Thankyou for the kind reviews. I always appreciate them.
Chapter Two
It was nearly dark by the time the girl scrambled up the embankment and pulled back the rusted cover to the old stormwater drain. It had been a long time since water had flowed through the concrete pipe but nobody had seen fit to finish removing it. Weeds and debris had piled up at the entrance which helped to conceal their makeshift home.
She rapped four times on the rusty metal and heard the echo travel down through the tunnel. Her sister would know not to panic when she heard movement.
It was another minute before she saw the soft glow of light dancing off the tunnel walls and quickly rounded the bend to see her younger sister sitting hunched over beside a meagre candle. Nikki's heart caught in her mouth as she saw her sister's dirt-smudged face. It wasn't the first time she had doubted her choice to run but the doubt was quickly overwhelmed by ugly memories. Yes, she had to save her baby sister.
"Here you go. Gourmet supper is served!" With a flourish she pulled the half eaten roll from under her shirt and made a show of bowing before handing the precious food to her sister.
Jess reached out and snatched the roll and made short work of unwrapping it and starting to wolf it down. Nikki sat down beside her and waited until every last crumb of the roll was gone.
"Where did you get this? It's really good!"
Nikki shrugged her shoulders and frowned. "Some cop thought he would play nice." The word "nice" came out sounding anything but nice. Jess picked up on the tone and looked up fearfully.
"Like …. like Michael?" she whispered.
Nikki put an arm around her sister and hugged her. While she hadn't wanted to acknowledge it at the time this cop hadn't been at all like Michael. "No Honey. Not like Michael."
She squeezed her sister a little tighter.
Starsky slammed the folder shut and hefted it across the desk towards the growing pile. His partner looked up at the noise but didn't say anything. He understood the frustration because he felt exactly the same way.
"How many dead ends are we gonna run into? This is ridiculous!" Hutch watched as Starsky pushed the chair away from the desk and stood up.
"Maybe we need to clear our heads," he suggested.
"Waddaya got in mind?"
"Well … we've got a pile of scraps here. Bits of information that don't fit together. Yet!"
Starsky nodded vigorously. "Yeah! So how do we connect the dots?"
Hutch reached into the top drawer and pulled out the keys to the Torino. "We get outta here for starters. We do our best thinking out there."
He pointed to the far wall but Starsky knew what he meant. Being cooped up at a desk wasn't how either of them worked best. Police work required attention to detail and it was often in the little details that criminals got tripped up. But a large part of it was also tied up in a detective's gut instinct. The ability to make connections that others missed and then chase up the proof.
As Hutch flung the keys towards his partner they were already operating on the same wavelength. Get out of the precinct and start to bounce their pieces of info off each other. Somehow in the banter the jigsaw would start to come together. At least that was how it usually worked.
What neither of them would give voice to was the fact that they were no longer comfortable in their own house. The more they had dug up over the last week, the more the finger pointed to their own station. Somebody was helping smooth the way for drugs to flow into Bay City and it was looking more and more like dirty cops were behind it.
The two of them hurried down the stairs and were almost out to the exit when Hutch noticed the new kid, Benson, coming through the door with his partner. He smiled at the young man and got a half smile in return. It seemed that the kid was still embarrassed at his failure from the week before.
He wanted to make a good impression on his superiors when he left the academy and so far it seemed to be going to plan reasonably well. Until last week when he screwed up in front of one of the precinct's favourite sons. He decided to try to salvage it by showing how conscientiously he had followed up.
"Ahh Detective," he called out as the two men passed him by. They both turned to look at him and he faltered slightly. "Um, Detective Hutchinson."
"I told you already, the name's Hutch."
"Ahh, sure! Well, um anyway. I got the story on that girl from last week. She's a runaway from the north side of the bay. She took off over three weeks ago with her kid sister. Her mother's engaged to a cop so there's been a real push to find them."
"Well we do take care of our own." No sooner were the words out of his mouth than Hutch found himself questioning them. If some cop was doing such a great job of taking care of his own, why were they out on the streets? And why did that kid have a massive bruise across her back? He frowned at the thought but remembered where he was headed.
"Well I'll keep an eye out for her Benson but right now we've gotta go." He turned back towards the door and followed his partner out to the garage. As he climbed into Starsky's beloved Torino he couldn't shake the strange nagging thought that followed him.
As they pulled out into the flow of traffic and began to discuss their respective insights all thoughts of a scruffy kid were pushed aside. Runaways weren't their patch and somebody else would find her soon enough. Especially if her robbery skills were anything to go by!
"OK we know that it's comin' in by boat. That means either the river or the port."
Hutch nodded in agreement at his partner's assessment. It wasn't long before the two detectives found themselves heading out towards the docks area again. So far surveillance hadn't turned up any useful leads but they were narrowing down options by ruling out various places. It was the slower way to get to a point but in the absence of leads it was the only way.
"Hey, ahh, don't look now but I think we got us a tail." Starsky had picked up the vehicle following them some time back but wanted to see if his partner had noticed.
"Black van? Broken front light?"
"That's the one. Seen it back before the exit and wondered but it turned off with us."
"Waddaya want to do about it?"
"Well we can't keep going to the docks. Don't want to tip them off."
Hutch nodded in agreement. "I guess we make a stop somewhere and see if we throw them."
Starksy pulled in just in front of a rundown coffee shop and the two of them walked inside and ordered. The black van drove past them and disappeared out of sight.
By the time they pulled out again it wasn't long before the van showed up again in the rear-view mirror.
Starsky slapped his hand on the steering wheel. "Well that idea's a bust! Can't go anywhere near the docks now without giving up the game."
"It's not entirely a bust Starsk. I got a make and licence plate to run down."
"Great! Time to go home boys and girls!" He swung the Torino into the far lane and turned back towards the station. So far this day had been a total waste of time.