“Regina?” Patrick tapped her lightly on the shoulder to get her attention, trying not to startle her.
She turned around, flinching slightly. She wasn’t shy, exactly, just reserved, and seemed more interested in the things she wrote and drew in her sketchbook than anything going on around her most of the time. Patrick suspected that she had joined the Te’Maroan Cultural Enrichment program in large because he would let her sit and draw in the back of the room without bothering her, though he knew that her Te’Maroan grandmother on her mother’s side had been pleased to hear that Regina was taking an interest in island culture.
“Sir?” she said in a quiet voice.
“I just wanted to ask about Hector,” Patrick explained. “Is he doing okay?”
She looked at the ground at her feet for a moment, and seemed to be considering her answer before opening her mouth.
“Regina?” Patrick urged gently. “You shouldn’t worry about getting him in trouble. I’m worried about keeping him out of trouble. That’s what the police are here for.”
She took a breath and then let out a ragged sigh.
“He’s started hanging around those kids again,” she said. “You know, the ones from before?”
Patrick nodded. Hector had been arrested back in the spring at a warehouse party out by the docks, in the company of some repeat offenders from another high school.
“Is he drinking again?” Patrick asked.
She briefly met his gaze, and then looked away, shoulders hunched.
“Taking drugs?” Patrick guessed.
Regina blanched. And then, after a long pause, slowly nodded.
Patrick let out a labored sigh. If the kid was lucky, he would be staying away from the harder stuff. Patrick had seen far too many kids dip their toes in the water only to find themselves in way over their heads at the deep end of the pool quicker than they could have imagined.
“He’s going to some place in Hyde Park today,” Regina went on. “The kids he’s hanging around with got their hands on some new stuff that they want to try out.”
Patrick chewed his lower lip. Maybe there was still a chance to stop Hector before he got in too deep?
“It comes in, like, this pen thing.” Regina held up her mechanical pencil and mimed the act of injecting it into her arm. “Like the kind kids with allergies use?”
“You mean Ink?” Patrick said in a rush, his eyes widening. “Your brother is going to take Ink?”
Regina nodded. “Yeah, I think that’s what he called it. He’s never done it before, but I think he just wants those stupid kids he hangs around with to think he’s cool.”
Patrick took hold of the girl’s shoulders with both hands. “Regina, do you know where he’s going to go? Where he’s going to take it?”
“I think so.” She pulled a smart phone out of her pocket. “Mom made us install that Find Friends thing? So we wouldn’t get lost or whatever?”
She tapped the screen, and then turned it around to show it to Patrick. There was a green dot marked “HECTOR” just the other side of Prospect Avenue, at the edge of Hyde Park.
“That’s where he is now,” Regina said.
Patrick grabbed his own phone out of his pocket, and reached out to take Regina’s from her hands.
“Can I borrow this?” he said perfunctorily, already taking it from her. Then he brought up the camera app on his own phone, took a quick photo of the display on the girl’s phone, and then added Hector’s phone number to his own contact list. He handed Regina’s phone back to her, stuffing his own back in his pocket. “Thanks. Now, listen. I’m going there right now, okay?”
“Are you going to arrest him?” Her voice sounded small and afraid, tinged with guilt at the thought she might be getting her brother into trouble.
“No,” Patrick said, already turning to hurry off. “But hopefully I can stop him and his friends before they make a huge mistake.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Izzie and Joyce were just walking up the sidewalk toward the Northside Community Living Center, warm cups of coffee in hand, when Joyce’s phone rang. She hooked the handle of her cane over the elbow of the arm holding her coffee cup, and with her free hand pulled the phone out of her pocket and glanced at the screen.
“It’s Patrick,” Joyce said, and then glanced over in Izzie’s direction as she tapped the screen to answer. “Hang on a second.”
Izzie just nodded and took a sip of her coffee, turning to look up the street while Joyce held the phone to her ear.
“What’s up?” Joyce said, and even from a few feet away Izzie could hear the faint buzzing of Patrick’s voice from the other end of the call, talking urgently and without pause, though she couldn’t make out what he was saying from that distance.
“Okay, but . . .” Joyce began, and then the buzzing cut her off as Patrick kept on talking.
Joyce looked over at Izzie and mimed a silent grimace.
“Understood,” Joyce finally said as the buzzing came to an end. “Keep us posted.”
“What was that all about?” Izzie asked while Joyce pocketed the phone. “Sounded pretty important.”
“He said that some kids from his neighborhood are apparently about to take Ink for the first time, at a house over in Hyde Park, and he’s trying to get there in time to stop them.”
“Oh.” Izzie blinked.
She could easily understand the sense of urgency. Once they injected the Ink into their systems, the loa would have its hooks in them, and there would be no turning back. Or at least, that was what they had assumed. But what about the two kids that G. W. Jett had pulled out of the Eschaton Center back in the seventies?
“Hey,” Izzie went on, turning to Joyce, “didn’t Jett say that the runaway kids that he saw on the street, the ones
