Gathering Dark

next door who taught the classes would face a downturn in business. My parole officer would get a call. But being around children reminded me that I had been a good person once, and that one day I might be a good mother to my own child, who I saw once a week for a couple of hours. It reminded me that somewhere deep inside me, the head surgeon who had sweated and labored over the bodies of tiny infants in the operating room, who had stayed up all night reading stories to cancer-riddled toddlers, who had cried with parents for hours in waiting rooms, was still there. She was still alive, just buried. Even though I had taken a life, “shockingly and viciously,” as the newspapers had claimed, I was not completely irredeemable, because children still liked me.
The news stole back my attention.
“Outrage this morning following an announcement regarding the three million dollars that was found by construction workers developing a property in Pasadena last September,” the newsreader said. I retrieved my coffee and looked up to see an image of dirty suitcases on the screen, lying at the feet of police officers in a crowded conference room, footage from the find a few months earlier.
“A spokesperson for city hall told reporters that investigators have found no physical evidence to support claims the buried hoard of cash once belonged to famed bank robber and murderer John James Fishwick. Fishwick is a current inmate of San Quentin State Prison and has not commented publicly on whether the exhumed money was indeed his.”
A photograph of a long-jawed man in his sixties flashed on the screen. The deadened, stale look of all mugshots. Denim prison shirt.
“Lawyers representing the families of some of Fishwick’s victims have expressed dismay at the government’s decision to withhold the money under penal code 485 rather than use the funds to compensate those who lost loved ones during Fishwick’s criminal reign.”
I closed the door and drained my coffee. Then another knock came, harder this time, definitely not Quincy. When I opened the door and saw who it was I dropped the coffee mug on the carpet and slammed the door in her face.
“Oh, fuck!”
“I hate to break it to you, but that’s not going to work,” Sneak said. “Open up, Neighbor girl.”
I winced at the name. I hadn’t been called “Neighbor” in a year, not since I left the gates of Happy Valley, the California Institution for Women. Prison is full of unclever nicknames like that. I was Blair Harbour: Neighbor Killer, aka Neighbor. I had met car thieves called Wheels and jewelry thieves called Jewels and gunrunners called Bullets in my time inside. I looked down at my straining knuckles gripping the door handle.
“You can’t be here,” I called through the door.
“Well, I am, so deal with it.” She barged into the door, causing it to smack me in the forehead. Sneak’s steps jiggled her huge white breasts as she shoved her way past me into the apartment.
“Jesus Christ.” I scanned the road outside. “What the hell do you want?”
Sneak smelled the same as she had back in prison, of candy and fried food. Her leather miniskirt was squeaking, trying to contain her big rump as she headed for my kitchen.
“I need your help. But before that, I need something to drink, all right? I’ve been out all night. What time is it? You got any ice?” She began fishing in my fridge. Sneak talked fast, even when she wasn’t high. She was like a storm blowing into my world, knocking things over, filling the air with noise and chaos.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa.” I slammed the fridge door shut, almost on her fingers. “We’re not doing this. You’ve got to get out of here. I’m on probation. You’re on probation. It’s real nice to see you but you’ve got to go. Known association with convicted criminals or fellow parolees will get us both thrown back inside. It’s one of the main conditions.”
“Oh, come on.” She shoved me away. Her words were slurred, running together. “Unless you’ve got a parole officer hiding in your freezer, we’ll have to risk it. I need help here.” She poured herself a vodka from the big bottle in my freezer and pocketed two mini Jack Daniel’s bottles from my cupboard. The movement was quick, but not quick enough to escape my eye, because I expected the theft. “You were robbed last night at the Pump’n’Jump gas station, am I right? You lost your car and some cash?”
I stood back. “Yes. How—”
“That was my kid, Dayly.” Sneak gulped her vodka shot. “She called me up and told me she hit the Pump’n’Jump. I’ve known you worked there for a while. Now she’s gone. The last person who saw her was you. So I need your help getting her back.”
I worked my temples, looked at the front windows, dreaming of escape from this. The day outside was just beginning, full of potential. I longed for it. Jamie was on my mind again. Something stupid like this could break us apart.
I went and drew the curtains. Someone was playing “Hotel California” almost perfectly next door. Sneak sloshed herself another vodka, probably pocketing items from my kitchen drawers with the hand I couldn’t see below the counter. I grabbed a picture of Jamie in a nice silver frame from the shelf near the door and stuffed it under a couch cushion. I stood uncomfortably in the center of my mostly bare apartment.
“She was in trouble.” Sneak turned to me. “Big trouble.”
“She told me someone was after her,” I confirmed. “She was injured. Looked scared. But that’s all I know, okay? Whatever this is, I can’t get involved, Sneak. I’ll lose everything. If I go back to prison I’m facing another five years.” Sneak wasn’t listening. I took my wallet from the counter. Throwing money at problems was still a reflex, even after so many years away from my life as a Brentwood medical celebrity. I had been