The Body Trail

The car missed Ruby because Elise shoved her into the fence.

The mirror clipped Elise's shoulder and spun her to the pavement. Pain ripped down her arm. Theo shouted her name. Roslyn fired one shot into the rear tire as the sedan fishtailed down the lane and vanished around the corner.

Ruby screamed into the gravel, hands over her head.

"Did you see the driver?" Roslyn asked.

"No," Theo said. "Dark glass."

Elise pushed herself up with her good hand. "Plate?"

"Covered."

Roslyn looked at her like she wanted to order Elise to stop being useful while bleeding. "Sit down."

"Ruby talks first."

Ruby stared at Elise's scraped palm, then at her face. "Why did you do that?"

"Because I need you alive more than they need me dead."

That answer seemed to break something in Ruby. She began to cry without sound.

Roslyn crouched in front of her. "Lenora Pike was in the van?"

Ruby nodded. "She tried to back out. Martin said she could go home after she verified me. Then his security man put her in the transport van. I heard her banging when they drove away."

Elise closed her eyes. Lenora's note under the coffee table had been a woman trying to outrun her own signature.

"Who was supposed to die under my name?" Elise asked.

Ruby wiped her face with her sleeve. "No one. I was supposed to be sedated, photographed, logged, then moved. Martin said the claim only needed a body trail for a few hours. Vivian had promised me protection if I helped her expose him, but Vivian was dead."

"Martin killed her?"

"I do not know. I know he had her phone."

Theo helped Elise stand. His hand trembled once against her back.

Roslyn looked toward Claire's burning house, then at Ruby. "You are coming with me."

Ruby shook her head hard. "Police stations leak."

"So do alleys."

Elise heard sirens approaching from two directions.

Then June ran into the lane holding the cracked blue phone. "The hidden file opened," she said. "Grandma left an address."