, do a good investigation. Also, I’ll need the firm to reimburse me for the one hundred and forty dollars I paid for the information.”
“Goddammit, Caroline, this isn’t a joke!” he roared.
Shirley came to the door, glanced at me with a dark look, and pulled it closed.
“You can’t just go out on your own like that.” He seemed to wrestle with getting his voice to a normal level, though his eyes still burned. “Do you have any idea what could have happened to you?”