My classes today started after lunch. First, I had to get through an ER rotation at Camden Community Hospital.
My shift dragged while my thoughts swirled obsessively around Miguel’s phone and the missing drugs. I could recall every word uttered by the two men in the warehouse last night.
They talked about the Castillo cartel. I’ve never heard the name before, but it sounded like Miguel had been trying to get in with them through some dumb initiation, and he’d also been given product to sell? Where the hell was it? The cartel wouldn’t come after Lucy for it, right? She had nothing to do with it. I’d spent all day repeating my internal arguments to an unforgiving jury in my head.
“Burke, are you listening?” a deeply irritated voice snapped at me.
I blinked up at the speaker. Right. I was in the staff room, and Dr. Daniel Worthington, asshole extraordinaire, was deigning to speak to me. I had better listen. He seemed to think that all students were just waiting around for him to bestow some of his greatness upon them. He had no idea that every single one of us thought he was an asshole.
“I’m sorry, what?”
A deep frown lined his overly tanned brow. Doctor Dan was one of those guys who’d be as white as me and my Irish genes if not for regular tanning sessions and monthly trips to tropical locales. He was privileged, rich, and arrogant as fuck, and by far my least favorite person in the hospital.
“I said that the spina bifida benefit is tomorrow and asked if you’re attending.” His smirk revealed that he knew I wasn’t invited but wanted me to confirm it. These kinds of benefits involved buying a table for an astronomical fee and then selling off the seats, or giving them away to your friends, if you were rich as Doctor Dan.
I gave him a tight smile. “Not this time, I’m afraid.”
He nodded, expecting my answer. “Well, don’t be disappointed. My date pulled out at the last minute. Her husband is coming home early from his business trip. You’ll come with me instead.”
There was a lot to unpack in that sentence. I took my time sorting through it before giving him a strained smile. “Thanks for thinking of me, but I’m afraid I’m busy tomorrow.”
Doctor Dan snorted like he couldn’t believe someone lowly like me wouldn’t immediately cancel my plans for the chance to hang on his arm. “Exactly what kind of plans do you have that you can’t support a charity?”
I laughed; I couldn’t help it. I was too exhausted from the stresses of last night. “I wasn’t aware that being your date was an act of charity.”
His expression hardened at my flippant words.
Crap! Get it together, Charlie. Pissing off the resident doctors was never a good idea.
“I mean – I’m busy with my sister, and I also have work. She’s going through a hard breakup, so I have to be with her. You understand, right?” My placating tone was flimsy at best, and we both knew it.
“Your sister? You act more like a mother to that girl,” Dan sneered, his curled lip conveying just how trashy he found that idea.
“Anyway, I’m sure there’re about thirty women at this very hospital who’d be thrilled to take you up on that offer.” A little ego stroke was usually enough to get Dan to ignore the occasional jab I aimed his way.
“Hmm, probably, and no doubt ones who’d fit in better at such an event,” Dan said, turning away dismissively.
His casual put-down stung, but there was nothing I could do about it. The truth was that he was the doctor, and I was the nurse. He was rich, and I was poor. He’d gone to Princeton, and I was struggling my way through community college on a roller coaster of student loans that I couldn’t imagine ever being able to pay off.
We were not the same. It might hurt my pride to admit that, but it was true, and being resentful of men like Daniel Worthington would only cause me stress and make my life more difficult.
Life was already hard enough without that kind of complication.
I finished my shift and headed home, Doctor Dan and his unsubtle insults melting into the miasma of anxiety swarming inside my head.
By the time I got home after three back-to-back classes that had thoroughly exhausted my brain, I’d decided that Lucy and I needed to get rid of the phone. Smash it up and drop it in the sea or something. No good could come of having it, and hopefully it was the only thing tying Lucy to Miguel.
“Lucy?” I called as I went in. The kitchen was dark. It looked like there’d be no hot dinner waiting for me before I started my waitressing shift tonight, but then I couldn’t blame my little sister. She was young and grieving. If I were in her shoes, I had no idea how I’d react.
Yes, you do. You’d get on with life. You’ve never had an alternative.
I pushed that voice of treacherous resentment down inside my chest until I couldn’t hear it anymore. Another voice reminded me that she’d been drifting aimlessly since graduation and making no moves to figure out what she wanted to do with her life. But now wasn’t the time to bring up all my grievances with my only sibling. Put out the fires first.
“Lucy?” Silence met my call, so undisturbed that I immediately knew no one was home. She’d gone out? Where? I had barely begun to consider the possibilities when my phone rang. A terrible sense of foreboding filled me as I answered.
“Hello, I’m calling for a Charlotte Burke?”
I swallowed, my throat painfully dry. “This is she.”
“Ma’am, this is Atlantic City Police Department. I’m calling from precinct fifty-eight. We have your sister here, and she seems very upset. I think it would be best if you came down and sat with her while the detective in charge prepares to take her statement.”
The precinct stank like stale coffee and vomit wafting from the direction of the drunk tank. I hurried through security, dropping everything I had into a box to go through the scanner.
“Two phones, huh? Are you a dealer or an escort?” a dryly amused voice spoke from behind me.
I whirled around to take in a petite lady with short, steely cropped hair and even steelier eyes.
“Dolores, don’t be rude.” A lanky younger man stood beside her. His leather jacket and plaid shirt appeared well worn, and he had a badge clipped onto his pocket.
Wait, two phones? I whirled back to my bag just as the security officer finished checking it. In my panic to come down here, I’d brought both my phone and Miguel’s. Great. The Burke sisters were really winning today.
I grabbed both phones and stuffed them into my bag. “It’s for work emergencies,” I muttered, turning to meet the two cops.
“Sure, it is,” the woman said.
“Don’t mind Dolores, she’s grumpy in the afternoons, and in the evenings. She’s pretty much grumpy all around. I’m Mark, Detective Mark Whitely. This is Detective Dolores Vane. You’re Charlie, Lucy’s sister?”
I nodded, my face on fire. How was I going to make it through this? Lying to the police? My life had gone to shit in the last day, and I had no idea what was going to happen next.
“Come through here and see her. She was quite upset when we left her earlier,” Detective Vane said, her tone making it sound like being quite upset in her presence was a crime in and of itself.
They buzzed me into another section of the building, one that was crawling with cops. Nerves clawed at my throat, threatening to steal my voice. I’d never felt comfortable around cops. My Da had been a hustler, and he’d always taught me to keep my head down, avoid eye contact, and take care of things myself. The cops don’t help people like us, Charlie. They just use ’em. Steer clear, my girl. It was a shame Lucy had been too young to get that message before he’d died.
“Do you know why your sister is so upset?” Detective Whitely asked me.
I shook my head, my voice still stuck in my throat. I hated lying. My face always glowed a fiery red, and my eyes were guilty as hell, giving me away.
The detectives looked at each other and then opened the door to a small room.
“She’s in an interrogation room?” I rasped.
“Well, there aren’t that many places to put a distraught young woman whose story changes every few seconds.”
With a hot panic enveloping my entire body, I headed into the room. Lucy sat in a metal chair, her arms wrapped around her drawn-up knees.
“Lucy?” I murmured, getting close enough to put my arms around her. She looked up at me, her tearstained face all red and blotchy.
“Now, Lucy, can you please confirm your name?” Detective Whitely had settled into the chair across from us, while Vane leaned against the wall and watched us with an inscrutable expression.
“Why? This is all a mistake,” I said. “We don’t need to make a complaint or a statement or whatever it is. We should just go and stop wasting your time.”
“We’ll decide if our time is being wasted, Miss Burke. Now, your sister was telling us her boyfriend is missing?”
Shock poured over me like a bucket of ice water. What the hell? This was a complication we didn’t need.
I turned to Lucy and pasted on my best patient older sister look. “Now, Lucy, just because someone ghosts you, it doesn’t mean that they’ve gone missing.” I forced a laugh and smiled at the cops. “Teens.”
Did it feel good to gaslight my own sister? Hell, no. But what she was doing right now was the equivalent of juggling flaming chainsaws, and she seemed to have no idea.
“Ghosted you, eh? Give us a name and we can see if we can run it through the system for you, check if he’s been hospitalized or anything like that.”
“Surely that’s a misuse of police resources,” I argued. Thank fuck I had no social life and watched court shows at night. “He has a right to ghost someone if he wants.”
“Let us worry about police resources, Miss Burke. We were just offering to make sure a young man hasn’t been hurt or gone missing. That’s a just cause.”
“Still, I’m sure it’s fine. We really have to get going now. I’m so sorry for wasting your time.”
Detective Whitely stared at me for a long moment before shifting his focus to Lucy. ‘What did you say his name was?’
I shot to my feet. “Okay, like I said, this is all ridiculous. I’m so sorry to be a bother.”
“Why are you so upset, Lucy, if all that happened was your boyfriend, Miguel, ghosted you?”
Shit. She’d already given them his name. Now if his body showed up… I swallowed down a sudden bout of nausea.
“Don’t you remember being a teen? This stuff is life or death at nineteen years old,” I quipped before cringing guiltily at my words. For fuck’s sake, Charlie, get a grip. Taking my own advice, I took a deep breath and let it go, smoothing a pleasantly bland expression over my features. “Now, we’ll just be going,” I muttered and yanked Lucy to her feet.
She stumbled into me. She was subdued, like someone had snuffed out the light inside her. She came willingly enough when I pulled her toward the door. Neither of the detectives made to open it, and I stared at them.
“Are you holding us here in an official capacity? Are we being charged with something?”
Detective Vane raised her eyebrow as she approached us, taking her sweet time. “Do you think you should be charged with something?”
“I love armchair psychology as much as the next person, but we need to be going,” I said firmly, refusing to participate in her little game of chicken.
The detectives watched us closely the entire way out of the precinct. I dragged Lucy three blocks away before stopping.
“What the hell, Lucy?” I demanded. Yikes. I never called her by her full name. I was madder than I thought. “What was the point in creeping out of that place last night when you’re determined to put a target on our backs?!”
“I didn’t know what to do,” Lucy muttered, scrubbing a hand over her pale face. “I got a call while you were at work, on my cell.”
“What call? From who?” I didn’t want to hear the answer. Dread had dropkicked me in the belly, and I struggled to breathe.
“I think it was Miguel’s boss. The one who sent the message to his phone.” Lucy’s lips were bloodless. “I think they know about me.”
“Shh, it’s okay.” I reached out and pulled her close, hugging her petite body hard. “It’s going to be okay. I’ll take care of everything.”
I had no clue how, but the words just flowed. I’d always taken care of my sister and I always would. She was still and unyielding in my arms. Lucy always pulled away when she was upset and shut me out. It was her coping mechanism.
“Why did you go to the cops? You could have waited until I got home,” I gently reminded her. The service sucked in the hospital’s locker room, where I had to leave my phone during shifts.
“I thought maybe if I reported Miguel missing, the cops would find him themselves, and then their investigation would find the drugs and the killers…” She sighed and rubbed her temples, drawing back from my embrace. “The police would get the killers, and the drugs would get confiscated, and the dealers would drop it.”
I smoothed my hand down her hair. I got it. Lucy was sheltered, despite having only an older sister as a parental figure. I’d made sure that the worst of the life we’d lived in sketchy neighborhoods and group homes hadn’t touched her. She still believed in the system. In Lucy’s unspoiled mind, the cops had power and caught the bad guys. I’d lived long enough to know that wasn’t always the case.
“It’s okay, I understand. It makes sense,” I reassured her. Once her shoulders stopped shaking, I leaned back and looked her in the eye. “But remember this. We have no one but each other. The police can’t help us; in fact, they might even think you were involved. They aren’t on our side. Worst of all, if we tell them what happened and they investigate, do you think the De Sanctis family will just sit back and let the police build a case for murder against one of their men? Of course they won’t. They’ll eliminate the problem, which is us. You think the cartel will be cool knowing that we saw what happened to Miguel? They might want the money for the drugs from you.”
I touched her hand. Her skin was cold. “We have no one but each other. We need to get rid of the phone, now, before I have to go to La Leonora,” I told her.
She looked at me for a long moment, biting her lip. Finally, seeming to win a war with herself in her head, she nodded.
“Let’s go to the shore,” she suggested.
I tightened my grip on her hand. The Burke sisters might have shit luck, but we also had each other. We’d survive another day. I wouldn’t allow anything else.
