NYPD Red 2(11)

“What did he say?”

“He just stood there with his glassy eyes, his puffy face, and his gym bag full of oxy, and he told me I was wrong. He said he may have upped his dosage a little, but he has it under control, and as soon as his feet get a little bit better, he’ll switch over to Advil. He’s in total denial, and at this point I just don’t know what to do.”

“There’s nothing you can do,” I said. “He’s a recovering drug addict. He’s been clean for a long time—”

“Eleven years,” Kylie interjected.

“So he knows what to do,” I said. “Go to meetings, call his sponsor, even check into rehab if it’s that bad. But he’s the one that has to do it. You can’t pull him out of the gutter.”

She took in a long, deep breath and let it out slowly. “Zach,” she said, “I’m a cop, and right now I’m afraid that if anyone finds out I’m married to a drug addict, he’ll pull me down into the gutter with him.”

“Nobody is going to find out,” I said. “Your secret is safe with me.”

“Thanks,” she said, her eyes welling up. “Partner.”

I put the car in gear and headed west on 86th.

I fell in love with Kylie the first time I met her at the academy. She had recently dumped her drug addict boyfriend, and I was happy to be the guy who caught her on the rebound. But Spence wanted her just as much as I did. He went to rehab, came back clean twenty-eight days later, and begged her for one more chance.

She said “yes,” and a year later she said “I do.”

For the past ten years, I’ve resigned myself to the fact that Kylie and Spence are rich, happy, and in love—the beautiful couple that everybody who is anybody in New York is thrilled to have over for dinner at their penthouse in the city, their home in the Hamptons, or their yacht.

I probably never fell out of love with her, but at least I moved on, and after bouncing around the New York singles market with one short-term relationship after another, I finally found Cheryl.

Cheryl Robinson was the first woman I ever dated that met the impossible standards I set for myself after I lost Kylie. We’d known each other for a few years, but it began to get serious only three months ago, and I was starting to hope that Cheryl could be the one. And now, suddenly, it was looking like Kylie’s relationship with Spence was starting to unravel.

If she were any other partner, I’d be rooting for her to get back together with her husband and get her life back on track.

But Kylie MacDonald wasn’t just any other partner. And right now, I had no idea how I felt.





Chapter 11



Somewhere between 86th Street and the crime scene, I focused on the fact that, as crazy as I was, there was a guy out there with an unlimited supply of Hazmat suits who was even crazier.

“Screw the election,” Kylie blurted out, and I knew that her head had gone to the same place mine had. “Irwin Diamond got it right. We’re not politicians. We’re cops, and our job is to catch Hazmat before he kidnaps and kills another innocent—correction—not-so-innocent victim. Where do we start?”

“Dryden gave me the names of the two detectives working the case—Donovan and Boyle out of the Five—but I’d rather hold off on calling them. I never got a chance to tell you, but there were two guys from Anti-Crime working the park. They called in the one eighty-seven. I recruited them and told them to do some legwork for us. Let’s check in with them first.”

“Legwork,” Kylie said. “So much more efficient than those newfangled computer machines.”

“Hey, give the poor mayor a break. Police work is not his strong suit.”

“Then he should never have blocked the department from investigating Cynthia Pritchard’s death. If he loses the election, he’ll be getting what he deserves,” Kylie said. “And as long as I’m sharing all my deepest, darkest secrets with you, there’s one I’ve been holding back.”

“What’s that?”

“Whether we solve this case by next Tuesday or not, I’m still voting for Sykes.”





The area surrounding the carousel looked like ground zero for a flash mob. “Is this our crime scene,” Kylie said, “or a Bon Jovi concert?”

As soon as I got out of the car, someone yelled, “Detective Jordan!”

It was Casey and Bell, working their way through the crowd. They had cleaned up from their homeless routine, but they looked frazzled.

“Boy, are we glad you’re back,” Casey said.

“Sorry to cut and run,” I said. “You guys in over your head?”