by Alex Gates
The Girls On Poppy Drive
A Detective London McKenna Novel
Alex Gates
THE GIRLS ON POPPY DRIVE
Copyright © 2017 by Alex Gates
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
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Cover Design: Pink Ink Designs
Created with Vellum
Contents
Also by Alex Gates
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The Girls On Poppy Drive
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Epilogue
Also by Alex Gates
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Also by Alex Gates
Girls In White Dresses
Only $.99 or Free with Kindle Unlimited!
A romantic evening of wine and roses ends in an apparent murder suicide, but the gruesome slaying wasn’t a crime of passion. Missing Persons Detective London McKenna links the killings to a fifteen-year-old kidnapping and uncovers a sinister conspiracy to murder those who would reveal the horrifying truth.
Runaway girls are being kidnapped and trafficked as child brides.
London races to save the young girls, but her investigation traps her inside a twisted world of perverted religion, bloody revenge, and the nightmares of her own captivity. With time running out and the captors desperate for their next bride, London must risk her own life to save the children and prevent the heinous weddings from becoming a mass funeral...
Hush Little Baby - Detective London McKenna Book 2
An abandoned baby. A corrupt judge. The case that will end London’s career…and her life.
Coming December 23rd, 2017!
The Girl Who Escaped
Ten years ago, he took me.
Ten years ago, he tortured me.
Ten years ago, I fought my way to freedom.
And I thought I was safe.
It took ten years for me to realize the truth.
I never escaped.
He let me go.
And now...
He wants me back.
Contact Alex Gates
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For my husband
The Girls On Poppy Drive
1
Don’t ask for the truth.
I’d hate to spoil the surprise.
-Him
Some Missing Persons should have stayed lost.
We needed two binder clips to fasten Eddie Kirwin’s file shut, but even that couldn’t contain the filth.
The guy spent more time in prison than out. And, when he finally had his opportunity to take in the fresh air, he inevitably wound up a little too close to the swing set at his local municipal playground.
That’s where we checked for him first. It seemed more reasonable to send a patrol to a jungle gym than to waste resources and time searching for a man no one wanted to be found. But it was just my luck. Even the most indulgent sex-offender wouldn’t park himself outside of an elementary school for a week, no matter how much candy he stashed in his van.
According to all official reports, Eddie Kirwin was missing. The rest of the world didn’t care, but the Pittsburgh Police paid me just enough to give it a go.
Detective Bennett Chase uncurled his white knuckles from the handle on the passenger side of my car. My driving wasn’t nearly as bad as his backseat direction.
He pawed through my console with a frown. “How much hand sanitizer do you have, hotshot?”
Nothing that’d cover the pock-marked, weed-eaten driveway, and even less for Eddie Kirwin’s dilapidated home.
“Skip the sanitizer,” I said. “Where’s the bleach?”
It was a house only a demolition crew could renovate. The few non-rotted two-by-fours kept whatever lived inside from getting out. Thick, overgrown bushes scaled past the windows and made a home in half-hanging gutters. Diseased evergreens with cracked and peeling bark bordered the property, their needles sprouting at the top of the trees. They obscured the second floor, hiding sightless windows caked with grime and water spots.
Perry South wasn’t a great neighborhood, but Kirwin’s home made its bad reputation a worse.
I batted his hand from my glove box. Too late. Tampons and an extra pair of handcuffs tumbled onto the floor mat.
“If I lived here…” My partner—my new and decidedly unnecessary partner—quirked an eyebrow at the house. “I’d go missing too.”
“Maybe we can pretend.”
“London, not even your charm could make that place feel like a home.”
Ben’s wink might have been mischievous if he was flirting. Fortunately, he knew better. Unfortunately, that meant he could be as honest as he was unwelcomed.
“Don’t you live in an RV?” I asked.
I snatched the rolling Tampax before they escaped under his seat. Like a gentleman, Ben twisted awkwardly away from the products and pretended he wasn’t uncomfortable.
Never had this problem when I was alone.
“And when was the last time you were home?” he asked.
That was easy. “I spent three weeks on the couch and another three months on light duty.”
Ben slipped from the car. He made sure to pass me the God-forsaken cane I’d hoped to hide in the backseat under my jacket.
“So, you’ll break the other leg next time you want to go on vacation?”
&n
bsp; Because crushing the first one in the line of duty was just like a trip to the spa. “A sprained ankle should give me a long weekend.”
“Your honeymoon is going to look like a bloodbath.”
I pretended to smirk. The diamond ring squeezed a little too tight on my finger. I wasn’t planning on bloodshed at the ceremony…or before it. My mother and my groom had asked for no bruises in the pictures. Luckily, that made postponing the date even easier.
“Doesn’t look like anyone’s home.” Ben’s breath puffed in the crisp December air. He ducked back into the car to grab his breakfast—a lukewarm twenty-four-ounce bottle of Diet Mountain Dew. He scrunched his nose while he drank it, as usual.
“If you hate it so much, why do you drink it?” I picked a path across the crumbling driveway to steal a glance into the garage window. Nothing inside that I could see.
“Tastes as bad as whiskey but comes with none of the calories.” Ben swirled the cap on and tossed the bottle onto his seat. He slammed the door with all the subtlety of a SWAT team. “Plus, I won’t get fired for drinking it on the job.”
I hated to tell him—drinking was the least of his worries at the station. If only the top brass got tipsy at lunch. Then maybe I’d have been handed some decent cases to work. But, politics being what they were, I was handed Eddie Kirwin.
And a new partner.
Still, Ben was competent, and he stayed out of my way. A winning combination if we ever worked a case worth solving.
After all, if I was assigned Ben for my past misdeeds—what trouble had he caused to end up with me?
The homicide transplant had his cards in a line, but he had a bad habit of betting too much. Most times, a roguish smile and scoundrel’s luck won his battles. But he had the same problem as me. Too young to make friends with the senior staff, and too old to skate by with a rookie’s excuses. The department didn’t like vanity or pretty boys who talked back. Two strikes against Ben, and that was before the written warning for violating the dress code. The top two buttons on his shirt would remain undone.
Ties are for sergeants, Ben always said. That meant neither of us would ever wear one.
“Doesn’t look like he’s been home for a while.” I flashed my cell into the grimy windows of his garage. The space, once occupied by a car, had been filled with boxes and black garbage bags. I doubted they were stuffed full of daisies and potpourri. “But there’s no mail in his mailbox.”
“Who the hell would send him mail?”
I took a wild guess. “Collection agencies.”
“Now, now. Let’s not stereotype.”
“Bills then—regularly paid and up-to-date, I’m sure.”
“Hell, maybe his probation officer sent him a Christmas card. They’re the jolly sort.”
I crossed to the porch.
Was it better to grip the railing…or place my weight on the stairs?
Ben cleared his throat. When had that become the universal signal to remember the damn cane? I used it only to test the wooden stairs. Warped and rotten, but still firm. Good enough for me.
Ben adjusted his wraparound sunglasses and studied the porch, hands in his pockets. His jacket flipped open. Two guns flashed on his hips. Gratuitous, but Ben seemed to type to play the hero if he ever got the chance.
Been there, done that, and I had two surgeries on my leg to pay for it.
Hero wasn’t as fun as it had sounded.
A layer of frost settled in the shadows of the evergreens. I picked a careful step over the slickness, but I went still as I searched the portion of the backyard visible from the porch. Ben spotted the playhouse too. I shared his disgust.
The old plastic house had once been pink. Now it turned brown, coated in dirt and sticky sap. Black trash bags filled the inside, stuffed under a white plastic table and toddler-sized Elmo chair. Maybe it had once been fuzzy, but the red fur had turned moldy and matted.
Ben didn’t remove his sunglasses, but his baby blues might have matched the lenses. “Why does a convicted pedophile have a child’s playhouse in his backyard?”
I wasn’t used to a partner voicing the questions running through my mind.
A man like Eddie Kirwin—a man with Eddie Kirwin’s record—wasn’t allowed within one hundred feet of a child.
Ben jogged up the stairs and casually inserted himself between me and the door. The doctors had said it’d take another month or so to fully heal my leg, but I didn’t need him playing gentleman and taking point. It was the same fight every case, and it frustrated us both.
He didn’t ask before grabbing the folder from my hands.
“What did his cousin say?” He flipped through the pages. “Hasn’t heard from Eddie for a while, but the last time he called…”
I remembered my case without needing to read from scribbled notes. “Eddie’s cousin, Ray, heard a little girl’s voice in the background of the call.”
Neither of us liked the prospect. While it was unlikely that Eddie had found a new victim, his previous behaviors—and record—meant we weren’t taking any chances.
Ben balled a fist, prepared to slam on the door. I stopped him with a grab to his wrist.
“Wait.” I held him still. “Do you smell that?”
Ben gave two deep sniffs, but the dusty ashtray in his car didn’t fool anyone. He had to follow two rules to be my partner—first, I drove everywhere. Second, no smoking in my car. It was a dumb move. Nothing worse than a smartass partner without his only form of stress relief.
“Natural gas,” I said.
“Really?”
“Half a pack a day, huh?”
“A pack lasts me a week, thanks.”
“You’re a horrible liar.”
“Are we really gonna list vices now, cause I don’t think we got enough time to open your box, Pandora.”
He was right. I sighed. “There’s a gas leak in his house.”
Ben retreated from the door. “Damn. Back away. We’ll call the gas company from the station. This isn’t safe—the house is about ninety percent dirty tissues.”
Yeah, my thought too. Except I didn’t move. Neither did Ben.
I tapped the cane against the porch, tempted to toss the damned thing into the driveway. “He’s got a playhouse in his yard.”
“I doubt that’ll give us much cover.”
I hummed. “Maybe for the little girl his cousin heard?”
Ben set his jaw. Not quite chiseled, just lean. Suited his build. Ben was the type of guy who’d pay someone else to barfight for him then bet against himself to split the winnings with his enemy.
I’d warned him the first day we started together—get used to confrontation. A month later, Bennett Chase was still struggling to understand the concept.
I knocked on the door. Ben swore.
“The hell are you doing?” he asked. “Eddie decides to flip on a light, and we’ll all get blown to Allegheny General—jail or hospital.”
“And what if he’s got a kid with him?” I knocked harder. “Mr. Kirwin, Pittsburgh Police. Welfare check. Please answer the door.”
“So, they were right. You are gonna get killed in the line of duty.”
I’d done an admirable job of avoiding it so far. “Mr. Kirwin!”
“McKenna…” Ben didn’t sound happy. “We gotta call the gas company.”
“Go ahead.” I pounded harder. “Police. Open the door!”
“He’s not home. Guy like him probably went out looking for some dope and pierced the wrong vein. He’s probably dead.”
“Or he’s unconscious in his house…”
I put an ear to the door. Was that…
Whispering?
“Come here,” I said. “Do you hear that?”
Ben grunted, approaching the house like the unlit lighter he hid in his back pocket would blow the patchwork roof off the place. “Kinda…what the hell is that?”
I pressed harder against the door. My stomach dropped. I prayed we wouldn’t fall through the porch with
it.
Unmistakable. The tinkling, breathless sound floated through the house. It was too faint to decipher through the door, but the whisper was definitely a child’s voice.
A girl’s voice.
And I didn’t want to imagine what a man like Eddie Kirwin would do with a pretty little houseguest.
“He’s not answering.” I checked with Ben only as a courtesy. “We’ve got a gas leak endangering a child who was presumably left home alone.”
Had to respect a gentleman who’d bust a door down for a lady. “That’s a good enough reason for me. Don’t touch a goddamned thing.”
“Wasn’t planning on it, leak or not.”
With a grunt, Ben shouldered against the door, twisting the knob. Either the lock was rusted or Eddie hadn’t thought to secure his house. The door crashed open.
And a new, freakish hell awaited us.
Ben released the door, but his hands went right to his gun. I had more restraint, more experience with this sort of depravity.
And it was becoming so common, so routine, that expecting it sickened me the most.
“Holy shit…” Ben whispered.
Eddie Kirwin had no children, but he’d filled his ramshackle home with every doll he could find. Barbie, Raggedy Ann, Bratz, American Girl…
