Page 67 of Hounded: Ashes to Ashes

“You’regoing to get rid of them, though,” she added.

I peered over at her. “I just said I can’t.”

Sully opened the nearest drawer and dropped the baggie inside. “I’ll hold onto them until you’re ready,” she said as she slung the drawer shut, “but me throwing them away doesn’t help you. It has to be your decision.”

I wanted to tell her I knew that. Learned all about it in rehab. Rehearsed it at those dumb NA meetings. Somehow, without me sharing those thoughts, she managed to infer them.

“When’s your next meeting?”

“Uh…” I paused. “Friday night.”

“Do you want me to take you?”

The last time she’d offered, I’d thought Loren might go with me instead. I wanted his support and his company. I could have asked for it. Instead, I kept secrets and made bad decisions all on my own. It only seemed fitting I should go to the meetings on my own, too.

“I think I’ve got it. Unless Lore doesn’t give back my car.” My laughter sounded hollow.

“Well, let me know,” Sully replied. “I’m happy to chauffeur.”

“Thanks.”

I hugged one arm around my middle, feeling ridiculous having come over here, made a mess of the place, gotten tipsy, and been subsequently ditched. I was all dressed up with nowhere to go, and I wasn’t ready to return home.

“You mind if I come down and work with you for a while?” I asked as Sully opened the fridge and began rifling for a last-minute snack.

She popped up and grinned at me with carrot sticks and a cup of hummus in her hands. “I’d love that.”

Loren

Brooklyn,New York

August 10th, 1992

At the end of the neighborhood street, my truck rumbled to a stop at the curb behind a battered Crown Victoria on blocks. In the middle of the afternoon, the area was quiet and largely uninhabited. A few doors down, a woman sat on her porch wearing a nightgown and holding a cigarette. She paid me no mind as I piled out of the Chevy and sniffed the air. There were so many smells here, but I was only looking for one.

Amidst the grass and dry rot and cigarette smoke, I found Indy’s scent. Sweet. Faint.

My hound yipped and spurred me on, along the splintered sidewalk toward a squat building that had once been white. Paint peeled off the broken siding, and grass had grown into the chain link fence. I didn’t know how he found this place, but I didn’t need to wonder. Indy found company everywhere he went, and not always the good kind.

The covered porchsagged on one corner atop a broken post, and all the windows were open, letting paper-thin drapes flutter in the breeze. It was bright out, but dark in there, and every step up the fragmented driveway brought Indy’s smell more strongly.

My hound was ecstatic, happy to have found our phoenix after a frantic search. I’d been detained in Hell for three days, then released this morning. But, when I arrived at our apartment, Indy was gone. I wasn’t sure how long he waited and worried before he ventured out on his own, itching for a fix.

I checked the clubs first. His usual haunts. The bartenders I questioned were cagey about the whole thing. They’d seen him, sure. Indy stood out in any crowd as a pretty young thing with bubblegum curls and wide, golden eyes.

But no one was willing to confess to more than serving him a drink and sending him on his way.

Then I found his car, tagged with a parking ticket in a lonely alley.

My second round of more direct, forceful questioning of the club staff yielded better results.

He went home with someone. I might have assumed he was looking for a hookup, but Indy had never cheated on me. Even when he danced and chatted with other men, it went no further than flirtation. He wasn’t interested in what random men had to offer. Drug dealers on the other hand…

Climbing the creaking steps into the porch, I approached the chipped wooden door. Underfoot, a weathered mat read Welcome! with peace signs and smiley faces scattered around. It may have been cheerful once. Now, it looked as derelict as everything else.

I raised a trembling hand and knocked. Not shaking from fear. I’d passed that on the way here. I was coping with rage now. Indignation. Spite.

Three days I spent getting passed around at one of Moira’s obscene parties. Groped and prodded and told to be grateful for the attention. I was scared then. Scared again when I came home and thought something terrible happened to Indy while I was away. Maybe it had, and I was about to walk into it. And that made me angry because I should have been here with him instead. I should have been able to prevent this—whatever it was.

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