Malevolent by Jana DeLeon Page A

seconds, but didn’t move. Probably deciding whether to approach her or flee. She must not have looked threatening, because he finally picked up his board and shuffled over to her.  
    “Who are you?” he asked, stopping about ten feet away.
    “Shaye Archer.” She pulled out her license and showed him. “I’m a private investigator. I’m hoping you can help me.”
    The boy held up his hand. “Look, I ain’t know nothing.”
    She smiled. “You don’t know what I’m going to ask.”
    “Yeah, well, I don’t want no trouble is all. I don’t like the cops.”
    “At the moment, I’m not crazy about them myself. Look, there’s a lady I’m trying to help because the police won’t. You brought her a scarf this morning.”
    He gave her a wary look. “Yeah, I remember. She acted like I held out a snake or something. She’s not saying I stole it, is she?”
    “Nothing like that. The man who gave you the scarf has been following her.”
    His eyes widened. “He’s a creeper? Oh man. I wouldn’t have done it if I’d known that. No wonder she was scared. Shit, I feel bad now.” He looked genuinely upset.
    “It’s not your fault. You were just being nice.”
    He shrugged.  
    Shaye pulled out her cell phone and opened an image she’d loaded of David Grange. “I wanted to know if this is the man you saw.”
    She turned the phone around to show the boy. He squinted at first, then finally moved closer. Shaye knew David wasn’t the man the boy saw, but wanted to give him a starting point for a description. When he frowned and continued to look at the photo, she started to wonder.
    Finally, he shook his head. “It wasn’t him, but the dude looked a lot like him.” He pointed to the phone. “This guy has a square jaw. The other guy didn’t.”
    “But he looked like this—a lot or a little?”
    “Enough to be related. I mean, dude had on sunglasses, but yeah, I can see where people might think they were the same guy. Unless they was looking really close.”
    Related.  
    David had told Emma that he had no living relatives, but then he probably hadn’t told her he’d abuse her either. What if everything he’d told her was a lie? A brother would be a good choice to seek revenge for Emma’s killing David. In fact, it was the most logical speculation she’d come across so far.
    “What’s your name?” Shaye asked.
    The boy hesitated for a moment. “Everyone calls me Hustle.”
    “You live around here?”
    “You’re standing on my front porch.”
    Shaye glanced around, but all that stretched for a hundred yards was dock and parking lot. “You live on the streets? How old are you?”
    “Old enough.” His jaw set in a hard line.
    Shaye held in a smile. She’d used the same line on Jackson Lamotte, and had probably been as irritated by the question as Hustle was now.  
    “Look, I’m asking because I know a social worker. If you’re underage, she can help.”
    He took a step back and pulled up his shirt to expose three long scars running across his belly. “Last time someone ‘helped’ me, they stuck me in a house with the guy who did this.”
    Shaye’s stomach rolled. “Your foster parent did that?”
    He dropped his shirt and looked away.  
    Shaye knew this kid—not personally, of course, but knew him from so many of the stories that Corrine had told her about the cases she worked. It wouldn’t do any good to detain him. If they put him in a group home or new foster home, he’d only be there as long as it took to get away. If Corrine hadn’t taken her in, and Shaye had experienced more trauma in a group or foster home, Shaye had no doubt she would have done the same thing. There were plenty of great foster parents and lots of good people working in group homes, but in every crowd, there were the ones that weren’t so great. Weren’t so nice.
    “Where are your parents?” she asked.
    “Never knew my pops. My mom got killed last year by her ex-boyfriend. Said he was gonna get her for