Roadside Crosses (Kathryn Dance 2)

"It was so cold," Tammy said. "I've never been so cold in my life. I'm still pretty freaked."

"I'm sure you are."

The girl's attention swerved to the TV screen. A soap opera was on. Dance and Maggie watched them from time to time, usually when the girl was home sick from school. You could miss months and still come back and figure out the story perfectly.

Dance sat down and looked at the balloons and flowers on a nearby table, instinctively

searching for red roses or religious gifts or cards emblazoned with crosses. There were none.

"How long are you going to be in the hospital?"

"I'm getting out today, probably. Maybe tomorrow, they said."

"How're the doctors? Cute?"

A laugh.

"Where do you go to school?"

"Robert Louis Stevenson."

"Senior?"

"Yeah, in the fall."

To put the girl at ease, Dance made small talk: asking about whether she was in summer school, if she'd thought about what college she wanted to attend, her family, sports. "You have any vacation plans?"

"We do now," she said. "After this. My mom and sister and me are going to visit my grandmother in Florida next week." There was exasperation in her voice and Dance could tell that the last thing the girl wanted to do was go to Florida with the family.

"Tammy, you can imagine, we really want to find whoever did this to you."

"Asshole."

Dance lifted an agreeing eyebrow. "Tell me what happened."

Tammy explained about being at a club and leaving just after midnight. She was in the parking lot when somebody came up from behind, taped her mouth, hands and feet, threw her in the trunk and then drove to the beach.

"He just left me there to, like, drown." The girl's eyes were hollow. Dance, empathetic by nature--a gift from her mother--could feel the horror herself, a hurting tickle down her spine.

"Did you know the attacker?"

The girl shook her head. "But I know what happened."

"What's that?"

"Gangs."

"He was in a gang?"

"Yeah, everybody knows about it. To get into a gang, you have to kill somebody. And if you're in a Latino gang you have to kill a white girl. Those're the rules."

"You think the perp was Latino?"

"Yeah, I'm sure he was. I didn't see his face but got a look at his hand. It was darker, you know. Not black. But he definitely wasn't a white guy."

"How big was he?"

"Not tall. About five-six. But really, really strong. Oh, something else. I think last night I said it was just one guy. But I remembered this morning. There were two of them."