Killer in the Hills by Stephen Carpenter

I have is to turn you loose and eventually those creeps you call your friends will pick you up, and that won’t go well for you, either.”
    “You don’t know anything about them. You don’t know anything about me .”
    “I know they set you up with that sex site,” I say. “You’re old enough to know how to use the internet, but you’re not old enough to sign the lease for the apartment on Sawtelle.”
    “It wasn’t a sex site,” she says. “I didn’t do anything on it. I just talked.”
    “About what?”
    “I just talked,” she says.
    “To whom?”
    She shrugs. “Random old pervs who wanted to talk about sex…not do it. I would never do that.”
    “Two bucks a minute just to talk,” I say.
    She is quiet for a moment. Then she gives an exaggerated sigh.
    “If I kept them online for ten minutes I sometimes took my top off,” she says, then looks away. “That’s it.”
    “And who came up with that rule?” I say. “The ten-minute rule.”
    She stares out the window and doesn’t say anything.
    “Was it Leukatov?” I say.
    She stops twirling her hair and sits still.
    “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she says.
    I look in the mirror. The bungalow is dark and the street is quiet.
    “When was the last time you saw your mother?” I say.
    She shrugs. “While ago,” she says.
    “Did you live with her? When did you see her?”
    “I don’t know. Few days ago.”
    “Was she with anybody?”
    She shrugs, looks away.
    “She have a boyfriend?”
    She stares out the window and says nothing.
    “Was she having trouble with anybody? Anybody mad at her about anything?”
    No answer.
    “Do you have any idea who might have killed her?”
    She ignores me. I wait as she stares out the window, braiding and un-braiding her hair. I ask her a few more questions but she won’t say another word. We sit in silence for about fifteen minutes, then she starts to squirm.
    “How long are we gonna just sit here?”
    I look at my watch. It’s a little after midnight.
    “Not much longer, probably,” I say. “There’s somebody I want to talk to, and after that I’m going to take you somewhere safe.”
    “Where?” she says.
    “I haven’t decided yet.”
    “You haven’t decided yet? You mean you don’t know.”
    “Nope,” I say. “I don’t. I’m making this up as I go along.”
    She gives another dramatic sigh, then slumps and starts braiding her hair again.
    “Great,” she says.
    We sit in silence and I go over my options. I could call Melvin and turn her in right now. Melvin would be as discreet as possible, but he wouldn’t hesitate to take her into custody. And after that no one could control what followed. She would be shuffled through the system and vivisected by jackals before they could even finish questioning her. And if she’s charged and eventually tried, there wouldn’t be a single juror who hadn’t heard all about the gun, the prints, the website, the drug arrest, and God knows what else. I have no idea what other evidence they may have besides the gun—for that matter, I only have her word that she’s innocent. Even so, somebody killed her mother, and they would have a compelling interest in keeping her quiet if she knows anything about it. I think of her “friends” from the airport, and of nail guns.
    But what choice do I have? I don’t know what she knows and she won’t talk to me. We can’t just run, and she was right—I have no idea where I can take her. Even if I could think of a place, what then? I’ll have to call Melvin eventually, and the longer I wait the worse it will be. And she could bolt at any second.
    Maybe Nicki was right—this is senseless, reckless. Maybe I’m only doing it for my own reasons. But so what if I am?
    I look at Karen. She is staring out her window, her eyes darting back and forth, the way mine do when I am thinking deeply about something. Her left leg is bouncing rapidly to some urgent rhythm in her head. Just like mine.
    If