The Common Thread Read online

  When he didn’t reply, Nic did, glaring at him as she spoke. “I guess I can cross the Ritz off my birthday wish list. But, at least, we’ll be going to the Barnes. Or did you forget the tickets?” Her tone was sarcastic, but she knew that Louis wouldn’t have forgotten the tickets. It was all she’d asked of him for her birthday. But the sheepish look on her face told her he had indeed failed to procure the required admission passes.

  “This is un-fucking-believable, Lou,” she said, her voice rising well above conversational level.

  “Nic, I’m sorry. I just forgot. I’ve been so busy—”

  “Not too busy for movies with Rae, though,” she screamed. And then she remembered her manners, and rose from her seat. “Please excuse me,” she said in a much calmer voice. As she turned and stalked to her bedroom, she couldn’t resist the temptation of one last parting shot. “Feel free to spend the night, Rae. It seems you two can’t get enough of each other.”

  Chapter Three

  Nothing Ventured, Nothing Gained

  Rae and Louis gazed at each other. “Give me a moment,” Louis said with a sweet smile as he started to rise from the couch. Rae grabbed his arm, stopping him.

  “It’s late,” Rae said. “I think I’ll make the long walk next door.”

  “I would say she’s not usually like this, but I’d be lying.” He laughed.

  “You did warn me she’s a bit difficult.”

  Rae had met Louis at his front door a year earlier as she was moving into the apartment beside his. They’d both been wearing University of Scranton shirts and bonded instantly as they talked about their common hometown and alma mater. A few hours later, Louis had rescued her from her unpacking when he knocked on her door, bearing food and wine. They’d sat at her brand-new dining room table eating and talking away the evening.

  As Rae had bid him good night she knew that a wonderful friendship had been born. She visited his apartment soon after and couldn’t help but notice pictures of the striking, dark-haired woman scattered about.

  Over the next few months, Rae had learned quite a bit about the woman in the pictures. She was Louis’s best friend, a fellow physician named Nicole Coussart. Nic had finished her residency training and moved back to Wilkes-Barre just before Rae moved in. Nic hated Philadelphia but loved the mountains, Louis’s cooking, old movies, and women.

  Without ever meeting her, Rae was hooked on the idea of Nicole. Or perhaps it was the possibility of Nicole, conceived during her many hours in the easy company of their mutual friend Louis. She’d practically begged him to arrange the introduction, and he’d resisted, finally giving in and setting up the disastrous night that had thankfully ended without bloodshed.

  So much for meeting people, Rae told herself as she keyed the lock and entered the apartment next door.

  During the speech she’d recited as she ended their two-year relationship the year before, Rae’s ex-lover, Paula, had suggested that Rae cared more about her job than anything else. She’d then kindly reminded Rae that life was too short to spend it working.

  Instead of becoming defensive or sheltering in a comfortable state of denial, Rae had reflected on Paula’s parting words. Paula was right. She’d spent nine years with the DEA, and all she had to show for it was a nice investment portfolio.

  She’d devoted her first years after law school traveling for the job, saving most of her generous salary. Giving up her small apartment hadn’t been much of a sacrifice. She’d lived in hotels on the road, staying with friends or family during the rare times she was home. She’d spent three years living in Europe and then two in South America before finally deciding she’d walked enough foreign soil. A position in the Philadelphia office became available, and for three years she’d been there, working long hours in her own little war on drugs.

  Admitting Paula was right was easy compared to actually changing her life. Rae was passionate about her profession and had a hard time backing off. Her team was investigating the illegal distribution of prescription drugs—controlled substances that were resold on the streets. She spent her time researching case law and preparing for trial to convict the people responsible for the record-breaking number of deaths related to the abuse of prescription drugs. The victims of this epidemic spanned the spectrum of race and intelligence, wealth and poverty. Most of them fraudulently obtained prescriptions from doctors by faking pain, some of them visiting different doctors daily to get their fix.

  Rae was also tracking the illegal sale of those same drugs. Just as some people obtained numerous prescriptions for their own use, others acquired them solely to resell them. Some stole prescriptions from family members. And some health-care workers stole the medications of unsuspecting patients in order to make a quick buck.

  On the streets, Vicodin and Percocet were sold beside heroin and cocaine. Some drug addicts were now hooked on painkillers, without ever having seen a doctor for a prescription. Scarier still, these pills had become the drug of choice for experimenting teenagers. They somehow seemed safer than injecting or smoking, and those pills were prescription, so how bad could they be? Kids in high school and college were overdosing on these drugs and ending up just as dead as the ones who used the hard-core drugs. People were now dying more from prescription-drug overdoses than from any other source.

  It all started innocently, with pills gifted from friends, who’d stolen them from home or bought them, and soon they were stealing and buying their own. Like most mind-altering drugs, though, these narcotics enslaved them, changing the shape of brain receptors so that higher and higher doses were required to achieve the same effects. Then boom! A kid ingested a few extra tabs and stopped breathing.

  Finding the proof to prosecute in these overdose cases was often difficult. Friends and parents destroyed or consumed the evidence, wanting to protect their loved one or get high themselves. In a few cases over the past six months, though, Rae’s office had uncovered some alarming information. Someone had illegally manufactured the pills recovered at death scenes, pills that resembled the trade-name samples on the market but contained differing quantities of narcotic and fillers.

  Since that discovery, her office had been working hard to discover the source of these pills. They were used all over the region, but if one marked the areas on a map, it formed a near-perfect circle, Philadelphia at its center. These illegally manufactured pills were being distributed out of Philly, and she intended to find out the who and the what and the where, and shut it down. Too many lives had been lost, and Rae wouldn’t rest until she changed things.

  She hadn’t always felt this way about drug users. She’d had no exposure to the kind of people who abused drugs, and she’d always assumed they were shadowy criminals who chose their dark path. She’d thought users were much to blame for their plight. After all, without buyers, no one would be selling drugs, right?

  Since she began working for the DEA she’d learned how wrong she’d been. Dealers preyed on the innocent, indoctrinating them into the drug culture when they were most vulnerable. Their targets were children of single parents, recruited to deliver the product, kids without much guidance or money in their pockets. Most eventually became users. They were the mentally ill, failed by social systems and modern medicine, who turned to street drugs to control depression and anxiety and hallucinations of all varieties. They were veterans, unable to cope with the horrific memories of war, turning to drugs and overdosing at alarming rates. They were teens who were bullied, or pressured by parents to perform, or didn’t fit in, turning to drugs to help them cope. They were all sucked into the vortex of prescription-drug use, which caused about a hundred of their deaths every day across the country. The ones who didn’t lose their lives lost their homes and their families and their jobs instead.

  Rae knew there were exceptions to these rules: bored kids who took drugs for fun, and adults who did as well, experimenting out of curiosity or because of the monotony of their lives. Their deaths were even more tragic in her mind, because she sa
w absolutely no reason for them.

  Rae also knew that people who had less access to drugs were less likely to use them. If she could get these pills off the streets, fewer people would die. Fewer kids, and fewer fathers, and fewer veterans. Fewer human beings.

  With her passion for her job, it had been difficult to back down, but after reflecting, she’d realized Paula was right. Life consisted of more than work. At least, other people’s did, but she made it her goal to be more like them. She saw others with nice homes and happy relationships, and she could see herself in those kinds of pictures, snuggling beside the fire with a good book and a beautiful woman.

  First she would buy the house, then spend time in it, and finally show it off to the ladies. The first two steps had gone surprisingly well. The third, not so much. She’d had about a dozen dates in the past year. First dates. Only two second dates, and no third dates. And Rae couldn’t bring a girl home before the third date. What if her new friend turned out to be a psychopath? Then she’d know where Rae lived, and that situation could end in disaster. Even the fierce-looking security guard in the lobby would be defenseless against a psychopath, and Rae just didn’t need that kind of aggravation.

  Rae had knocked on Louis and Nic’s door this evening feeling optimistic that her luck might change. After all, she adored Louis, and reasoned she’d like his friend as well. She’d hoped Nic might be different from the other dozen girls, who had a variety of disqualifying features. Her dates didn’t have to be models, but she refused to go out with anyone who appeared to be wearing a Halloween costume. They didn’t have to be witty, but they did have to laugh at her jokes, at least once in a while. Intelligence was non-negotiable. And so was one other, little factor. Height.

  At five-feet-not-quite-three inches tall, Rae found herself looking up to most of the women she met, but never her dates. She was a tough butch, with a sense of pride, and under no circumstances would she ever stretch onto her tiptoes to kiss a date good night. That height requirement eliminated most of the female population.

  To Rae’s delight, Nic was just as short as she appeared in her photos. She was gorgeous and intelligent. But she hadn’t laughed at a single joke. And she was a bitch. So, in spite of Rae’s hopes, Nic would never make it to the requisite third date and find herself in Rae’s apartment. She wouldn’t even make it to a second.

  After depositing her key in a drawer, Rae made her way across the apartment. Hers was a much smaller version of the adjacent one, with only one bedroom and a smaller combined kitchen and dining area. Just as in Louis and Nic’s, the builder had done a good job, choosing fine granite and quality oak, and the prior tenant’s taste was superb, so Rae had done little other than hire a moving company. She looked forward to coming home to her bright, cheerful apartment at the end of her workday.

  Smiling at herself in the mirror after brushing her teeth, Rae tried not to be too disappointed. She’d had a great dinner. She’d tasted a new wine. And with her friend Louis planning to move in a few weeks, chances were good she’d never have to see Nicole Coussart again.

  Chapter Four

  What Are Friends For?

  Katie turned around to face her neighbor. She hadn’t considered that Nan would still be peeking through the window when she opted to steal her shoes. Tempted to run, she once again trusted her instincts and instead asked a favor. “Can I come inside?”

  Nan pushed open the door and, as quickly as Katie slipped through, closed it again behind her. She was shaking from the effects of adrenaline, but for the moment she was safe. The light was off, but enough filtered in from the living room beyond, allowing them to see. Katie reached out and pulled the woman toward her. In Nan’s arms she felt herself tremble, her knees buckling, and the woman guided her gently backward and into a chair.

  “I think Billy’s been shot…I don’t know for sure…I heard two shots, then Simon came after me…I had to run…I didn’t even have any clothes on…I don’t know about the kids, they were asleep in their room…I tried to go back, but the police came…I have to find out if they’re okay…” It all poured out of Katie as one pressured, run-on sentence. She swallowed and tried to slow the breaths that were coming too fast again.

  Walking to her cupboard, Nan turned and looked at Katie. The whites of her eyes jumped off her dark skin, even in the dim light of the kitchen, and they seemed to penetrate Katie. “You can’t go back there,” she said simply. She retrieved a cup and filled it with water, then handed it to Katie.

  Nan was an old woman, losing her vision and her mobility, but not her senses. Nan knew how things worked. If Katie went back, the police would question her, and even if she told them nothing, Simon would think the worst and come after her. Even though she’d been living and honest life for nearly a decade, she had a criminal record. A convicted drug dealer, who happened to be the father of her children, was dead or wounded in her house. If they didn’t have cause to arrest her for assault or murder or possession, they at least had enough suspicion to haul her in for questioning. It might take days, or weeks, to sort out all the evidence. She’d go to jail, and her children would go into foster care. It wasn’t just or fair, but it was reality, and Nan understood.

  “What do I do, Nan? I can’t just leave the kids there. But you’re right. If I go over there now, I’ll end up in jail.”

  The trauma didn’t faze Nan. “You stay right here. You can watch from the window if you like, but don’t you leave the house. If anybody comes around, don’t answer the door.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “Over to your house, to gawk, just like all the other busybodies. And I’m going to get you some answers.”

  Katie bit her lip as she contemplated Nan’s idea. It was risky, but even if she didn’t learn anything, it was worth a try. Katie needed to know what had happened, and she needed to know that her children were safe.

  “You would do that for me?” Katie was bewildered.

  “Young lady,” she said, “you’ve never been anything but good to me since you moved in over there. You do for me, and you never ask for a dime in return, although the Good Lord knows you could use one. If I can’t help you when you need it, what kind of a Christian woman am I?”

  Katie chewed her fifth fingernail, suddenly afraid. Nan’s intentions were good, but what if she inadvertently let it slip to the police that Katie was hiding in her kitchen? What if she told them on purpose? “You won’t tell them I’m here?”

  “I believe in a little fib here and there. Like telling Gerald Senior he was good looking. Never hurt Gerald none. Made him feel good, I think. God didn’t make a man homelier than Gerald, but he felt like a movie star when I told him that. So, sometimes you can use a little stretcher for a good purpose, and the Lord wants us to do good. If I have to tell those police officers a little fib, I think He’ll forgive me.”

  Katie couldn’t help but smile. Nan’s husband Gerald had passed away many years before Katie and her children moved into the neighborhood, but Katie had seen the pictures throughout the house and he was homely. In every picture, though, he wore a big smile and looked happy.

  Nan removed the Crocs from Katie’s feet and placed them on her own, then gave her arm a squeeze of support before opening the back door. Wearing a pair of shorts pulled up to her sagging boobs, her shirt tucked in, and the bright-yellow shoes on her feet, she was quite a sight.

  Off she went into the darkness, carrying her flashlight. From the kitchen door, Katie followed the light marking her neighbor’s journey down the porch stairs and through the yard and into the alley. It moved along at a brutally slow pace, and each second seemed to push Katie closer to the edge of the cliff on which she was standing.

  Fear squeezed the breath from her lungs and rattled the cup in her hand. Would Nan betray her? What would she find? Katie hardly had time to ponder the answers to her questions when the light reappeared in its full brightness at the end of the shrubs, and then, to Katie’s surprise, Nan emerged and walked directly i
nto the yard. Katie had assumed Nan was going to learn the gossip on the street, but apparently she had other plans. Nan held the rail as she navigated the stairs, and then she reached the porch and disappeared through Katie’s kitchen door.

  Leaning against the doorframe, Katie held her breath, her eyes glued to the door at the back of her house. Time seemed to stand still as she waited, and the blackness that filled the space between the porch lights seemed to grow. It was only fifty yards away, but to Katie it seemed like miles. Not knowing what Nan would find was hard, but not being with her children, to protect or comfort them, was killing her. In her mind’s eye, she saw the path Nan was following across the kitchen and through a doorway into the living room. It was a small house, and even at Nan’s pace, it wouldn’t take long to get where she needed to go.

  Before Katie finished her thought, the back door opened and Nan reappeared, flanked by two police officers, who escorted her to the bottom of the stairs and watched as she retraced her steps back home.

  What had she seen? What had she learned? Katie couldn’t swallow the lump in her throat, and tears were stinging her cheeks as she followed Nan with her eyes, spying through the window. When Nan finally opened the door and came into the kitchen, Katie was weeping uncontrollably. The entire adventure had taken only ten minutes—eight of which was the walk itself—yet to Katie, it had seemed an eternity.

  “First of all, Katie, keep still. The police are looking for you, and I wouldn’t put it past them to come and see for themselves that I’m not harboring a fugitive.”

  Katie didn’t care. She was out of her mind with worry and no longer thinking straight. “What’s going on? What happened?”

  Nan was clearheaded, though. Taking her by the elbow, she guided her toward the front of her house. “Come, dear. We have to go into the living room and sit down.”