by PJ Fernor
“Okay. Check your phone in a minute then. Want to meet up? Grab a drink. Kiss a little? Then catch a killer?”
“Not today, Johnny. Not today.”
“I’ll take a raincheck then,” he said and laughed.
I hung up the call and put my phone on my desk.
I looked at Ben’s office again.
He was just walking in.
He stopped and looked at me.
I swallowed hard.
He forced a quick smile.
Whether it was catching murderers or having morning coffee… I really didn’t want to do any of it alone anymore. But maybe it was too late for that. For me. For everything.
My phone vibrated against the desk.
Johnny sent me the info.
It was time to dive down the rabbit hole.
Chapter Thirty-One
Ben insisted on driving.
I wasn’t going to argue.
I was happy to sit shotgun and have my thoughts to myself and not have to focus on the road.
Everything was awkward between us.
From the coffee and bagel conversation to the walk to his car.
Even getting into his car, I felt like I was doing something wrong.
And then I sat there, in silence, for a good two miles before he spoke.
“Depot?” he asked.
“Yeah. That’s where Preens said the girls all hang out. I don’t like the term girls. When I think of girls I think of young girls. Underage girls. And if something like that is happening down there and there is nobody doing anything about it…”
“Let’s just get there first, okay?” Ben asked with a kind smile.
“Sure. I don’t like where this is going, Ben. Nikki was nineteen. That’s young. And if she had been living on the streets who knows how long before that…”
“What’s the name of the girl that was arrested along with her?”
“Chelsea,” I said. “I forget the last name. It’s in my phone. Along with her picture. I don’t know if we’ll find her, but maybe we can ruffle some feathers, so to speak. Show up and poke around and let it be known that we’re there and that Nikki was murdered and that we know about the murder.”
“I can’t imagine that life, Allie,” he said.
“I can’t imagine much right now, Ben,” I said.
We were in silence again.
That was probably a cheap shot to take at him, but whatever.
Another mile down the street, Ben cleared his throat. “We should talk about last night.”
“Why?”
“Allie…”
“Ben. It’s fine. We’re partners here. Anything more would have been a mistake anyway. It would have never worked.”
“We never gave it a chance,” he said.
I looked at him. “Is that something you should be saying while with someone?”
He swallowed hard. “It’s not exactly what you think it is. For the record.”
“Is this where I’m supposed to be the good partner and have you dive into your relationships with me? And you want me to give you advice on what to do?”
I shut my eyes.
I looked down.
Allie… ouch.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I shouldn’t have said that. I shouldn’t have had that tone. I’m really sorry about that, Ben.”
“I get it,” he said. “I didn’t expect you to come over last night. I can only imagine what you’re thinking. That’s why I wanted to try and explain some things to you.”
I nodded and looked forward. “Okay. We have a few more miles here. Let’s talk.”
“This is new for me,” he said. “Okay? There was nothing going on when you and I were… whatever we were doing. I know you don’t want to talk about those moments. That’s fine. But nothing was done in a wrong way. If that was on your mind at all.”
“Good to know,” I said. “Go on.”
“Sandra is a nurse,” Ben said. “She takes care of my father.”
I looked at him again. “Okay.”
“So I’ve known her for a little while. Just casual. Friends. You get to know the nurses that come and go. Some treat it as just a job. Others take it more seriously. Sandra always took it more seriously. She went the extra mile for Dad without question. She makes him feel safe. Even on his bad days. And… there was one night when he had a rough one and she was there. Her shift ended and I asked her to stay for a drink. I made tea.”
“Black tea? Green tea? Chamomile tea?” I asked.
Ben looked at me. “Really?”
“Sorry.”
Are you really that jealous, Allie?
Yes.
“We talked and it felt good. That’s all. We went out on one date. That was it. But seeing her at the house with Dad… I don’t know… in between shifts, she likes to come over. It’s nice to have someone like that.”
Sorry I just catch murderers and know nothing of nursing.
“Okay then,” I said. “Are you happy, Ben?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s all that matters,” I said.
“I’m sorry that happened last night,” he said. “I was going to tell you about her when the time was right. But look at the way things have been. It’s been crazy. And then you throw in the Trevor stuff…”
“You don’t have to explain anything to me, Ben,” I said. “It just caught me off guard.”
“Allie, why did you come over last night? For real?”
I knew that was my opening to say something. To confess the truth. He and Sandra weren’t married or engaged. They weren’t even really dating. They were both convenient to one another.
I took a deep breath.
“I think the bridge is right over there,” I said, bypassing the question.
Ben let it go and we turned down Depot Avenue.
This was a part of town that was stuck between new and old. A large parking lot to my right had the skeletal frame of what once was a local bank. The big company bank that wiped them out was behind me on the corner where the pharmacy used to be.
The road began a small decline that would level off under the bridge. During the summer when heavy rainstorms would pass through, the underpass always flooded. Sometimes with enough water to swallow up a car in seconds.
And trust me, there was always that one wannabe hero who would try driving through it, which would then lead to a fire rescue.
After the underpass, it was more beat up stores, relics of shopping centers, bowling alleys, and a few restaurants and bars. The latter were the only ones hanging on, but barely. They survived on dollar drafts and cheap wings. And only by the locals who hadn’t died or moved out of town.
As the road descended, the concrete wall that made its way to the overpass climbed out of the ground like a warning wall. The concrete was covered in vibrant and awkward shapes of graffiti.
The bridge itself was an old set of train tracks.
Yes, it led all the way through town to the set of tracks where Lo and Trevor had been.
On the tracks were two black tanker cars that were also adorned with graffiti.
The entire town shifted going toward the bridge.
It wasn’t quite as bad as where Trevor lived with his mother, but it was pretty darn close.
As soon as we made in through the underpass, I spotted two young women walking.
One was smoking.
The other was face down on her phone.
The clothes they were wearing looked dirty and thrown together out of desperation.
They stepped over the trash that was all over the ground.
There were rolled up sleeping bags resting against the concrete wall.
Bags of garbage around as though they were landscaping.
Crushed up beers cans. Bottles of beer.
Shattered glass all along the sidewalk.
“It looks like a wasteland,” Ben said.
“I think it is,” I whispered.
Ben slowed his car.
> “Let me talk to these girls,” I said.
He stopped and I got out of the car.
I moved in front of the two girls as they approached.
The one paying attention grabbed the arm of the other.
They both looked at me and froze.
“I’m looking for someone named Chelsea. Do you know her?”
They both shook their heads.
“Look, I’m a detective,” I said. “If you’re lying to me, you’ll be arrested. Is that what you want?”
Their faces turned white with fear.
Slowly, they exchanged a look that told me they knew who Chelsea was.
“I just need to talk to her,” I said. “She’s not in any kind of trouble. I just need-”
The girl who had been on her phone moved her eyes quick enough to catch my attention.
I turned my head and saw another person approaching.
She too was face down in her phone.
She was older than the other two.
“Are you Chelsea?” I called out to the young woman.
She lifted her head. Her eyes went wide.
She looked at Ben’s car.
“Oh, shoot,” I whispered.
The young woman turned and started to run.
Chapter Thirty-Two
I screamed Ben’s name as I ran after the young woman.
She looked to be the same age as Nikki.
She had to have been Chelsea.
Even though I didn’t get a good look at her, why would she run when I asked her if she was Chelsea?
She cut into the parking lot and I picked up as much speed as my legs would allow.
Ben had the equalizer being in a car.
Unless, of course, she was smart enough to get out of the parking lot and into the woods.
This area of town had small patches of woods.
Not somewhere you’d want to hang out for long, but definitely somewhere to ditch two detectives.
I turned to go into the parking lot and saw the young woman running full force toward the middle of it.
There was an ugly, green car parked there.
An old car at that.
She looked back at me, once, and from the distance I was at, I knew it was Chelsea.
“Chelsea!” I cried out. “We can help you!”
She only kept running.
From the corner of my left eye I saw Ben drive fast into the parking lot.
He barreled to the left and then cut the wheel.
The car turned with the tires crying out.
Then he drove right for Chelsea.
“Ben!” I screamed again, fearing he was going to do something crazy like run her over.
He was just trying to scare her.
To get her to stop running.
But Chelsea was smart.
This wasn’t the first time she ran away from someone trying to come after her.
She called Ben’s bluff by freezing long enough that he had to slow down.
The second he did, she jumped to her right and ran toward the old car again.
She bounced her butt on the hood, slid across and kept going.
Ben sped up again and I ran around the back of the car.
We were slowly boxing her in.
She looked back at me again and all I could see on the poor young woman’s face was fear.
Pure fear.
“Chelsea, watch out!” I yelled.
I pointed and she quickly looked.
There was nothing there.
But it was enough that she paused again, which allowed me to catch up to her.
I wrapped my right arm around her body and pulled her close to me.
She was the same height as Lo.
I shut my eyes to take a breath and almost burst into tears.
Ben’s car came to a skidding stop.
“Don’t make a move!” Ben’s voice growled as he hurried out of the car.
I waved him off with one hand as Chelsea seemed to lean into me.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m so sorry for that.”
“Look at me,” I said to her.
She lifted her gaze to mine.
I touched her cheek and slowly gave her some space.
Her clothes were old and dirty. Oversized for her. Yet she still looked pretty. A natural kind of beauty surrounded her. But her eyes were dark and sad. They were sunken in, a sign of tiredness and maybe even drugs.
“Chelsea?” I asked.
She nodded. “Yeah.”
“Look, I’m a detective…” I showed her my badge. “We just want to talk to you. That’s all. Just you, me, and my partner behind you.”
“Please, not here,” she said. “I can’t be seen like this.”
“Then get in the car,” Ben said. “We’ll go to the diner. Do you need a warm meal?”
“Yes,” she said.
I led the way to Ben’s car and she got into the backseat.
Ben and I shared a quick glance before getting into the car.
The diner was only two blocks away from the parking lot.
“Do you know why we’re looking for you?” I asked her.
“No idea,” she said. “I didn’t do anything wrong. I was just walking…”
“Where to?” Ben asked.
“Nowhere.”
“Where were you coming from?” he asked.
“Nowhere,” she said again.
Ben opened his mouth again and I touched his hand.
He then kept his mouth shut until we got to the diner and got into a booth near the door.
Chelsea sat at the edge of the seat, across from Ben, next to me.
A waitress brought over three coffees.
“Get anything you want,” Ben said. “Our treat.”
“What do you want in return?” Chelsea asked.
“What makes you ask that?” I asked.
“Everything has a price,” she said.
I looked at Ben again.
This girl was sad, tired, and broken.
“Nikki,” Ben said.
Chelsea sat straight up. “Huh?”
“The name. Nikki. Do you know her?”
Chelsea opened her mouth to answer.
“No lies,” I said. “Okay? No lies.”
Chelsea nodded. “Fine. I know Nikki.”
“You and her got arrested together,” I said.
“That’s why you’re here?” Chelsea asked. “I knew something was going to go wrong there.”
“Why’s that?” Ben asked.
He lifted his coffee mug and took a sip.
Chelsea dumped sugar into her coffee. “That cop… Preens… he was always after us. I think he had a thing for Nikki. I’m not lying either. He was always after us. He would let us go each time though.. But this one night he got really mad at us. So he arrested us. Then it was weird. We were let go and heard nothing of it. Nikki told me that he probably messed up the paperwork or just threw it out because we weren’t worth the effort.”
“And you think that two detectives like us are tracking you down over that?” Ben asked.
“Why else would you be here?” Chelsea asked.
“It’s about Nikki,” I said.
“Is she in trouble?”
“Chelsea, she’s… she was murdered,” I said.
I waited for her reaction.
Which was a surprising one when she simply looked forward and sipped her coffee again.
“How?” she asked.
I looked at Ben.
“Why don’t you seem shocked?” Ben asked.
“Shocked?” Chelsea asked. She laughed. “That car I was running to? That’s my home right now. I go from a random car to the street, to maybe a shelter if it gets bad enough.”
“Why?” I asked. “There are ways to get help.”
“There’s no help for me,” Chelsea said. “Or the other girls. There never is. Look at Nikki.”
“What about her?” I asked. “Did she get help?”
; “She ended up where she was supposed to be,” Chelsea said.
“Dead?” Ben asked.
“Maybe she’s the lucky one in all of this,” Chelsea said. “No more worry. Pain. Suffering. Maybe death isn’t all that bad.”
“Chelsea, when was the last time you saw Nikki?”
She shook her head. “Trust me, Detective, you don’t want…” Her eyes looked out the window. “You don’t want to get involved…”
I turned my head and looked.
There was nothing outside.
“We need to know everything about Nikki,” Ben said. “Your name was brought up.”
“I had nothing to do with her disappearance,” Chelsea said.
“Disappearance?” I asked.
“What?”
“She disappeared? When? Did someone take her?”
“No,” Chelsea said. She sipped her coffee again. “I meant to say I haven’t seen her since I last saw her. I don’t remember when. We weren’t best friends. We weren’t family. I bump into all the girls here and there.”
“Someone killed her,” I said. “We need to find out everything we can.”
“Look, I can’t help you,” Chelsea said. She pulled herself out of the booth and stood up. “You want to come chase me down again? Do it. I know nothing. I’m trying to survive on the street. Trust me. There’s no help. I don’t know anything about Nikki either. She was as messed up as the rest of us.”
Chelsea ran to the diner door and left.
“Should we follow her?” Ben asked.
“I don’t know,” I said. “That’s one broken and scared young woman.”
“Just like Nikki, I bet.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Give her a minute to decide and then we’ll go talk to her again.”
Within that minute, Ben’s phone rang.
He took the call as I watched Chelsea still walking down the sidewalk. Constantly looking back. Looking around. She wasn’t just afraid of Ben and I.
“We have to go,” Ben said.
“What? Why?”
“That was Muldavey.”
“What now?”
“Someone just called to say a young woman dressed in dirty clothes is sleeping in their basement.”
Chapter Thirty-Three
Ben drove us in the opposite direction for a good twenty minutes to get us to the opposite side of Sandemor.