Officer Longmire. I always hated that guy. Now I know why no one questioned me, even though I was the last person to see Mila alive. The police already knew who killed her. I guess you can’t get away with something this big without inside help. I wonder if the FBI are in on it, too.
That seems unlikely. But for all the talk of them being in town, I never got questioned by the FBI or heard about them coming to the shelter to interrogate people after Mila went missing. Just Longmire. Maybe he kept the FBI away.
‘Where does she live?’ Longmire asks.
‘You can’t touch her,’ Maria repeats loudly. ‘Goodnight will kill both of us if you do.’
‘Fine,’ Longmire says, backing down. ‘What are we going to do with her?’
‘Go get Goodnight. He loves doing this shit himself,’ Maria replies tiredly.
I hear the plastic door swing open and close itself with a soft smack. Keeping low, I watch Longmire’s figure move through the trees. He keeps going and going, towards one of the outlying buildings, I’m assuming.
Dr Goodnight must stay far from the labs themselves, which makes sense. They don’t just stink. Sometimes they blow up.
I watch Longmire disappear in the darkness. If I’m going to do something, I have to do it soon. Maria isn’t going to conveniently leave so I can rescue Gina unchallenged. And the only way in is through the door, so I can’t try to sneak in and take Maria by surprise somehow.
‘It never keeps you up at night?’ Gina says, baiting Maria.
‘Shut up, Gina,’ Maria says, like she’s not having any of it.
‘How many girls have you sent out to him?’ Gina persists.
I hear the thunk of a fist hitting a body, and a heaving sound, like Gina’s about to throw up. Then the sound of clanking, like a chain moving.
‘Just shut up, OK?’ Maria says.
‘I’ve been shut up for twenty years,’ Gina groans. Then she starts laughing, but it’s a wheezing kind of laugh through pain. ‘Can’t just be for money,’ Gina continues. ?
?It’s because you’ve been managing a habit all this time, haven’t you? You traded all those girls for your high.’
I hear the thunk of another hit, but this time a scuffle comes right after it. I hear cursing and the sound of toppled furniture. I stay down as I dart in through the door.
Gina and Maria are rolling around on the floor. Gina is handcuffed to an overturned chair by one hand, but she’s managed to get a hold of Maria’s neck. Maria is reaching up, trying to scratch Gina’s eyes out, while Gina chokes her and curses at her.
Strangling Maria will take too long. I look around. There is all kinds of equipment in here – stainless-steel bins and gauges and tubing. Nothing I can use to end this quicker, though. Maria is flailing her legs, and the cuff of her jeans has rolled up enough for me to see a knife strapped to her ankle. I jump on her flailing leg and manage to get the knife out, but when Gina feels another person next to her, she startles and lets go of Maria.
‘No!’ I snarl, reaching after Maria while she scrabbles to her feet.
Gina recovers fast. She swings the chair still cuffed to her wrist over her head like a mace and knocks Maria down with it. Then Gina stands over Maria and thrashes her with the chair over and over, every blow accompanied by the name of a different girl.
‘No time,’ I snarl. I grab Gina to make her stop. ‘Where’s the key?’
Maria lies on the ground, bloody and unconscious, but still breathing. Gina spits on her.
‘Longmire has it,’ Gina replies. She looks at me. Her face is a mess. She sighs like she’s sad to see me. ‘What are you doing here?’
I shake my head – no time to explain – and start trying to pull apart the damaged chair. Gina motions for me to stand back, and then she holds her bound wrist as far out of the way as she can while she stomps on the armrest. I take a moment to get the ankle sheath off Maria and strap it to myself, and then I go to help Gina. Stomping together, we manage to break the chair enough to get the cuff off.
We run for it, not even bothering to check outside the door first. At this point, they’re either out there or they aren’t, but we have to go now, or we’ll be trapped.
I grab Gina’s shirt and start pulling her the way I came, but she stops and yanks me in the other direction.
‘The cars are this way,’ she whispers harshly.
We run uphill though the trees. It’s too dark to see more than a few feet in front of our faces. There isn’t a trail, but the underbrush isn’t as thick as it is the way I came. Gina’s breathing is heavy and wet. She’s also clutching her ribs. After only a few minutes of climbing, she’s struggling. I come alongside her and put one of her arms over my shoulder.
‘Are you sure this is the way?’ I’m whispering because we’re barely outside the ring of Dr Goodnight’s labs.