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“Probably. The point is, they’re wasting departmental resources,” Con says. “And I don’t think they’re going to find Ariana David that way.”
“What about the task force? How long before they get that rolling?”
He is about to answer when a call comes through his radio. He picks it up, and I overhear the dispatcher. “We’ve got a 10-55 at Chance and Hayward.”
That’s a dead body. A coroner’s case. Connor sends over his response, and I instantly follow him since Chance and Hayward is literally just around the corner. My stomach is already churning with the kind of dread I haven’t felt in a long time.
“Raylan, I have to take this,” Connor says.
“Yeah, I know, I’m right here with you.”
“You can’t be, man,” he snaps, but I’m still tailing him.
“I know that address. It’s personal,” I tell him.
He gives me a worried look. “What do you mean, personal?”
“I know two of the kids who live in that drug den. Chances are, you know them, too,” I reply.
“My God, Raylan, what have you gotten yourself into?”
“No, it’s not like that. They’re the Sweet Mother of Mercy kids. I told you about them.”
He nods slowly, his brow furrowed as we turn the corner. A squad car has already pulled up outside the old, rundown townhouse.
“How’d you track them back to this place?” Connor asks.
“It took me a while. They’re both over eighteen, so it wasn’t easy, but I found them. Been keeping an eye on the house since.”
My heart stops for a moment as he pushes me back. “Stay here, Raylan. You can’t be involved. I’ll go and check.”
The street seems deserted. At this hour, it usually is. While the elderly folks are out and about, the users sleep through most of the day. They’ll be coming out as soon as the sun begins to set, like demons waiting for nightfall. Except they’re not demons. They’re people in a lot of pain, looking to quell that with whatever they can get their hands on. And this whole neighborhood is rife with dealers ready to serve.
I wait by the squad car, barely able to breathe, as I watch Connor and his colleagues go into the house. It’s a known drug den. Users come here often, and many of them spend the night. The guy who owns it targets foster kids in particular, taking advantage of their situation to get them to deal for him. It’s a lucrative business, and I know he’s got at least a couple of beat cops on his payroll to make sure nobody raids his place.
That ends now. A dead body is precisely the kind of attention he doesn’t want. He’ll have to move his stash and his activities elsewhere. That’s always the deal between the hood and the badge—at least, it is in Everton. As long as it doesn’t get on the radar, it doesn’t exist, and therefore it can go on.
The ME’s van pulls up. It’s black and grim, prompting my entrails to twist and turn as they bring out a gurney, complete with a black bag. It’s definitely a dead body.
Connor comes back out with a dark look on his face. He holds up a driver’s license for me to look at. “Do you know him?”
“Shit,” I mutter. As soon as I see his face in the DMV-issued photo, my stomach drops. “Yeah. Kyle Johnson. He’s nineteen. He’s one of the kids I was keeping an eye on. Bang-up job on my part.”
“It’s not your fault, Raylan. He overdosed.”
“He’s gone, isn’t he?”
“Yeah. I’m sorry. He’s been dead for at least a few hours.”
I glance back at the house, watching as the officers bring out two other young adults, looking equally disheveled and confused. A man and a woman, both in their early twenties, filthy and in visible pain. “Where’s the other one?” I ask Connor. “Manny. He should’ve been with them.”
“It’s just the two,” he says. “The girl called 911. The guy was still sleeping when we went in.”
My blood is boiling. I failed the Sweet Mother of Mercy kids the minute I let the local council take over the orphanage. “Those motherfuckers promised they’d build a community center,” I hiss, a mental image of Kyle settling before my eyes. They haven’t taken him out of the house yet, but the view is all too familiar. So many of them end up like this—in the streets or in drug dens, shot or OD’d—miserable and forgotten by everyone, including the system that was supposed to make sure they didn’t land back in the streets. “They built a residential complex to gentrify the fucking neighborhood, Connor. Kyle, Manny, the others … they had nowhere to go.”
“You can’t save them all, Raylan,” my friend says while instructions keep pouring in through his radio. “You did everything that you could. Listen, I’ll try to track down Manny for you.”
“Please do. I’ll text you every detail I have on him. Maybe we can get him out before it’s too late.”
