Will Max finally find happiness?
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, merchandise, companies, events and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. All characters in sexual situations are 18 years or older.
Prologue
I'm Max Pemberton. Detective. A sergeant and twenty year veteran of the Cincinnati police force.
I'm used to getting my way. I usually fuck up other people along the way, sometimes intentionally and sometimes not. But in my personal life I always end up fucking myself.
Take my latest run-in with Olek Shevchenko, a dirtbag if there ever was one. He was a Ukrainian crime boss who was knee deep in human trafficking, prostitution and drugs. My partner Lanny Townsend tried to take him out, but instead Olek got a glass shower in the face. He took out his anger on my girlfriend and love of my life, Lehka Singh, and forced her into a heroin addiction. That's about as low as it gets.
I helped rid the world of this scum, but instead of congratulations I was subjected to a painful investigation by Internal Affairs. Granted, I ignored the orders of Captain Sheehan in carrying out my brand of vigilante justice, but in my mind justice delayed was justice denied. Unfortunately for me, Internal Affairs didn't agree, and dished out a six month suspension without pay.
I was trying to pick up the pieces of my life after Lehka went back to Columbus to live with her parents as she struggled to shake her addiction. There was a gossamer thin lifeline between Lehka and me. And that's where this tale begins...
Chapter One
Lost in the Wilderness
I hated US-71. It was a clogged artery connecting Cincinnati and Columbus. I was crawling in bumper to bumper traffic for at least a half an hour. Of course the traffic in the other direction was going the speed limit. I finally saw the flashing lights of the fire engines ahead and figured it would be another ten minutes before I cleared the accident. My stomach started rumbling so I resurrected my lunch bag, finding a half-eaten McDonald's cheeseburger that I'd put back in the wrapper. Even cold, it was delicious. I washed it down with the remains of my last cup of coffee. I wadded up the sandwich wrapper and the cup and tossed them on top of the garbage from the last two meals I had in the car.
My former girlfriend, Lehka Singh, lived in Columbus, and I of course lived in Cincinnati. That fact did create a small amount of friction between us because she was a diehard Ohio State Buckeye fan and I had my beloved Cincinnati Bearcats. I said former because the last time I talked to her she told me never to call or see her again. Despite Lehka's prohibition, it was the fourth time in the last month that I made the two hour drive to Columbus to see her. The traffic finally let up and I was travelling the speed limit when I saw the sign for the Mt. Sterling exit. I knew I only had a half hour to go.
Lehka's three months of "recovery" after her forced heroin addiction was a complete failure. She lapsed within a week of living at home with her parents, and twice more after two stints at a high priced rehab clinic. Lehka's insurance didn't cover all of the rehab costs, which put a severe strain on Veehan and Eshana's finances. I put in $10,000 of my own money towards those costs.
Now she was home after her aborted second trip to the clinic. Being an experienced police officer, breaking out of the facility and finding drugs was easy for her. She scored drugs only a block away and was kicked out of the program the following day. After returning home, she lapsed again after two days. She had graduated to fentanyl, which was even more potent than heroin, and more difficult to kick. Her mother Eshana called me begging me to see her daughter. I didn't feel I could say no to anything she asked. I saddled up one more time for what I expected to be another failed attempt at resurrecting a relationship that was on life support and convincing Lehka to kick her habit.
I finally got to my exit and soon entered an older middle class tract neighborhood just outside the city limits of Columbus. Modest brick ranch houses with mature trees lined the narrow street. The Singh's house was tucked between two other homes with the identical profile. I noticed that Veehan's car was in the driveway at a time when he was usually at work in his jewelry store located in downtown Columbus.
Eshana opened the door before I could knock. Her eyes showed great relief.
"Max." She hugged me tight. She was usually impeccably dressed, with her hair and make-up done. Not so on this day. She was wearing her robe and slippers, with no make-up, even though it was late afternoon, and it was clear from her drawn face that she hadn't had a whole lot of sleep.
"How's she doing?" I asked.
"Not well. I think she's sleeping. Veehan's watching her door to make sure she doesn't get out."
"That bad?"
"Worse than ever," she sighed. She led me to Lehka's room, and along the way I noticed that the house hadn't been cleaned in a while and that there was a cardboard box with a half-eaten pizza still in it on a cluttered kitchen table. This was not in character for the usually tidy and put together couple. I saw Veehan sitting on a sofa in the hallway outside her room. He had pushed the sofa against the entrance to her room and attached a bungee cord to the door handle to keep her in her room.
"She's asleep... I think," Veehan said, as he put two fingers over his lips.
I peered at the closed door, as if I could see through it.
"Max... is that you?" came her voice through the door. I guess she was awake and talking to me again.
Her father looked at me expectantly.
"I think I need to see her," I told him.
I helped him move the sofa and detach the bungee cord. I pushed her door open. She was sitting upright in her bed with her back against the wall, wearing her pajamas. Veehan pulled the door shut behind me.
She looked at me and her eyes teared up. She looked so... sad. I ran up to her and hugged her, long and hard. We snuggled in each other's arms, like we had many times when we were together, and I felt the flicker of love that had not yet been extinguished.
I was cradling Lehka's head in my lap and singing her a song my mom used to sing to me when I was a child, and wanted to go to sleep. I stroked her shiny brown hair, still lustrous and full bodied in spite of the abuse she was dealing out to her body. I traced the hollow in her cheek. She was still twenty pounds under when I was with her. She never recovered the weight that she lost when she was hostage in Shevchenko's drug den. I wanted so desperately to love her, but she pushed me away, and it was only at Eshana's insistence that Lehka would let me see her. She didn't want me to see her this way. She was ashamed of her habit. She was ashamed of herself.
"Max... you can't save me," Lehka said, starting to sob lightly.
"It's what I do honey," I told her. I was the saver of lost souls.
"Not me. You have to live your life Max. You can't throw yours away waiting for someone who can't control her impulses."
"I love you Lehka."
"And I you Max, but that ignores reality. And the reality is that I'm not in the cards for you Max. People have loved and lost before and gotten past it. We need to. You need to."
I heard her loud and clear. How much clearer could she be? I still didn't want to believe her.
"What about you, Lehka? It's why I'm here. You're using again. I'm so worried about you. I know if I had your dealer busted that you'd just find someone else. I know it's got to come from you... from here." I put my hand over my heart.
"So easy the words flow off your lips, Max. It was the same for me when I scolded you for your binge drinking. Now the shoe's on the other foot. I'm the one who's given in. I've learned that my addiction is now my Mistress." She pointed to the tracks of needle marks on her left arm. "Have you had a drink recently Max?"
I thought about it. "Not since we got you back. It's been over three months."
"See? You've gotten control of your life and I've done the exact opposite."
That wasn't actually true. I've never really been in control of my life. But this conversation wasn't about me. I couldn't keep myself from asking her, "Why Lehka?"
Her head hung lower. "It's hard for me to explain. The best I can say is it dulls the pain. I still wake up in cold sweats dreaming I'm in that windowless little cell, giving up hope that I'll leave there alive. I can't get rid of the vision of Shevchenko's monstrous face. Or the memory of calling to you in the darkness."
I could understand her pain and her fears. They were deep and all consuming. She had to figure out a way to deal with them, or get destroyed by the drugs she was using to try to forget them.
I held her close and slipped my hand inside her dress, feeling the swell of her breast. I wanted to remember what it was like to make love with her, thinking we would have the rest of our lives together. The touch of her soft skin gave me a pit in my stomach knowing I might never see her again... alive.
She pushed me away so we could look into each other's eyes.
