Nickel City Crossfire by Gary Ross (popular romance novels .txt) 📗

himself. “He was the one got my Keisha into that shit, I can’t say I’m sorry he gone.”

“Easy, Win,” Oscar said.

“I understand,” I said, continuing to take notes. “What happened to Keisha when she got out of the hospital? Did police file charges against her? That’s happening more and more to the surviving partner of a double overdose.”

He shook his head. “The DA said he was the dealer, so she came home to us. We got a double on Orange Street. Keisha live upstairs, but Mona made up the guest room for her so we could keep her downstairs with us while she got better.”

“What was she like?”

He snorted bitterly. “A total stranger, like the person who got out the hospital wasn’t the same one who went in.” For a moment he covered his mouth with his hand, as if afraid to let his next words out. “She was moody all the time, fidgety, like the least little noise would make her jump clean out her own skin. Her job made her take a leave of absence to go into rehab, and we thought that would help but it didn’t.”

“Where is she a nurse? ECMC or another hospital?”

“Neither. Keisha one of them itinerant nurses at the Humanitas Institute of Buffalo.” His pronunciation of the final Latin syllable rhymed with ass. “They send her and her people all over the area—schools, clinics, homeless shelters, wherever they need her.”

“So rehab didn’t help?”

Another shake of his head. “It was a day treatment program because they didn’t consider her hardcore enough, if you know what I mean. She went there for about a week and didn’t talk much about it when she came home. Then one evenin’—” His voice cracked. “One evenin’ not two weeks ago she just didn’t come home. I mean, she was there long enough to leave her car in the garage, but she never came inside. Musta got a ride but we don’t know from who. We went to the police but—”

“She wasn’t gone long enough to be a missing person,” I said. “Later, because of the overdose, no one took you seriously. Now she was hardcore enough.”

He nodded and bit his lip. “Talked about her like she was a criminal and the word sure went ‘round the local precinct. A few days later, when somebody tried to break in and the alarm scared ‘em off, one of the cops said it might be our daughter trying to get money for drugs. Didn’t listen when I said she knew the alarm code.” He sucked his teeth. “Black folks do drugs a few blocks from they home, we got a crime wave. White folks from out in the suburbs come into town and overdose, we got a opioid epidemic and need all kinds of rehab and everyday folk supposed to carry that Narcan shit in they pocket.”

“For black folks, it’s a moral failure, not a disease,” Oscar said. “Damn shame.”

“So when we got her letter, they said there wasn’t nothin’ they could do.”

“Tell me about the letter.”

“Got it right here.” His right hand slid inside his topcoat and returned with a white envelope. “She sent this to us after she took off.” He leaned forward to pass it to me.

It was a business-size security envelope with a patterned interior to distort contents if held up to the light. The exterior had printed block letters and the same address in Orange in both the TO and FROM spaces, as well as a Buffalo postmark dated eight days earlier. Inside was a single sheet of lined paper half-filled with small, precise blue handwriting:

Dear Mom and Dad,

God knows what you must think of me right now. Whatever it is, I can’t blame you. Know this, though. It can’t be any worse than what I think of myself. You have loved me and cared for me my whole life and I have repaid you in unforgivable ways. I’ve put you through hell the past couple weeks and I am so sorry. I am sorry for being such a disappointment, to you and our family and our church family. But mostly I am sorry for disappointing myself. This shame wasn’t what I planned for myself. I am going away for a while, to think and try to get control again of my once beautiful life. Right now my being with you will do you more harm than good, so please don’t try to look for me. Just know that I love you both. Always.

K.

The writing was very tight, very controlled. I thought about that and took out my still new cell phone. I took a couple pictures of the letter before I returned it to Winslow.

“Do you have a recent cell phone picture of your daughter you can text to me?”

Winslow shook his head. “Just this.” He handed me a wallet-sized headshot. “I ain’t up on all the new stuff.”

I straightened my stainless steel glasses and studied the woman in the photo: a wide smile, stylish eyeglasses, curled black hair framing a face made more attractive by the glint of playful intelligence in her eyes. What made you inject heroin, Keisha? I thought. What made you run? “If I take this case, there are lots of things I’ll need to know.”

“Anything,” Winslow said. “Mona and me, we got no secrets we wouldn’t trade for our baby girl.”

I nodded. “First you need to know you’re hiring me to find her, not bring her home. The police won’t look for her because she’s a grown woman who’s chosen to cut ties to her parents. If I locate her and she doesn’t want to see you, I will report on her condition and her temperament, but I will not try to bring her to you or give you her location. Can you live with knowing she’s alive and well but that you may never see her again?”

Winslow pulled off his glasses and wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. Finally, he nodded. “More than anything we want