The Girls On Poppy Drive: A Detective London McKenna Novel

by Alex Gates

  James never talked about himself or his condition, even to the one doctor who might have helped treat it. I prepared to answer for him, but he decided to behave himself. This time.

  “Anything is an improvement.”

  Stoicism wouldn’t save his vision. But, at this point, what would?

  Doctor Robins checked his chart. “Well, your ocular pressure has stabilized, but you suffered from a particularly bad attack. Unfortunately…you might have sustained some damage.”

  James chuckled, but it wasn’t a joke. “What’s left to damage?”

  “We’ll try to mitigate it, of course. I want you to stay here for another hour and recover, and then we’ll do an exam. But I don’t have to tell you—the time is coming. Are you still driving?”

  Hit the deck. I should have warned the doctor before he stepped onto that particular minefield.

  “I can manage,” James said.

  “Are you aware of your limitations?”

  I’d asked him that question too. Multiple times a week. It was the pot calling the kettle a hypocrite, but one of us had to face reality and broach the subject.

  James nodded. “I let others drive at night.”

  The doctor knew better than to defer to me. He didn’t glance my way, even if James wouldn’t likely see the movement. But what was I going to say? James and I shared the same pool of optimism about his condition, and it’d sprung one hell of a leak a year ago.

  The news was bad. Didn’t take someone with perfect sight to see it.

  “Well, we do have a problem,” Doctor Robins said. “I’ve been tracking the pressures in your eyes, and I’m not seeing the results we’d expect from your trabeculectomy. This episode has only exacerbated it. I’m afraid we’ll need a second surgery.”

  At least I was sitting down.

  My phone buzzed. I ignored it and huffed a deep breath.

  James did the same. “I’m still paying off the last one.”

  The doctor agreed. “I understand. But you’re young.”

  “Not that young anymore.”

  “Young for someone with this advanced stage of glaucoma. The surgery is not as effective on young eyes as it is for someone older. You’ll need another surgery soon. If we’re lucky, we’ll be able to repair the tubes from the last procedure. If not, we’ll insert a second set.”

  “How soon?”

  His pause was a much of an apology as he could offer. “You should schedule it soon.”

  Soon. How often had we heard that word? Vision loss—soon. Cataracts—soon. Now another surgery?

  James wasn’t happy, and he was too exhausted to disguise it. “I’ll need to take time off work.”

  “Yes,” he agreed. “You’ll have the same recovery time as before—a few weeks of blurriness. It may hamper your computer work, paperwork, reading…”

  “I don’t work in the field now. The computer work is the basis of my job.”

  It was never going to be an easy conversation. “But if you can’t see…”

  His jaw tightened. “I can see. The blurriness is fading now, and I’m not in pain. We know the glaucoma will be a lifelong problem, but I don’t think we need to make any major decisions yet. We’ll talk surgery in a few months.”

  Oh, would we? The last time I’d checked, I was the crazy one in our relationship.

  Doctor Robbins glanced at his watch. Half-past time to get the hell out. “I’ll let you two discuss your options. I’ll be back in an hour or so to check and ensure everything is holding. You’ll only need anti-inflammatory eyedrops for when you go home. You should be right as rain tomorrow.”

  James nodded. “Thank you.”

  The door closed. I gave James a good fifteen seconds to think rationally. He did not.

  I frowned. “What the hell are you doing? We have to do this surgery. Who knows what sort of damage could happen if you don’t get this fixed.”

  James sighed. “London, we can’t afford it.”

  “Of course we can. We’ll dip into our savings.”

  “That’s our wedding money.”

  And the ring weighed me down that much more. “But we’re talking about your sight.”

  And, apparently, that didn’t matter.

  “That money is reserved for our wedding,” he said. “Period. Forget we even have it. You were on short-term disability and then the reduced pay with light duty. I can’t take a couple unpaid weeks off now. We’ll have our wedding, and then we’ll think about the surgery.”

  “That could be a year away. Maybe more.” Probably more. “You’re already having a reaction to the one eye drop that’s normalizing your pressure. If you have to discontinue it…”

  “Then we’ll talk about it after the wedding.” He took my hand. “London, come on. I’m doing this for you.”

  But that didn’t make it right.

  My phone’s buzzing would turn my leg numb. Damn Ben. One day, I’d tell the idiot he could type a period instead of hitting send and text everything in a single message.

  Fire Marshal writing report

  Needs to confer with gas company

  Results inconclusive

  Asshole might have got lucky

  You coming back or do I find the bastard myself

  “What is it?” James asked.

  “A bad day made worse.”

  “I can tell.”

  “You said you couldn’t see much.”

  “I can still smell.”

  Great.

  I ran a hand through my hair. Dusty. I’d became a literal dirty blonde. At least I still had my head.

  “Did you hear about the gas-line house explosion?” I asked.

  James bolted upright. “Jesus Christ, London. You blew up a house?”

  What the hell did he think I did all day? “Are you crazy?”

  He knew me too well. “If you didn’t set it, you were probably inside of it.”

  He’d gone through some pretty substantial trauma today. That gave the smart-ass a pass. For now. “I was outside, thank you very much.”

  “Are you okay?”

  I very nearly wasn’t, but no sense worrying him. “Yeah.”

  “Is Ben okay?”

  “Got in my way, but he made it out too.”

  “One hell of an accident.” James gauged my silence. “So…you don’t think it was an accident?”

  Was I too excited? Probably. “This was a deliberate explosion. I’d bet my badge on it.”

  “Knowing you, you already have.”

  “We were looking for a guy named Eddie Kirwin—a total shit case. Not sure why anyone would ever want to find a convicted pedophile, but fortune smiled. We get into his house, and it’s obvious he’s trying to lure kids inside. Toys. Posters. Candy. Total grooming. But upstairs?” My voice lowered, and the excitement turned to disgust. “He’d left a kid’s video running.”

  “Like…Disney?”

  “A different kind of kiddie show.” I waited. His eyebrows rose. “Yeah. That kind. But then it gets weird. I recognized the girl. She’s been missing for four years. I know the case.”

  “What case?”

  “Poppy Drive.”

  James shifted. I grabbed his hand, but he wasn’t trying to stand, only adjust his body so he could see me outside of his damaged peripheral vision. His expression hardened.

  “No,” he said. “Walk away.”

  “What?”

  “I know what you’re thinking, London. Don’t. Just walk away.”

  “James, you don’t get it. This was one of the girls from Poppy Drive. And on this sleezebag’s bed? The girl’s teddy bear! The real thing. He must know where she is! Hell, he might even be the kidnapper! Do you know what this means?”

  “Yes. And that’s why you can’t have anything to do with the case. Turn over the information and don’t get involved.”

  I sat stunned, staring at a man who, within an instant, became a stranger to me.

  “I can’t believe you’d say that.”

&
nbsp; He wasn’t deterred. “I know you. I know what you’re planning. I know how you get when you find a case like this. And that’s why I’m asking you…” He squeezed my hand. “Don’t.”

  My stomach dropped. “You don’t think I can handle it.”

  “What happens if you can’t solve it?” James couldn’t see me clearly, but his gaze burned straight through me. “Don’t put yourself through that hell.”

  I stood. The wheeled chair squealed as it rolled away. “The only hell I care about is what those girls are going through.”

  “And what about the detective on the case?”

  “Sergeant Simms?” I scoffed. “He’s burnt out. Almost unrecognizable. He had no leads, no suspects, nothing. Then my case came along and gave us the first clue we’ve had in years.”

  “Then let Simms handle the case.”

  “I don’t think he can.”

  James wasn’t surprised. He rubbed the hard angle of his jaw. “Of course not. No person can spend seven years investigating that sort of evil and come out the other side sane and healthy. He’s a good man, and that’s a terrible case. I just…I don’t want the same thing to happen to you.”

  “Think about those little girls.”

  “You already are, and that’s why it’s the wrong case for you.” James interrupted me with a raised hand. “You know you get attached to every case you work. The Goodman farm? Baby Hope?”

  “I solved them.”

  “And you’re still healing from the last time you took on a case this dangerous. Your leg needs time to mend…and so does your head.”

  “My head is fine.”

  “Even if I believed you, there’s more at risk than your mental health. The department is watching every move you make, looking for any reason they can find to fire you before the fallout hits from the Baby Hope fiasco. This is the worst time to take on the most political case in your department.”

  My phone buzzed again. Simms this time, a fat-fingered message.

  Call.me wwhen uget back..

  I knew James was right.

  The bastard was always right. About my past, about me, about our future.

  And that’s what made this even harder.

  “What if the department needs me on this case?” I asked.

  “They’ll always need you, London.” James smiled, the gold of his eyes brightening despite the sadness in his voice. “But you have to be the one to make this choice, and I hope you make the right one.”

  It didn’t matter if it was wrong. I couldn’t let those girls suffer, not if I could find a way to save them.

  “I can handle it,” I said.

  He sighed. “How many times have you said that in the past?”

  “I’ve been right so far.”

  “It only takes one case.”

  I sat again, rolling close to his side, braving a touch to his cheek. “And it only takes one rescue to make it worth battling through hell. These girls need my help.”

  “But who’s gonna save you?”

  I leaned in, capturing his worries with a kiss.

  “You will,” I whispered. “Like always.”

  4

  Such a fighter.

  Such a struggle.

  -Him

  Every lowlife had his vices.

  Eddie Kirwin had two—little girls and whatever cheap high he could score for the weekend.

  Seemed a little reckless to be shooting up and kidnapping young girls, but most pedophiles weren’t brilliant or functional members of society.

  Except the ones who were. And that was the danger. That was my fear.

  I had to find Eddie and learn what sort of degenerate he was before he could hurt anyone else.

  Fortunately, he wasn’t hard to track. Ben pulled his credit cards, and I checked his phone records. Everything lined up for Mr. Kirwin to make a specific and recurring stop every Friday on a backass road in Pittsburgh’s finest hole, Millville.

  A drug deal wasn’t exactly a Starbucks, but even a street corner was as good a place as any for Ben and me to have a chat with our new friend. If we were lucky, he’d shoot the breeze and not a loaded Magnum.

  In reality, we had no idea who Eddie was, if he was armed, if he’d be alone, or if he had the shakes bad enough to show up for a drug deal despite the cops crawling over the crater that had been his home.

  Nothing about Eddie Kirwin made much sense.

  I leaned over the Crown Vic, snooping on my own car through the driver’s side window. Ben had moved right in, stashing his leaking bottle of Mountain Dew in the cup holder which normally cradled my cell phone.

  Sergeant Simms grumbled from the passenger side, flipping the visor down as the first sunlight he’d seen all month shone in his eyes. It was hard enough getting him out of his office. Harder yet to convince him that cornering a drug dealer would yield information about Eddie.

  I zipped my jacket to my chin and nodded.

  “Remember, hotshot,” Ben warned. “You’re only the lookout. Don’t get any ideas.”

  He’d parked the car, but the engine ran. I doubted it was to keep the two warm as it started spitting snow flurries.

  Did he really think I couldn’t walk down the damn street to get a visual on a drug dealer? Did no one in the department trust me?

  “Eyes only,” I agreed.

  “Stay in contact.”

  I called his cell and put the phone to my ear. “Better?”

  Ben frowned. “You’re not gonna whisper sweet nothings, are ya?”

  “Oh, I have some choice words for you.”

  “Good. I like a little abuse.”

  It didn’t surprise me.

  I regretted not wearing gloves, but my fingers could freeze for a few minutes. “There’s an ATM on the corner of Sedgwich and Grant. I think the dealer hangs back in one of the nearby alleys.”

  Simms pointed at me. “If you see Kirwin or the dealer, you call. Don’t pursue without us. Get the visual, then we’ll approach.”

  Getting saddled with a partner was a challenge enough. Now I was dogged by a superior officer. The irritation wound itself into a knot in my neck, but I gave him a nod. A babysitter wasn’t necessary in the middle of the day during work hours on a relatively busy street, but if it made him happy—and whichever sergeant he ultimately reported to regarding my behavior—so be it.

  My boots crunched on piles of unused salt scattered over the cracking pavement. Millville always surprised me. A few independent businesses survived by renting out space in antique Victorian mansions—old homes from an older time now subdivided for their tenants. They squatted under low-lying power lines and along the busy streets. Guitar stores, pizza joints, tattoo parlors, computer repair shots. It never boded well for a community when the Sunoco station was the newest and most modern shop on the main drag, but Pittsburgh made it work.

  I held the phone to my ear, but Ben shouted his chastisement out of the parked car. “Use your cane, McKenna.”

  I considered cracking the damn thing over my formerly broken leg.

  Except it was a good idea to use it on slippery sidewalks. Plus, I certainly looked as pathetic as I was non-threatening—a thirty-year-old blonde woman, huddling in a windbreaker against the snow, using a cane to help limp down the street.

  I wasn’t intimidating…but I made one hell of a target. Stiff, slow…

  Weak.

  Everything I’d promised myself I’d never be again.

  But I got a good look at the foot traffic passing on Grant Street. Posture was always a dead giveaway for a person’s motives. Anyone could lie and hide parts of their past and the crimes they’d wished they’d forgotten, but posture? The weight of those secrets settled between their shoulder blades, and the depth of their anxious stare focused only at their feet. Forget the guilty conscience. People shuffled when they wanted to hide and got aggressive when they longed to retreat.

  Most of the pedestrians hurried to their destinations, burrowing deep into Steeler parkas and woolen
coats. The pink-cheeked women and shivering men took shelter in the shielded bus stop at the corner.

  One man caught my eye. He was young—college aged. Not an uncommon sight. Most city revitalizations started in the pockets of multi-million-dollar companies or in the imagination of a recent graduate with a degree in something useless and a passing interest in microbrewing.

  But this one…

  He was different.

  Wore a plain jacket with denim jeans and a baseball cap—not the knitted toboggan and pastel shirt indicative of Pittsburgh’s hipster circuit. He’d clipped his hair short and hid his eyes behind a pair of trendless sunglasses. He leaned against a brick storefront, flicking a thumb over his phone without looking at the screen.

  He watched the people as intently as I did.

  His eyes passed over me. And he didn’t like what he saw.

  With a sudden push, he kicked off the wall and jogged across the other side of the street.

  I held the phone a little tighter. “See him?”

  Ben had already put the car into gear. “Let’s ask him a couple questions.”

  I tossed my phone in my pocket before following. A white pick-up truck blocked the kid’s view of me, but as soon as my foot struck the sidewalk, he bolted.

  “Police!” I shouted. “Stop!”

  Wasn’t going to happen. The kid didn’t look back.

  I wasn’t ready for a chase, and neither was my cane. I hauled it under my arm and sprinted after him, leg aching with every pounded step against the uneven brick paving the alley. Brakes squealed behind me. Ben peeled out and sped off, attempting to catch the kid the next street over. Wasn’t a bad idea. My limp was worse in the cold, and my bones had just recently—and reluctantly—stitched back together. I lost speed as the jarring thud of my heel radiated pain from toes to hip.

  The dealer ran faster than my busted leg, but he’d panicked. His ankle twisted over an iced puddle, and down he went, crashing to the gravel with a solid thunk. He scampered to his feet, gripped the loose cinders, and kicked off down the alley.

  Where did he think he could go?

  Apparently, over a rusted chain link fence.

  “Damn it.”

  I launched at the fence, my boots scraping the jagged metal. I hauled myself up, but coming down was tougher. I landed only on my good leg, letting the other shuffle behind.