“Aunts or uncles?”
“No.”
They reached the display board for the fast food, and he asked her what she wanted. She told him. As he finished giving an order large enough for three kids her size, she crossed her arms and glared defiantly at him, then said-in a voice loud enough to carry over the ordering microphone-“I won’t give you a blow job for it.”
Over the speaker, there was the sound of laughter coming from within the restaurant, then a voice said, “That’s okay. We can only accept cash.”
Mortified, for a few seconds Kit wished he was not boxed in between two other cars, or he would have driven away without the food. Then he stopped thinking about his own embarrassment and considered what it might mean that she felt it necessary to say such a thing at her age.
“Well,” she said, seeing his embarrassment, “that’s what Bonnie’s boyfriends made her do before they’d give us money.” She shuddered. “Bonnie said I’d have to do it sooner or later, but I don’t want to.”
Kit thought of the years of terror spent under his stepfather’s control and said, “If I have anything to say about it, no one is ever going to make you do anything that’s-anything sexual without your permission, and they’re not going to even ask for your permission before you’re an adult.”
She studied him for a moment, then said, “Where are you going?”
“To Denver, and then to my home in the mountains.”
They moved up a car length.
“Will I like it?”
“Will you-? Wait a minute. I don’t think you should be living with me. I’ll help you all I can, but I’m no parent.”
“You could do better than Bonnie.”
He didn’t doubt it, but said, “Let’s think about other options. Tell me the truth-you don’t have any other family you can go to?”
She shook her head. “Just Bonnie.”
“We’ll look for Bonnie, then. You sure there are no aunts or uncles?”
“I don’t think so, or Bonnie would have made them take me a long time ago.”
He paid for the food. He ignored the cashier’s grin.
He turned on the radio as they drove away. It was tuned to an oldies station. She didn’t object to this.
“I’m Kit. What’s your name?” he asked her.
She shook her head.
“Not going to tell me?”
“No. If I change my mind about you, I don’t want you to know who I am.”
“Okay. Make one up, then. I’ve got to call you something.”
She smiled, obviously enjoying the power this gave her. The song on the radio was a Classics IV tune from the sixties-“Spooky.” As it reached the refrain, she said, “That’s my name. Spooky!”
He smiled and said, “All right, Spooky.” He thought that would last about five minutes. He would learn how stubborn she could be. It had helped her survive.
Eventually, she told him enough about her recent life to allow him to be thankful for her hardheadedness. She had started dressing and acting like a boy to make herself unattractive to one of Bonnie’s “boyfriends.”
Kit put Moriarty, a longtime friend of his family-who on most days would tell people that he was a private security specialist-on the job of learning Bonnie’s whereabouts. Moriarty had been both devoted friend and employee to Kit’s grandmother, and he had continued to work for Kit after her death. Kit trusted no one more than Moriarty.
Moriarty learned that Spooky’s real name was Emily, but Kit didn’t let on that he had been given this information for almost two years. He never called her Emily except when they had to pass muster with the court system. Away from judges, lawyers, and social workers, they pretended he had never heard her real name.
Bonnie was a Jane Doe in a Tucson morgue when Moriarty located her. She hadn’t survived a month after she had abandoned Spooky. She had sold the car, and had been living with a group of runaways in a tunnel near Fifteenth and Kino there, sneaking in through a break in the chain link fence that sealed it off. A sudden downpour had rapidly filled the tunnel, and Bonnie, who probably would not have survived even had she known how to swim, drowned.
When Kit told Spooky her sister was dead, Spooky didn’t cry. But she demanded that Kit teach her how to swim. She was now a strong and avid swimmer.
She had also learned how to defend herself.
She was intelligent, and when Kit realized that she wasn’t ready to cope with school, or schools to cope with her, he hired a private tutor to home school her-a retired teacher who knew just how to handle Spooky’s rebelliousness. Through the tutor Spooky also met some of the kids who lived nearby, but Spooky preferred the company of Kit or Moriarty. He noticed that she seemed better able to form friendships with those who were her own age than she had been three years ago, but she was at her best when she felt safe, with Kit.
Although the legal aspects of becoming Spooky’s guardian were complex, the court proceedings were not as difficult as he had feared they would be. Moriarty did locate an aunt, but the aunt did not want a pickpocket runaway who started the occasional fire living under her roof.
Over the next three years, Spooky gradually set aside most of her thievery and arson. Only in times of high stress would Kit feel the need to hide matches from her.
He looked over at her now and figured that soon no one would mistake her for a male. Her brown hair was still cut short, in a boy’s style, but her face was losing its childishness-those brows now only accented her brown eyes, her cheekbones were becoming more prominent-although the pout she wore at the moment was pure kid. She crossed her arms over her denim jacket. He looked away then. She was small for thirteen and didn’t really have breasts yet, but they were on their way.
He hated himself for even considering this fact. He felt no attraction to her, but he did not trust himself where women-and she soon would be one-were concerned. These days, he saw less and less of the tomboy child he had taken under his protection. She was acting more and more like a teenaged girl. He pulled back onto the highway, thinking that thirteen was an unlucky number. He decided that the first person who said thirteen was an unlucky number was raising a female child.
Rain began to fall, and he turned on the wipers.
She stayed silent for five minutes-so far, a record on this trip.
When she finally spoke, she asked in a low voice, “Did she-you know-suffer?”
He swallowed hard but was glad to be able to tell the truth. “No.”
“She was a good dog.”
“Yes.”
“Are you going to get another dog?”
“Not right away.”
“Good.” She opened the can of Coke. “Will we see movie stars in California?”
The child again. He would have smiled, but he knew she would have resented it. “Maybe. Some live near the house.”
“Where is it again? I keep forgetting the name.”
“Malibu,” he said.
“How far is it?”
“Far.”
“Can I drive some of the way?”
“No.”
“You never let me drive.”
“So why do you keep asking?”
She smiled and shrugged. “Nothing wrong with trying, is there?”
“No. But save yourself some trouble and wait a couple of years to ask again.”
She rolled her eyes.
“How far to Denver?”
