Hers to Protect

by Nicole Disney

  “God, no. I’d rather read the encyclopedia. Hate that game.”

  Adrienne laughed. “I guess it’s just you, me, and our brilliant minds then.”

  Kaia laughed, squinting into the open closet. “Are those fishing poles?”

  “Yeah, but what can we do with them?”

  “I saw a pond not far when we drove up.”

  “Does it have fish? Are we allowed?”

  Kaia shrugged. “Don’t know why else they’d be here.”

  “What about bait?”

  “Guess we’ll have to find it.”

  “Find it?”

  “Yeah, girl. It’s early. Let’s go get some worms while they’re out.”

  The lake was about a mile away, farther than she’d remembered but still easy to find. A small gravel path led the way. Trees came in patches and gatherings, a quiet hiss of wind whipped through the delicate buckthorns. It felt secluded and safe, like they were surrounded by miles of private land no one could touch.

  Adrienne was in Kaia’s clothes, an old T-shirt with paint stains and well worn jeans.

  “Hey!” Adrienne said. “Found one!” She crouched next to a worm on the path. Kaia smiled and held out the cup for collection. Adrienne looked at the worm, then back at Kaia with disgust.

  “Really?” Kaia laughed in surprise.

  “He looks really slimy. And fat. And why is his ass half black?”

  Kaia couldn’t control the smile burning her cheeks. “You better get him.”

  “You do it.”

  “What kind of lesbian are you?” she teased her.

  “Oh my God, fine, but I am not putting him on the hook.”

  “Deal.” Kaia extended the cup toward Adrienne. She pulled away the first time she touched it, then actually picked him up, tossing him frantically into the cup, feet dancing in place.

  “Yuck, yuck, yuck. I hate bugs.”

  Kaia collected the rest along the way. At the water’s edge, they found a large, flat boulder that was perfect to sit on. Their legs dangled off the edge and Kaia made good on her promise to hook the worms.

  They cast their lines into the water, laughing at their first pathetic attempts and trying again until they had the feel for it. Leaves were just starting to fall from their branches and were landing in the water, stirring gentle ripples.

  “Is it bad for me to love this?” Kaia asked. “I know everything is messed up and we’re in hiding, but I can’t help feeling like I’m on vacation.”

  Adrienne looked over, warm brown eyes twinkling with their own joy. “That’s not bad. We’re stuck either way. Might as well enjoy it.”

  “My thoughts exactly.”

  “You sound like you don’t get many vacations.”

  Kaia shook her head. “It’s been years. Lots of them. You come on the force and you get a little time, but you don’t want to use it because you’re a rookie. Then you don’t want to because you want a promotion, then you’re the new guy again. Next thing you know it’s been five years.”

  “I haven’t had to think like that in a long time. Money was always good in my business.”

  “I still can’t believe you deal drugs. How did that happen?”

  “They’re everywhere where I lived. If you know anyone you have a connection.”

  “But why deal?” Kaia asked.

  Adrienne shrugged and looked out to the water. “I guess I started to fit in, to be cool. I was pissed off and poor and wanted friends and respect. After a while, I knew all the right people, had a lot of regular buyers, almost never ran into trouble. Then when I met Gianna I didn’t even have to deal with my own problems when they did happen. It was rare for anyone to try to rip me off, but when they did she took care of it. We had plenty of money and we did whatever we wanted.”

  “Sounds nice,” Kaia admitted.

  “It was at first. Eventually, Gianna was too jealous to let me work. She didn’t like me on the corners talking to all those people. She said she was worried about me, but she was screaming at me every day about someone she thought I was flirting with. That’s what it was really about. The Wild AKs were trying to make a name for themselves anyway and I had the connections to get bigger quantities than they could find. I just couldn’t sell it all myself.”

  “So you became the WAKs’ dealer. You found the big quantities for them, they broke it down and handled it on the street level, and Gianna got to hide you away in the house.”

  “You got it. That’s when it all started going really sideways, though, when the WAKs started wanting more and more. And Gianna was so tight with all of them, they all look up to her. Next thing you know the gang has keys to your house. They come and go whenever they want, and there’s always some kind of emergency. I could have used a vacation from that.”

  “How did you really get so mixed up with Gianna?” Kaia asked. “Was she always like that? I know you said the gang felt normal to you, but what about the abuse?”

  “She was always tough, hard, but no, she wasn’t always abusive. I was shocked the first time she hit me.”

  “What happened?”

  “We were having a party. She was drunk. She was treating me like a servant, asking for drinks, yelling at me for not taking people’s coats. She was being an ass, but I thought she was just trying to impress her friends, that we’d talk about it later. I tried to pick up a glass, but it was wet from condensation. It slipped out of my hand and broke. She slapped me.”

  “What did you do?”

  “It was like the whole room froze,” Adrienne said. “We all just stared at her. She asked what I was waiting for and told me to clean it up. She didn’t even remember the next day so I told myself she was blackout drunk and had no idea what she was doing. But she started drinking more and needing less to get to that point. Pretty soon it was too late.”

  “I wanted to kill her that day I first saw you. If I had known who she was and what she’d done to you when I was chasing her…” she trailed off, not sure how to finish. “I don’t know. I just wish I’d known.”

  “Don’t say that.”

  “You know I don’t mean it like that. I would never hurt someone I didn’t have to and hide behind my badge.”

  “What did you mean, then?”

  “I don’t know, it just twists my stomach that I was nice to her. I was just having a normal conversation with her, oblivious to the fact she’d just hit you. That doesn’t feel good.”

  “But you got her,” Adrienne said. “That’s all that matters. Things got out of hand enough without you picking a fight.”

  “I don’t think it would have mattered who it was or how they acted. She hates cops on sight.”

  “If she’d had better experiences with law enforcement it might not be that way.”

  “I just don’t understand these ‘bad experiences.’ The cops I work with are professional, maybe cold but not hateful. And we’re under more scrutiny than ever. Everyone thinks we can just do whatever we want, but we absolutely can’t. We have to wear body cams, every little complaint gets investigated even though it’s the nature of the job to piss people off. Everyone is looking to get out of trouble. I’ve seen plenty of times an officer should have tazed or shot someone for their own safety but put themselves in danger instead.”

  “I believe what you’ve seen, Kaia, and I think you’re a great person. There’s just another side and you have to hear it. You have to believe I’m not lying either. I’ve been a drug dealer for a long time. Do you know how many times I’ve seen cops pocket someone’s stash or money instead of arresting them? Or how many times I’ve seen a cop lie about what happened and everyone just nods and backs them up? Isn’t it cop gospel that they can’t rat each other out?”

  Kaia sighed. “Yes, it is, in theory, but I’ve never had to lie for someone. I’ve never had to do anything that made me feel dirty or corrupt or crooked.”

  “I’m glad,” Adrienne said. “But that Kitchen guy Davis likes is as crooked as they come. And I saw cops be
at Gianna when she was unarmed and cooperative. I saw it with my own eyes. And can you honestly tell me you think they won’t beat her or worse when they find her for what she did to you? No matter how Gianna acts?”

  Kaia squinted into the sunlight, the beams shined from behind Adrienne, blinding her.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “It’s possible.”

  Adrienne touched her hand. “That’s all I want. Just don’t be blind. Don’t defend them before you hear the story. I know loyalty is important to you, but if you want to be believed you have to be unbiased. You have to want the truth. Otherwise you really are just another gang flying blue, taking payoffs, and killing rats.”

  “Do you think we’ll ever get past this cop thing?”

  “Who, the country? Or you and me?”

  “Us.”

  Adrienne cocked her head. “We’re already past it. I may never love it, but I know you’re still you.”

  Kaia smiled and leaned back on the rock, letting the sun rays warm her face and the day melt by.

  Chapter Sixteen

  The cop’s car wasn’t in the parking lot. Gianna was on her third hour and was getting stiff and annoyed. She needed to see Adrienne. Waking up without her and not being able to talk to her was driving her crazy. The rage of what had happened was wearing off, and now all she felt was the emptiness left behind.

  Adrienne’s phone was shut off. None of the crew had seen her anywhere. Gianna was starting to be afraid she left town. She’d thought Adrienne would come right back like she always had, that she just wanted to stay away until things cooled off. She knew it was different when Adrienne surfaced with the cop, but even then she’d had hope Adrienne would come to her senses, that she just needed to try Blondie on for a night and she’d come right home. Adrienne with a cop just didn’t fit. Adrienne might not have become Wild, but she was a midlevel drug dealer in her own right. How could she possibly think she was going to find a life with a police officer?

  “Oh my God, this is so boring,” Anna said.

  “That’s why I brought you, stupid.”

  “Can we please do something else?”

  Anna didn’t understand that the anxiety had her. She couldn’t think, couldn’t move on. She felt like she was imploding every second that passed that she couldn’t find Adrienne. Waves of panic and distress came like hurricanes, and she nearly lost control during them.

  “If she’s not here, where is she?”

  “Fuck if I know,” Anna said. “All I know is you have the whole city looking for you, and we’ve been sitting in a cop’s parking lot for three hours like we miss jail.”

  “You have a better idea?”

  “Yeah, literally anything else.”

  “Marco said to handle her, and I don’t know where else to look.”

  “They’re obviously not here and they’re probably not coming back. They’re not stupid. They know you’re going to look here.”

  “All right, we can drive around town then.”

  “Let’s just pay Kitchen a visit and ask him,” Anna said. “Adrienne knows he’s on the payroll. He needs us to find her before she talks as much as we do.”

  “I don’t want him to know that. It’ll make us look bad and it’ll make him think about abandoning ship.”

  “Okay, I have a better idea.” Anna started texting someone, then gave Gianna directions. “I have a friend who knows a cop. She owes me a favor, just cashed it in for this dude’s address.”

  “Sounds solid.” Gianna hoped the sarcasm hit hard.

  “Christina bribes cops all the time. She says it’s easy.”

  “Okay, and we’re just going to hope this random dude you don’t know is willing to sell out another cop? Are you stupid?”

  “Sell out Adrienne, not the cop. And Christina says they’re all crooked for the right price.”

  “Well, yeah.”

  “Okay, so it’ll work.”

  “If it doesn’t we go to jail.”

  “If it doesn’t, we kill him. Or we don’t do this at all. How bad do you want to find Adrienne?”

  Gianna followed the directions to the house. When they knocked on the door a short but beefy guy in his thirties answered.

  “Doug?” Anna asked.

  “Yeah?”

  “Could we come in a minute? We have some of the same friends. They said you might like an offer we have for you.”

  “What kind of offer?”

  “The discuss inside type,” Gianna said.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about. What friend? Who have you been talking to?”

  “You’re Chicago PD, right?”

  “Oh fuck off.” He tried to close the door, but Anna put her foot in the way and took a stack of cash from her pocket.

  “You don’t even want to hear the offer? It’s very hands off.”

  He glanced at the cash. “I could arrest you right now for bribing an officer and take that if I wanted, but I’m not like that. Now, get off my porch.”

  Gianna raised her chin, drawing his attention to her WAK tattoo. His eyes locked on to it and reflected recognition. “It’s rude not to even hear the offer, Doug. You don’t want to be rude. Look, there are a few bills in it for you just for listening. How fair is that? Just let us inside.”

  Doug glanced from Gianna to the money in Anna’s hand and back. He finally stepped aside and let them in. They followed him to an oak dining table and sat down. There was clutter stacked on the end of the table and on some of the chairs. The room looked feminine in design but like a bachelor pad in practice.

  “All right, what do you want?”

  “Adrienne Contreras. She dropped off the planet.”

  “So file a missing person report. Jesus, what is this?”

  “I want you to tell me where she is. She’s with a cop, so I know you can find her.”

  “No idea who you’re talking about.”

  “I know that, but we need you to find out.”

  “No. I don’t know who told you I do this type of thing, but I don’t.”

  “Fifty thousand dollars.” Anna slapped the stack of bills on the table. “She’s being hidden by you guys. We just need to know where. It’ll be easy to find out. All you have to do is tell us where Officer Kaia Sorano has her squirreled away.”

  “Adrienne is my girlfriend,” Gianna said. “Nothing bad is going to happen to her. She just needs help.”

  “She’s in hiding with an officer but she needs help?” Doug pointedly raised an eyebrow at each of them. “I don’t think so. Your story doesn’t make sense. I’m not going to give you protected information.”

  “Seventy-five K.”

  “It’s not—”

  “One hundred thousand.”

  “Deal.”

  It happened so fast Gianna had to blink a few times to catch up.

  Doug leaned forward. “Fifty now, fifty after. Nothing happens to the cop.”

  “Deal.” Gianna nodded at Anna, and she slid the fifty thousand across the table.

  He rested his hand on top of the money before taking it. He looked Gianna in the eye. “Nothing happens to the cop, or you see a side of me you don’t want to see.”

  She nodded. She wasn’t afraid of him, and he had to know her word was useless, but if it helped him sleep at night, that was fine.

  “When will you know?”

  “Depends on how buried it is, and on opportunity. I’m not getting fired over this, but I’ll find it.”

  “Sooner is better,” Gianna said.

  “Always is.”

  They shook hands.

  * * *

  Kaia was sitting on the floor. Carpet. The space was too small for her and there was scattered, noisy clutter that would give her away if she moved. She barely allowed herself to breathe as she slowly leaned close enough to the closet door to see through the slats.

  Ted was standing by the bed. His jeans were tight, a button-down shirt was half tucked in, half falling out. He had one leg propped
on the bed frame, his elbows on his knee.

  “Take off your clothes,” he said. Kaia strained to hear. Surely he hadn’t said that. Adrienne was a statue, stiff, pale, an ancient Roman piece of art, frozen with a hint of grief forever captured.

  “Now, Adrienne,” he said sternly, like he was telling her to clean her room. It struck Kaia as a particularly heinous abuse of his authority to dare to use his dad voice.

  “I don’t feel good. My tummy hurts.” Adrienne reverted to younger language. It perplexed and somehow revolted her.

  “Don’t make me say it again.”

  Adrienne sheepishly maneuvered out of her shirt, covering herself with her hands. He got on the bed on his knees, grabbed her wrists, and pinned them over her head. Kaia could feel Adrienne’s self-consciousness. Ted kissed her neck, her chest, he bit her nipple and Adrienne flinched and whimpered. She tried to pull away. He shoved her down in an unnecessarily strong motion. Kaia looked away. She felt frozen. She was sweating. She heard a struggle and Adrienne say “ow.” She forced herself to look again. Adrienne was naked. He was unzipping his pants with one hand, holding Adrienne down with the other. Kaia’s eyes flashed around the closet. Suddenly, she had a bat in her hand. She opened the door. He looked at her, eyes wide.

  “Whoa there,” he said, but she’d already started her swing. The bat connected with his face. Blood flew through the air and he fell over backwards to the floor. Adrienne’s scream rang through her head, but instead of stopping it got louder and louder until it hurt and she saw white.

  She was pulling a trigger. She was firing in rapid succession. A person in blue was in front of her, bandana covering most of the face so that only the determined eyes showed. She heard bullets whizzing past her ears. She shot. A fountain of blood erupted from the person’s chest and their rifle veered off to the sky, still firing. She shot another Wild AK, and another. They kept flooding out of the Escalade, but they couldn’t hit her. She shot them all, hitting each with perfect accuracy, punching holes through their bodies like butter.

  Finally, they’d all fallen. Kaia came out from behind the wall. There were so many. The thrill of survival faded into horror, and she ran to the bodies, splashing through blood. They were all still bleeding. It came from every gunshot hole, their mouths, their eyes, their ears. It poured in impossible quantities. She knelt by someone, pulled down their blue bandana to reveal a young girl struggling for breath.