Status Updates From Lost in the Dark

(Revelation about the King! Brings to mind Omar from TV's "The Wire" ... spoiler?)

CJ looked @ the man, really looked, for the first time in months. He'd turned thirty-five this year.

This wasn't home. Did she even really have a home? Her apartment in Baltimore wasn't home. It was just a place where she slept and showered.

CJ was presenting the pregnancy as motive. Insisting the pregnancy made the murder a homicide with special circumstances. A capital offense in the state of Alabama.

He remembered well the first time he'd noticed her at the library. Thirteen years old ...

... Now, sixteen years later ...

(so Cynthia Jane/CJ is 29)

Unfortunately, time was often the bane of one's existence. There was either far too much or not nearly enough. At its core, one's life was all about timing.

The world had become obsessed with electronic devices and the internet, when books had been in front of them all along. Any subject could be researched in depth right here in the library. Any skill could be learned. All that was required were patience and persistence.

I can help out at the clinic to fulfill my elective hours. My attending was quite impressed with the idea. He believes the experience will serve me well in the future, both personally and professionally.

...your attending is quite right. Service in a disadvantaged area such as this will show compassion and selflessness.

CJ stared in disbelief @ opening hours. Since when was clinic only open 2 days/week? Wednesdays & Fridays only? What were sick people supposed to do other 5 days of week?

(Let me guess ... will this later prompt her to move back home so she can help keep clinic open more days/week? And then she & Braddock end up together?)

Old Tyrone slick as $h!t & hard + cold as pure ice. He didn't care about anyone other than himself. He'd just as soon kill you as look @ you.

~~~~~

Tyrone smiled, his teeth a brilliant white contrast to that black-as-night skin.

Tyrone Nash was 3 yrs older than Ricky's 28. started out running drugs ... cheated & killed way to top. One dead tweaker @ a time. called himself King. Dressed like rap star. earned or stolen respect or fear of every human in village. Most cops in west precinct were scared of him. ran all sex workers this side of Parkway, owned some portion of drug business in whole city.

animal obeyed him faithfully. He knew if he didn't, he wouldn't be eating for day or two. That was key w/these beasts. Keep them half-starved & they did whatever you wanted.

Adeline Cooper liked to brag that she could shoot a flea off a dog's @$$ from a hundred yards.

W/neatly pressed khakis, navy polo, & polished leather shoes, he could've just left golf course ... Or gotten out of ... Methodist Church where 30somethings gathered to see & be seen. But Braddock didn't play golf or go to church. well-educated & arrogant major crimes detective spent all his time making sure justice was served. On his terms. Regardless of cost to others.

When CJ had lived here the autopsies had been done in Birmingham or Montgomery. Some things, it seemed, had changed.

All sort of activities would go on then ... few pleasant and even fewer legal. Basically nothing had changed. It never did. Not around here.

The kid would likely die anyway, but he would damn sure die if she didn’t try.

“Keep pressure there. It slows the bleeding.”

Not that this kid had much left to leak.

She had to learn that even the most committed physician needed boundaries. She couldn’t save the world alone. Especially without sleep.

Such was the life of a medical resident—every aspect of one’s personal life was about the future.