Dolly Departed - By Deb Baker Page 0,51

is like a soap opera. He'll come back; he always does. At least he found her a safe place to stay while he's away. An old storage shed behind an abandoned building. Nacho even installed a lock inside the shed so she'd be protected from the elements. The human elements, that is.

The young druggies are the worst. They are far more dangerous than anything Mother Nature can throw her way. Ready to beat you and stick you in the heart with knives just to steal the smallest bit of spare change. Anything for their next fix. So many threats on the streets: gangs, crazies, cops, druggies.

She has flyers in her shopping cart, pictures of the most deadly ones, circulated by the homeless, for the homeless. Stay away from that one, the posters say: like wanted posters, only these people aren't wanted by Daisy and the others. Daisy is at the hub of the action, as always. She knows everything that happens on the street, and she's extremely wary. That's why she's still alive while most of her old friends are dead.

Maybe it's time to pay her good friend Gretchen a visit, clean up, sleep in a real bed, get the jitters under control. The doll repairer was a real find, her and her aunt, and all those little doggies.

But what about her career as a Hollywood star? The street is where it's happening.

Glad it isn't July. How many of her kind died last summer from exposure to extreme heat? No water, the pavement steaming at one hundred and thirty degrees, burning her feet right through her shoes. She swam in the irrigation canals to survive.

Daisy jerks her head around at a sound behind her. A moan. Coming from the Dumpster, or behind the Dumpster.

Get inside the shed and bolt the door. She hears this in her head and knows it for what it is: good advice. But . . . what if? What if it's someone in distress?

It's only the sound of despair. You hear it every day.

But . . . what if it's Nacho?

Daisy pulls an aerosol can from her pocket. Pepper spray. She refuses to carry a concealed gun or knife. Wouldn't the cops love that? They're more interested in finding an excuse to arrest the victims than in solving all the homeless murders.

Another moan.

Leaving her shopping cart by the side of the shed, she edges along, flattened to the walls, always in the darkness, hiding from the streetlights and the rising moon. She hears another sound, but it's only a coyote in the distance.

A dark shape on the ground behind the Dumpster shifts slightly, and Daisy catches the movement. She has night eyes, cat eyes, she likes to think. Another reason she beats the odds.

The pepper spray acts as a buffer between Daisy and whoever is crumpled on the ground. She already knows it isn't Nacho.

"Help me." The whisper is so low and weak she almost misses the words.

A hand reaches out for her, and she sees who it is. The man writhing in pain is Ryan Maize.

* 22 *

Gretchen overslept and almost missed her workout group at Curves. She rushed through the house, throwing on exercise garb as she went. "I fed Wobbles and Nimrod," her mother said, ready to go and holding out Gretchen's purse and a cup of coffee. "You needed the extra sleep."

When Gretchen and her mother arrived at Curves, most of the doll club members were in full throttle on the machines. "He's missing," Bonnie said in a stage whisper when Gretchen jumped onto the abductor. "Born to Be Wild"

boomed from an overhead speaker.

"Who's missing?" Gretchen asked.

"Ryan Maize, that's who." Bonnie's feet did a tiny tap dance on the platform. Her red wig had extra starch today, every hair shellacked into place. "Matty knows Charlie's son tried to blow up you girls. Witnesses identified Ryan from pictures, but the police can't find him. He's not at that drug house."

"The do-rag did him in," April said, stomping up and down on the stepper. "He should have disguised himself better if he was going to pull a stunt like that. He could have killed us. Then it would have been murder one instead of attempted murder."

"Matty will get him; don't you worry."

"That poor drugged-out kid," Gretchen said, shaking her head.

April grunted. "First he knocks you out," she gasped, sweating profusely. "Then he tries to blow us up. And you feel sorry for him? I don't. If I get my hands on that little punk,