Rarities Unlimited 02 - Running Scared

Arkansas.
    At sixteen Risa had a lifetime of schooling to make up. She did it in one year, thanks to her own unusual intelligence, newfound discipline, and a dedicated schoolteacher who had no family. Ms. Stinton’s tutoring, faith, and encouragement, coupled with fourteen-hour study days and advice about clothes and makeup, had speeded Risa’s transformation from tag-along hellion with no future to solitary, gifted scholar.
    That change created a chasm between Risa and the one person who had truly cared about her during childhood, the person who had protected her when no one else answered her screams: Cherelle Faulkner.
    So many shared memories . . .
    She and Cherelle had been sisters in everything but blood. And in the end, how much did blood count? Their own blood had given them away before they were even born. Cherelle had taught Risa how to ride a bike. Cherelle had taught her how to put on lipstick and eye shadow. Cherelle had told her where babies came from and how to make sure none came from you. Cherelle had imitated the class snob so perfectly that Risa had wet her pants laughing, and in doing so got over the pain of being called trailer-park trash for having hand-me-down clothes and charity lunches and holes in her sneakers.
    Cherelle also had taught her how to ditch classes, forge notes from home, and boost stuff from the 24/7 store by the highway.
    And it was Cherelle who had hauled a college boy off a fifteen-year-old Risa and then kneed that boy where it would do the most good, all the while screaming that just because she did it for money didn’t mean her friend did it for free.
    Shortly after that miserable night, Cherelle had left town with one of her “dates.” Risa had cried like she had lost her whole family.
    Because she had.
    Her adoptive mother had died before Risa was six. The man she called “Daddy” hadn’t wanted a child in the first place. Risa had gone to her dead mother’s sister. Stepsister, really, but the girls had grown up together, and Sara Lisa really needed the child-support payments she got when she took Risa in. Not that Sara Lisa had been a bad mother. She didn’t beat Risa or refuse to feed her. It was just that Sara Lisa was too busy waiting tables and getting drunk on weekend “dates” to have much time or energy left for Risa.
    Then Cherelle’s foster parents had taken over the trailer next door to Risa’s. In a matter of weeks Risa had gone from a lonely nine-year-old to Cherelle’s quick-witted shadow. Together the girls conquered the world with giggles and long legs that could outrun any trouble they got into. At least, for a while.
    Silently Risa led Cherelle to an inconspicuous door marked employees only. She punched the proper code into a keypad next to the door. It swung open.
    “Here we go,” Risa said.
    The door closed behind them. They were in a quiet, plain hall. Equally plain elevators lined both sides of the hall. After the lush décor and cheerful noise of the casino, the beige paint and silence were almost shocking.
    Risa took the plastic ID card on its long chain and shoved it into a slot next to the elevators. After the doors opened and they were inside, she put the card into the slot next to a keypad and tapped out the code to her office. Only when a valid code had been entered did the doors close and the elevator rise. There were no lights, no numbers, nothing to indicate the floors as they whipped by invisibly.
    “Hooo-eee, baby-chick. You work in the money room or something?” Cherelle asked.
    “What?”
    “All the cards and codes and crap. Not even a floor number.”
    “Oh, that. The artifacts I work with are quite valuable.”
    “Yeah? You’ll have to show me.”
    “No problem. We’ll be having lunch with them. I’m working on a show for my boss.”
    Cherelle almost purred. She’d been wondering how to raise the subject of her golden goodies without just plopping them out on the table like a dead bass. “Like the one in the pamphlet?”
    “Pamphlet?”
    “You know. The ones around that sheepskin downstairs.”
    “Oh. I forgot about those. Actually, I’d like to forget about them. My boss is chewing my tail because I haven’t found anything special enough for his upcoming gold show. What’s in the pamphlet is just a cross-section of gold objects we’ve displayed in the past, plus a few teasers about the wonderful Druid Gold show to come.”
    “Druid gold? What’s that?”
    Risa paused and thought quickly, trying