Part 8 (1/2)

”Did Ivette call this number?” Eden asked.

”She hasn't been home in a week. She's pulling double s.h.i.+fts and...” Ben laughed his scorn. But Eden could see beneath it to his terrible upset. ”Greg let the phone get shut off again. I kind of-”

”You should sit down,” the girl interrupted. ”You need to tell your sister-”

”I'm fine,” Ben spoke over her. ”Eed, I thought you were getting a phone installed.”

”I got a cell instead,” she told her brother as she dug for it in her purse. ”It was cheaper.” She opened it and began punching in the phone number on the letter.

”Ben gave himself a shot,” the little girl announced, ”that he said might make him puke, and it did.”

Eden looked up sharply at that. ”Glucagon?” she asked. ”Ben, your levels were that low...?”

”I'm fine,” he said again. ”Now. But I was light-headed and I was trying to have some orange juice, and then Greg hit me, and Eed, G.o.d, I hit him back. And then I didn't have a snack, and I didn't have any money because my wallet was gone and I made it to the mall, but you weren't at work, like you told me you'd be. But Neesha was there, and she helped me get home...”

Ben was trying not to cry, and Eden put her phone down and her arms around him. ”Okay,” she said. ”Okay. It's going to be okay, Boo-Boo, even if Danny's dead. It's going to suck and we're going to be sad, but we'll get through it. We'll be okay.”

Ben kept fighting his tears as Eden pulled him over to the junky, stuffing-leaking sofa-bed that she'd covered with a sheet, and sat down beside him. ”I don't want him to be dead,” he said.

”I don't either,” Eden said, as fighting her own tears made the back of her throat ache. ”But if he is, we'll be okay. Whatever happens, we're going to be fine.”

”I can't go back there,” Ben told her. ”I kind of kicked Greg's a.s.s.” He laughed, but it was more of a burst of emotion than true amus.e.m.e.nt, because it sounded quite a bit like a sob. ”He's already planning to open a restaurant with the insurance money.”

Oh, Lord. ”Define kicked his a.s.s, kicked his a.s.s,” Eden said.

”I didn't kill him,” Ben said, with a roll of his eyes. ”I didn't even really kick his a.s.s. I just wanted to. I kneed him in the nuts and he started screaming. I got away and...I left.”

That was good. All they needed was Greg in the hospital-and a police warrant for Ben's arrest. Although, truth be told, he'd be safer in the juvie system than in that terrible ex-gay camp.

”He hit me first,” Ben said, clearly thinking along the same lines.

”Did your friend witness it?” Eden asked, just as she realized that the girl was gone. She'd slipped out the door while both Eden and Ben were distracted.

Ben shook his head. ”She was at the mall. And great. Neesha left. I was going to ask you if she could stay here, at least for a little while.” He must've seen the great big no on her face because he quickly added, ”She's in trouble, Eed. She's living in the streets and...She made me promise not to tell anyone, and to be honest, she didn't actually say say what happened. It was kind of more implied, but some really, what happened. It was kind of more implied, but some really, really really bad things have happened to her, starting when she was little and...” bad things have happened to her, starting when she was little and...”

Eden closed her eyes and took a deep breath.

”Her mother died and it was awful,” Ben continued. ”And now she has no place to go.”

”Ben,” Eden said. Neesha may have had no place to go, but she was right up there on the top of the list labeled Problems Eden Didn't Need Problems Eden Didn't Need. ”I know how much you still miss Deshawndra-”

”This has nothing nothing to do with her.” to do with her.”

Didn't it? Ben's best friend, Deshawndra, and her grandmother had died as a result of the flood after Hurricane Katrina. And this was the first time since her death-at least as far as Eden knew-that her brother had even made an attempt to reach out to another person even remotely close to his own age. But it was clear he didn't want to talk about that.

”Okay,” she said. ”Let's rewind a bit. Have you tested your blood sugar levels again, after injecting the glucagon?”

Ben nodded, relaxing, if only slightly, at the change of subject. ”It's good.”

”Show me. I want to see it,” Eden said, standing up. Ben's last reading-and the time it was taken-appeared on the meter's tiny screen.

”Wow,” Ben said. ”Trust me, much?”

”You are are my brother, right?” my brother, right?”

”Half brother.”

”Half,” she said, ”is close enough. Come on. Where's your meter? After I'm convinced I don't have to take you to the hospital, I'm going to make that call, find out what I can about Danny.” Please, heavenly Father, let him be okay...”And you've got to call Ivette at work-let her know you're safe, you've got a place to stay, but you're not coming home.”

”It's in the kitchen,” he called after her. ”And I don't have Ivette's phone number at this new place she's working. I only have her cell.”

”Then call her cell,” Eden said.

”So when were you going to tell me that you got fired from the coffee shop?”

Eden looked back at Ben. ”I didn't,” she said, then lied effortlessly, like the full Gillman that she was. ”But I did get a second job. A cleaning job. I clean offices and clubs, after hours-with a whole team of, you know, other women. It's kinda nasty, but the pay's good. And I'm safe.”

Ben bought it, hook, line and sinker-which was a ridiculous expression to use in the desert.

She checked the meter-he was was being honest with her-and then she got her cell phone, and, bracing herself for tragic news because it had been that kind of a decade, she dialed the number on the letter. being honest with her-and then she got her cell phone, and, bracing herself for tragic news because it had been that kind of a decade, she dialed the number on the letter.

LAS V VEGAS.

MONDAY, MAY 4, 2009.

Neesha didn't need to take the bus back to the mall.

It was easy enough to walk, since this time she wasn't supporting a boy who was nearly half again her weight.

She didn't know a lot about diabetes, and Ben's explanations as he stuck himself with a needle didn't help educate her all that much further. But still, it was clear that he was ill. That couldn't have been an act, nor was his puking into the bathtub.

Still, going into that apartment with him, even though her heart was pounding...? And then, actually telling telling him even the little that she'd told him...? him even the little that she'd told him...?

It was a huge step for her. And a necessary one, ever since she'd determined that she would not be able to get the help she needed on her own.

She'd decided, weeks ago, that she needed to find a friend. Someone she could trust-and would trust-with her very life. She'd been cautiously increasing her contact with one of the ladies who worked at the library before Ben dropped into her life.

But Ben's sister, who bore the name Eden, was an entirely different matter. She was younger than Neesha had expected, and was far more beautiful than Neesha had expected. And that, plus all of the glittery, exotic costumes Neesha had found in the lower drawers of Eden's bedroom dresser, convinced her that Ben's sister worked in the s.e.x trade.

And it was possible that, not only would she have no sympathy for Neesha, but she could well know Mr. Nelson and Todd, and would be more than willing to earn a bonus by turning Neesha in.

So Neesha had run, taking the bag with the clothes that Ben had given her.

She was hungry when she finally got back to the mall-it had been a while since that McFlurry, and she'd refused Ben's offer of a snack. Still, she went to the bathroom first, to change her s.h.i.+rt in one of the stalls.

There were five different tops in the bag Ben had given her. They were in a variety of colors and prints, each more beautiful than the last. She picked the blue-the plainest one-since her goal was merely to be clean and not draw attention to herself. Besides, she would probably forevermore a.s.sociate fancy clothes with the vast myriad of clients who'd pa.s.sed through her tiny room, with its pink-trimmed furniture and collection of dolls and picture books that were locked behind gla.s.s.