CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Lennon’s feet pounded on the wet sand, the dawn a bare gray slip on the horizon. For whatever reason, she’d hardly gotten a wink of sleep, tossing and turning all night until she finally decided to just get up and start the day, even though it was still dark outside. Her phone, tucked into the pocket at the back of her leggings, started buzzing, and she retrieved it as she came to a slow stop.

She glanced at the name on the screen before answering. “Lieutenant.” Déjà vu descended, or the disturbing thought that she had found herself in her own version of Groundhog Day . Only one where a serial killer was on the loose and she’d have to hunt him into perpetuity.

“Gray, we have a situation over on Ellis Street. It seems like a straightforward overdose, but there’s some product with a purplish tint at the scene. How soon can you be there?”

Her eyes moved to the parking lot beyond the sand where her car was parked. Déjà vu indeed. Only last time she’d experienced almost this exact same scenario, she’d gone home and showered and changed, not out of professionalism but because she’d been hoping someone else would arrive before her at what sounded like a gory triple homicide. If she went home now and changed and showered, it’d take her over an hour to get there. “I’m on my way. Give me thirty,” she said.

“Great. Thanks, Gray. Keep me updated.”

She jogged up the short set of steps that led to the lot, removed her things from the trunk, pulled a hoodie on, and got in her car.

It took her twenty-seven minutes to drive from the beach to the Tenderloin. Lieutenant Byrd had texted her the exact address as she’d driven, and when she pulled up, there were already a couple of patrol cars double-parked at the corner, lights turning. The sun was just beginning to rise, but it was a foggy morning, and so the streetlights offered the only real illumination. She clipped her badge on her leggings and strapped her small holster on, covering it with her hoodie.

She didn’t recognize the officers standing at the corner in front of the short wall that separated the sidewalk from the stairs that led down to a Muni station, and so she introduced herself when she approached. The two young men both gave her an odd look because of her attire but identified themselves as Boddie and Meads. “What’s the situation?” she asked.

“The owner of the corner store right there”—he pointed next to him—“called in two dead bodies in a tent just up the street.” He pointed to the small grouping of three tents situated about fifty feet down the one-way street that they had blocked off with their car. “We looked in the yellow one on the end, and sure enough: one male, white, one male, black, both deceased. And there are pills scattered around, and something purple in a baggie. We didn’t touch anything, just called it in.”

Shit. “Okay, thanks. What about the other two tents?” She nodded to the two sitting to the right of the yellow one.

“Unoccupied as of now. Just a bunch of junk in both. And they smell like shit.”

She couldn’t hold back the ick face. “The store owner, he’s inside?” she asked, nodding over to the store.

“Yeah. A Mr. Allen Cheng. He’s the only one there.”

Lennon nodded, turning toward the corner store with signs and ads covering the two front windows. She walked the short distance and pulled the door open. There was an older man at the register, and when Lennon entered, he stood, rounding the counter. “Are you with the police?” he asked in a heavy Chinese accent.

“Yes. Hi. Mr. Cheng? I’m Inspector Gray. I’m going to go check out the tent but wanted to stop by here first and get a little more information.”

“Yes, okay. Good.”

“You discovered the two men this morning?”

“Yes. I open the store every morning at four thirty. If the sandwiches pass the expiration date, I bring them around to whoever is awake. I don’t feel right, tossing food when there are hungry people right outside my door. It’s not right. So I get a ticket, so okay.”

“No one’s going to ticket you, Mr. Cheng.” People like him were few and far between. The people living hand to mouth in this community were lucky to receive his kindness. “So you went to the tents up the block? To see if anyone inside wanted some food?”

“No. There was a man sleeping on a bench near the tent. No shoes. No coat. I set one of the sandwiches next to him so he would find it when he woke up. That’s when I saw the blood.”

Dammit. So there was blood. The lieutenant hadn’t mentioned blood. A small cramp knotted in her lower stomach.

“So I thought maybe someone is hurt,” Mr. Cheng went on, “needs medical care. I used my phone flashlight and pushed the flap aside. It was partway open already. And I see the two ... dead. I can tell they’re dead. Still. One had his eyes open.” He gave a small shiver. “Drugs on the ground. It’s always drugs.”

“Okay, Mr. Cheng. Thank you for calling us. Will you be here for a little bit in case I have any more questions?”

“Yes, I will be here.”

Lennon thanked him and left the store, taking gloves from her pocket. She started to head down the block toward the tents, and one of the officers called out, “Do you want one of us to come with you?” She did. She really did. In fact, she didn’t want to check inside that tent at all. Not now, not in the dark, but also not in the light. She wanted to stand behind one of those officers as he checked, and it made her feel pitiful and unworthy of the badge she carried. She should have gone home and changed after she got the call, not only to stall but because right now she felt about as capable as Workout Barbie walking toward a double homicide, and she was dressed the part.

“No, it’s okay,” she said to the officer. “I’ll check it out and be right back.” She pulled the gloves on slowly as she made the walk. The people who’d placed their tents in the spot they had up ahead had likely done it because there wasn’t a streetlight too close by. They wouldn’t be kept awake by a bright light shining in their makeshift home, and if they were engaging in activities that they’d rather not advertise, then that worked in their favor too.

A car backfired up the street. In the quiet of the morning, it startled Lennon, and she gave a small jump. Great. Just what she needed to feel even more on edge.

She walked slowly toward the small grouping of tents, past the first and second, where she saw vague shadows moving on the nylon fabric. The morning was still dim, and the streetlight the officers were standing under, along with their flashing lights, were swallowed up by the fog, and so it gave the impression that the shifting light might be coming from apparitions inside. She’d been told they were unoccupied, but even so, a shiver went down her spine and the tiny hairs on her arms stood up.

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 of disgust 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 so fast .

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. She hadn’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.