Author's Notes: Thank you for all the reviews, the good, the bad, and the ugly:) I don't think I made it clear enough last time that I do appreciate them all. As always, muchos appreciation to my beta, who lets me bug her when she's trying to work, and my chat buddies, who are the classiest, yet smuttiest broads I know;)
I'm only mentioning this here because I don't really have any other forum to widely respond to several things I've heard about my OC. I'm getting mixed reviews...some think she's great, others think I'm not doing so well writing her. And I honestly cant't tell what the problem is. One person says she's too much of a cliche of a fourteen year old... the next person says she doesn't sound like a fourteen year old at all. See my problem? I can't seem to win. So I'll just say this. I'm going to keep writing Courtney as she comes to me. That's all I can do.
BTW, I hate putting these notes and making a big deal out of things because, really, I just want to tell you a story:)
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Courtney Wallace
by Kristen Elizabeth
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Honestly, my funeral was boring.
I was starting to think I'd never have one, and that my body was just going to stay in Dr. Santa's freezer forever. I guess they had to keep it in case they missed anything. But eventually my mom said that enough was enough, and they shipped me to a funeral home. It took about a minute of watching the funeral home guy drain my blood before I got out of there.
The next time I saw my body, I looked a whole lot better. They'd done my hair in nice curls all around my shoulder, and put enough makeup on me so I didn't look completely white. They'd also covered up the bruises on my neck. Mom didn't need to see them.
Mom and I weren't crazy religious, but we did go to church when we could. And not just on holidays. So when the minister talked about me, he actually knew what he was talking about. And he sounded genuinely sad that I was gone. I wasn't just some murdered kid he had to feel bad about.
The church was full of people, but I didn't recognize most of them. They were people who'd heard about me on TV or read about me in the paper. They didn't know me, but it was nice that they came to remember me. A lot of them were crying. I get that when bad things happen to kids, people freak out. But it all just seemed a little…fake. Like they weren't really crying for me.
My mom wasn't crying. But she wasn't blinking either, and that worried me. My grandmother had come all the way from Georgia; she sat with Mom through the service. They didn't like each other, though. Grandma was the one who had told me about Mom stripping in college. She told me to work hard in school so I wouldn't have to be a whore, too. Grandma kinda sucked. She wasn't crying either.
I wasn't surprised that Sara came, but I was a little surprised that Gil came with her. I figured he'd stay at the lab and work. They sat in a pew a couple rows back from my mom and grandma, and few in front of my killer.
Yeah, my killer came to my funeral. There were people all around my killer crying and asking God how anyone could do such horrible things to a child. And my killer nodded right along with them. It made me really mad. But it's not like I can do anything about it.
I sat next to Sara during the service. Gil was holding her hand the whole time. They didn't cry. I think if they cried for everyone whose murders they help solve, they wouldn't have any tears left for when something bad happens to them.
During the moment of silence, when everyone's heads were bowed, Sara started looking around. Not really obviously, but enough that I guess she didn't want anyone to see her looking. I realized…she was looking for my killer.
I pointed to my killer. I said my killer's name. And I think, for like a second, Sara looked right at my killer.
Then everyone lifted their heads and she turned back around. My killer didn't seem to notice. It was an open casket, and my killer hadn't ever stopped looking at my body.
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After the church service, everyone got into their cars and drove to the cemetery. Everyone except Gil and Sara. Their pagers went off at the same time, and they went straight to the police station. I went with them. I didn't really want to see my coffin get dirt dumped on it.
Captain Brass had been the one who paged them. He was waiting when the three of us walked into his office.
"Eyewitness came forward," he said. "Says she saw Courtney get into a car near the McDonald's on Bellevue the day she disappeared."
"Can she describe the car?" Gil asked.
"And the driver?" Sara asked. I thought her question was better.
Captain Brass sighed, like he had bad news to tell them, too. "Maybe. When she sobers up." They looked at him, and he added, "Homeless. Drunk. She passed out right after telling us this. She's in the tank."
Sara started frowning, which really hides how pretty she is. "How long until we can talk to her?"
"Her BAL was through the roof," Captain Brass said. "It'll be awhile."
A lot of what Gil and Sara do is just waiting around. Waiting for the machines to finish running, waiting for the Hodges guy to shut up, waiting for people to tell them things they need to know, waiting for the maggots to hatch. They're always waiting for something. It gives them a lot of time to go over what they already have and already know.
While they waited for the homeless woman to not be drunk anymore, they talked about my murder. They called it 'running the timeline.'
"Nine a.m. Courtney's mother leaves for work." They'd ordered lunch and Sara had gotten a veggie burger and fries. I gotta say, one of the worst things about being dead is not being able to eat. Not that you get hungry. But when you see someone eating something really good in front of you, it sucks.
Gil stole a fry from her. He hadn't ordered his own. "Eleven-thirty a.m. Courtney walks to McDonald's for lunch. She had a chicken sandwich in the restaurant. The surveillance tape shows her ordering a hot fudge sundae and leaving with it at twelve-ten."
"Not too many of those," Sara said when he took another fry. "Be nice to your arteries."
"My arteries are fine," he told her.
"And we're going to keep them that way." She moved her fries away from him. "Five p.m. Courtney's mother arrives home, finds Courtney missing."
"Six p.m. Amber Alert is issued." He'd already forgotten about the fries, and had his thinking face on. "It takes an hour to get from the McDonald's to Lake Mead."
Sara had stopped eating and started reading something. "All Doc found in her stomach was some milky fluid. Remnants of her ice cream?"
"Or what masquerades as ice cream at McDonald's. Food passes completely out of the stomach at around four hours after consumption. So she died no earlier than four p.m. And since we know the first flies arrived on the same day, TOD was sometime between four and midnight. Maybe our inebriated witness can narrow that down some."
"From the bruising on her wrists, he had her tied up for a long time." Sara took a fry but didn't eat it. "She must have been so scared."
Mostly, I'd just wanted to go home. I still do.
Gil put his hamburger down and wiped his fingers on a napkin. He's always neat and clean, even when he's playing with bugs and looking at bodies. He looked at Sara until she looked at him.
And then he asked her, "Have I ever taken you to New York?"
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When I was twelve, Mom took me on Pharaoh's Fever. I threw up right after I got off it. I hadn't been on a rollercoaster since, but I did have that one picture of me on the ride. So at least I could say I tried it.
But being dead and riding a rollercoaster isn't anywhere near as scary as being alive and going on one. Not a lot can hurt or frighten you when you're dead.
On the way to the hotel, Gil convinced Sara that they had to wait in the line to ride up front. She didn't look too happy about the whole thing. That's something else we have in common. But Gil was really excited about it, and I guess she saw that because she went along with him. Just like I'd ridden with Mom even though I knew I was going to throw up if I did.
In the line, Sara asked Gil why they were there. His answer was really weird. "Because even though it hasn't been nine years and thirty-four days, I want to share this with you."
I don't think Sara got it either, but it sure made her smile.
When it was finally their turn to ride, I wedged myself between their seats. I didn't need to be strapped in. Gil probably would have held her hand, but Sara was holding on really tightly to the handles on her safety harness. When we moved, she shut her eyes so hard they almost disappeared from her face.
I wish I could have felt something, but it wasn't really any different than being on the ground. We went up, we went down, we went all around. Gil was laughing. Like, actually laughing. I hadn't heard him laugh before.
Somewhere around the second big fall, Sara opened her eyes. She probably couldn't see Gil very well around her harness, 'cause she looked too afraid to turn her head much, but she could definitely hear him laughing. Maybe she hadn't ever heard him laugh like that either.
When the ride was over and they got off, you could tell that Sara was a little woozy. But she grabbed Gil and gave him a big kiss, right there in front of everybody.
"What was that for?" he asked her when she let go of him.
All she said was, "Thank you."
Whatever the rollercoaster was supposed to do for Sara, it must have done. Gil is kind of smart.
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To Be Continued