Turn or Burn by Boo Walker Page B

powered up my computer and read some news sites talking about the day’s event. I found no new information.
    Finally, saving me from myself, Francesca came out of the house and made her way back to the car. “How’d it go?” I asked.
    “I got into a chat with one of her high school friends. He said the family hadn’t seen Erica in two years. They’d had an intervention and Erica stormed out. Drinking and drugs. Not sure what specifically. He didn’t know. But he said her best friend kept in touch with her a little. He pointed her out, but I didn’t want to approach her yet. She was with Erica’s mom. So I want to wait until she leaves and follow her. She was saying her good-byes.”
    Francesca turned the key and rolled down her window. And we waited. Exchanged a few war stories. In some act of defiance against growing up, she joined the Marina Militare, which was the Italian Navy, and after a few years someone at Blackwater recruited her and she started working the Middle East. She’d been working with Ted two years.
    “We nearly crossed paths,” I said. “You must have replaced me on his roster.”
    “Something like that. An upgrade is what he called it, if I remember right.”
    “Oh, I’m sure.”
    We watched people come and go for forty-five minutes. The air moved crisply through the open windows. Finally, Francesca pointed the woman out. Jamey Rush. She got into a BMW X-5, and I followed her out of the neighborhood. In a few minutes, we were back on the highway.
    We followed her taillights all the way to Bellevue, a city near Microsoft. Money floated through the sewage over there. People pissed gold coins and I hoped it hurt. Jamey pulled into a high-end apartment complex with an array of cars that mommy and daddy gave their little precious ones, so that they could fit in with high society and marry who they needed to marry. I’m not judging. That’s just human nature. Survival of the fittest. Keep climbing that ladder until you’re looking down at everyone.
    I parked and said, “I guess it’s my turn.”
    “Go for it.”
    I waited until the woman was near the building, underneath the lights. “Jamey?”
    She turned to look at me but didn’t stop walking.
    “Hi, Jamey,” I said. “Could I please have a moment of your time?”
    “Who are you?”
    “My name’s Harper Knox. We both lost friends today. I need your help figuring out why.”
    “I don’t know you. Please leave me alone.”
    “Just five minutes. I need to ask you a couple questions. My best friend died five feet from Erica today. Just a couple questions. I’m a good guy.”
    She stopped and I caught up with her. Stuck out my hand and we shook. She was a big girl; not overweight, just big-boned. At least that’s what her mother probably told her. Very warm eyes, like she might be the leader of her Young Life division.
    “I’m trying to figure out what happened,” I continued. “I believe Erica was a good person deep down, though I know she got into some bad stuff.”
    “She was a good person. You’re right.”
    I looked at her for a minute, then said in almost a whisper, “What happened to her?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “You can trust me, Jamey.”
    She crossed her arms and looked around. “She comes from a really good family. I’ve known them a long time and never saw it coming. None of us did. She just changed one day. Started hanging around with some people I didn’t like toward the end of college. This was back in Tacoma. She wouldn’t even return my calls. I kind of had a feeling she was doing drugs…even tried to confront her a couple times. But that pushed us further apart.”
    “What kind of drugs, would you say?”
    “I don’t know everything, but she eventually told me meth. I don’t even know how you do it.”
    I nodded. “Me either.”
    “And… and…never mind.” She looked away and then down.
    “What?”
    “I don’t know you.”
    “Please, Jamey. I don’t want anyone to hurt anymore than