Page 29 of The Broken Places

The bench where Mr. Cheng had said a man was sleeping, was now empty. She stepped over a pile of vomit mixed with blood right next to the tent. That must be what Mr. Cheng was referring to and why the cops hadn’t mentioned it. Rather than alert them to a homicide, it lent further evidence to an overdose.

The officers who’d looked inside the yellow tent hadn’t propped the flap, and so the opening was closed now. She removed her phone and turned on the flashlight before she stepped up to the tent, turning her head slightly and bracing as she used her thumb and index finger to grasp the very edge of the flap and gingerly pull it aside. A sound ofdisgust moved up her throat, and the officers were far enough away that she allowed it to escape, holding her breath against the smell that hit her in the face, a combination of the dirty bodies that had been living in this small fabric space for a long while mixed with putrid bodily fluids that had obviously been marinating for at least several hours.

Breathe, just breathe.

One man was on his side, eyes open like Mr. Cheng had said, mouth ajar, a trail of bloody vomit leading from his lips and pooled in another gelatinous, lumpy mess on the floor of the tent. The other man was on the opposite side, turned away so that Lennon couldn’t see his face.

Her eyes moved over the piles of clothing and what looked like a stack of government forms, brochures, and other paperwork. She caught the VA logo on a piece of paper peeking out from the bottom and assumed one of the deceased was a military veteran, as so many homeless were. It was one of the statistics she hated the most. They’d sacrificed so much for their country and then been—literally, in some cases—kicked to the curb. There were shoes and liquor bottles and a mostly eaten loaf of bread, and just like the officers had told her, there were pills scattered here and there.

And there it was: a baggie with a purple substance inside, the edge just tucked under the leg of the dead man with his back to her.

She leaned inside the tent, reaching for it, her fingers clasping the edge and beginning to pull it from under the man’s jean-clad calf, when he very suddenly turned. Lennon sucked in a breath of horror and jerked away. The unexpected movement, when she was already leaning over, caused her to lose her balance, and she plunged inside the tent, twisting away from the man she’d believed to be nothing more than a corpse even as he began to sit up and reach for her, eyes wild.

She barely heard the bus roar by down the street as she screamed, but only for a moment, as the man grabbed her before she could use her hands to brace her fall.

It all happened sofast.

His hands came around her throat, cutting off her scream as she tried desperately to reach her gun in the holster at her hip even while kicking and punching and fighting the man who had a death grip on her neck. The man was yelling something, his putrid breath in Lennon’s face, eyes bugged out. But Lennon couldn’t make out his words over the bus’s air suspension releasing as it stopped out on the street, just beyond where she was currently fighting for her life.

Adrenaline shot through her system, her inner alarm bells clashing and clanging. Her eyes felt like they were popping from their sockets as her lungs emptied, her vision going both bright and hazy. Her attacker let go with one hand, and she was able to draw in a trickle of air before he punched her in the face, once and then again, her head jerking backward against the hand still wrapped around her neck.

And then suddenly there was a hand on her back, and she was being hauled away from the man. But he didn’t let go, and so both of them came flying out of the tent, the man landing on Lennon on the sidewalk. The last bit of oxygen in her lungs puffed from her lips in a tiny bubble of air, and the world blinked out for a brief moment before light and sound once again flooded her senses.

She sucked in a giant breath, shaking and rolling away from the man who she realized was no longer on her, no longer crushing her neck in his palms. She heard someone grunting and the smack of fists on flesh, and she turned and pulled herself up, crab walking back and then leaping up and going for her gun.

Ambrose was straddling the man, who was still trying to fight, his arms and legs flailing as Ambrose punched him repeatedly in the face. Lennon removed her gun and aimed it at the man on the ground. “Stop fighting give up you’re under arrest.” God, what was she saying? Her voice was shaking so badly that her words were all strung together and barely intelligible.

Feet pounded on the sidewalk, and the two officers who’d been standing on the corner skidded to a stop, pointing their guns at the man just as he went limp.

Ambrose sat back, his shoulders rising and falling as he, too, caught his breath. He got off the man in one fluid movement, coming to his feet as the two officers moved in, cuffing the homeless man who once again appeared to be deceased but almost certainly was not.

“Are you okay?” Ambrose asked, his gaze moving over her body, down to her tennis-shoe-clad feet and back up again. “Lennon? Let’s go sit down. You’re shaking like a leaf.”

He put his hand on her wrist, and her gaze went there, the gun in her hands moving all over the place. He was right. She was shaking like a leaf. And if she’d have tried to shoot the man, she’d almost certainly have missed. Instead of attempting to reholster it, she allowed Ambrose to take it from her gently, and then she turned, taking the few steps to a concrete planter nearby that held a tree that was only branches, and sank down onto the edge.

The officers had turned the man over, and one of them was speaking into his radio. But Lennon couldn’t even begin to make sense of the words. The inside of her head sounded like she was in the eye of a raging storm.

Warm hands spread over her knees, and she looked down to see Ambrose squatted in front of her. “You’re all right,” he said. “You’re going to start shaking very badly now. You might feel dizzy. You’re fine. It’s normal, and it will pass.”

She gave a jerky nod. It was all she could do. Sirens were drawing closer; in a minute the cavalry would be here. “H-how are y-you here?” she asked, trying to move her locked jaw as best as she could and barely succeeding.

“The lieutenant called me after he called you. I’m so sorry I got here after you did.” He looked to the side, and she saw the muscle in his jaw tighten. It wasn’t his fault, though. It was hers. Not only because she’d raced straight here with something to prove to herself but because she should have waited for backup, or had one of the officers walk with her down the block and stand guard as she checked out the scene. Shehadn’t, though, because again, she was trying to force herself to employ mind over matter. And look what had happened.

She might have been killed this morning by a homeless junkie she’d thought was dead. He’d been so high he’d had superhuman strength. Three more seconds and she’d have died in a foul-smelling nylon tent on the street as a bus driving by covered her screams.

Or maybe she wouldn’t have died—not quickly anyway. Visions swarmed her mind, coming to her in bursts of horror. The officers looking around and seeing her gone, assuming she’d headed to some nearby store to question someone else, maybe, as they watched the bus trundle by the spot where they were standing? But instead, she’d be inside that small capsule with a drug-fueled monster. Something similar had happened the year before—a morning jogger had been attacked and dragged into a homeless encampment. She’d been raped and brutalized. And though Lennon hadn’t worked that case, sometimes she had nightmares about it anyway.

A moan sounded in the air, and she realized it was her, and so she clamped her lips shut and closed her eyes. Her skin felt hot and clammy, and her right eye was throbbing. Why was her eye throbbing so badly?

“Lennon.” His voice was soothing, and she realized her hands were covering his on her knees. The contact of his hands was keeping her from spiraling completely, and so she’d placed her palms on his knuckles to ensure he didn’t take them away.

“Come on,” he said, his voice so gentle it made her want to cry. “You need to be checked out.”

She looked up to see that an ambulance had arrived, and she shook her head. She didn’t want an ambulance or a hospital. She didn’t want strangers looking at her and knowing how weak she was. “Not just for your eye,” he said, sliding his hands out from under hers but then grasping them. “There might have been fentanyl in that tent or on that man. I’m going to get checked out too.” He pulled her up, and she was relieved to find that she could stand, and even walk. And so she did, allowing Ambrose to lead her to the ambulance.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Into the forest I go, to lose my mind and find my soul.

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