Chapter 17

Grace Black calmed Vera down by telling her that she could call her anytime. The shelter manager wasn't the brightest bulb in the lighting store, but she was tenacious, gnawed on a problem like a dog with a bone until she solved it, and after moving through a problem, if the same problem happened again, or one similar to it, Vera fixed it using what she'd learned. What Vera couldn't do is fix a problem the first time it surfaced, not without help, and Grace had been her security blanket for first-time problems. On the other hand, Vera was wonderful with the battered women and children. She'd been battered herself and understood what her residents were going through.

As Grace drove away from the shelter, she called David on her cell phone.

"I gave Fisher my letter of resignation this morning," Grace said. "He fired me on the spot."

"Figured he would," David said. "We'll put you on the payroll tomorrow. Can you meet me for breakfast at seven at the compound?"

"Yes."

"Good. I'll ask Gloria, my accountant, to join us. Besides creating a budget, your first task will be to locate a facility that we can renovate for our initial shelter. I won't be able to spend a lot of time with you tomorrow. I'm attending a hearing at nine o'clock for the boy I told you about who will become our foster son, but Gloria isn't involved with that effort, so she can spend some extra time with you if you need it."

"I'll need it," she said. "See you at seven."

Shortly after she ended the call to David, her cell phone rang. Kara Flynn, the manager for Johnson's North Phoenix shelter, was the caller.

"I heard you resigned or Fisher fired you," Kara said.

"I resigned. Then Fisher tried to fire me, told me to clean out my desk," Grace said. "A shame. I gave him thirty days to replace me."

"Shit!" Kara huffed. "I won't work directly for Fisher, Grace. He's a flaming asshole. I'll quit first."

"I'll be replaced, Kara," Grace said.

"When? More to the point, if Fisher hires your replacement, I probably won't be able to work with your replacement, either."

Grace's call-waiting signal clicked. "Got another call, Kara," she said. "Hold a sec." She hit the flash button.

"Grace, it's Lillian. I heard you quit or were fired." Lillian Cramer was the manager for Johnson's West Phoenix shelter.

"Lillian, I'm on a call with Kara. I'll call you right back," Grace said.

"Okay, but..."

Grace ignored the "but" and hit the flash button again. "I'm back, Kara. That was Lillian calling. She's heard the news, as well."

"I know. She's the one who told me. She says she's quitting, too."

Rats leaving a floundering ship, Grace thought.

Grace said, "I wish you'd reconsider resigning, Kara. My replacement..."

"Uh-uh. I've been thinking about quitting anyway. As you know, I haven't liked the direction the organization has taken since Fisher gained control of the board."

"Think about your residents, Kara. They..."

"I am. That's why I'm quitting. I can't help them, not the way they should be helped. All I can do is give them a place to sleep and some food, and at that, the mattresses are lumpy and the food sucks. I already wrote my letter or resignation."

"I hope you gave ample notice."

"Of course I did, Grace."

"Okay, keep in touch, Kara."

"I will."

Grace hung up and returned Lillian's call. It soon became obvious that Kara and Lillian had been talking because Lillian also had her letter of resignation ready to submit, and Lillian was just as adamant about quitting as Kara.

That Vera couldn't cope without her security blanket and that Kara and Lillian were quitting upset Grace. No one, she knew, was indispensable, but she worried about the Johnson Center for Domestic Violence's continued existence. If Fisher didn't act quickly, the organization could fall completely apart, especially if Fisher fired Kara and Lillian on the spot when they resigned like he'd fired her.

He wouldn't be that stupid, would he?

Eileen Hancock might have been a pretty girl, but with the bruises and bandages on her face and elsewhere, it was difficult to tell. David had decided to think of her as Eileen, not Sandra. If Sandra Newton didn't want her real name known, he'd honor her wish. Eileen, David, Ridley and Flint sat in a Holiday Inn coffee shop.

"You didn't have to pay my doctor and hospital bills, Mr. Stanley," Eileen said. "They would have written them off."

"You're correct, Eileen," David said, "but most young ladies your age wouldn't know that. How did you come by this bit of financial lore?"

"A friend told me, another runaway. That's what happened to him. 'Can't get blood out of a turnip, ' he said. He also said that a minor couldn't be made responsible for debts incurred by a minor. He's pretty smart about those kind of things."

And Eileen Hancock is no dummy, either, David thought.

"Thank you for paying the bills anyway," Eileen said.

She's also been taught how to be polite, David added silently.

He said, "I'll rent a room for you in this motel for a few nights. You can sign for your meals, as well." He looked at Ridley. "She'll need some things: fresh clothes, toothbrush and paste, whatever."

Ridley nodded. "I'll handle that for her."

"Eileen, would you like Ridley in an adjoining room, at least for one night?" David said. "Would his presence make you fell safer?"

She gave Ridley a pleading look and nodded.

"Get a room for me, too, young fella," Ridley said.

"Good," David said. He looked at Eileen. She'll lie, he thought. If I were in her shoes, I'd probably lie, too, but...

"I'd like to hear your sad tale, Eileen. Let's start with why you ran away from your home," David said. "Ridley tells me that your stepfather raped you, correct?"

"Yes."

"Did you inform your mother what he did to you?" David asked.

She looked sheepish and said, "No."

"Why not?" David said.

"She... she probably wouldn't have believed me anyway. I told her about the creep touching me, feeling me up, and she didn't believe me." She sighed. "My mom... she thinks she's pulled off the coup of the century, got a rich man to marry her, and I've gotta admit that he hasn't been stingy with her, with me either, especially me. If I wanted something, I got it, but he had a reason for being so generous. He's a pervert, a fu... a pedophile. He married my mom to get at me." She blushed. "Not knowing his motive, at first, I was... well, flattered when he'd compliment me and rub my arm, or pat my leg, but it wasn't long before he wanted to rub and pat other parts of my body." Her blushed deepened. "I'm ashamed to say, I let him. I knew it was wrong, but... well, it felt good, and like I said, I was flattered. But pretty soon he wanted more from me than me letting him feel me up. He pulled out his... ah, penis, and wanted me to jack... give him a hand job. That frightened me. I said no, but... Not long after that, one night while my mother was out with friends, he came into my room, and he... he raped me, Mr. Stanley. I said no, but... I couldn't stop him. I tried, but..."

"I get the picture," David said. "Is that when you ran away?"

Here is where the lies start, David thought, but she surprised him and told the truth, as far as David knew, that is.

She shook her head. "No, he was sorry, said he was very sorry, that it would never happen again. Hah! What a joke! If I let him fuck me, he gave me gifts. If I didn't, he'd punish my mother in some way and let me know the punishment was my fault. No, I didn't run away then. I accepted the gifts and protected my mother and fucked him whenever we were alone." She hung her head. "It got so I liked sex, Mr. Stanley. I didn't like my stepfather. He's a pig, but I liked what he made me feel. He... he liked to... ah, go down on me. I liked that a lot. I probably wouldn't have run away if he hadn't invited a friend of his, another pervert, over to the house one night. While his friend fucked me, he took pictures, and when he fucked me, his friend took pictures. The next day he told me if I ever said anything bad about him to anyone that he'd show my mother the pictures of his friend fucking me and tell her that I'd been trying to seduce him. He told me that I had to do whatever he wanted me to do, or he'd make sure the kids at my school saw the pictures. Said he'd put them on the Internet for the world to see, too. That's when I decided to runaway. It took me a week to find the courage to do it, though. I hoarded the money he gave me, stole money from my mother's purse, from my stepfather's wallet, sold some of the presents he'd given me, and finally bought a bus ticket for Phoenix. That was about six months ago."

"How long did the money last?" David asked.

"About two weeks," she said.

"Is that when you first sold your body to survive?"

She blushed and lowered her eyes in shame. Her head nodded as tears squeezed out of her eyes.

David patted her hand and said, "Survival is a powerful incentive, Eileen."

He pulled out a clean handkerchief. She took it, blew her nose, and wiped her eyes. She turned to Ridley. "I'm sorry I lied to you. Admitting I'm a whore... well, it's hard to do, Ridley. I'm so sorry I lied to you."

Ridley nodded and patted her hand.

"Survival," David said. "Think about survival while you're safe and healing in this motel. Survival. Think carefully, Eileen. How long can you survive as an underage prostitute? I'd guess your pimp beat you up, not a disgruntled john. You jumped from the frying pan represented by your perverted stepfather into the fire, which is represented by the runaway subculture and prostitution. Runaway girls often become prostitutes to survive. Think about how to get out of the fire. In the long run, that's the only way you'll survive."

"How? How can I get out of the fire?" she said.

"How starts with desire. Desire builds need. Need provides method," David said. "What about drugs? Did you get into drugs?"

She nodded again and said, "Marijuana mostly."

"Any addictions?" David said.

She shook her head vigorously. "No!"

"STDs, AIDS?"

She hesitated and said, "Got the clap once. That's fixed, though. I'm all right now."

"Did you steal?" David asked.

"Yes."

"Have you been arrested for anything?"

"No."

"If you had an opportunity to get out of the fire without having to go back into the frying pan again, could you accept being a normal fourteen-year-old girl, return to school, and somehow become all you can be?"

She nodded vigorously. "Yes!"

"Wrong, Eileen," David said. "You can look like a fourteen-year-old girl, but you can't truly be one, not with what you've been through, but you can back up a few paces and join the human race instead of being a member of its underbelly, so that by the time you reach, say, twenty years old, you can be a normal twenty-year-old woman. But to do this, you must return to school, try to be a girl again, a normal girl, not a delinquent, not a prostitute. Otherwise the odds that you'll see your twentieth birthday get pretty slim."

"That's what I want to do," she said.

"Good. We'll talk more tomorrow afternoon," David said. He looked at Ridley. "Let's register for your rooms, and you can take Eileen out and buy her what she needs."