“Like I said, I’m visiting my friend,” Angie said, maybe a little too quickly.
“Yeah? Where she at? She fine lookin’ like you, Big Red?”
If Buggy understood the concept of personal space, he damn well knew he was violating hers. Angie’s throat tightened as she shifted her foot ever so slightly, her mind churning for a simple answer to a simple question.
She lives down on . . . on . . . on where?
Angie had had brain freezes before, but never quite like this. She didn’t know these streets, this neighborhood. She knew the apartment and the alley, nothing more. But she did remember Mike saying they were on the outskirts of east Baltimore, what was commonly referred to as “Middle East” in reference to the ever-present violence.
“She’s over in west Baltimore,” Angie said, hoping being vague wasn’t inviting suspicion. “But we’re taking a Zumba class here.”
“Come a long way to Zumba,” Buggy said.
“Well, she’s trying out new studios. A good instructor makes all the difference.”
“Yeah, I’m a teacher. You should take my class.” Buggy gyrated his hips.
Angie moved her foot and made a delighted sound. She bent down, retrieved her dirt-covered earring, and held it up for Buggy to see. She took a step in retreat.
Buggy held his ground. He seemed to be weighing the earring discovery against the Zumba story, deciding if his BS radar should be pinging loudly.
“You come back here any time you want to party,” Buggy said, slipping a smoke in his mouth from a pack he kept in the pocket of his bowling shirt. He lit it and blew a waft in Angie’s face that wouldn’t have bothered her twenty-year-old self, but made the older version want to gag.
“What’s your name, baby?”
Without hesitation, Angie said, “Kathleen.” She backed away. Only one person could ever comfort her after a nightmare. It was no great surprise when she opened her mouth and spoke her mother’s name.
CHAPTER 32
Exhibit D: Excerpts from the journal of Nadine Jessup, pages 51-57
Every night I went to bed telling myself tomorrow would be the day I’d make the call. Tomorrow would be my last day here. Wherever this is . . . somewhere in Baltimore, I’m told. Tomorrow I’ll say good-bye to Tasha and the other girls forever and then I’d say good-bye to this chapter of my life. Every day I promised myself I would do it, but I never did. Instead, I watched the phone’s battery level drop like it was my own life slipping away, down from a hundred percent to fifty. Half life. Half left. But the half remaining meant I could go another day without having to make that call. It meant I could have another day without being terrified of what Ricardo would do to me if he found out I was trying to escape, or what he would do to my mom and dad if I betrayed him. The remaining bit of battery meant I could put off having those fears become a reality for at least one more day.
I didn’t know what was going to happen when the battery got down to ten percent . . . or five. Would it give me strength I didn’t have? Would I just dial the number on the card Mystery Man gave Tasha? Would I? Could I? There was a Nadine who I believed in, a girl who I thought had the courage to do it. But it felt like that girl was lost somewhere in a maze of cheap rooms down in a basement with mold clinging to the ceiling. That Nadine was lost and I was calling her name but hearing the echo not of my voice, but the voice of Jessica Barlow, the girl I’d become, whoever she is.
It was a stupid thing waiting to make that call. Stupid GIRL! STUPID NADINE OR JESSICA OR WHOEVER THE HELL YOU ARE! Doesn’t matter now what percent of the phone’s battery is left because the phone is gone. I went to check the battery life and I couldn’t find the phone in my pillow. It’s gone and if Ricardo, Casper, or Buggy found it that means I’m probably next.