Free Through the Evil Days: A Clare Fergusson/Russ Van Alstyne Mystery (Clare Fergusson and Russ Van Alstyne Mysteries) by Julia Spencer-Fleming

list. It’s not likely, but it could be she was marked as a target by a pedophile.”
    Hadley glanced at Flynn before looking back at the dep. “You want us to take lead on this?”
    Flynn wiped the side of his face, leaving a faint sooty streak along his angular jawline. “Both of us?”
    “Unless you’ve got something better to do, yes, both of you.” The deputy chief raised his bushy gray eyebrows. “The chief has confidence that you two can handle this, and so do I.” His jaw tightened, and Hadley could almost hear the unspoken warning: So don’t screw this up.
    “You’re going to let the chief know, right?” Flynn was usually gung ho for any investigation, but right now he sounded a little wavery. Hadley didn’t blame him.
    “’Course I am. I expect he’ll head back here right quick. Skipping the murder investigation was bad enough. A missing kid’s even more time-sensitive. Not to mention—” MacAuley snapped his mouth shut.
    “Dep,” Hadley said, “about that time sensitivity.”
    “What about it?”
    “According to the caseworker at CFS, Mikayla’s on several daily medications because of her new liver.” She checked her notepad to get the word right. “Immunosuppressants.”
    “Good. Find her doctor and put out a med alert at all the area pharmacies. If we’re lucky, whoever took her will waltz right in and fill the prescription.”
    Hadley shook her head. “No, listen, the caseworker told me. She has to have this stuff or her body will start to reject her transplant. If whoever took her didn’t also grab her medication, or doesn’t know how important it is, she’s going to get very sick, very fast.”
    “How fast?” Flynn moved to her side, his head cocked to see her notebook.
    She could feel his nearness, a tingle along her skin, a slow deep surge of blood. She stared at her notes and forced herself to concentrate. “A few days. Maybe seven or eight. After that, no drugs will help. Her body rejects the liver and…” Her voice trailed off.
    “She dies,” Flynn said.

 
    13.
    Annie Johnson’s address of record was a third-floor walk-up on Causeway that looked like it was one good storm away from collapsing into the old canal that ran behind the street. This part of town, with its weary tenement houses and narrow streets running down to abandoned mills and rotting remnants of wharves, was not a place the shoppers or skiers or leaf peepers would ever see. Johnson’s was one of several apartment houses in the neighborhood that were regularly visited by the MKPD. Kevin debated a stealth arrival by parking a block away, but he figured by the time he and Hadley had walked halfway to the building, everybody on the street would be texting each other a warning. They double-parked and got out in front of the apartment house.
    In the sickly orange glow of the streetlights, the sagging facade’s peeling paint and battered aluminum trim were obvious. Hadley pulled on her watch cap and gloves. “I’ll take the fire escape.”
    “In case she runs? You sure?”
    “I’d rather hang out in the freezing dark than breathe the air in there. Everybody over the age of seven smokes in that building. You risk lung cancer just walking up a flight of stairs.”
    “It can’t be worse than the Los Angeles smog.”
    “Hey. California was banning indoor smoking while you New Yorkers were still selling kids packs out of cigarette machines.” She started to grin up at him, then looked away. Their bitter words from last November hung in the air.
    Look, Flynn, we can still be friends, she had said.
    With me slicing myself open every day and you waiting and dreading the next time I break down and beg you to love me? Is that what you really want? No. I guess I don’t.
    He had been so heartsick, he couldn’t even face her. I didn’t think so.
    It was his fault she couldn’t even smile at him now. God, he was stupid. He cleared his throat. “I’ll give you a squawk if she’s not there. No sense