Chapter 21

Rogue drove home on high alert, her homecoming much different than it would have been if she had gone directly home the day before. Now she was suspicious, scared, nervous that she was going home at all. She had some decisions to make about the rest of her life. She’d always thought she would retire in Serenity, at least some of the time. Expand her house, get some horses, find someone to share her life with. Maybe by then she would have found her sister. They could have been a part of each other’s lives.

Was that all ruined now? Maybe. She knew she hadn’t killed that guy, but if she were ever caught, ever fingerprinted for any reason, she’d be the main suspect in the murder of that man.

She couldn’t leave it like that. Even if she disappeared, she had to implicate Rex somehow.

That cop will help you. He would protect you with his life, even from the other cops.

Rogue frowned at the thought. Really? She didn’t know him, had no idea who he was or why he’d acted so strangely. And there was no way she was going to him for help.

Her home come into view and suddenly exhaustion weighed on her. She could shake it off long enough to get into bed. She watched her country home as she drove up to it, still admiring it even through her tiredness. The trees in the yard were still bare, but buds protruded from each branch. Past them, the two-story limestone-exterior sat solidly in the middle of its plot of land, beckoning her.

Rogue pulled her car around the back of the house, walked once around the perimeter to ensure all the bug traps were in place, and that none of them were too full to work, then stepped up the back steps.

Once inside, the slight smell of peppermint greeted her. She smiled, knowing Boe had been following her instructions in her absence. That was one of the best things about having Boe around, he kept up her war on bugs while she wasn’t around. No spider or fly would dare show its face in her house.

She found Boe in the library, of course, sitting in the window seat, a cup of tea beside him, a book in his hand, a look of quiet enjoyment on his face.

Oh, but he looked old! Like he’d aged another ten years in the few weeks she’d been gone. The lines on his forehead and around his mouth and eyes had turned into grooves, and even more of his hair had fallen out, leaving him only a horseshoe around his ears and the back of his head. He looked like a man on the tail end of his eighties. Which made no sense.

He noticed her and scrambled to his feet, still able to move around well. “Mistress!” he cried and hurried across the room to her. She bent and accepted the arms that went around her waist.

“Hi, Boe, good to see you.”

“And you, Mistress. I had hoped to see you soon.”

Something in his tone made her look closer at his face, and she wondered suddenly if he was dying. She pressed her lips together. “Oh? Do you need to tell me something?”

“No, no, it just gets lonely in this big house all alone. I missed you.”

That was something she could understand, although she did not get lonely too often, and she did love her space.

He held her at arm’s length. “You look tired.”

She nodded. “I haven’t slept all night.”

“Oh! Will you be sleeping now?”

“Yeah.”

She headed into the hallway, knowing he would follow her. It was his way. “Wake me up when it gets dark?” she asked. He nodded. “And tell me if anyone pulls into the driveway or down the street, anyone at all, even…” She hesitated to say a word, but she had to. “Even the police.”

His eyes got big, but he nodded and didn’t ask any questions. “Your linens are clean. I turned them down last night, but made your bed this morning. Please, let me.” He pushed past her to get into her room. When she got there, he had the blanket and sheet stripped to the foot of the bed, checking for spiders as he knew she always did, then he pulled them back and folded a corner over for her.

“Thank you, Boe.”

“Of course, Mistress.”

She changed her clothes, took care of her face and teeth and hair, then crawled into bed, tired in her very bones. But it was a long time before she was able to fall asleep.

The faceless fearless cop was no longer faceless, and she couldn’t stop thinking about him.

***

After Boe woke Rogue, she had quickly put away the dinner he’d made for her, calling it breakfast, then left the house, a nearby destination in mind.

She had some very serious thinking to do, and only one place seemed right to do it in.

The sun had set an hour before, and the night was chilly already, the stars high in the sky. She parked her car on the side of the road in front of Sinissipi Park and walked in, taking a well-maintained path through the ten acres of forest that bordered one side of it, breathing deeply through her nose to catch the forest scent. As she walked, her mind worried out one of the reasons she always returned to Serenity, and she tried to decide if she was there at that park to say goodbye. Was it time to give up? Leave and never come back, giving up her hopes of retirement there? Maybe, if her hopes were based on nothing more than the desire for something that might never happen. Seeing her sister again.

As she walked down the quiet path, hearing the whispers of small night animals over and under the leaves on the ground around her, she imagined the laughter of that day at this very park, the last time she’d seen her sister.

Amaranth Kendall, or Amara, as Rogue liked to call her, had been missing for twenty years now. Since the day after that lovely day on the playground that was burned into her memory. Her uncle, may-the-devil-spit-on-his-soul had done… something that five-year-old Rogue hadn’t understood, and Rogue had never seen her sister again. As an adult, she realized he’d probably sold her, and Rogue prayed that it had been to a good family who wasn’t able to have children of their own, someone who would have treated Amara right. Rogue knew the reality was probably the exact opposite, but that didn’t stop her from hoping… from getting down on her knees and praying every night, even though she didn’t quite believe in God, which she’d never admitted to anyone, especially Father Macleese. She still prayed because, well, what if she was wrong about the whole God thing?

Amara would be an adult now, no longer a child who could be kept in someone’s home like an animal if they so chose, but still Rogue prayed. Prayed her sister was well and happy and that Rogue would meet her again someday. Prayed Amara would remember Serenity as well as Rogue did, and maybe someday return here, looking for her sister.

The path branched in front of her, and she took the right branch, recalling how her five-year-old feet had pounded in the opposite direction as she had run from her sister and the other girl they’d been playing hide and seek with. The afternoon had been warm, their aunt and uncle hadn’t been fighting for once, and she’d been happy. If it was the last time she could remember being happy in her life, well, that was her business, wasn’t it.

The next morning, when she’d woken up, her sister hadn’t been there. Her uncle had ignored Rogue’s frantic questions, and her aunt would only say, “She’s on a vacation, having fun. You don’t have to worry about her.” Rogue barely knew what a vacation was, and since they didn’t live in Serenity, were only there visiting some of her uncle’s ‘old war buddies’, her aunt and uncle sleeping on a twin mattress in the corner of a filthy spare room in one of the buddy’s houses, while Rogue and Amara slept on the floor, and then only Rogue slept on the floor, Rogue couldn’t imagine how Amara had gone on vacation from there, but the more she insisted on going to find her sister, the more irritated her uncle and aunt had become. Her aunt mostly only hit with wooden spoons, her swats easily avoided, but her uncle, if he got ahold of you, he was more likely to shake you until you thought your brains were going to leak out your ears, or maybe your brain was going to bruise in your skull, swelling until you couldn’t speak or see. Rogue always made it a point to disappear when he got angry.

That day, when they were supposed to head back to Chicago, and she planted her feet in the driveway and refused to get back in the car, when she’d seen the look on his face that said she would be sorry, she’d run. Ran right down the road, into a culvert, across a ditch that she and Amara had played in, following it until she was sure she had lost her uncle, thinking she would sleep in caves and eat crawdads if she had to, yelling for her sister because her sister was the only thing she had in the whole world. “Amara!” she’d called, thinking if maybe she yelled loud enough, Amara would be able to hear her, even if she was across town.

Rogue cut the memory off mercilessly. She hadn’t found her sister that day and she never let herself think about what really had happened.

Rogue heard voices, young male voices, and she lifted her head. She’d reached the end of the path and was about to be spilled out into the moonlight flooding the open field, of which the large wooden playground sat right in the middle.

She let her eyes adjust as she watched the movement she could see at the top of the playground. Three boys, probably in their mid teens, bent over something at a turret at the very top. It took a few minutes before she realized one was spraying spray paint across the beams in wide, white strokes, while the other two were sawing the turret off at its support posts.

Shit. She should leave. Call it in anonymously. The cops could roust them. But if she did that, she might not have a chance to come back. Might not have a chance to say goodbye, if that’s what she was doing. Fuck that.

She strode forward, waiting for them to notice her, walking right up to the base of the turret they were destroying. They didn’t see her, not until she picked up a small rock and beaned one of them in the head, the biggest one. He was wearing a leather jacket and had his hair slightly long and curled around his head, getting in his eyes, but she could tell it was styled that way. In fact, all their hair was styled that way, and they had heavy eye makeup on. My Chemical Romance, juvenile edition.

“Hey!” he yelled, his voice whispered, but outraged.

She spoke at a normal volume, her voice hard and harsh, like her mood. “Get out of here, boys, and maybe I won’t tell your mommas you’re juvenile delinquents who need to go to military school.”

“Fuck you,” one of them whisper-yelled.

“Good one,” she said, putting her hands on her hips. “Wholly original. You should write comebacks for TV.”

The three boys looked at each other and she could almost see them sharing out their one brain cell. “We should kick her ass,” leather jacket said to the one with a platinum blonde helmet of hair.

“Totally.”

Not My Chemical Romance. Beavis and Butthead with a hanger-on. Fun. Not.

“That would be a very stupid move, boys.”

But leather jacket cast one more look at her, one that said he might do more than just a little ass kicking if he thought he could get away with it, and then the three of them were beelining for the stairs. Leather jacket stopped on the shaky bridge and ordered one of them back the other way. “We can surround her.”

Rogue shook her head and waited for them, knowing exactly how they would come at her. In fits and starts, none of them ever been in a fight before that didn’t end up with him on the ground, trying not to cry.

And she was right. Once around her, the three of them circled her warily, especially once she put her hands up loosely, turning in a tight circle, waiting for them to make the first move.

“Better move fast, emo,” she said, eyes on leather jacket. His expression was still hungry, but his was the only one. She jerked her thumb to his friends, both of whom looked like they were starting to seriously doubt the intelligence of their actions. “Your friends are about to bolt.” She was dressed in dark, tight clothing, plus steel-toed boots, and knew she looked like every inch the experienced cat burglar she was, while they looked every inch the frightened little boys they were. She considered telling them she was wanted for murder, but decided against it. Not smart.

“Get her!” leather jacket screamed, and ran for her, telegraphing his attempted clothesline with his eyes and the way he lifted his arm at the shoulder. She ducked the arm and stepped into him with a good, old-fashioned jab to the button of his chin. He was on the ground, unconscious, before his friends even took a step forward.

“Shit,” one of them said, staring at him laid out on the ground.

Rogue took a few steps back. “Don’t bolt without him,” she advised. “And don’t come back, no matter how good of an idea it might seem when I’m not in front of you anymore. You’ll regret it.”

Leather jacket’s friends grabbed him up under the armpits and, in just a few moments, she had the park to herself.

She climbed slowly up onto the playground, wanting to see what they had done. But more than that, she realized, she did need to say goodbye. Rex had spoiled Serenity for her, turned it from her haven to another place where she needed to constantly look over her shoulder, wonder if the cops were on her trail.

She didn’t know where she would go. Or what would happen to her house. Or Boe. But none of that was more important than staying out of jail.