part0018

Blake passed the Herbie’s Window Tint shop and then turned right onto the next side street. It was a dead end, just as Goldilocks had described.

Tiny houses on postage stamp sized lots lined the street. On his left was a one-story home with a small side yard bordered by a chain link fence. Blake counted at least five doghouses in the yard but didn’t see any dogs.

Chain link seemed the motif on this block. Almost every property had a stretch of it, although most of the fences had missing sections or were falling over in disrepair.

Just past a brown three-family unit, Blake found what he was searching for. An old three car garage, its flat roof only eight feet off the ground. The branches of the trees growing behind and beside it swallowed the stand-alone building, but the three doors, each a different color, were still visible. Goldilocks had said he couldn’t miss it, and he was right.

It meant the house across the street, the little white Cape Cod with the peeling paint and crumbling driveway, was his ultimate destination. Inside, he’d find Lucy, or he’d find answers. Either way, if the look of the place was any indication, he was likely to find trouble.

Blake pulled over in front of the garages, shut the car off, and stepped out.

The neighborhood was quiet. Quieter than its appearance would suggest. Although, it was a Monday morning, so most of the residents had probably already left for work.

Blake crossed the street and passed through the open chain link gate. He climbed the single step to the concrete landing in front of the front door. The windows were dark, but the door was cracked a few inches. He knocked.

“Hello, anyone home?” he said.

There was no answer.

Blake pushed the door open.

In front of him was a dark hallway that led to a kitchen. Blake could see sunlight streaming through the kitchen windows at the back of the house. The linoleum floor of the hallway was filthy. Filthier still was a set of wooden steps to his right, leading to a second floor.

On the left was an arched doorway. There were no doors, but a blanket had been hung to block off the space behind it. Cockroaches scurried off the dark colored fabric and onto the cracking plaster wall.

“Hello?” Blake stepped inside.

Blake took two more steps, slid his hand between the drywall and the blanket, and pushed the makeshift curtain to the side. He peeked in.

The room was dark, thanks to several more blankets nailed above the three windows. The smell was a combination of body odor and the liquid that collects at the bottom of a dumpster.

The odor was unpleasant, but it wasn’t the pungent sulfur smell that comes along with decaying flesh. Blake was hopeful it meant that the four bodies, strewn about the floor, were merely sleeping.

Blake ducked by the curtain, taking care to not let it touch his head, walked to one of the windows and yanked on the blanket. It tore free, flooding the room with daylight. None of the occupants moved.

The floor was littered with empty bottles, fast food wrappers, and a myriad of other trash. Intermingled throughout were at least a dozen used syringes, although Blake suspected there were more buried under the sleeping bags and the rest of the rubbish.

It would require him to pay extra attention to his surroundings. Being stuck with a dirty needle was a sure-fire way to pick up any number of nasty pathogens, including Hepatitis and HIV.

About fifteen years prior, Blake had been involved in a raid on a residence in Kabul. While searching one of the detainees, he was pricked by an uncapped syringe. The detainee was tested for blood borne diseases. Even though the results of the tests were negative, Blake had to take a cocktail of prophylactic drugs that did a number on his digestive system. It was the last time he blindly stuck his hand into anyone’s pocket.

There were two females and two males, sound asleep. Both females had long hair. By the looks of them, they had been living in squalor for some time.

Blake crouched next to one of the males. His buzzed brown hair was about an eighth of an inch long, except for a two-inch bald patch on the side of his head.

Christa had described Owen as having short hair and a bit of thin facial hair. Both males in the room could have fit that description.

Blake shook the first kid’s shoulder. “Hey, wake up.”

The kid stirred. His eyelids parted.

“Owen?” Blake said.

The kid lifted himself onto his elbow. “Over there.” He dropped back to the floor and closed his eyes.

Blake moved to the second male and shook him.

The kid’s eyes snapped open wide. He scrambled to his feet and backed himself up against the wall. He was almost as tall as Blake, but probably weighed half as much.

“Who are you?” the kid said. His voice cracked and wavered as if there were a frog in his throat.

Blake spoke slowly and with a stern tone. “Are you Owen?”

“Yeah, man. I’m Owen. Who are you and whatta you want?”

“I’m a friend of Lucy’s. I need to speak with her.”

“That stupid bitch?” Owen said. “She ain’t here, man. She’s probably off readin’ a book or some shit. I don’t mess with her no more.”

Blake stepped forward and grabbed Owen by the chin with his left hand. He squeezed his thumb into one side of his face and his fingers into the other. Blake could feel his teeth through his thin flesh. His lips were forced to purse.

“Tell me where I can find her.”

“I don’t know, man,” Owen said. “I dumped her ass. She was a shitty lay, and she got all preachy and shit.”

Blake cocked his right fist.

“I don’t know what you want me to tell you. I haven’t seen her in, like, a minute, man. Lily’s my bitch now. She’s right there. Wake her up and ask her.”

Blake let go of Owen’s face and took a step backward. He looked around. Despite the commotion, the other three junkies weren’t even stirring. “If I find out you hurt her in any way—”

“I never touched her, I swear. I mean, I touched her, but I never hit her or nothin.’”

The sound of footsteps came first, then the excitable voice. Blake turned around just in time to watch the kid finish delivering his line.

“Don’t move asshole,” he said.

Wearing nothing but a pair of shorts and a bandana around his forehead, he was a walking canvas. Tattoos covered his neck, torso, arms, and legs. There was something written across his chest in blackletter font, but it was difficult to read as it rippled across his emaciated ribs. Blake surmised it said “Loyalty.”

But it wasn’t the ink that stood out. It was the revolver that Mr. Loyalty was pointing in Blake’s general direction.

“You gotta lotta guts comin’ up in here,” he said.

Blake glanced at the cylinder. The copper jackets of the rounds were visible. The gun was loaded, there was no doubt about that. Blake was sure the old Smith and Wesson was fully capable of delivering a fatal blow. It was the capability of the operator Blake questioned.

Mr. Loyalty held the weapon canted at a ninety-degree angle. And worse than that, he held it above eye level. He was making a show of it, but it was clear he had no training or discipline. It was all Blake needed to know.

“I don’t want any trouble.” Blake raised his arms, bending his elbows and letting his hands drift out in front of him. The posture was intended to appear non-threatening, but Blake was actually preparing to strike.

“I’ll bust a cap in your face, homey. Pow!” He dipped the revolver toward Blake’s forehead.

Blake pivoted to the right, slapped Mr. Loyalty’s wrist upward with his right hand and twisted the revolver free with his left. Holding the firearm by its frame, Blake drove the handle into Mr. Loyalty’s face. It caught him in the crevice between his right eye and the bridge of his nose. He dropped to his knees.

“Damn, homey,” he said.

Blake tossed the revolver from his left hand to his right and stretched it out in front of him. He moved past Mr. Loyalty and travelled down the hallway and into the kitchen. It was empty.

Blake checked the basement. The closets. The bathroom. Then moved on to clearing the upstairs bedrooms.

There was no one else in the house. There was no Lucy.

Blake returned to find Owen and Mr. Loyalty almost exactly where he left them. He lifted the revolver until the barrel hovered between Owen’s eyes.

“If you ever try to contact Lucy again, I will come for you. If I find out you’ve lied to me, I will come for you. If I so much as hear your name again, I will come for you. Is that clear?”

Owen lifted his hands. It was like the gesture Blake had made a few minutes before except, in Owen’s case, it legitimately signaled surrender. “I ain’t gonna mess wit’er, man. Never again.”

Blake turned and walked away. He moved through the roach-infested drapes, over the filthy linoleum and between the chain link gates. As he reached his rental, he stopped, flicked open the cylinder, and emptied the six live rounds into his hand.

He looked around. Noticing a storm drain along the curb about twenty feet away, he walked over and tossed the gun and bullets into the gap at the back of the steel grate.

Returning to his car, Blake couldn’t help but worry. Owen had been telling the truth. He could see it in his eyes.

It was the worst-case scenario. The thing that neither Christa nor Gwyn had been able to even consider. Lucy hadn’t run away. She was in real danger. And no matter the consequences, he would do whatever he could to make it right. If it wasn’t already too late.