The Runaway Daughter

“Damn, man, you weren’t kidding about this place,” an unfamiliar male voice said. “It smells like baby poop in here.”

“It’s the damn diaper pail in the bathroom,” Sam groused in his distinctive Southern drawl. “Claire?” he called.

The girls froze, glancing nervously to where Max was snoozing the morning away.

“Thank God,” Sam said. “She must have taken the brat somewhere.”

“You as a daddy,” the other man joked. “I never thought you were stupid enough to get a piece of white trash like Claire Morton pregnant.”

“Yeah?” Sam’s chuckle was a menacing thing. Beside Maggie, Claire was shaking in her sandals. “I guess it’s about as stupid as you nailing Digger Hudson last month, in broad daylight a block from the youth center. Now the cops are crawling all over the place. It’s cutting into my business.”

“Is that why you brought me down here, to bust my hump about the drive-by? Man, that was weeks ago. I just ran your shit halfway to Memphis and back, and I dumped a small fortune in your lap. Don’t that count for nothin’? Digger was skimming half your take. You told me to take care of him.”

“Quietly, Marcus. I told you to take care of him real quiet-like. Now the town’s in even more of an uproar.”

“So what? You’ve got a new dealer for Digger’s territory, and he’s doing more business than you can handle. The kids around here are buying the stuff like it’s candy. You can’t make it fast enough. Besides, the mayor and his hired guns ain’t got nothin’, or they’d have come looking for me by now. You’re untouchable.”

“They may have nothing yet, but I had to move another lab this morning. And one of my runners almost got nabbed at the bus station on his way to a dealer in Macon. The money in Atlanta is getting edgy. I live and die by my reputation. I can’t afford to be seen as high risk. Too much local interference, and I’m out. There are other towns, with less cops and less complications. The people who back me don’t want to deal with that kind of heat. So what I’ve got, is a great big pain in my ass, with your name written all over it.”

“Now wait a minute—”

“No, you wait! You’re out, Marcus. You ain’t goin’ to up and decide to be stupid again, not in my town. Get the hell out of Oakwood, and don’t let me catch you around here again.”

“You can’t—”

“I can do whatever the hell I want,” Sam bellowed. “And you ain’t got jack to say about it. Get the hell out of my apartment, and don’t make the mistake of lying low anywhere around here. My people are everywhere. People a whole lot more loyal to me than they are to you. There’s no place for you to hide.”

“You son of a bitch,” the other man growled, then from the sound of the scuffling and the colorful curses that followed, he took a swing at Sam.

Flying furniture rattled the wall separating the two rooms. Male grunts accompanied the sound of fists connecting with numerous body parts. Maggie held her breath. Her friend’s wild eyes filled with tears.

Too late was all Maggie could think. Why hadn’t she forced Claire to come home with her last night? Max was going to wake up any minute, then Sam and this Marcus guy were going to know Maggie and Claire were there and had overheard everything.

She edged to the crib and lifted the sleeping baby and his cocoon of bedding to her shoulder. She covered his head with a blanket to better drown out the racket from the next room.

“You bastard,” someone said in a strangled voice, followed by more fighting.

Then an ear-piercing explosion rocketed through the apartment, followed almost instantly by another. Claire and Maggie dropped to the floor in one motion, cowering together while Maggie jostled a squirming Max.

Oh my God, they were shooting at each other!

Then the air that Maggie couldn’t seem to breathe rang with silence.

Had they left?

The sound of feet shuffling told her that at least one of the guys was still there. Then the front door banged open, followed by more silence.

Max began making puppylike sounds. Maggie cuddled him closer, trying to keep him quiet until they were certain they were alone. An eternity passed before she dared a glance at her friend. Claire was leaning against the wall still, looking toward the closet, her chest heaving up and down in shock at what had happened.

“Claire,” Maggie whispered. “Do you think they’re gone?”

When her friend didn’t respond, Maggie risked nudging her with her shoulder, more than a little worried that any second Claire would start shrieking. But her friend’s chin dropped to her chest instead. Her upper body slowly slid sideways until she was lying on the floor. Blood smeared the wall behind her.

“Oh my God!” Maggie whispered, panic hammering through her. She jerked a glance toward the open closet door, zeroing in on the hole where a bullet had torn through the wall and then slammed into her friend. “Claire!”

Maggie couldn’t manage anything louder than a whisper, even though she was freaking out inside. It was all she could do not to drop the whimpering baby in her arms as she watched blood spread like tie-dye across her friend’s Atlanta Braves T-shirt.

Claire’s eyes were open. Her chest was still moving as she tried to take in air. But each breath was a struggling wheeze. Maggie scrambled closer.

“Claire, hold on.” She reached a tentative hand to touch her friend’s chalk-white cheek. The skin beneath her fingers was cold. Too cold. “I’m calling 911.”

“No…” Claire rasped before Maggie could move away. “N-No police. Get… Get Max out of here.”

“What are you talking about?” Maggie’s eyes filled at the weakness in her friend’s voice. “I’m getting you to the hospital.”

“No…” An attempt at a cough followed, then bright red blood dribbled from the corner of Claire’s mouth. “Get Max out first. Then call. I’ll be… fine…” More coughing cut her words off, each ugly sound weaker than the last. “Get Max out of here…. To my parents…like you promised.”

Maggie looked from her friend to the bright blue eyes of the squirming infant in her arms.

“Of course I’ll make sure he gets to Virginia,” she heard herself promising.

Max’s face scrunched as he revved up to start wailing. She rocked him harder, helpless to do anything else.

She’d never felt helpless before in her life.

“Please!” Claire’s hand clamped on Maggie’s arm with surprising strength. “Go… Now. What if they come back? Max can’t be here…. Not… Not safe… Sam can’t know you were here. You… You promised to help. Protect him for me, Maggie. Take care of Max….”

Claire’s hand slid to the ground. Her eyes rolled backward in a sickening glide, until her lids dropped shut.

“Claire?” Maggie knelt and felt her friend’s chest, which was thankfully still rising and falling. She pulled her hand away, only to stare at the crimson staining it. Her friend’s blood. She choked on another scream. “Claire, wake up! Claire?”

Too late, her mind chanted.

She could have stopped this last night, but now it was too late.

“Oh, God!”

Move, Maggie Rivers.

She staggered to her feet. Max’s cry sent her heart rate spiraling even higher. She returned him to his makeshift crib, his bottom hitting the pad with a squishy-diaper thud. Then she was racing through the door to find the phone in the den.

She tripped over something and landed hard on her hands and knees. Preparing to push back to her feet, she focused on the hand barely two inches from her nose. A hand grasping a gun.

In a crazy kind of slow motion she couldn’t stop, Maggie’s gaze trailed up the arm attached to the hand, finally coming to rest on the face of a man she didn’t know. A face covered with a sickening amount of blood.

Her screams joined Max’s.

She raced to the phone and dialed. What seemed like hours passed and the 911 operator still hadn’t picked up.