“Can I help you?” asked the young lady behind the front desk.
“I’m here to see…” I took out my notepad. I’d written the name of the doctor in charge of Fresh Horizons (which I got from their website) inside. “Janice Wen, I’m here to see Dr. Janice Wen.”
The young lady gave me a sideways look. “Do you have an appointment?”
“No. No, I do not.”
“Well, if you’ll take a seat, she’ll be able to see you when she’s free.” The young lady motioned towards the four padded chairs that were a few feet away from the front desk. I had no intention of waiting on the good doctor.
“I think I’ll walk around a little, check the place out.” I started to wander away from the desk.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea. Please, will you—” the ringing of the front desk phone interrupted the young lady. She picked it up and stopped paying attention to me. That was my opportunity, and I took it.
Everything was beige. The neutral color covered the walls. Charmless linoleum floors in checkered patterns repeated throughout the facility. I was just visiting and wanted to escape. Then I spotted someone acting rather strange.
One of the patients was struggling to wobble down the hallway. He’d stop at times and seem to fall asleep standing up. It looked like he was on heroin. But it was a rehab facility. How could someone be in such a place and be high? I decided to keep following.
I don’t believe in providence. I’m not one who thinks things happened for any particular reason. There is no secret plan or destiny. Sometimes, you just get lucky. And in following the high patient, I came across a room that actually said “Records” across the door. What self-respecting investigator wouldn’t be seduced by the possibilities of the contents of such a room?
I looked both ways down the hallway. Nobody was there. But a camera was pointed directly at the door of the records room. And the room itself was locked. Inside my pockets, I had a solution for both.
With my lipstick, I smeared the lens of the security camera. Anyone watching the feed would see black. But that was better then disabling it. If I managed to turn it off, someone would come check.
In my other pocket was a small lock picking kit, about the size of a wallet. Luckily, whoever built Fresh Horizons hadn’t heard of keycards. Picking the lock was child’s play.
As soon as the door to the records room opened, I slipped inside. It was dark in the windowless room. I used the light on my cell phone. Once I turned it on, the rows of file cabinets were illuminated. Not knowing how much time I’d have, it was important to get started right away.
What I found in the record room files were tragic stores of people fighting addiction. There seemed to be a common thread throughout all of them (besides the drugs). Everyone came back repeated times. Fresh Horizons didn’t appear to be very good at helping addicts kick their habits.
Before I knew it, twenty minutes had passed. I couldn’t stay in there much longer. What I wanted to find was information on Dennis Clark. But there were thousands of patient records. And it was only a matter of time before someone noticed my messing with the camera.
Just as I reached for the door knob, I heard someone unlocking it from the other side. There was no time to think. I just ran and hid under the only table in the room. Looking back, it was a terrible hiding place.
A large, male security guard entered the record room. I held my breath and kept my body still. Sweat started to accumulate on my forehead as I watched his legs pass by. Each heavy-booted footstep made my heart race faster. A circle of light lit up parts of the room. He was using his flashlight. It was a miracle that he didn’t find me. Or he just wasn’t very good at his job. Either way, the guard left without discovering me under the table.
I heard the door close, and I emerged from my hiding place. After a couple of minutes I took a peek out into the hallway. The only one there was a female patient. She had on earbuds and seemed distracted. That was my chance to slip out.
Upon further exploring Fresh Horizons, I came across several more patients who showed signs of being on drugs. Whenever I tried to talk to one, an orderly would come and question me. With the lie, “I’m here to visit my sister”, I was able to disengage. The speed and aggressiveness of their interventions was unusual.
“Miss, miss!” Someone was trying to get my attention. It was the young lady who I first met behind the front desk.
“Yeah?”
“Dr. Wen can see you now.”
“Really? Great.”
The young lady motioned for me to follow. “This way please.”
I was led to Dr. Wen’s office. The front desk lady went in first, leaving me in the doorway. Inside was a middle aged Asian woman with horn-rimmed glasses behind an expensive looking desk covered in pictures and papers. On the walls were several diplomas. She had a large fern in the corner near the only window. Overall, it felt like a cold place.
“Dr. Wen, this is…” the young lady looked at me.
I tried to think of a good fake name, but what came out was “Sally. Sally Cooper.” It was not very imaginative.
“Thank you, Kim.” The doctor dismissed the front desk lady.
Dr. Wen got up to greet me and shake my hand. “Nice to meet you, Ms. Cooper. I understand you wanted to talk to me?”
“I wanted to talk to you about this place, about Fresh Horizons. I have a … a friend who might need rehabilitation.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.” There was no sympathy in Dr. Wen’s voice.
“So what exactly do you guys do here?”
“Well, we provide a variety of services here. I suppose the best place to start is by asking you what substances your ‘friend’ is abusing?”
“Heroin.” I looked for any sign of a reaction on the doctor’s face. There was none.
Dr. Wen opened up her laptop. She looked over her glasses and asked, “How long has your friend been using?”
“Not sure.”
“Approximately?”
“A couple of years, I suppose. I still don’t know if this is the right place. You don’t have to type anything.”
Dr. Wen smiled. “Most people say the same thing, at first. But then they hear about the facility and get a tour. And they change their minds. So I do this just in case.”
“Saves you the trouble for later, right?”
“Exactly.”
“Okay, so convince me.” I held out my arms, ready to hear the doctor’s pitch.
“Well, here at Fresh Horizons, eighty percent of all our patients successfully get clean. Sixty-eight percent of them never have to come back. In fact, a healthy percent of former patients believe in the facility so much that they end up either working or volunteering here.”
I wondered why that was. “Really? They end up working here, at Fresh Horizons?” My finger was pointed at the ground.
“Absolutely. In fact, that is one of the things we’re most proud of here at Fresh Horizons.” Dr. Wen was quick to move on. You’d think if she was so proud that she wouldn’t mind staying on the subject. “We have fifty available rooms for patients. Half of those are meant for double occupancy. There are twelve different….”
I stopped paying attention to a word Dr. Wen was saying. Instead, I did true investigative work by paying attention to her body language. She kept fidgeting in her chair. That could have simply meant she’d been sitting there awhile and was uncomfortable. Or, she could’ve been nervous.
Dr. Wen was one of those people who spoke with her hands. It was almost distracting. She had trouble looking me in the eyes. There was a lot of gulping and catching of breath. I’d bet my meager savings that she was hiding something. Only way to find out was to confront her.
“And we just added a spa onsite. So…”
“So?”
“What do you think? Would you like to bring your friend for a tour?”
“Sure, why not?”
“Can you give me a name and a way to contact them? That way we can
let them know when to come by for the tour.”
I wanted to see if I could break her veneer. “No problem. His name is Dennis Clark, C-l-a…”
Dr. Wen closed her laptop and took off her glasses. “What is this about?”
“Dennis, Dennis Clark. Do you want me to spell it again? You didn’t let me finish before.”
“I know how to spell it. Are you a police officer? Because I already talked with the detective and told him everything I know.”
Sam was there? “Wait, when was this?”
“You didn’t answer my question. Are you a cop?”
“No.”
Dr. Wen got up from her seat. She pointed at the door. “Then I must ask you to leave.”
I got up. “When was the detective here?”
“Reggie!” The doctor called for the security guard.
In a couple of seconds, the same large security guard who almost caught me in the records room showed up in the doorway. “Yes, doctor.”
“Please escort Ms. Cooper here out of my office and off the premises.” Dr. Wen pointed at me.
Before Reggie could put a single mitt on me I shrugged him off. “No touching, I’ll go. Just…let me ask you a question first.”
“What?” Dr. Wen had lost all of her patience.
“All those bullshit statistics you spouted off earlier? Do have one for how many former patients are found dead outside emergency rooms?”
“Let’s go, ma’am,” said Reggie. He extended one arm in front of me, an inch away from touching. And with his other arm he showed me the way out.
As Reggie led me down the hall, I could hear the doctor cursing. Then I heard her door slam shut. I had gotten to her. Even though I had to leave, I considered that a small victory. And what I saw at Fresh Horizons made me seriously question the integrity of the facility.
When I left the building, I saw someone familiar approaching the entrance. It was Pastor Pritchard. The pastor was an average-sized man in every sense of the word. He was not too tall and not too short. Pritchard wasn’t fat, nor was he skinny. On top of his head was thick, light brown hair behind a slowly receding hairline. What stood out about him was his kindness.
“Pastor, what are you doing here?” I asked as I took out my car keys.
“I’m just visiting some of my parishioners. I come down here a couple of times a week to check in, talk to them if needed.”
I volunteered information Pastor Pritchard never asked for. “I’m here following a lead.” God forbid he thought I was an addict.
“Still doing the private investigator thing, huh?”
“Yup.”
“Well… good luck, Riley.” With that the Pastor walked away. And I went to my car with a mind full of all new questions.
Beef Broccoli and Bullets
“Finally. I’m starving.” Lisa was waiting for me at the small round table in the middle of the Reid Private Investigations office.
I had a large plastic bag full of Chinese food in my hand. “I don’t get how you can eat so much. You should be like this,” I held both arms out to my sides to mimic someone who was morbidly obese.
“Fast metabolism. I burn hot!” laughed Lisa as she cleaned off the table to make way for the food.
I sat down and unpacked the food. As we started our dinner, Lisa asked me how my case was going. Over our meal, I told her about Fresh Horizons and how I thought something fishy was going on there. She didn’t seem all that surprised. Or maybe she didn’t care. Like I said, she was hard to read.
“So, what’s your next move?” asked Lisa, after stuffing her mouth full of some beef and broccoli.
“I’m not entirely sure. I should probably talk to Dennis’s girlfriend. She’s most likely to have known him best. The poor gal might have some insights that could prove useful.”
“Awesome.” Lisa got up and wiped off her hands on some napkins. She proceeded to head towards the bathroom.
I remained at the table and finished my dinner. When I was done, I leaned back and started to nurse the bottle of beer I had with my meal. The night was going to be one for rest. At least that was the plan.
All the lights suddenly went off. On instinct, I retrieved my gun. Once armed, I went to the window. Lisa and I were on the second floor. That was where I spent most of my time working on cases. The first floor was meant to meet with clients. There were couches and chairs, and it was significantly cleaner.
Out the window I saw an old Nissan parked across the street. It was Marty’s car. Next to it was a menacing-looking black SUV. No one was inside either vehicle. I figured they must’ve already been inside the building.
“What happened to the damn lights!” I could hear Lisa inside the bathroom.
“Quiet,” I whispered back.
Lisa didn’t hear me. “What!”
I got closer, just outside the bathroom door. “Just shut up and stay in there. Someone’s broken in.”
There were audible footsteps downstairs. Luckily there was only one way up. A single narrow stairwell was the intruders’ only way to get to us. So I lay down in front of the first step and aimed my revolver downwards.
“I have a gun! And I’ve called the cops!” I yelled as loud as possible. Even though only one of those two warnings was true (couldn’t find my phone in the dark), I hoped it’d discourage or scare away the intruders. It did not.
A white mask peeked around the corner of the stairwell, only showing the creepy plastic rabbit facade. It retreated before I could get a shot off. The thin, porous walls and floor made their conversation below louder than they thought. One of them was going to try to come upstairs.
I let the white-rabbit-masked man to get about a quarter of the way up the stairs before shooting. With plenty of time and higher ground, it was easy to aim for his leg. My bullet tore through his shin. He screamed as the bone shattered and made him lose his balance. The intruder fell down the stairs.
“She fucking shot me!” yelled the injured masked man.
“Relax.” A pair of arms became exposed to drag its friend out of the stairwell. The voice belonged to Marty. I’d recognize that awful, put-on accent anywhere.
“Was that a gun shot!?” Lisa didn’t listen to me and came out of the bathroom.
“Didn’t I tell you to stay in the bathroom?”
“But I heard gunshots.”
“So you run towards them?”
Lisa kneeled down next to me. “Did you get him?”
“Only one of them.”
“How many are there?”
It was a good question. I had heard a couple of different voices. But that didn’t necessarily mean anything. There could be three intruders or ten. “I don’t know.”
“Shouldn’t we get out of here?”
“I’d love to. Do you have any suggestions?”
Lisa looked around. There was no real way out, except for one of the windows. It opened up to the rooftop of the abandoned building next door. All the buildings downtown were connected to each other. Stone Harbor had no alleyways.
“The window!” Lisa pointed at the aforementioned window.
It was a good plan. I kept my gun trained downstairs for a minute, just to make sure no one would try to come up again. They didn’t. So I got up and joined my best friend near the window.
I opened the window and took a look outside to make sure the coast was clear. All I could see was the rotting tar-covered roofs of my uninhabited neighbors. There was no way to tell whether they were safe or not. But we had no choice.
“You go first,” I said to Lisa.
“Me? Why me?” She wasn’t too excited about the idea. I can’t say that I blamed her.
I held up my revolver. “I can cover you.”
“Cover me? This isn’t a movie, Riley!”
“Just go.” I gently pushed her towards the open window. “Wait, give me your phone.” Unlike me, Lisa always kept her phone on her person.
Lisa handed me her phone. I quickly dialed 9-1-1.
/> “Stone Harbor Emergency, how may I help you?” The voice on the other end was that of an older woman I did not know.
“Some people have broken into the building. They are armed. I think they mean us harm. Please send some help.” I managed to stay calm.
“Okay.” I could hear the operator type over the phone. “Can I have an address please?”
“Yeah, I’m at 23 Main Str…” before I could finish talking I felt someone grab my hair from behind. They pulled back, hard. I dropped the phone, but not my gun.
Another man in a white rabbit mask whipped me around and threw me to the floor. My gun flew across the room. As I tried to recover, I saw Lisa. She was halfway out the window and trying to come back in to help me. I waved her away before I caught a boot to my stomach.
“We meet again,” laughed Marty. He had just come upstairs. With him were three other men. They all had the plastic white rabbit masks on. Marty had on a ski mask. But I could tell it was him by his voice and body shape.
“The police, I called the police,” I struggled to get the words out as every breath was difficult.
“I’m sure you did. But this won’t take long. By the time they get here, you’ll already be dead.” Marty took out his gun which was a more modern pistol.
I was in deep trouble. My gun was within sight, but out of reach. At any moment, Marty could shoot me dead. So what were my options?
On the wall nearby was the fire alarm. That would be my target. First I needed some distance. The big guy who threw me around like a rag doll moments earlier still loomed over me.
Being a woman, I don’t have testicles. But from what I hear it really hurts to get them hit. One would think that would make men guard them. Or at least be aware of what an easy and obvious target they are. The big guy in the white plastic rabbit mask standing over me didn’t. That made it easy for me to kick up from the floor into his crotch.
The big rabbit groaned and grabbed his hurt pride. I lunged for the fire alarm. Marty took a shot at me. He missed. Within seconds the sprinklers that were on the ceilings of every room turned on.
Jamie Garrett - Riley Reid 01 - Jesters and Junkies Page 5