stored away. Clara gives the counters a quick wipe, and then we head back out to the car.
“How are things going with Debbie?” Clara asks.
I sigh, hopping into the driver’s seat. Three men slide into the car behind us.
“She’s still pissed at me,” I say as I pull out onto the road. “She says until she can trust me again, she’s only giving me freelance work.”
Writing that article on the purple heroin crisis was supposed to be my big break with the New York Union, where I have been writing bland puff pieces for years. Debbie Harris, my long-suffering editor, was with me through the whole process. She didn’t understand why it took me so long to produce the finished product and suspected I was holding something back.
I was. I kept Gabriel’s name and the Italian Mafia out of it as much as I could. Since Debbie is aware of Gabriel’s mob connections—having been threatened and blackmailed by his former Irish rival Andrew Walsh—she knows exactly what I did and why.
“That’s bullshit,” Clara gripes. “Your article shone a light on this whole crisis. The police only know half of the stuff they do because of your hard work. Besides, you and Gabriel are done, right? So there’s nothing for her to worry about.”
My gut twists with her words. Clara doesn’t mean to be callous, but she never liked Gabriel, and that was before she knew that he was a Mafia don.
Because of my relationship with Gabriel, Clara was targeted by the Irish mob and used as a pawn in their game. For months, her Irish boyfriend led her down a path of alcohol, drugs, and abuse, and this culminated in her luring me to her apartment, where he tried to kill me. Clara pushed my would-be murderer out of a window to his death.
Once I could see that Clara was properly on the path to recovery, I filled her in on the truth about my son’s father. I didn’t see it as a choice after what I’d put her through, but sometimes I wish I’d kept her in the dark. Now she only despises him more.
“It’s fine for now,” I say. “I’ve been pretty busy anyway.”
“True. How’s the blog?”
I shrug, keeping an eye on a cyclist veering into the street. “I don’t get a ton of traffic, but it’s only a baby.”
I got a fair amount of attention from the public and other news agencies for my article, and since then have been providing follow-up posts on my personal blog. The entries focus more on the individual experiences of addicts, rather than the distribution channels. The purple heroin trade is still very much alive and well in the city, despite my best efforts, and I like to keep reminding lawmakers and the public that the people suffering from this epidemic are human.
Clara and I grab a few things at the store for her chili tonight, then I drop her off at the DA’s office and head back to the rehab center to put the food away. When I get there, I see Joey hanging out on the stoop, smoking a cigarette.
“Lexi,” he greets jovially, face cracking into a wide smile. He has thick, curly blond hair and freckles spattered over his nose and cheeks. He’s only seventeen and looks even younger, but the track marks on his arm paint a dark picture of his youth.
He’s healing, though, and hopefully, with my help and Clara’s, he will have a long, happy life ahead of him.
“Help an old lady with some groceries?” I ask.
He laughs and stubs out his cigarette, then runs over to grab the bag from me. I hoist the remaining one from the car, and we head up the steps together.
“Where’s Clara?” he asks.
“With Georgia at the DA’s office. She’s making you guys chili later, though.”
“Sick!” Joey exclaims as we head through the front door. “I swear, her chili is even better than heroin.”
“Yes, it’s her chili you’re obsessed with,” I remark.
We drop the groceries onto the counter, and Joey helps me put them away, grinning to himself and chatting amiably about some new TV show he’s hooked on. A man I don’t recognize staggers into the room, and Joey stops, mid-sentence, watching the man with trepidation.
The stranger is tall and lanky, with thick bags under his brown eyes and a patchy head of dark hair. He wears an oversized T-shirt, stained in several places, and a pair of loose jeans. His feet are bare. The man gives me