A local woman missing- Mary Kubica

the woman, but Bea says, “Don’t touch her,” as I do. Her words are
sharp. They startle me.
“Why?” I ask, dismayed, looking over my shoulder at Bea. “We
have to help her, Bea. She needs our help. We can’t just leave her
here.”
“Of course we’re not going to leave her here. Help me,” she says,
dropping down to the other side of the woman. Bea wears gloves
now. They must have been in her car, remnants from the winter. My
hands are bare. Bea tells me to bury my hands in my shirtsleeves so
we don’t touch her with our hands. I don’t think to ask why. I just do.
We try to turn her over. She doesn’t weigh much. But she’s limp,
sagging, all dead weight. At first we can’t pick her up. We have to roll
her onto her back. In my head I think that we shouldn’t be doing this.
You’re never supposed to move someone who’s injured. We should
leave her where she is and call for help. But that thought never
leaves my head. It stays where it is. I listen to Bea. I go through the
motions mostly because I think I’m in shock. This isn’t happening.
I’m not here. I’ve dissociated myself from what’s happening and
though, physically, some part of me kneels on the street, turning this
woman over onto her back, the rest of me watches, horrified, from a
distance.
It’s only when she’s flat on her back that I get a good look at the
woman. The alcohol inside me rises up, and I find myself rushing
into nearby bushes to be sick. I begin to howl. In an instant, Bea is
there, in my face, taking me to task. “Shut up, Meredith,” she snaps,
more panicked than anything. “You’ll wake the whole fucking street.”
She presses a hand to my mouth and holds my cries in. I have to
fight her off to breathe. Bea is scared, I know that. She’s panicking. I
am, too.
The woman on the street is Shelby.
I push past Bea. I rush back to the car. I dig inside my purse for
my phone. No sooner have I found it, than Bea is there. She
snatches it from my hand.
“Give that back,” I say.
“What do you think you’re doing? Who are you going to call?”
I grapple with her for my phone, but Bea is bigger and stronger
than me. She wins.