Forever Chance (Five Points Book 2)

by CJ Murphy

  A call for an ambulance was dispatched to a local address. The comm center gave a size up of a twenty-eight-year-old male, not breathing as the result of a possible overdose. A call like that would require an officer to go and make a report. Chance was the closest to the incident, though her position on the roadblock prevented her from leaving.

  Another officer answered the call. “SD-3 to Comm Center.” Carl told dispatch he would respond. Chance was increasingly worried this type of call was becoming the new normal in her jurisdiction.

  Check-ins from other law enforcement officers reported the progression of the walkers and slower runners. Nearly forty minutes had passed since the start of the race. Chance had seen Khodi and Echo finish in with some of the top runners. She called Jax. “How’s the clinic going?”

  “Steady. We’ve probably seen twenty dogs and that many cats, at least. Uncle Marty’s line is a little slower in production. He’s enjoying the interaction with people he’s known for years.” Jax laughed.

  “Any problems?”

  “No, I stopped for a moment to shove my sandwich in my face. Brandi is going to make an excellent vet. Lindsey’s decided she wants to take me up on the offer of the scholarship, after they get married and settled into the house they’re building. We’ll go ahead and start the paperwork for her, then decide on when she’ll start. How’s the race going?”

  “The first runners crossed the finish line a few minutes ago. Times were about what you’d expect. I’ll wait for the walkers. Hopefully, I can come and see you in another hour or so.”

  “Be safe out there, Sheriff. I love you.”

  “Love you too, and you do the same. Megan still with you?”

  “She’s never left Lindsey’s side and been a big help today.”

  “Were you able to alert Megan about Leland without worrying Lindsey? I have an eye on the truck and will let you know if it comes your way. Remember to keep your eyes peeled in case they approach on foot.”

  “I think Harley called her a while ago. I saw her stiffen and look around while they were talking. I’ll be careful. See you in a bit.”

  Chance disconnected and glanced over to where Leland’s truck sat. Her gut told her he and his brothers weren’t there to take in the festival. The runners had cooled down by slowly jogging up and down the street, while the walkers crossed the finish line. A delicious scent tickled Chance’s attention.

  Dozens of chickens were roasting over a large, charcoal pit erected from cement blocks and covered with a metal grate. The chickens were skewered on long, metal rods the length of the pit. Men and women from the Rotary Club wore heavy welding gloves and slowly turned the rods, while juices from the chickens dripped onto the hot coals. In twenty minutes, there would be a long line that snaked back through the vendors booths. Supporters would leave with Styrofoam boxes filled with chicken, a roll, and baked beans. Rows of picnic tables were set up under a pavilion, where diners could sit and enjoy their meal while listening to live music coming from the stage.

  Walkers continued to come across the finish line as Chance’s radio came to life with another dispatch for EMS. Another possible overdose, this time for a thirty-two-year-old female, followed immediately by another call for a nineteen-year-old male in a different location. All these calls were within a ten-block area. Something’s not right. Chance turned to see Leland Kurst and the other individual he’d parked beside climb into their vehicles and leave. Across the street, she watched Leland’s brothers leave the restaurant and drive away. An idea hit her prompting her to speed-dial Harley’s number. When she picked up, Chance started right in.

  “Harley, are you hearing those overdose calls?”

  “I am. I sent one of my troopers to the first one. Randy marked up on the last one. We’ve got a problem.”

  “I agree, and I think the Kurst brothers have a hand in it. All three of them and the company they brought with them are currently headed back toward Thomas. I wonder if they sold everything or if they’re still carrying. Do you have anyone you can shake loose to tail them, see if they can pull them over on a moving violation?”

  “My closest unoccupied trooper is down in Parsons. I’ll have him watch for the vehicles. Something tells me this overdose run isn’t over.”

  “That’s my fear as well. I’m going to call Sarah and put her on alert and talk with Taylor.”

  “Call me back if something else goes down I can’t see. I’m going to text Meg as well.”

  They hung up, and Chance thumbed her keypad.

  “This is Sarah Riker.”

  Chance knew that meant she’d answered her phone without checking the caller ID. “Sarah, I know you’re up to your ass in alligators. I need to know what these folks are overdosing on and if they’re getting it from the same place. Are you finding any paraphernalia?”

  “Plenty. Needles, spoons, lighters, you name it, we’ve got it.”

  “Any packaging? Something with a brand on it?” Chance wrote down notes on a pad she pulled from a cargo pocket. She looked up to see Khodi and Echo approaching.

  “Honestly, Chance, I didn’t have time to look too closely. Whatever this is, it’s taking more than one Narcan to bring them around. I’m on my way to Garrett with one of them. I’ve got all three on-duty crews on these calls. My shift supervisor is rounding up another crew. If we get anything before that, we’re going to have to call in mutual aid.”

  Their conversation stopped as another call dropped very close to where Jax’s vet station was set up. A five-year-old male, unconscious and having a seizure after ingesting an unknown substance. This changed everything. If this proved to be an overdose and the child died, there would be hell to pay.

  “I’ve got to go, Chance. Figure out what the hell is happening. I’ll call you.” Sarah disconnected the call.

  Chance pushed the button on her mic after she’d rotated the channel selection to the main law enforcement channel. “SD-1 to Comm Center.”

  “SD-1, go ahead.”

  “Contact the Davis Fire Department for me and ask them to come up and handle traffic control. I’m responding to that last EMS call.” Khodi and Echo jogged up to her vehicle, ready for duty. She was glad she’d taken the time a few days ago to have Echo introduced to the other K9 units.

  “Received. SD-1 responding to Fairfax Ave.”

  “Khodi, no time to explain much. Let’s get the dogs loaded and get to that call. Something’s going on, and Sarah’s out of crews.”

  Khodi opened the back door and loaded Echo inside beside Zeus. “What do you need me to do?” Khodi buckled his seatbelt.

  “When we get there, look for anything drug related. That was the fourth call for an unconscious patient. We need to see if we can find anything in common with those other medical calls. We’ve got a problem, and I don’t want it getting worse.”

  “This sounds like a bad batch of something. I’m betting heroin. I’ve been dealing with it for months over in Bridgeport. If it starts spreading here like it did over there, EMS will need to buy two things in bulk, Narcan and body bags.”

  Chance risked a look at Khodi. “Let’s hope we can stop this before it gets to that point.”

  They pulled up to the large, Victorian-style home renovated into two apartments, one on each floor. They approached an entrance door where a piece of cardboard took the place of a missing pane of glass. The door was also sporting a boot print below the handle. Children’s toys and faded paint chips littered the porch.

  “Khodi, check the back. You know what I’m looking for, and I know Echo is trained in narcotics recognition.”

  “We’re on it, Sheriff.”

  Chance announced herself as she stepped into the house while pulling on nitrile gloves. Zeus was ready at her side. “Sheriff’s Department. Anyone in here?”

  A woman came running from the back part of the house with a small child in her arms. “Help me. I don’t think he’s breathing!”

  Chance grabbed the child from her and placed hi
m on the floor to feel for a pulse. She checked his pupils and found them pinpoint. Shallow respirations and a weak pulse sent a shiver of fear up her spine. She heard the door bang open and looked up to see a sweating Jax barreling through with her jump bag. As she knelt beside her, Chance was beyond grateful for Jax’s medic training. She must have run here.

  Jax pulled up the boy’s eyelid and spoke to the bedraggled woman who stood shaking, her hands over her mouth. “Tell me what happened.”

  The woman stood paralyzed and silent.

  Chance yelled at her. “Dammit, he’s in trouble. What the hell happened?”

  The woman choked back a sob. “My boyfriend left his—”

  She didn’t get a chance to finish. Chance stood as Jax pulled items from her jump bag. “What did he get into? He could die if you don’t tell us!”

  “Drugs! I don’t know what it was. He bought it down at the festival. He went to find his kit and left it on the table. Hunter must have thought it was candy.” The woman dropped to her knees and screamed while she clasped her hands together. “Please, help him!”

  Jax tipped the boy’s head back and sprayed Narcan up his nostril before grabbing a stethoscope and placed it against his small chest. A prayer crossed Chance’s lips that the boy would be all right. She’d heard an ambulance respond over the radio and heard the siren getting closer and closer. Khodi ran in with Echo.

  Chance briefly looked away from the child and Jax. “See what you can find, Khodi. Zeus is hitting on something over there.” She pointed to her K9 unit, barking sharply as he sat near a low table. “We need to know what we’re dealing with.”

  “Echo, zoek.” Khodi nodded and swept his hand across the room, and the dog went to work.

  Chance ran to the door when she heard a siren outside. She held it open as a medic she didn’t know pushed inside, followed by one of her search and rescue members, Ned Hauser.

  “What have we got?” The medic dropped down beside Jax.

  “He’s stopped breathing. We’ve got to get him out of here.” Jax scooped the child up in her arms and quickly moved to the door and out to the ambulance, the mother running behind them.

  It took everything Chance had not to run after her. There was little she could do. Her job was to find the root of this problem and eliminate it. She turned to watch Echo, as he moved through the living room before he sat down beside Zeus. Khodi stepped to the dogs.

  “Sheriff, I’ve got something.” Khodi turned and pointed to several colorful paper tubes, the size of short drinking straws, that lay on the table. “I’ve seen these before. They call them pixie sticks like the candy, which is likely why the kid got into them.”

  “Fuck. How many more kids are going to get into this before we get it off the street?” Chance pulled off her hat and slammed it against her leg as she ran her other hand through her hair. “We’ve got to get someone on the mother.” Chance grabbed her radio and called for Harley, as she watched the woman crawl into the front seat of the ambulance. When she answered, Chance got down to business.

  “Harley, do you have any troopers who can head to Garrett and keep an eye on a subject from this emergency call? I need to know who the boyfriend is along with a dozen other things.”

  Harley answered quickly. “I can call one from Preston County. Can you give me a description?”

  Chance relayed what unit the woman was traveling in and what the woman was wearing. “Dirty blonde, wearing a red, long-sleeved flannel shirt. Don’t let her get out of their sight. I’m having the comm center call Child Protective Services as well.”

  “On it.” Harley disconnected the call.

  A glance around the room had Chance taking in the squalid conditions, including full ashtrays, empty beer cans, and food containers. She went to the kitchen where an overflowing trash can smelled of decomposing food, while the sink sat full of dirty dishes. Gnats swarmed around a rotting banana and flies dotted a fungus-covered plate on the table. Dear God, that poor kid. On her way back to the living room, she saw a burnt spoon and a piece of rubber tubing by the stove. “SD-1 to SD-2.”

  “Go ahead, Sheriff.”

  “Taylor, are you close to my location?”

  “I can be there in five.”

  “Bring your ID kit with you.” Chance wanted to test the items she’d found to give Jax and Sarah a heads-up as to what they were dealing with, specifically. “Khodi, look around for any pictures of the boyfriend. We need to figure out if he was the buyer or she was. He took off, which means I put my money on him.”

  “On it, Sheriff.” Khodi and Echo started walking around the filthy apartment.

  A few minutes later, Chance heard a vehicle pull up out front, as another overdose call went out in another part of the county. How many more will there be? Taylor came through the door with a small, black Pelican box in her hand. She opened it and pulled out a test kit. The system used colorimetric tubes inside a package, where a detection strip would be inserted after contact with a substance. A mobile app on a smartphone could scan a QR code and use an algorithm to identify a color match to a particular drug. Chance had done some extensive research and chose this system for the safety of her officers and the preservation of evidence.

  She watched Taylor collecting samples and turned when Khodi came back in the room. He handed Chance a digital photo frame. As the pictures changed, she recognized several faces from arrests and law enforcement calls, including Leland Kurst and his brothers. The mother of the child was in several of the photos with her arm around Austin Langly, a twenty-three-year-old hoodlum Chance had arrested more than once for gas drive-offs, shoplifting, and petty theft.

  “We’ve got heroin laced with fentanyl, Chance. This is bad.” Taylor held up her phone with the display.

  Chance knew this was a potent form of the narcotic that had caused numerous overdoses and deaths in other counties. She feared the epidemic would take root in the place she called home. The units transporting the patients needed this information. After rotating her radio to the medical channel, she grabbed the mic on her shoulder to call for Sarah’s unit. A warbled tone from a radio signaled an emergency button had been activated. A voice followed, one she recognized.

  “Emergency traffic, emergency traffic! This is Unit 5-2. I’ve got a medic down! I repeat. I have a medic down! I’m on Seneca Trail near the county line.”

  Chance needed no more information as to who was down. It could either be the other medic, or Jax. Chance had read recent articles that urged first responders to use extreme caution when treating overdoses related to the specific drugs they were dealing with from this incident. Accidental skin-to-skin contact had caused the narcotic to be absorbed by first responders treating a patient. Many law enforcement officers had gone down with accidental overdoses while collecting evidence.

  Chance ran out of the house with Zeus on her heels. They flew into her vehicle. As she hit her lights and siren, her eyes scanned the street for any oncoming traffic. She needed to reach Jax. They were transporting the five-year-old from the house. With one critical patient on board, the conscious medic would be in an impossible position trying to resuscitate the child and determine what had happened to the other member of the crew.

  Buildings blurred as she rushed past. The roadway ahead was littered with vehicles that had pulled out of her way. The city limits of Thomas came into view, as she watched one of the fire department’s support vehicles pull out of a station bay. She blew past it, and then slowed as she entered the more populated area of the small town. With the bridge in sight, she floored the gas pedal and flew around the rolling curves of the highway, trees resembling fence posts. Most of the road curved gently until she reached the area near the stone quarry. Here the road was frequently covered with loose stone in the sharp turn. Many accidents occurred exactly at this point, and she had no intention of being the next.

  Years ago, one of her mentors had told her, “You didn’t make the patient sick. You didn’t wreck the car, and you didn’t
start the fire. If you don’t get there, you can’t fix it.” Chance took that message to heart and let off the gas. Once she’d cleared the turn, she accelerated toward the county line less than two miles away. Somewhere in that area, she’d find an ambulance and Jax. In the next turn, there was a pull off. To her relief, a box ambulance sat there with its lights on. She slammed her Suburban into park. With her keys in hand, she released Zeus and ran for the ambulance. Chance threw open the rear doors. Her heart stopped in her chest.

  Jax lay on the bench seat, a bag-valve mask covering her face. Ned rhythmically squeezed. The child’s mother sat in the front seat sobbing. Chance screamed, “It’s heroin laced with fentanyl. Did you give Jax Narcan? It’s possible she came into contact with it at the scene.”

  Ned looked at Chance, and then at the medic. “Hanna, I’m not an EMT. I can’t administer meds. If you two can handle this, I’ll get us to the damn hospital.” Chance took over bagging Jax, and Ned jumped out.

  Chance looked out the windows of the ambulance. “The cavalry’s here. A unit from Thomas just pulled up. Mike’s an EMT. Get us on the road. Update the comm center and have them inform Sarah and the rest of the units.”

  A man in his thirties climbed in the ambulance. “What do you guys need me to do?”

  Hanna, a tiny wisp of a medic with a shock of pink hair falling in her eyes, rushed out a list of instructions. “Mike, bag this kid for a few minutes and watch that heart monitor. If it changes, you let me know.” She leaned up into the cab. “Ned, get us to the hospital yesterday.”

  Chance asked the fire department members to watch her Suburban until someone from her department could retrieve it. She told Zeus to jump into the open space between the bench seat and the side door.