As long as the mom and daughter tag team each made enough money to keep paying for their room, they could live the good whore life. They could pretend that what they did was a career. A life that they had control of.

But it wasn’t. They told each other that this was the good life but knew that they were only lying to one another. At least their lies boosted their spirits. They gave away their bodies for the safety of a fancy, warm hotel room. A room where they did things to men and to one another that they would never do otherwise. It was survival.

Survival of the fittest, Darwinian law.

Bunny kept walking. She couldn’t feel her toes anymore. Knew that frostbite had set in. Nothing mattered. Her toes didn’t matter. Her life didn’t matter. She had tried. She had tried to be a good girl. She had stopped all dope and booze and smokes and sex for the full nine months while her little boy grew inside of her. She had gone the right way for the first time in so many wrong-way years. She reminded herself, just keep walking. Don’t stop. Don’t rest.

Kivgalo and Riita walked on either side of Bunny. Tainna, the unseen ones. Neither of them liked bringing home the young ones. So many of them lately. One after another.

Riita stuck her chin out in front of Bunny. “Kivgalo, I’ll walk her across the ice. You go ahead and make us a nice fire.” Kivgalo motioned a slight nod. There were days when he hated his job.

Billy Townsend was becoming obsessed with the girl from the golf course. Who was she? What did she do? How did she end up on the golf course? Why didn’t anyone find her earlier? What the hell went on in this town? Fuck Edmonton.

The cops were no help. Said that she didn’t have any ID on her. Nothing. They didn’t even know how to find out who she was. No wallet. No purse. And no, they weren’t sending sniffer dogs out. Who knew how long she’d been lying there? They kept telling him to think about the bush surrounding the golf course and the river so close by. They’d lose her scent too quickly. Why deploy manpower that was needed on a real murder case? Maybe dead Indigenous women weren’t a priority, he thought. As far as they could tell, she wasn’t murdered. Let the toxicology results speak for her.