2
“Nice digs,” he said, meaning it. While space was at a premium, the two couches were only gently used, and the curtains and valances were cheerful. There were pictures on the walls—sports shots of the Giants baseball team and the Kings—and his lamps were graceful ceramic columns of pale blue.
“I had a friend help me pick stuff out,” Cody admitted, coming to Jackson with a bowl of chips and a fresh soda, which he deposited on a sturdy coffee table since Jackson was still otherwise engaged. He returned to his counter with two steps. “I’m sorry—I didn’t ask. Is there anything you didn’t want on this?”
“Not a thing,” Jackson told him, as his stomach growled again. He reached out to grab a chip, but Clive clung to his arm and shoved him back against the couch with a forceful headbutt. “Although I think it’s cute that you assume they’ll let me eat.”
“They’ll move when it’s time,” Cody said, laughing a little.
“Which friend?” Jackson asked. He’d seen a telltale twitch to Cody’s eyes, and now, at the question, he refused to look up from his counter.
“You, uhm, remember North Albright? The, uhm, marshal who took care, erm, kept watch over me when I was testifying?”
Jackson’s eyebrows went up. “I do,” he said, surprised. “I, well, I thought there was something about, you know, waiting a year….” Oh, he hated to bring up recovery rules when it seemed like Cody was doing so well.
“Not that kind of friend,” Cody retorted, way too defensively.
Not yet . Jackson would put money on it—but he wouldn’t put Cody through any embarrassing discussion. “Either kind is fine,” Jackson said softly. “Don’t mind me. Being nosy.”
Cody shrugged and finished up with the two sandwiches as he spoke. “Isn’t that what friends do?” he asked. “Speaking of which, are you going to tell me what happened to Henry?”
Clive had tucked his entire head obtrusively in the hollow of Jackson’s neck and shoulder, and was purring so loud Jackson could feel it in his stomach. Poppy had moved the cleaning session back to the crook of his elbow, and he had to work at not giggling.
He was never going to be more comfortable and cared for than this.
With a deep breath, he started to tell the story.
By the time he was done, both of them had finished their sandwiches, and Cody had cleaned up, insisting the whole time that Jackson stay right where he was. Clive had managed to drape himself around Jackson’s neck like a stole, and Poppy had burrowed back behind Jackson’s ass in the fold of the couch, but he still felt as though he’d be betraying friends to get up.
Cody had listened to every detail with what Jackson thought of as “cop’s ears,” asking questions that mattered and weeding out the less important details, mostly about the shooting and how certain they were about Moms for Clean Living.
“We’ve got three witnesses,” Jackson said. “We’ve got Cowboy’s mom, who was pressured into giving her son into their custody, Cowboy, who spent a whole two hours at their compound and pointed it out to John and Galen, as well as identified this Retty humanoid as being their chief enforcer, and Henry, who also identified her windbreaker and gave the same description as Cowboy. We’re pretty secure there, and Ellery and the office staff have been researching their eyeballs out all morning.”
Cody nodded, coming to sit in the chair kitty corner to Jackson. “Okay, then. Do you have a plan?”
Jackson filled him in on his thoughts about the rehab center as well as scouting out the compound itself, although he hadn’t decided how he wanted to do that.
And then, because Cody understood theories and how they could be pure speculation and not based in fact, he tentatively talked about his fears for Caleb, the lost soul Cowboy had been so upset about.
“Do you really think the boy witnessed a murder?” Cody asked, disturbed.
“Think about it,” Jackson said. “If it was any other crime—including a sex crime, torture, or bullying—these women could take their chances in court. With a savvy lawyer and some fast talking, all they’ve got is their word against a fourteen-year-old sex worker. Doesn’t look good for him, right?”
Cody grimaced. “Yeah. Yeah. I know all about credibility.” He’d run because he’d been blackmailed with his drug use into doing something he hadn’t wanted to do.
Jackson nodded. “So why risk everything to bust into a stranger’s apartment, guns blazing, to try to get to this kid? Why start a shootout through a wall if you weren’t hoping to hit a witness?”
“Ugh,” Cody said, shuddering. “That’s so dangerous—and not very bright. Nothing worse than somebody scared, desperate, and stupid .”
“And armed,” Jackson said grimly. “Do not forget armed.” He paused, enjoying one last purr from Clive and Poppy’s warm presence below his left-hind-yab. “So. You want in?”
Cody gave an almost evil smile. “Does my cat want to hump your face?”
“Disturbingly enough, yes,” Jackson told him. “My God, Ellery and I need a cabin up in Tahoe to get this much action.”
Cody laughed. “Wait here while I go pack some extra clothes. You were right—the visit to the rehab center should be done while I’m at my worst.”
“But you’re gonna help me with the creatures,” Jackson called as Cody disappeared down the narrow hallway to one of the bedrooms. “Gabriel? Cody?”
Cody’s insanely innocent laughter trailed down the hall, and Jackson was pulled forcibly back against the couch by Clive, who had not yet violated Jackson’s left ear with his bewhiskered muzzle but obviously had plans.
THE REHAB clinic was downtown, on W, about three blocks from the YMCA. Jackson was surprised to find a shaded spot on the street near a series of large houses with manicured grounds.
“This always struck me as such an odd spot,” Cody said from the passenger seat. “You forget—everybody’s susceptible, you know?”
Jackson had spotted Reba Milton’s restaurant enroute, about half a mile away near N Street, but otherwise he was in agreement.
“You were in the one off Marconi, weren’t you?” Cody’s had vibed like a golf club, set off the road on an unexpected burst of property seemingly plunked in the middle of the city.
“Yeah. Nice grounds. Someone told me they used to have weddings there.”
Jackson stared at him, and Cody shrugged. “Don’t look at me. My dog, the one I wasn’t supposed to have, crapped under every shrub in the place, and I gotta tell you, I wasn’t the greatest with the poop bag.”
“You need to stop talking now,” Jackson told him. “I’m not sure I can trust somebody who wouldn’t pick up their dog’s crap on the lawn.”
Cody shrugged. “Sometimes I’d take an air gun and use the turds as target practice. It was a crapshoot,” he said with a straight face, and Jackson shook his head.
“Just so you know, when Henry’s back, the first thing I’m having him do is kill you. He can make it look like an accident.”
“You do what you gotta. If you think Ellery can get you off for it, do your worst.”
“If they heard that joke, no jury on earth would convict me.”
As they spoke, both of them were staring at the rehab center, making note of ingress, egress, and escape routes.
“I’ll go in asking for a meeting,” Cody said. “You want me to keep my eyes peeled for this Retty woman?”
“Keep for recovery rooms,” Jackson said thoughtfully. “Cowboy’s mom said she had something over the woman in charge. Henry tagged her last night—they’ve got medical supplies in there, right?” It was an educated guess. Recovery wasn’t always a pretty process, and spouses in relationships built on substance abuse often came in with injuries.
“Mine did,” Cody said. “Let’s just call it an unusually well-stocked nurses station.”
“Okay, so you search for that. I’m going to hunt for the leader of the center, be all official, and ask some questions. Meet back here in half an hour?”
“Fair,” Cody said, his eyes roaming the terrain again. “Look, if I get rousted, I’m going out the side door—you see it there?” Jackson marked a small door on the east side of the building. “I’ll go around the block and head for the car—”
“Jennifer,” Jackson said, feeling both guilty and a little embarrassed.
“What?” Cody sounded legitimately flummoxed.
“The minivan. Her name is Jennifer.” Jackson held his finger to his lips. “We need to be very considerate of her feelings. She’s an important part of the team.”
Cody slow blinked. “Oooookay—”
Jackson shook his head. “This is nonnegotiable.” Very deliberately he mouthed, “She will refuse to start if we are not kind to her.”
Cody blinked again and tentatively stroked the glove compartment. “Jennifer,” he said, nodding slowly, as though Jackson was insane and Cody was trying not to upset him.
“That’s right,” Jackson said. “We’ll meet at Jennifer. She’ll be open, so hop in and hide if you need to.” Jackson patted the steering wheel. “Did you hear that, girl? Be ready for us.”
The blinker clicked once, without a touch to the turn signal, and Cody’s eyes bugged out before they hopped out of the vehicle together.
And no, Jackson didn’t lock the doors. He and Henry had never put voice to it, but Jennifer was a 2008 Dodge Caravan, by far one of the shittiest years of one of the shittiest vehicles ever put out. Henry had once written a note to Jackson, stating that the only thing holding that piece of crap vehicle together was Jennifer’s sour disposition.
Then he’d burned the note.
Nobody was going to steal this car, and Jackson firmly believed that if anybody tried, Jennifer would eject them out of their seats and into the windshield.
It would not be the worst or the weirdest thing she’d ever done.
After the first few steps, Cody’s shoulders slumped, and he pulled his head down, eyes toward his feet, gaze shifting restlessly from right to left.
Jackson was pulled immediately to the first night they’d met, when this had been Cody’s habitual walk, his junkie’s shuffle, and he was both startled by how far the laughing young man had come and saddened by the things he’d been through.
And really grateful that Cody had been so eager to use his painful experience to help Jackson’s mission. With a brief nod, Jackson passed Cody up and strode purposefully toward the main entrance of the place, full of “official business” so he could question Cora, the surprisingly compliant facilities director.
The smell hit Jackson first—stale cigarette smoke, Lysol, and urine. He glanced around and realized that the bright stucco exterior of the place had been the best kept area of the building. The interior had once been just as bright, with laminate floors that were now warping from too much moisture at the seams, and water stains creeping up the yellowing walls. The podium in the front was battered, and the Plexiglas barrier had divots in it that served as old scars of violence. Down the hall to Jackson’s left, he was aware of the door opening, and he heard Cody’s voice at its most defeated, asking if there was a meeting he could go to, a person he could see. He was directed to a meeting in session right as the tired young woman at the reception desk was able to set her phone in its cradle and give Jackson her attention.
Tiny and Black, she had an entire swing of heavy braids, threaded with bright white and tipped with beads, and from watching Jade’s attention to her own beauty regimen, Jackson knew what a big deal that was in time, money, and maintenance. Her round dark eyes were playfully made up, with sparkles in the corner on bold gold shadow, and her nails, while cut practically short, were tipped with sparkly acrylics. Her full lips summoned a smile from what looked to be the depths of the woman’s toes and the bottom of a long day, and Jackson felt himself lifted.
“Can I help you?”
“First,” he told her, “can I just say you are absolutely stunning? I’m not hitting on you, but that much beauty needs to be appreciated. Thank you so much for your smile and your style.”
The smile blossomed. “It’s a good thing you’re not hitting on me,” she said coquettishly, “because my girlfriend would object, but boy, did I need a compliment about now.”
“Long day and hard job?” he asked sympathetically.
“Yeah.” She sighed. “It’s… it’s a tough gig, you know? You get the degree in social work to help, but you get paid about enough to feed your cat and keep your phone so you can mooch off your mom.”
“And the job’s hard,” he said, confirming what he knew to be true.
“And the job’s hard,” she agreed. Her eyes darted left and right. “And this place is falling apart. But I bet that’s not a surprise.”
“I did notice some things,” Jackson said softly. “I thought the state just gave you guys money.”
She nodded. “They did , and our director has been filing the paperwork to get some. But….” She scowled. “There’s some people in the way. Something about permits and such, but they’re not in the neighborhood—they just blocked our shit up, and I swear, Cora’s getting desperate. One of them fucking people’s here every goddamned day, poking her nose where it doesn’t belong, and Cora bows down and kisses the ring so she can get money for internal repairs, supplies, hell, for two more counselors and someone to help me out. And that bitch—”
Jackson saw the moment it occurred to his new friend that she was talking out of school and gave her a gentle nudge. “What’s she done now?” he asked.
“She showed up this morning, looking like death,” the woman hissed. “I’d say she was jonesing, but there was blood everywhere . Anyway, Cora took her in and is dressing her wound and shit, and this woman’s horrible . I’ve heard addicts in full withdrawals not vomit this much bullshit. No Black people, no gay people—I heard her screaming down the fucking hall about how we better not let no ‘dykes or fags’ touch her. And every other thing. I told Cora my gay Black ass was fucking out of there, but”—her eyes watered—“Cora let me go. Told me I should keep everybody else away too. She loves this place. I think she made a deal with the devil to keep it from falling completely apart, and I don’t know what to do.”
“Oh, honey,” Jackson told her, hating the Plexiglas partition. It was obvious his new friend had been on the edge of venting and crying all day, and Jackson had given her the opening she needed. “Don’t cry, baby—your eye sparkles will get in your eyes, and my sister tells me that’s the fucking worst.”
“You’ve got a sister who wears falsies?” she sniffled, carefully wiping under her eyeliner with a tissue.
“Well,” Jackson said with a wink, “she looks a little more like your sister than mine, but we’d die for each other. Her twin brother too. We stopped explaining to folks back in high school.”
“Doesn’t matter, does it?” she said, with another sniff to pull herself together. “What folks think. When someone’s your person, no matter what kind of person, that’s ride or die right there.”
“It is,” Jackson said softly. “You got a ride or die who will come here and watch your back for a few days?”
The girl—woman, she was probably Jackson’s age, but all of that bright hope and possibility in her presentation and he thought of her as young—stared at him in surprise.
“My girlfriend,” she said after a moment. “She works security at the courthouse. Why?”
Jackson shrugged uneasily. “Because your instincts are right on about the woman your friend is helping—and about making a deal with the devil. I need to go see this woman in person, and then I’m going to call the police, because she’s done bad things. But I don’t have any proof that her people will stop bothering you once she’s gone, do you understand?”
The woman’s mouth parted slightly. “You can get rid of her?” she asked. “We have security, but Cora insisted she take the risk alone. And we don’t have much. We keep them at the back and side doors.”
Jackson nodded and reached into his pocket for a card. “Okay, hon—”
She flashed him a quick lifesaving grin. “Honey,” she said with a little laugh. “I’m Honey Barker. My mom said I was sweet when I came out, but Honey was a natural sweetness.”
Jackson was startled into his own grin, and much like his time on the couch with Clive, his new aggressive boyfriend, this moment gave him some backbone and some purpose.
“You’re still sweet,” he teased. “I’m Jackson Rivers, and this is my card. I work for a defense attorney—”
Her eyes and mouth grew round, and he nodded.
“Yeah, I know for a lot of people here my fiancé could be absolute salvation, but try not to cash that ticket in too much. We’re getting married in June. He’s busy.”
Her grin went radiant, and he inclined his head.
“But if you need to get hold of me, there’s my number, and if you’ve got some emergencies, and I know you know what one of those could look like, let us know.”
“Cramer and Henderson,” she read softly. “You two went to the wall for that special-needs kid, the one who got assaulted by the police when they tried to pin a crime on him.”
“That was our case, ma’am.”
“The court reporter drew pictures of your back,” she said, startled by the memory. “This here, sir, is a golden ticket.” She waved the card. “I’ll reserve it accordingly. And Cora is down that hall, up the stairs, and in the room on the left. There’s no security, no counselors, nobody there—she cleared the place out as she was taking that fucking troll to check her wounds.”
“Thank you, Honey,” Jackson said with a nod. “I’ll try to make sure your friend Cora stays out of the crossfire. She didn’t deserve any of this.”
“No, she didn’t,” Honey agreed. “Fucking troll.”
“Let’s get her.”
Honey gave him a toothy grin and nodded him in the right direction. Jackson, after taking a glance up and down the hall to ensure nobody else was in this area of the building, took the short flight of carpeted stairs, holding on to the wooden stair rail. This really had been designed to be a large, multiroomed home. He’d just been in a ballroom that had been divided into what he suspected was a reception area and a cafeteria behind the added wall at Honey’s back. The floor was a sturdy hardwood laminate, but many of the patches were cheap tile. The baseboards were matching laminate, but the desk had been made of cheap particle board, coated white. The place was a hodgepodge, and Jackson could see how the building repairs alone—not to mention staffing issues—would be enough to make somebody desperate to get the help her patrons needed.
He was halfway up the stairs when his pocket buzzed with Cody’s number and the picture Jackson had taken before they’d left.
Meeting about to end. Told people about my phantom boyfriend — let’s see what falls out.
Jackson nodded. Good. They needed to know what Shitbag Retty had actually been doing in the facility—not just Cowboy’s mother but the other people who had come to get help with their addictions and ended up being used by the Stepford Dragons.
Retty might be on premises. Gonna talk to director and maybe to her. If you hear hollering, you know where to find me.
Good hunting.
Same.
No question about it—Cody Gabriel was good. Jackson had no doubt he’d slouched right under the radar into a support group for recovering addicts—the boy had that pretty face and a direct manner that could appeal to the hardest heart. And he really had been there, and he had a sort of moral fiber Jackson had rarely seen.
But Jackson couldn’t help but miss Henry. No, Henry wouldn’t have slouched under any radar. In fact Henry would have been the one approaching the pretty girl behind the Plexiglas, and Jackson had no doubt that Henry would have gotten her life story before he went running hell for leather to find Shitbag Retty and shake the truth out of her—or carry her, fireman-style, back to the car for further interrogation there and a skillful evasion of a kidnapping charge.
Everybody had a style of their own.
Jackson’s style, he decided, was a little bolder than Cody’s and less savage than Henry’s—he wanted to know what in the hell Retty was doing here.
As he grew even with the door, he heard moaning, as though somebody was in pain, and figured he was about to find out.
The doors and doorframes were sturdy wooden structures—he imagined they probably matched the hardwood under the laminate, in a deep blond color that served to make what would probably be a dismal, depressing building at least a little hopeful. Jackson tried the glass knob, and it twisted easily, allowing him to slip inside what had probably been a guest bedroom suite at one time but had been converted into an infirmary with three beds, a tile floor, and a white-tiled bathroom toward the rear of the space.
The beds were gurneys—hospital style with wheels on the bottom—and two of them were stripped down to the vinyl.
The third housed a woman in sturdy jeans, dried stiff around an equally sturdy set of hips. The rest of the woman attached was stout and real—not someone who played tennis on her lunch hour and ate salad, Jackson thought. Like Cowboy had said, someone you’d meet serving your lunch or driving a bus or bagging groceries. This woman had known hard times and hard work.
And right now, she knew pain.
Henry hadn’t known the extent of the damage he’d inflicted; he’d just known he’d gotten her through the door.
But her shoulder and the side of her chest were bandaged and seeping, and Jackson wondered if the .22 bullet hadn’t fragmented through a beam in the drywall, spraying her with high-velocity pellets as opposed to a single, possibly deadly projectile. A part of him thought I need to go back to the crime scene and see , while most of him was thinking, Oh shit ! I found her ! Now what do I do ?
Then Retty spoke, demandingly. Her face was, as Cowboy said, red, rough, and blotchy, and her hair was a crispy frizz of graying curls, and her voice was a deep Southern drawl.
“Cora, you cunt,” she moaned. “You need to fix me up right now.”
“I can’t,” Cora said, bent over a minifridge of medical supplies. “Retty, you’ve stripped me dry. I have to report where all this medicine went, and I told you—my antibiotics are limited. You will die of sepsis on that table if you don’t go see a doctor.”
“I’ll have this place razed to the ground!” Retty growled. “You fucking drug addicts and perverts—”
“You shut up,” Cora hissed, standing and slamming the fridge door shut. “You know what? I’m going to go to the cops, and I’m going to tell them who you are and what you’re doing. I don’t care if they shut us down. At least the world will know about your skeezy fucking organization—”
From far away, it seemed, Jackson heard Honey yelling, “You guys can’t just come in here and— Cora ! Cora ! They’re coming your way !”
Jackson had come fully inside the door as he’d observed Retty and Cora’s interactions, and as he heard the clatter of boots on the stairs and no police identification, his instincts kicked in.
He hauled ass across the room, grabbed Cora’s hand, and yanked her into the white-tiled bathroom at the back of the suite. He’d been in big houses before, and he knew that unless it was a master suite, the bathrooms were often shared by two of the smaller rooms, and he almost wept when he saw the adjoining door.
“Key?” he hissed at Cora, who was staring at him with big eyes.
Cora was small, slender, her wrists bony and eyes made gritty with too much work on coffee and good wishes, but she could obviously think on her feet. She produced the key from a lanyard around her neck and opened the door, then darted into what looked like a darkened supply closet that had probably once been a nursery of some sort.
Jackson glanced around and spotted a stack of cots, turned on their sides and leaned up against filing cabinets in the corner of the room. With a hiss he directed Cora to crawl behind the cots, and then he joined her. She was small enough to wedge herself between the cots, the wall, and the filing cabinet, while he lay on his side and scooched his knees up to his chest, his back to the wall and to her feet.
The room was pitch dark, and Jackson had just enough time to bless that he’d remembered to close the door behind him when he heard noise from the medic’s suite.
Frantically he texted Gabriel while listening to what was going on in the room next door.
“No!” Retty cried. “No, you guys. I had this. I had it covered. No, you don’t need to—” Her next words were muffled as though from behind a gag.
“Was there anyone up here?” graveled a gruff voice.
“I didn’t see anybody.” This voice was younger and, well, dumber. “Should we ask her?”
“No, dumbass. She’ll just lie, like she did about taking care of the kid last night.”
Jackson’s breath caught. Oh shit. Oh shit. Did they know where Cowboy was? Oh hell.
“How do we know she didn’t?” came the dumber voice.
“Fuckin’ Dwayne said she never showed with the package. He was waiting all night since this bitch texted. She and Bertie Dunkel are in some deep shit from what I hear.”