There were tears in his eyes now. The conversation had shifted in a way that Creem hadn’t anticipated. He even allowed himself to be hugged, which was not something he usually went in for.

“I feel the same way, Josh,” he said. “About all of it. I wouldn’t trade the last several weeks for anything.”

“Me either, Louise,” he said.

“I don’t know what that means,” Creem said.

“Never mind.”

CHAPTER

78

AT THE END OF THE NEXT DAY, WE FINALLY GOT TO SEE AVA. I HAD ALL KINDS OF questions for her, but I knew we couldn’t push too hard on this first visit. She’d been through a lot since we’d last seen her.

It was quiet at Howard House when we got there, and Ava herself answered the door. Whether or not she was happy to see us, we got a cool breeze of tolerance when we went to hug her—arms at her sides, and no smile at all. I found myself scanning the exposed skin on her arms, and even behind her ears, for puncture marks. It made me sad to even consider that Ava might be injecting, but I’ve seen junkies younger than her.

After that, we settled on the front porch in some old lawn chairs, with Cokes and the tin of Nana’s day-old brownies. Nana did a lot of the talking at first, and told Ava about the KIPP school she’d already scoped out for her.

Bree and I gave her a homemade “We Miss You” card from Jannie and Ali. That got the first and only smile of the day. It was all kind of stilted and awkward, but better than being kept at a distance. I was glad just to see her.

Still, after fifteen minutes of nodding and one-word answers from Ava, I decided to address the elephant in the room. We knew from Stephanie that she’d been enrolled in a mandatory drug counseling program, but not a lot more than that.

“Ava, there’s something we need to ask you about,” I said.

She went perfectly still then, and rested the toes of her sneakers against the concrete. It reminded me of a sprinter in the blocks, ready to bolt.

“We know a little about what’s been going on the past few days, and I want you to know how concerned we are about you,” I said. “Not about what you did. About you.”

Nana looked at me like I was going too fast, but Bree picked it up from there.

“Sweetheart, listen to me. It’s really important that you tell us where you’ve been getting these drugs. Which corner, or dealer, or friend—”

“I don’t gotta answer that,” Ava said. “You two are police.”

Even after months of living in our home, she saw us as a threat. That distrust of authority was in her DNA.

“We’re not here to bust anybody,” I said. “The problem is, you never know what you’re getting out there. Kids accidentally overdose every single day, especially on the kind of stuff you’ve been taking.”

“I ain’t taking any drugs!” she said suddenly.

I knew her well enough to recognize the kneejerk lying she did when she felt cornered. It wasn’t about being believable. It was about saying whatever she had to in the moment.

Before we could say anything else, the front door opened and another girl came outside. It was the loud phone talker from the other day. She was about Ava’s age, but going on thirty, with low-slung jeans and a tight denim jacket.

“W’sup, Ava?” she said. “These your people?”

“I’m Alex,” I said. “This is Bree, and Nana. We’re Ava’s foster family.”

The girl’s eye landed on the brownies, and Nana held up the tin.

“Thank you, ma’am,” she said, taking two, with a little grin. “Ava tell you what she been up to lately?”

“Shut up, Nessa!” Ava blurted out. “You mind your own business.”

“Whatever,” the girl said. I assumed she was talking about the drug counseling, but either way, she didn’t seem to take Ava too seriously. In fact, she held up her phone to snap a group shot of us, like nothing had happened. “Say cheese, y’all.”

“Cheese,” we said—except for Ava, of course. I gave the girl my number and she texted the picture right over before taking another brownie and disappearing back inside.

“She doesn’t seem so bad,” Nana said. “Is she a friend?”

“My roommate,” Ava said. “She’s a’ight.”

We offered to take both girls out to dinner, if she wanted, but Ava said they were making tacos that night, and she wanted to stick around. We all nodded and acted like we understood, but we also left frustrated when the visit was over.

I didn’t see Ava as ungrateful, or bratty. I saw her as broken, and unable to process everything she was feeling. It’s the kind of void kids try to fill up with drugs all the time. Once you add in a history of neglect, like Ava had, and the pressure of living in the foster system, meaningful change can start to be nearly impossible.

It’s all about baby steps, at best. And that’s on the good days.

Today was not one of them.

CHAPTER

79

MEANWHILE, THE HITS JUST KEPT ON COMING.

Back at work the next morning, I went to log into the case files, and the system spit back an unwelcome message.

Login ID not recognized.

I tried a few more times but kept getting back the same message. Clearly, my access to the system had been revoked sometime in the last twelve hours. My noncontact status at work was now complete.

I shouldn’t have been surprised. All it took was a routine case review for anyone up the food chain from me to see my virtual fingerprints all over the River Killer, Georgetown Ripper, and Elizabeth Reilly files. Based on the rules of my suspension, I wasn’t supposed to be poking around the system to begin with.

But that didn’t stop me from going in to complain to Sergeant Huizenga.

“Don’t start, Alex,” she said, as soon as I showed up in her door. She knew why I was there. “I’m not in the mood.”

“This isn’t about me,” I told her. “We’ve got three potentially active serials on the books right now. When was the last time we were stretched this thin?”

“Not the point,” she said. “All Commander D’Auria saw when he caught this was something I should have already taken care of. Chewed my ass out about it, too, at ten o’clock last night, thank you very much.”

“I’m not talking about getting back in the field,” I told her. “I’m talking about reading files, so I can be up to speed when I’m reinstated.”

“What don’t you understand about noncontact status?” she shouted at me. “You think I want you on the sidelines? Jesus! Why are we even having this conversation?”

It was day eighteen of the crisis, and progress wasn’t nearly what it needed to be. The longer these investigations went on, the more Huizenga was going to have management breathing down her neck, micromanaging her life and demanding results. That’s usually when the yelling starts.

And it was about to get worse.

Just then, Detective Jacobs pushed past me into Huizenga’s office. Whatever she had, it was big. I could tell just from the way she was moving.

“Bad news, sergeant,” she said.

“Hang on.” Huizenga put up a hand and turned her lasers back on me. “That’s it, Alex. We’re done here.”

I hadn’t been left out of a Major Case Squad conversation since I could remember. The whole thing had me steaming mad, but there wasn’t much choice.

I didn’t go far, though. Instead of heading back to my desk, I stopped right outside Huizenga’s door and listened in. It’s not a move I’m especially proud of, but like I said, it wasn’t about me. It was about the victims, and their families, and maybe most of all, the potential victims still to come. All those people deserved every resource we had to offer, and at the risk of tooting my own horn, they weren’t getting it.

“What is it, Jessica?” Huizenga asked.

“We just got word from CIC about two floaters in the Potomac. They washed up on Roosevelt Island about an hour ago. One young white male, shot in the head and stabbed all over the groin. One young white female—”