The anatomy drawing in Linda Waleski’s textbook. The common femoral vein was a blue line running alongside the red femoral artery. Veins took blood to the heart. Arteries took it away. That was why Buddy hadn’t died immediately. The knife had nicked the vein. If she’d opened the artery, Buddy would’ve been dead long before Leigh killed him.
Callie shook a fresh image into her head.
Meowma Cass, the bottle-fed kitten Dr. Jerry was taking home with him at night. Callie had named her after Cass Elliot, who had died of a heart attack in her sleep. The opposite of a Cobain, who’d put a shotgun under his chin and pulled the trigger. His suicide note had ended with a beautiful tribute to his daughter—
For her life which will be so much happier without me. I LOVE YOU. I LOVE YOU!
Callie heard a scraping noise.
Her eyelids slowly peeled open. Binx was outside the window, clearly indignant to find it closed. Callie pushed herself up from the floor. Her body ached with every step. She scratched at the glass, letting Binx know she was going as fast as she could. He gamboled about the metal security bars like a dressage horse, if dressage horses were not homicidal adrenaline junkies. There was a pin lock on the window, a long bolt that kept the sash from opening. Callie had to edge it out with her fingernails while Binx stared at her like she was a moron.
“Forgive me, sir.” Callie gave his silky back some long pets. He pressed his head up under her chin because cats were social groomers. “Did the wicked witch let you outside?”
Binx told no tales, but Callie knew that Phil had probably fed, watered, and brushed him before offering him the choice of either the couch, a fluffy chair, or the door. The scrawny old bitch would throw her body in front of a bus to save a chipmunk, but her children were on their own.
Not that Phil was that ancient. She’d been fifteen years old when Leigh was born, then nineteen when Callie came along. There had been a constant rotation of boyfriends and husbands, but Phil had told the girls that their father had died during a military training exercise.
Nick Bradshaw had been a radio intercept officer who’d flown with his best friend, a Navy fighter pilot named Pete Mitchell. One day, they had gotten on the wrong side of a Russian MiG during a training exercise. Bradshaw was killed after a flame-out sent their jet into a flat spin. Which was horrifying to think about, but also hilarious if you knew that Pete Mitchell was called Maverick and Bradshaw was Goose and that was basically the first half of Top Gun.
Still, Callie found it preferable to the truth, which probably involved Phil passing out after drinking too much. Both Callie and Leigh took it on faith that they would never learn the true story. Their mother was a master of subterfuge. Phil wasn’t even her real name. Her birth certificate and her criminal record officially listed her as Sandra Jean Santiago, a convicted felon who collected rent for slumlords around Lake Point. The felony meant Phil wasn’t legally allowed to carry a gun, so she carried a baseball bat—she said for protection, but it was clearly for enforcement. The Louisville Slugger was signed by Phil Rizzuto. That’s where her nickname had come from. Nobody wanted to get on the bad side of Phil.
Binx shook off Callie’s hand as he jumped down. She started to close the window, but a flash of light caught her eye. She felt a flicker of panic burn at the methadone. She looked across the street. The pile of shit was still festering on the sidewalk, but the light had flashed from the direction of the boarded-up house.
Or had it?
Callie rubbed her eyes as if she could manually adjust the focus. There were cars lining the road, trucks and old sedans with the mufflers attached by clothes hangers alongside the BMWs and Mercedes favored by the drug dealers. Maybe the sunlight had hit a mirror or a piece of metal. There could be broken crack pipes or pieces of foil in the yard. Callie squinted at the tall grass, trying to figure out what she’d seen. Probably an animal. Maybe a camera lens.
White dude. Nice car.
Binx arched against her leg. Callie put her hand to her chest. Her heart was beating hard enough to feel the thump. She studied each boarded-up window and door to the house until her eyes watered. Was the methadone fucking her up more than usual? Was she being paranoid?
Did it matter?
Callie closed the window. The pin went back into the sash. She found her jeans, slid on her sneakers. She shoved her ill-gotten gains into her backpack. Her dope kit and the methadone went under the mattress. She would have to hit Stewart Avenue before lunchtime. She needed to sell the rest of this shit so she wasn’t carrying if the police stopped her. She turned to leave, but couldn’t stop herself from looking out the window again.