The cashier had noticed her too.
Who wouldn’t notice a pretty kid with all that shining hair loitering around their shop?
“Hey kid,” the teenage cashier called out.
Instantly, Harleigh Rose was running.
She was fast and agile so even when the teen lunged for her, she didn’t look concerned or afraid.
Only determined.
She was coming right at the door, right next to me as I stood beside it.
It was my time to act, to snap forward and snare her while I could.
But her eyes hit mine as she barreled towards the glass door and they widened almost comically, an aquamarine color so opaque they looked like jewels. Still, she didn’t miss a beat. She ran, her eyes on me, and I watched as she raised one brow in silent question.
You going to catch me?
I wanted to laugh at her aplomb. A ten-year-old asking a rookie cop if he was going to stop her from committing a crime, however insignificant?
Then, I wanted to laugh at myself. Rosie asking her Lion if he was going to let her get in trouble, however trivial the consequences of that may be?
I knew without consciously deciding which side would win.
Harleigh Rose breezed past me even as the cashier called out to me to stop her. I made a lame attempt and grabbing for her that I hoped would satisfy him. If her little giggle was anything to go by, it was enough to satisfy Harleigh Rose.
She was gone in the next second.
I dutifully followed the cashier out of the store, searching amid the gas pumps, around the building and at the edge of the trees behind the property for a glimpse of multicolored blond hair, but I knew we wouldn’t, and we didn’t, find her.
I talked the guy down from filing a formal compliment because everyone on the force new what the Garro kids looked like and they’d ID her in a heartbeat. Then I gave him ten bucks, more than enough to cover the cost of the five candy bars shed stolen.
Harleigh Rose may have cut a hole through my moral fiber, but I wasn’t going to let her rip it wide open.
So, I got in my car and went looking for her.
She was at the first place I stopped. Mega Music.
I heard the song before I even opened the glass door.
Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap by AC/DC.
Again, I had to fight my amusement. No one spoke as eloquently through music as Harleigh Rose and she was only kid.
“Thought you’d be by,” Old Sam said as I entered and tipped my chin up at him.
I hesitated then changed my stride toward the back of the store where H.R. was to go to the counter where Old Sam sat on tall stood.
“What’s going on with the Garros?”
The old man peered at me, the folds of skin over his eyes making it impossible to tell if he was even looking directly at me.
“Who’s asking?”
“I think it should be obvious,” I said slowly, wondering if he’d finally lost the plot. “Me.”
“You you or you Danner?” he asked cryptically.
Unfortunately, I got him, and I felt rage rip up my back like gasoline lit flames. “I gotta prove myself to you again, Old Sam? You’ve known me since I was younger than Harleigh Rose. You make me answer that question, I guess we’ve got a different kinda relationship than I thought we did.”
Old Sam chuckled then wheezed and coughed. “It’s no wonder you and the princess get along so goddamn well. Both got a temper like that,” he said with a snap of his fingers. “And both as loyal as all get out.”
“So?” I asked, unimpressed with his test.
It wasn’t the first time someone had forced me to assert myself as independent from my family, specifically my father, but it was only recently that I’d had inklings as to why that was.
Old Sam sobered with a dramatic sigh. “Thought things got better for a while there when Farrah shacked up with Jacob Yves, but then the baby was born with some kind heart defect ’cause’a her drinkin’ while she was pregnant and Jacob went nuts. He left her ’bout three months ago and took the baby. Motherfuckin’ prick didn’t think to take King an’ Harleigh Rose though Lord knows they needed to go too. Since then, H.R. spends more time here than at home, and I hear King’s at school ’til the lock it up at seven ’clock every night just to stay away.”
I rubbed a hand over my face. “She still hitting them?”
He hesitated.
“Fucking tell me,” I snapped. “You think I’ll judge you for not doing something about it when for years I’ve wondered how you stood by and watch this happen? Yeah, it’s too late for that, Old Sam. So, tell me.”
“You don’t know what you’re talkin’ ’bout boy,” he said, but he didn’t seem angry, only tired. “I call social services on Farrah, you know what happens? They take those kids away from Entrance and away from the possibility of being with their father again. So, they run away like they do, they come to my place and Millie and I take care’a them best we can.”
“Okay,” I said. “Okay, Old Sam, I get you. But something has got to change here.”
“Zeus is up for parole in less than a year.”
I nodded, then tilted my head when the music changed and “Hot Blooded” by Foreigner came on.
I rapped my knuckles on the counter as a thank you to Old Sam and then made my way make through the haphazard shelves to the back corner. Harleigh Rose was there sitting cross-legged on a stack of empty record sleeves eating a Snickers candy bar in a way that was hilariously defiant.
I was careful not to grin as I crouched down in front of her. She stared at me insubordinately and ripped off another huge chunk of chocolate covered candy.
“You know the difference between good and evil, Harleigh Rose?”
She tilted her head to one side and squinted at me, but didn’t answer because she was smart enough to know she had no fucking clue.
“One has a conscious. See, good people don’t abstain from doing bad things. Everyone makes mistakes, gives into temptations, lies, or even steals, but it’s the good ones that know when the bad deed is done, there was something wrong in the doing of it. So, maybe the next time they face that crossroads between doing what they want despite the consequences—and Rosie, there are always consequence—and doing what they know it right, they make the right choice. At least the majority of the time.”
“I’m too young to get a job,” she said. “And mum never buys any groceries unless she’s havin’ a party like she is tonight, then all her friends eat the food ’cause we aren’t allowed in the house when they hang out. Lots of times Bat and Trixie take me and King for dinner or give us some money for food, but Trixie just had twins, so they’re too busy.” She paused then looked up at me with her crazy bright blue eyes and said, “You weren’t here, so what was I supposed to do?”
I rubbed at the flare of pain making itself known to the left center of my chest and tried to think of how to answer that question. I was only nineteen, I didn’t have much of a wealth of wisdom and what I did had, I figured wouldn’t be very applicable to a ten-year-old girl with chaos in her blood.
“First up, you call me. You know my number, you know if you need me, I’ll come up from Vancouver and get you what you need, okay?” When she nodded, one of the dozen notes tied tight around my heart loosened. “You also call Bat, okay? Do you or King have a cell phone?”