Chapter one

1

Seth

“Absolutely pathetic!” You’d think I really was an awkward high school senior instead of a top of my class, MET agent. Yet, here I sat at my ridiculously oversized desk, spinning a cheap Bic pen in tight little circles, lamenting my lack of courage.

“Get a grip, Seth, and talk to her already!” I shoved the pen back into the desk drawer and slammed it shut. Only my self-imposed chastisement didn’t help. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t get up the nerve to ask Maggie Brown out on a date to save my life.

I crossed over to the window, frowning down at my scarred cowboy boots clapping against the linoleum floor. Not exactly my first choice in footwear, but they did provide me with a convenient place to hide my sidearm. It’s not as if I could meander around the high school with a gun strapped to my chest.

Okay, focus. Maybe I should try making small talk with her; that’s assuming I don’t choke to death on my tongue first.

While considering a few other lame scenarios, my eyes wandered over my dreary surroundings. It was your vintage government-issued office. Aside from the obese desk that lay sprawled across the center of the room, cold and lifeless, a rusted gray filing cabinet sat stuffed in the corner, with a gray pleather chair leaning cock-eyed against it. A seriously out-of-date laptop, which was, believe it or not, gray, hummed loudly in the top right corner of the desk. The only bright spot of color in the room was the half-empty blue and red Diet Pepsi can parked in the center of my desk.

Fortunately, I seldom had to be in my office. I worked throughout Upstate New York with the Mobile Enforcement Team, or MET. Being a specialized unit of the DEA, our job was to work specifically with local authorities helping to dismantle drug trafficking in urban areas. For the past five months, I’ve been one of four agents assigned to work undercover at Port Fare High. Heroin use was on the rise in Port Fare, with three reported deaths from overdose last summer alone. The dealers were making it stronger, therefore more addictive, and cheaper.

My assignment was to buddy up to the popular kids, figure out who was using, and from whom they were buying the stuff. That meant I had to spend most of my days with the school’s cheer captain and her groupies. Thanks to my wealth, she and her clique readily accepted me into their circle. She was the quintessential social climber and one shallow girl. I learned right off she wasn’t using heroin, but I wasn’t too sure about some of her friends.

There were three others working undercover at the school besides myself. One agent worked with the different sports teams, another covered the known drug users at the school, and the last was a floater. His job was to blend quietly into the background.

I hated deceiving the students, but the dealers had to be stopped. Too many lives were being wasted. I appeased my guilty conscience by telling myself we weren’t after the kids who were using the stuff, we wanted their supplier.

The case actually began last winter. I was on an assignment over near Syracuse with my team captain, Booker Gatto. We were tracking a particularly unscrupulous drug dealer, trying to learn who his supplier was. The scum dealer’s MO was to hang out around the local elementary schools. He would lace candy and other goodies with drugs before offering it to them in hopes of getting them addicted. Nine children lost their lives before he was killed in a shootout at a local pool hall. We lost one agent that day. He left a wife and two small children behind.

The dead dealer’s fingerprints and dental records turned up a big fat zero. His identify went to the grave with him, and we buried him simply as John Doe. Booker felt the situation was suspicious and had the case file sealed to the public to protect the team from retaliation.

We weren’t able to learn who his supplier was either, but we did stop the flow of heroin into the area, temporarily anyway. It seems there’s always another piece of trash waiting in the wings to fill the void.

Word on the street was that Rochester was the new hot spot for our elusive supplier, more specifically, the community of Port Fare, my town. Since volunteering for the assignment at the high school, I’d grown to know these kids. Most were good kids, some were a little lost, but overall they were a good group. I made it my personal mission to catch the low-life if it was the last thing I did.

My thoughts of the high school brought me back around to my other problem. Maggie. She didn’t fit into my assignment at the school, and I seldom, actually never got up the nerve to talk to her. The few times I’d run into her in the hallway, my tongue had swollen to the size of a small whale, essentially blocking off the oxygen supply to my brain.

Before I could tear myself up again, my office door flew open. In sauntered my team leader and best friend, Booker. No, he was more than a friend. He was like a brother to me.

I laughed at him in his black, full dress uniform, including the standard issue Glock pistol tucked into a leather holster at his waist. I hated our wool uniforms. Too itchy. Lucky for me, jeans and tee shirts were the required uniform of my current assignment, along with the boots, of course.

“What’s up, Book?” I went back to my desk and sat down, my pleather chair squawking out in protest.

“We got a new lead on the heroin ring. It’s the most promising one yet.” Booker shoved the door closed roughly behind him causing the glass to rattle in its frame. Flipping open a thin manila folder he took four photos out, tossing the top one onto my desk.

 “This is Felix Hoffman,” Booker said, tapping the photo of a seedy-looking man with stringy red hair and a pockmarked face. “He’s a small-time thug with a record a mile long, mostly for dealing marijuana, but it seems he has new aspirations. He was seen in Applegate Park talking to a couple of new guys last week.”

“I'm guessing we don't know who these new guys are?” The man in the photo had creep written all over him. Definitely not someone I’d want to run into in a dark alley, not without my Glock, anyway.

“Nope. However, word on the street is they have a powerful contact.” He dropped down onto the corner of my gray desk and continued.

“Do you remember that stabbing last week in Applegate Park?” I nodded. “Cole’s the doctor assigned to her case. He called me this morning when she came out of her coma. I went over and interviewed her.”

He set the file down and pulled out a small blue notepad from his breast pocket, flipping over a few pages. “Her name is Michelle Stringer, 18 years of age. She went into the park looking to score some grass, and came across our new friends instead. They intro’d themselves to her simply as Bill and Alan and tried to convince her to buy some heroin from them. She said she wasn't interested, but this guy Alan was insistent that she try it. He said he only offered the good stuff, and she wouldn’t regret it.

“He began bullying her around.” Booker’s eyes darkened as he spoke. He held zero tolerance for men who abused women. Understandable on all accounts, but especially after what he’d been through. “But it seems our Ms. Stringer is a second degree black belt,” Booker said. “She got a few good kicks in until this Alan character drew out a pearl-handled knife from his pants. He proceeded to shove her into their car.”

“What kind of car?” I sat up and reached for the pen I’d been spinning earlier, along with a slip of yellow paper from my desk drawer.

“Beige,” Booker said, rolling his eyes.

“That narrows it down.” I sat back, tossing the pen onto my desk.

“She did say it had several rust spots,” he offered, jotting something down in his notebook.

“Ms. Stringer stated Alan fastened her wrists together with cable ties, and that he really got off on cutting her up with his knife, telling her he could make her scream for hours before she died if he wanted.”

“Guy sounds like a real … charmer,” I said, forcing back a coarse remark.

“After he finished with her, she was kicked to the curb, literally, and left for dead. An older man out walking his dog found her almost immediately and called 911. That’s probably the only reason she’s alive. That, and the fact that Cole was the doctor on duty when she was brought in. I don’t believe she would have made it otherwise. The guy’s a miracle worker.”

“What about the other guy? Bill, right?”

“Alan and his huge knife demanded most of her attention. She did say Bill wasn’t too happy about Alan using a knife on her. The two men had an intense argument, but Alan was determined to punish her for kicking him. When Alan threatened to carve Bill up if he didn’t shut his mouth, the argument pretty much ended.”

“Was she able to give us a description?”

“She guesses Alan to be about six feet tall and Bill to be a couple inches shorter. Both men were dressed in black polyester shirt and pants, and Alan had on shiny black ankle boots with silver zippers.”

“They’re definitely not fashion icons,” I said. “How about hair and eye color?”

“Slicked-back, dirty blond hair for both men. As for eye color, is bloodshot considered a color?” he frowned.

“So they were high.” Not unusual for dealers. Selling was how most of them supported their own habit. “Anything else?”

“Only that Alan wore a one inch silver disk in his right earlobe” Booker flipped the notebook shut and tucked it back into his pocket.

“Is she willing to work with a police sketch artist as soon as she’s feeling stronger?” Hopefully, this was the break we’d been looking for. 

“Yes. I’ll run the drawing through the files, and hopefully we’ll find a match.” He pulled out another photo from the file and slid it onto my desk.

“Meet Barbara Brown. Currently, this old driver’s license photo is the only picture we have of her. I’m still trying to find something more recent,” Booker said, before swiping a drink of my now warm soda. He winced and set it back down.

“Haven’t you ever heard of ice, kid?” Ignoring him, I looked over the photo. The woman’s blue eyes looked familiar.

“It seems she’s somewhat of a recluse,” Booker said. “We’re not even sure how she’s involved yet. We do know that Hoffman’s been over to her house almost daily for the past few weeks. And he doesn’t come empty-handed.”

“Drugs?” I asked, scanning the info beneath the photo. It stated she was only twenty-five years old when the picture was taken, yet she looked much older. I didn’t pay it much heed since it was a DMV photo, and when have they ever been flattering?

“Again, not sure. Some days he brings over a few grocery bags full of something and leaves an hour later empty-handed. Other days he comes with nothing more than a bottle of vodka, but when he leaves, he has the weighted-down grocery bags from before. We thought about bringing him in for questioning until he was spotted with the guys in the park. Now we’re hoping he’ll lead us to them. Something tells me they’re the big time players we’ve been after.”

“What makes you so sure there’s a drug connection between him and Barbara Brown? Hoffman could be her boyfriend.” I didn’t doubt Booker, I just felt sad for the poor woman.

“Because of her.” He dropped the last photo from his file onto my desk. “Ma—”

“Maggie.” I sat up sharply, picking up the photo. “I know her. She’s a senior at Port Fare High. What does she have to do with this? Is she this woman’s daughter?” I knew the answer before I’d asked the question. The eyes, they held the same pained expression.

“Yup. Physically she’s a textbook case, kid. She’s gaunt, with jutting bones, and she has dark rings around the eyes. She could be the poster child for Heroin Chic.”

“You’re wrong about Maggie. She’s brilliant. She has a 4.0 GPA, and she spends her lunch hour in the library most days. No one’s mentioned that her mother does drugs, but I have heard she drinks a bit.” That was a mild exaggeration. I’d overheard Maggie’s ex-boyfriend Zack Finkle telling some of the guys in the locker room that her mom was an all-out drunk.

“Maybe I’m wrong, but look at the photo, kid. Something’s going on with her.”

 I absent-mindedly ran my thumb across Maggie’s cheek in the glossy eight by ten before realizing Booker was watching. I grabbed my warm soda and took a swig. Yuck! His face was split wide in a grin.

“So, you’re sweet on her?”

“No… I… well, she’s nice. The other students genuinely like her. In fact, she was dating this obnoxious kid until last week, and he’d been whining about her being a goody-goody because she wouldn’t smoke grass with him. Supposedly, that’s why they broke up. I sincerely doubt she’s doing heroin. Or cocaine,” I added before he could.

“Does she seem out of sorts when you talk to her?”

I cleared my throat. “I haven’t actually talked to her.” I dropped my gaze, wanting to hide my anxious expression.

“She makes you nervous, huh? Must be love. Puppy love, anyway.”

“Shut up, Booker.”

“Kid, you’re in the presence of a master. Here’s what you have to do, my callow friend. You joke around with her, tease her a little. You know, get her to laugh. Make it so she’s the nervous one. That, my friend, is how you’ll win the lady’s heart.”

“This coming from a guy who hasn't had a date in years.”

“Because I choose not to date.”

 “Yeah, right,” I laughed. “Look, she seems nice, that’s all. I’d hate to think she’s involved in this mess.” I began casually spinning the pen on my desktop again hoping my lie wasn’t too obvious.

“I guess you’d better put on your game face, my friend. I’m adding her to your assignment. Pull back a little on the kids you’re currently working with and refocus most of your energy on Ms. Brown. Make her your new best friend. Something’s going on at her house, and only time will tell whether she’s involved or not.”

I dropped my head back against my chair and groaned. Booker laughed. “I have every bit of confidence in you.” He slipped the photos back into the file and set it on the desk. “She sure is skinny. Anorexic, you think?”

“I don’t know, maybe.”

“Ask her out. The girl looks as if she could use a good meal, or three. Check her arms for tracks while you’re at it.”

“And how exactly do you suggest I do that? ‘Hey, Maggie, you want to go get a burger? Oh, by the way, do you mind if I check you for needle marks?’”

“I’m sure you’ll think of something.” He got up and headed for the door. “One more thing, kid. Be very careful,” he warned soberly. “She’s only 17. And to you that means she’s jailbait.”

I chucked my pen at him, missing his head by no more than an inch. He chuckled and darted out the door.

Slumping back in my chair, a sickening feeling crept into my gut. Maggie couldn’t be on drugs, could she? Scrubbing my face in frustration, I looked down at the photo of the pretty girl with the sad blue eyes and prayed that my partner and lifelong friend had it wrong.

However, he seldom did.