Total pages in book: 120
Estimated words: 111860 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 559(@200wpm)___ 447(@250wpm)___ 373(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 111860 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 559(@200wpm)___ 447(@250wpm)___ 373(@300wpm)
“How long did Cherish live here with you?” Lennon asked after Brandy had washed her hands and turned her way, drying her hands on a dishcloth. She tossed the cloth on the counter and gestured to the two-person table, and Lennon squeezed herself in and sat down.
“Only nine months or so,” Brandy said, taking a seat as well and smiling over at her daughter, who was busily shoving fries in her mouth. “She wasn’t on the lease, so she wasn’t supposed to be living here. But she slept on the couch and shared the rent.”
“Where did you think she was when she didn’t come home?”
“With a trick. She’d done it before, gone home with some guy who paid her to stay the weekend. Cherish also worked this club where men sometimes would pay her to go home with them.” A look passed over her face that told Lennon that Brandy was troubled by the club she’d mentioned—likely the Cellar—and she understood why. “She’d come home all blank-like, sometimes with bruises, and she’d get directly in the shower and stay there so long I knew the water had to be cold.”
“Are you in the business, Brandy?”
Her gaze moved to her daughter before she nodded. “I’m trying to get out. Maybe I’ll have to, now that Cherish won’t be here to watch Nadia. It’s tough, though, you know? Especially without a diploma or a GED.”
Lennon nodded, even though, really, she didn’t know. She’d been raised by loving parents who had her back, no matter what. They showered her with affection and praise, and if she ever tried to walk any street anywhere for any reason that put her in danger, her dad would pull up in his car and haul her into the back.
They weren’t even thrilled that she was an inspector working in rough areas of the city, even though she was usually armed. “So no idea if she actually went home with a customer?”
“No. I just assumed. Shit,” she said again under her breath.
“Is there anything you can tell me that might help us identify the person that did this? Was Cherish dating anyone? Had she gotten into a fight with someone recently?”
Nadia pulled a piece of burger apart and tossed the section of bun on the floor. “No, Nadia,” Brandy said halfheartedly, leaving the food on the floor where it lay. “Uh, no, Cherish wasn’t dating anyone. If she fought with anyone, I didn’t know about it. But Cherish was real chill. She wasn’t a fighter, you know?”
Lennon nodded. “Brandy, I don’t know if you knew, but Cherish was pregnant. About three months or so.”
Brandy seemed to deflate a little. She heaved out a sigh as Nadia launched a piece of burger onto the floor. “Yeah, I know. Stupid chick let ’em go bare. I told her she was gonna get knocked up again, and she did.” She met Lennon’s eyes. “The thing was, she wanted to keep the baby and get her other kids out of the system. She said she was gonna get herself better, get a legitimate job, something her kids could be proud of.”
Lennon held back the cringe at the news that Cherish had other children, and that they were in the system. Now they had no chance of ever knowing their mother.
“Anyway,” Brandy said, “Cherish went on and on about it. Some doctor was gonna help her. She was gonna get her boys back too. Blah, blah, blah.” She used her hand to gesture a flapping mouth.
“A doctor?” Lennon asked. “Like a therapist?”
Brandy shrugged. “I guess.”
“Do you remember his name?”
Her eyes moved to the wall behind Lennon’s head. “No. I called him the Candyman.”
A chill went down her spine. The name conjured the eighties slasher film, which felt far too close to home in this particular instance. “The Candyman? Why?”
“I don’t really remember. Something she said? I don’t know. Maybe because she seemed happy when she came back from seeing him, though. Like he was going to solve all her problems. Anyway, I just started thinking of him that way.”
Horror flicks aside, the Candyman might also be another name for a pill pusher, right? Lennon pictured those homemade purple pills. Maybe this doctor not only prescribed medication but made his own for reasons unknown. “Did he prescribe medication to her?”
“I don’t know. Hold on.” Brandy stood, left the room for thirty seconds while Lennon watched Nadia smear greasy pieces of burger on her cheeks. She smiled at the toddler, who gave her a—literally—cheesy grin back. When Brandy reentered the room, she was holding several prescription pill bottles. She put them down on the table in front of Lennon, who looked at them each in turn. They were prescribed to Cherish Olsen. “Dr. Frede,” she read the prescribing physician’s name aloud.
“That doctor is someone Cherish saw online, so he’s not the Candyman. But those are all the meds she was on,” Brandy said.