Don't Leave Me Read Online Free PDF Page B

going for her was that she could relate to girls like Rosa Renteria. When she was Rosa’s age she was around the gang element too, in Detroit. But she made it out. So could Rosa. So could any of them if you could just break through that crack.
    “You’re wrong about that,” Sandy said. “I know all about it.”
    “Sure.”
    “How long you think you’re gonna last with them?”
    “You know what happen if I say something? Like that chica got shot down, that’s what.”
    Sandy knew the case. It involved the big homey of the Westies, Jimmy Stone, and his white gang over in West Hills. Rich boys into drug running. And murder. Stone had been charged with first degree in the execution-style slaying of a Latino high school student. Two bullets to the head. But the only witness, a sixteen-year-old single mother named Esperanza Gomez, was gunned down in a park while strolling her baby. Without more, the prosecutor had to drop the case against Jimmy Stone. At least the baby had lived.
    Which would be no consolation to Rosa.
    “We can protect you,” Sandy said.
    Rosa laughed and turned her head. “Oh yeah.”
    Sandy felt like she was gripping the fingers of someone who was dangling over a cliff. “What’s it going to take?”
    “For what?” Rosa said.
    “To get you out of the life once and for all?”
    “Why you so interested?”
    “I have to have a reason?”
    “You’re a cop.”
    “So I can’t help you because I’m a cop?” The motto of the LAPD, To protect and to serve, flashed through Sandy’s head. “You should be looking at your whole life, to school and college and––”
    “School?” Rosa snorted. “I’m stupid. I can’t be in no school.”
    “You’re not stupid. I can tell.”
    Rosa’s eyes sparked.
    “You can tell when you talk to somebody,” Sandy said.
    “No way.”
    “I thought I was stupid.”
    “You?” Rosa said.
    “Yeah. Me. My brother used to tell me that.”
    Rosa sat up. It was more than a crack now, Sandy thought. She had Rosa’s attention. And for some reason Sandy needed to blast through it like a pile driver. She had to make this one understand.
    “When I was four I almost drowned,” Sandy said. “No oxygen to the brain for twenty minutes. I should’ve died. It was an ice cold lake. My dad fished me out. I made it, but my brother used to tell me all the time I was brain damaged. That’s what he called me. BD for short. He made fun of me and I believed him. And when I was in school, I had a hard time. Until one day I found out I wasn’t really stupid at all. I didn’t have to believe it.”
    Rosa frowned. “How you find out?”
    “A teacher gave me a book to read. It was called A Wrinkle in Time . I got so into that book, and then I knew I had to read and read and read, so I did. And what I read stayed with me. It’ll stay with you, Rosa. You’re not stupid. You just need to practice. But you’ll never get practice hanging out with the gangs.”
    Rosa was silent for a long time.
    Finally, Rosa shook her head. “No,” she said. “I don’t want to say nothing. I want to go home.”
    “I can’t keep you here. I just would like you to stay and think about it. Let me get you something to eat.”
    “No. I want to go right now. I don’t want to say nothing.”
    Rosa got up hard, like she was afraid of getting shot right there in the interview room. Sandy stood and put her hands up as a signal for Rosa to pause a moment. “If you change your mind, I want you to call me.” Sandy handed Rosa her card. “Even if you’re in trouble or you just want to talk. Okay? Would you do that?”
    A tap at the door. It was Mark Mooney, Sandy’s partner. “A second?” Mooney said.
    Sandy put a finger up to tell Mooney to wait, then walked Rosa out to the front desk. “Remember,” Sandy said to her. “Anytime.”
    Rosa put her head down, turned and left. Sandy did not allow herself to harbor any hopes. You got wrecked if you did.
    When she got back inside she met