Karly

It was then that he heard a voice right behind him. “Don’t touch your gun! You’ll never make it,” a child’s voice told him.

Holding his hands in the air he turned slowly to see the voice, and was confronted with was a slight form in a dark hoodie with a face scarf reminiscent of the Middle East or someone versed in the high winds of the Utah desert. Short, with the hood covering the hair, but revealing just enough that he could tell the hair was blonde. The coat extended to the knees. In the right hand was a knife, still bloody. From his Texas raising he could see the knife was a butcher knife. In the left hand was something that he couldn’t quite make out. A candy bar? A baggie for marijuana? The darkness hindered identification. From the proximity John reasoned that the person could have easily cut him with the knife, but for some reason did not. His experience told him conversation would give him a chance to deescalate a terrible situation. John asked, “Did you do that?”

Slowly the head nodded. The nod exposed the chin and a bit more hair. The blonde hair of a young girl.

“Why?” John asked.

“He touched me.” the voice said in a soft whisper. It cracked as she said it.

She made no move toward him, and he was glad. She could easily reach his throat, and he would be laying beside the man on the ground. She had killed this man. John had no doubt. She had obviously put the man on the ground. And his years of law enforcement told him that wasn’t a chance randevu. She had lured him there or had been waiting there. The hoodie, the knife, and her demeanor told him that this was not a random thing. The man had come to the park for a purpose, too. To abuse what he thought was an angel and instead had met the devil!

She raised her left hand. To his horror he perceived it to be a scrotum! John looked at the dead man again. Looking back, he asked, “You did this to a man because he touched you?”

She raised her head and as the moonlight illuminated her face John could see it was Karly! In a soft voice she asked, “What did you come to the desert to see?”