Chapter 2
2
C amila Hughes strolled up to the register with a bag of Oreo cookies, cotton swabs, purple nail polish, and nail polish remover. Her toes were currently a mess, and she didn’t have time for a pedicure before her brother’s wedding tomorrow.
“How’s it going, Julie?” she asked the cashier, placing her items on the counter.
“Same old, same old.” Julie had frizzy-looking curly blonde hair braided into a big plait.
“I’ll take this too.” Camila tossed a pack of Tic Tacs on the counter.
Julie rang up the cookies. “Are you going to see Doug today?” she asked.
“How’d you guess—the cookies?”
“Yeah. I bet he loves you.”
“Hopefully for more than free Oreos,” Camila said with a laugh. “He called me two days ago and said he had something to show me. This is the first chance I’ve had free to talk to him, so I’m taking the Oreos as a peace offering to ask for his forgiveness.”
“You’re a good woman, Camila.” Julie gave her the total and placed all the items in the bag.
“I try to be.”
After Camila paid, she said goodbye and exited the drug store. Slipping a pair of Gucci sunglasses over her eyes, she walked to her custom-painted Volkswagen Beetle. Purple was her favorite color, and she owned way too many items in the color, including her vehicle. The paint job was an expensive splurge, but one that she didn’t regret.
It was her trademark. Whenever people saw it, they knew she was somewhere in the vicinity doing what she did best—gathering local news for articles about everything Las Vegas had to offer—for the digital magazine, Sin City Pulse , often referred to as The Pulse . Some of the locals called her the “Blaxican chick” or the “Blaxican reporter” if they were feeling generous—an affectionate nod to her mixed-race heritage.
Camila slid behind the wheel, which she’d covered with a lavender and rhinestone wheel protector. She scooped her long, dark-brown hair into a ponytail holder and started the car. She’d make a quick trip to see Doug and then head to the airport to pick up Alejandro.
She brushed aside the anxiety the mere thought of his name evoked. He would only be in town for a couple of days to attend her brother’s wedding. She could handle forty-eight hours in his presence.
She drove down Las Vegas Boulevard, famously known as the Las Vegas Strip. The city contained more meeting spaces than any other city in the country and was considered one of the world’s top convention destinations, but Camila barely paid attention to the resorts and casinos lining the four-mile stretch of road. She’d lived there since she was ten years old. The glitz and dazzle that excited visitors no longer fazed her.
She drove into downtown Las Vegas, which most visitors never saw, where the homeless formed makeshift domiciles near malls and in parks. She’d spent a lot of time working with them and had not only earned their trust but considered many of them to be her friends. She was probably closest to Doug, an older white guy who’d been on the streets for over ten years.
His story was heartbreaking. A former veteran in his forties, he served multiple tours as an MP in Afghanistan before getting injured in a roadside bomb explosion. He was honorably discharged, but to this day couldn’t lift his right arm at more than a forty-five-degree angle. They’d become close when Camila wrote a series of articles about the homeless population in Las Vegas and learned about his exploits as an investigator for the army.
She parked her vehicle at a plaza with low foot traffic. Every time she came here, she expected to see all the businesses gone because of the lack of customers and the lack of care the landlord took of the exterior. Trash littered the parking lot, and the building itself needed a new coat of paint—or at the very least, a pressure wash.
Camila removed her sunglasses, picked up the package of Oreo cookies from the car seat, and walked to the back of the building to a small homeless encampment. Men and women were huddled together with all their worldly possessions around them. They sat on worn cardboard mats and blankets as tattered and dingy as their clothes. Plastic bags, totes, and backpacks were stuffed to overflowing with their personal effects, some of which were stacked in shopping carts parked nearby.
Seeing them in these conditions broke her heart and angered her that more wasn’t done to assist the over 600,000 people living on the street in the country. The country with the largest economy in the world should be able to provide shelter for all its citizens.
As she walked by, Camila called each familiar face by name and greeted them with a hand wave.
“Hey, Camila,” they returned, some of their faces shadowed beneath hoodies and beanies, others covered with grime. The lines around their eyes and mouths indicated the hardship of living life on the streets, many of them looking decades older than their actual ages.
She went to the end but didn’t see Doug anywhere. Finally, she retraced her steps and stopped in front of a woman sitting cross-legged on a folded blanket, her head covered with a faded green beanie.
Camila dropped to her haunches. “Hey, Rhonda, how’s it going?”
“Doing okay. How about you, missy?” Rhonda asked in her raspy voice.
“Doing well. I have an article due on Monday, and my brother’s getting married tonight.”
“That’s great news. Congratulations to him.” Rhonda flashed a smile with missing teeth and sparkling eyes. Camila figured she must be close to Doug in age, but if she fixed her teeth and cleaned up, she could be quite attractive and take years off her appearance. Despite encouraging her to take advantage of the local services for people in her condition, Rhonda always declined, preferring to “keep to myself,” as she put it.
But Camila suspected there might be another explanation. People ended up on the street for all kinds of reasons, such as medical bills, job loss, substance abuse, mental health issues. Early on, she noticed that except for Doug, Rhonda didn’t let anyone touch her and suspected the older woman had ended up on the street because of some form of physical abuse.
“Have you seen Doug? He called me the other day, and I’ve been kinda busy, so this is the first chance I’ve had to catch up with him. I brought his favorite cookies.”
Doug may have wanted to talk, but the most pressing reason for her visit was because he was leaving Las Vegas. He had often talked about his older sister, Melissa, and when Camila sensed he was ready to leave the streets, she offered to find his sibling. After initially declining, he agreed and gave as much information as he could, letting Camila know that, as of his last contact, his sister had been in San Diego.
Using her resources at the magazine, she had located his sister in less than a week, and the two siblings talked on the phone—which eventually led to Melissa inviting him to come live with her in San Diego. She had sent Camila money to buy him a prepaid cell phone so they could stay in touch and was driving in to get him on Sunday.
“I haven’t seen Doug for a couple of days. This is his stuff right here.” Rhonda tapped the mat beside her.
“That’s weird. It’s not like him to disappear for days, is it?” Camila had only known him a couple of years, but she couldn’t remember him ever doing that before.
Rhonda shrugged. “I figured he was getting all gussied up for when his sister came.”
She sounded a bit tart, and Camila could understand why. For a while she’d suspected the two were more than friends, and since Doug was leaving, she was probably hurt and bitter.
“Last I saw him, he was going down to the clinic on Eighth Street.” That information came from an older Black man seated nearby—Sam. He sported a gray beard and friendly eyes, and his dark skin looked stretched paper thin.
“How do you know that?” Rhonda demanded.
“Cause he told me,” Sam said, sounding defensive.
“Well, he didn’t tell me,” Rhonda said.
“You wasn’t around. You was off somewhere—I don’t know.” He waved his hand dismissively.
“What about Poodle?” Camila asked. Doug had a dog that he treated like his own child.
“She’s here,” Rhonda answered.
On cue, a Jack Russell Terrier approached, wagging her tail.
“Hey, baby.” Camila patted her head.
“Doug needs to hurry back. He didn’t leave food for the dog. We’ve had to feed her the past two days, and it’s not like we have a lot of extra food lying around,” Rhonda grumbled.
“I’m sure Doug appreciates you taking care of his baby for him,” Camila said.
Rhonda harrumphed, but Camila could tell she liked that Camila acknowledged her for taking care of Doug’s pet.
“You can leave the Oreos with me,” Rhonda said.
Camila hesitated. Not because she didn’t trust Rhonda—there was a code among the homeless people. They looked out for each other. She hesitated because she’d hoped to see Doug and give him the bag of Oreo cookies, his favorite.
She handed over the cookies, careful to not make contact with Rhonda’s hand. “Sam, did Doug say why he was going to the clinic?”
Sam screwed up his face in thought. “Nah. I figured maybe his stomach was bothering him again, I dunno.”
“When was this?”
“Tuesday, I think.” Three days ago. He must have been very ill to go to the clinic on a Tuesday.
Dr. Shapiro and his staff were generous with their time and labor. Years ago, they almost shut down, but an anonymous donor gave them the funding needed to stay open, and since then, they’d given back to the community in a selfless way. Dr. Shapiro had opened a clinic that provided hyperbaric oxygen therapy, treating all sorts of medical conditions, such as wound healing and sports injuries.
It was closed to the general public on Saturdays, but every second and fourth Saturday, they opened for half a day and accepted patients who otherwise couldn’t pay—the homeless, impoverished, and prostitutes. As far as Camila was concerned, the doctor and his staff were angels for so generously donating their time.
“I hope he’s okay. If either of you see Doug before I do, please let him know I’ll be back tomorrow because I want to see him before he leaves. Rhonda, enjoy those cookies. I’ll bring another pack when I stop by tomorrow.”
“Bless you,” Rhonda said effusively, tearing open the package.
Camila left the encampment and returned to her car, sitting for a moment in deep thought. It was strange that Doug had been gone for days and left his belongings and Poodle behind. And what had he called her about?
She dialed his number, but the call went straight to voicemail. He’ll return soon enough , she thought, starting the car. And he better not leave the city without saying goodbye.
She checked the time and then pulled out of the parking lot to head to the airport.