Red ribbon

Electric wires humming in the high heat of August, the air was heavy with the smoke from the bush fires raging through the valley, the sun a crimson demons eye. Dark clouds building in the east spoke of a storm coming. A girl lurched along the slim shoulder of the road, the valley spread out before her but she didn’t see. Her hair hung to her waist, its true color hidden by dirt and matting that came with long neglect. The nightgown she wore was torn in places dried blood and filth coated every fiber. She did not remember where the blood had come from but she knew it was not her's. Whispers from the tall white birches filled her head, told her to keep going forward. Slap, slap, bare feet against concrete starting to sound wet with every new step. Slap, slap, slap…stop. Deep ragged breath inward. that stood stock still on the center line she had been walking for what seemed like days but in Hell time had no meaning and she was definitely in Hell. The Devil would be coming for was his but she did not pause as she rounded the corner, there was a gravel road leading up the mountain ahead of her.
The wind brought the scent of grass and sunshine as she twirled on the center line, eyes closed enjoying the sensation of a of the warm breeze on her skin.. Her mouth was so dry now from the heat and hours she had walked through the tangled forest over jagged ground that had cut her bare feet to ribbons. Now hot pavement burned raw tender flesh. Her heart was beating so fast, pounding in her ears like a great drum. She stopped to catch her breath but the world whirled around her a kaleidoscope of green and gold before the darkness swallowed her.
…..
Glad Merriot looked up from her crossword when the truck bucked to a stop. There was red stuff on the road, she saw something sprawled on midline up ahead. Deer. Poor things always got hit on this stretch. This one was pretty big, it would take both of them to get the carcass off the road. Hal had not moved, he stared at deer intently, her large green eyes moving back to the smeared blood on the concrete… Except…it wasn't smeared…foot prints. Hal was out of the truck suddenly and then he started to run. The crumpled form on the road moved, a frail hand fluttered up towards Hal. She did not know how she got to her husband huddled over a young girl, large cornflower blue eyes staring up into nothingness but Glad saw her chest rise.
“ Hal, honey I need you to call Dr. Benson, he's running the E.R…. She had not seen it at first, not with all the ragged layers of filthy clothes the girl wore. The girl, though near skeletal looked to be in her final trimester… the rotting cuff of the night gown she wore slid back revealing the girls wrist. A ugly bruises at various stages of healing encircled frail wrist, gently Glad pulled back the other sleeve to find the same bruises and ugly wounds cut deep into what little flesh was left from extreme starvation.
“ Hal, I’ll call Dale and tell him to meet us at the hospital I think someone tortured this girl. The hospital is ten minutes away.”
The big man scooped and ran towards the truck, his wife running behind him. They put her between them, Hal on the phone with Sherry Delta, the overnight charge nurse at their small E.R., as Glad secured the seat belt around the girl's pregnant belly. Glad whispered a prayer as she buckled herself in, another contraction rocked the pale wraith, a low moan escaping her peeling chapped lips.
Dale Timmons was the in house constable for the towns two man RCMP detachment, mostly traffic and domestic calls, nice place to be leading up to his retirement in three years. He had worked major crimes for 15 years but after Josie, his wife had died five years ago of breast cancer at 46. His daughters, Callie ten and Evie five had needed him to be available so he posted out. New Denver was the first post he was offered, a once booming mining town nestled into the Slocan valley.
This morning he woke up with a familiar turning in his stomach, a something bad is coming feeling. The phone rang and he answered reluctantly.
“Timmons…”
“Its Gladys Merriot Dale, you need to come down to the emergency room now, Hal and I were coming in breakfast this morning and we saw blood on the highway.. it was a girl lying there…”
Dale swung his legs off the bed
“did you recognize her?
“ No she doesn’t look familiar but Dale she is in very bad shape… I think someone tortured this girl, she's nothing but bones and there are bruises around her wrists and ankles.
“ where did you find her? “
“ we were just coming off red mountain road but her prints go up the highway…” “Prints?”
“ the smudges we saw are her foot prints, her feet look like hamburger… we are pulling into the hospital,” he heard her take a shaky breath
“ Gladys in my jeep, ill be there in ten but I need you to help me by taking video and document her injuries for evidence. Tell sherry to bag her hands and do a rape kit…”
“she's pregnant Dale, close to term.”
“ shit. Gladys im going to swing by Rob's, I need Hal to take him up to the turn off where you found her.
Can you hold on just a little longer?”
“ Yes. Whomever did this…what ever you need Dale.”
Something cold slithered up his spine. Something about this was familiar but he could get a grasp of what ever memory it was. He took the turn at the nursery school hard bringing him back with a jolt.


The bus door slid open, the hiss of rain cut into the silence of the bus, barely a handful scattered through out but no-one looked up from their phones to see a slender dark figure board. A thin pale hand reached into the pouch of the black hoodie they wore and pulled out a blue plastic bus pass to scan. The hood slipped back, gaunt features made the woman's grey/ green eyes even larger, but the skittered away from the bus drivers dull gaze.
“ You always on the overnight at the hospital ?” the driver asked mildly as she turned.
The Dena stopped, blinked several times, she wasn't up for chat after a shift in the E.R. where she was a nurse. She shook her head and walked slowly on to the back. Her mother watched the kids while she worked, her ex, Taylor, had them on weekends so she could sleep. Mostly she did chores, sleep was always elusive, even as a kid. Night terrors where she screamed and thrashed until Dena had left home at 18. Her mother took it personally.
“ You have a nice life Dena, where these nightmares come from I don’t know. We send you to great school, live in a nice house so this has to be for attention Dena and your father and I have had enough.” Lorna, her mother, told a ten year old Dena, frosted pink lips pressed together in a tight line, light blue eyes flashing dangerously. The night before Dena had raked her nails across her sister Kate’s face when Kate had tried to wake her from a terrible dream. Dena had no memory of hurting Kate. She never remembered her nightmares.
“ At least with your older sister Jill it was an eating disorder, something normal. You could stand to skip a few meals.” Ten year old Dena had withered under her mothers scathing glare. Lorna Hill expected perfection from her three daughters in everything, while her son's could do as they pleased. Of course none of Lorna's children had lived up to her expectations and life had prettier much failed her as well. Dena's father, Rusty, had left his wife after 30 years for a 18 year old named Cindy. He took all the money and the house too, leaving Lorna with her bitterness .
The bus lurched to a stop and Dena’s attention slid back to the present. She forced a smile at the driver, whose name tag said Ben.
Her Mother of course new there reasons for her daughter's struggles but often refused to acknowledge those events or had an alternative history that suited her better. Your child disappearing at fifteen was a spoilt brat who ran away, the reality of what had happened in the two years Dena was gone did not fit that did not fit the narrative Lorna had chosen. Her daughter was simply ungrateful and had run off to have fun and she refused to hear anything presented to her that contridicted


2.

Milburn had been staring at the front page headline for some time, Nichole James smiling up at him. He scanned the article and got out his phone. Emmett picked up on the second ring
“ Wakey, wakey! “ Even after forty years in Canada his cockney accent was still strong. Most were charmed by it, especially women, distracting them from Milburn's many short fallings and there were many.
“ it's not even seven Phil…”
“ Go get your paper twat.” He growled
“ Language, oaf… ” she warned .
“ There's something new in the Nichole James case.”
“ The cold squad was talking about it last year. Bill Simmons, he's in robbery these days, brought it to them when the first put the unit together.” Emmett yawned, though she felt very much awake now. She sank into the soft leather of couch and opened her lap top . She pulled up the article from this morning.
Eight year old Nichole James had disappeared on a hot July morning in ’95 after leaving her fifth floor apartment to meet a friend at the complex pool. After chatting with her friend she kissed her mother goodbye, wearing a pink butterfly swim suit and her favorite fuzzy yellow beach towel draped around her neck. She was on cctv when she got on the elevator and then nothing. Milburn had been on the task force, six month's later he and his partner were the only ones left. Floor by floor canvasing led to nothing, no prints, no video and no where to go. Milburn had fought viciously to keep the case active but by the first anniversary it was put in the "Tombs”. Cop speak for the cold storage where cases went to d,ie. Things had changed though with DNA, hell they had solved a serial case in California after three decades cold with the new public familial DNA data bases. She skimmed down the article.
“ how's anger management class?”
“chief can lick my salty balls.”
“ You want in on this then you have to play nice. Duke Kurns is running it.” “ That wank?!”
“ Solid cop.” She reminded him
“ barely a glimmer in his Dad's eye when that happened, the boy can't even grow a proper beard yet.”
“ He shaves Milburn, not everyone wants to look like cave man like you.”
“ Bet his Mum still changes his nappies.”
“ Suck it up old goat. I need to shower, need me to pick you up?”
“ pick me up at the 7/11, I'm out of fags.”
“ Thought you were on the patch? The Doctor told you to quit…”-


2.
July 20th 1995
It was in the mid twenties ten that morning, there was no A/C in the James’ and even with a fan in every room the apartment was only a few degrees cooler than Hell. Nichole had been up since six, camped out in the cluttered living room that doubled as a bedroom for Nichole's mother, Janice, watching The Smurf's. Janice had left around five to go to her shift at the hospital as a nurse on the psych ward, Lora Dent, the baby sitter who lived two floors up, would come in at seven, though lately Nichole had begun to argue that eight was way too old for a babysitter. Janice had worked in the E.R. for several years early in her career, she had seen too many kids left on their own come through. A seven year old with third degree burns from trying to heat up their lunch on the stove or the ten year old who severed three fingers chopping onions for the dinner she was in charge of making as both parents were out working during the day.

3.
Dena threw open the door, angry that someone would be so obnoxiose to be ringing the door incessantly at nine am. She had gotten Lorna calmed down and back into her bed after trying to wrangle for almostv45 minutes. The day nurse would be there in fifteen minutes so Dena could sleep. Though fifteen years had passed she recognized Phil Milburn, her primary detective on her case when she had first shown up at a Merrir hospital nearly starved and beaten to death. His was the first face she had seen when she had woken two days later, Lorna and Rusty would not arrive for several day's, Lorna saying she wanted her daughter to think about what she had put her parents through “running off".
“ Dena, we need to talk to you…”
“ I talked fifteen years ago, no one listened…” Dena snapped going to close the door
“ I did, remember?” he put his large hand against the door to stop it. “ there's another girl Dena,” her grey green eyes snapped up to meet the detective's steady gaze.
“ Alive?” her voice was low and controlled, her eyes went far away for a second, her face grim “She would have to be… he wouldn't let you find the others…”
Emmett looked back and forth between the two, fine hairs at the nape of her neck stood on end.
“ Other's?”
Dena opened the door, and stepped aside to let them in the cluttered hallway and led them to the dingy living room with that cheap Swiss furniture college students bought. The room was tidy but shabby.
Emmett sat down stiffly on the fold out futon couch while Milburn lounged back and looked around him.
“ Lets start with catching the lovely Detective Emmett up on your c ase Dena, if that’s ok with you?”
Dena nodded, but took a moment to steady herself.
“ I was 15, it was early June and I was walking home from my friend Tina's house…she lived two blocks away and it was only four-thirty so I never thought…” she swallowed at took in as shaky breath, “ A red Mazda passed me, the car I wanted when I got my license the next spring but it turned corner. I was listening to music on the mp3 player my parents bought me for my birthday in April, he had circled back but I didn't hear him coming up behind me or the car door open…” she glanced at the window where a fat orange tabby had jumped onto. He gave the intruders a dismissive glance before perching himself on the sill to watch the neighborhood. “ He put his hand over my mouth and I froze…no one saw anything, couldn’t hear me either. Pushed me onto the floor in the back, put this disgusting blanket on me, smelled like piss and it was so hot that I…I threw up but he didn't stop. He hit me in the leg and told me to shut up.”
“ How long was the drive?” asked Emmett taking out her pad to take notes, quickly opening up a new document.
“ several hours. If I was crying he would pull over and beat me. I passed out the second time when he started punching me in the head because I started screaming.