Addicts
Max
“Dad, you got her.” Hope rushes up with Dash in her arms as we walk into Maddox’s office. “I was so worried.”
“Fiona is fine.” Though my heart might never be the same after the scare she gave me.
“Perfectly fine.” She steps up next to me. “It wasn’t really scary. One of the kids just threw a temper tantrum. It happens on occasion. We followed protocol, and everything turned out just fine. You don’t need to worry.”
Part of me loves that she’s trying to protect my daughter even now. The other part of me wants to shout at her until she has more of a sense of self-preservation. “I need to go do something with Maddox.” Take care of those addicts. “Hope, make sure Fiona stays here with you.”
Fiona’s eyes go wide. She’s going to have things to say to me later…and they won’t be good.
Not that I care as long as she’s safe. “I’ll be back in a little bit. Call Daria when it’s safe so you two can start packing.”
Before she can lose her mind, I walk out of the office and back down to the street.
“Things seem to be under control now.” Maddox walks over to me. “The kids are down in the sewers.”
Like literally?
“How’s Fiona?”
Livid with me. “She’s fine. He didn’t hurt her, but he planned to, I think. She wouldn’t answer a direct question when I asked.”
“Fiona won’t. She gets all mama bear with these kids, even the ones that don’t deserve it. Wanna join us while we find out why these kids just suddenly decided to tear up my home?”
“Oh yeah. And I should tell you, Sasha Kamenev offered his services, if you should need them.”
“He’s offering to…” Maddox shakes his head.
“Oh yeah. All but the little one.”
“Interesting. We’ll start questioning the leader and end with the little one. Give him some time to stew about what we’re going to do to him.”
What are they planning to do? “Are they going to be executed?”
Maddox shakes his head. “They didn’t hurt anyone. We’ll give them one choice. They can choose rehab or, if not, there’s a detox place we know of in the middle of nowhere for juvenile delinquents. It’s out of the country and run by people who were once addicts themselves.”
“Don’t those facilities have a history of abuse?”
“Oh yeah. Finding this one took us years, but when the issue kept popping up, and Fiona’s heart couldn’t handle what needed to be done… You ready for that?”
No. “Yeah. I can do whatever needs to be done. She’ll get over it.”
“You seem awfully sure of yourself. Just wait until Fiona gives you her disappointed look. It’s soul-crushing.”
That’s not going to happen. We’ll have a conversation, and she’ll understand…Those are the famous last words of any man, according to my father. But Mom always forgives him.
Fiona will forgive me. “Let’s get this done.”
***
“Are you always this creative with your questioning techniques?” I watch the python wrap around the leg of the drug addict, who brandished a knife at Fiona.
“Yeah. Ice Cream won’t hurt him. But she’ll give him a nice hug if we let her. She might give him a nibble or two. She’s gravid and grumpy.” Maddox smiles. “It usually doesn’t take long to convince people to talk.”
“Let me out of here. You gotta let me out of here before this thing eats me!” the leader screams.
It seems he doesn’t understand basic physics. That snake can’t open her mouth wide enough to swallow a man tied to a chair.
“And he’s ready. Shall we?” Maddox opens the door to their interrogation room.
“Why’s he here? I thought he left. He said he was going.” The boy gapes as I step in. “I didn’t touch your woman. I didn’t touch her. Don’t let him kill me. Don’t let him hurt me.”
“I do believe he’s more afraid of you than he is of my pets.” Maddox grins.
“Good to know someone understands there are some laws written in blood.” I walk up to the kid, trying to pretend the almost four-hundred-pound snake by my feet doesn’t bother me at all.
“The only reason you have a chance of walking out of here still breathing is because you didn’t touch her.
My friend here seems to think you didn’t come to Willow Street just to eat the free food and make a nuisance of yourselves. That there was a reason.”
The boy shakes his head. “No. No reason. We were just high and wanted to mess with people.”
“That’s a lie. I hate liars. So now you wake up that drug-addled brain of yours, and tell me who sent you to mess with my friend.” Ice cream brushes my ankle. Maddox's tactics are impressive.
“He’ll kill me.”
“And I won’t?” I probably won’t, but the kid doesn’t need to know that.
The boy trembles. “He’s a ghost. You won’t ever find him.”
“I can find anyone. You can’t hide from me.” I literally have the world at my fingertips. “Give me a name.”
“No.”
“Let’s leave him for the snake.” I know just which one of them will talk.
We enter the holding room with the smallest boy. He looks to be about thirteen.
Who gets a thirteen-year-old addicted to drugs?
“Look, all we were supposed to do was break a few things and scare the woman so she’d sell her restaurant. That’s it. He told us he’d give us a big bag of the good stuff. All we wanted was a fix. We weren’t going to hurt anyone.” The boy starts crying.
“Who?” I can guess, but I want to see if the boy will talk.
He shrugs. “I don’t know. The kids call him The Ghost.”
“So, it wasn’t Micky Lectner who sent you?”
The boy shakes his head. “Micky works for The Ghost. He’s the only one who gets to see him. But Micky is afraid of him, just like the rest of us. The Ghost can find you anywhere. They say he kills you, and then he eats your body, but that can’t be true…can it?”
There are some sick people in this world. “Do you want to keep working for The Ghost?”
The boy shakes his head. “I never did. My brother brought me in when we were just kids. Once I was in, there was no way out.”
The brother could be an issue. “Does your brother want out?”
The boy shakes his head. “They killed him six months ago because he didn’t meet their sales quota.”
The Ghost needs to be buried.
Maddox steps forward. “We can get you somewhere safe and into rehab.”
“Really?”
“Count on it,” Maddox promises.
“Micky Lectner just became my top priority,” I say as we step out of the interrogation room.
“You're going to use him to find The Ghost.” Maddox nods.
“Yeah. And just so you know, Fiona and Daria are moving off The Street today.” There’s no way I’m leaving her here.
“We have security. She wasn’t in any danger.”
I don’t care how much security they have. “Fea is coming home with me.”
“Have fun convincing her of that.”
It won’t be hard.