Enhanced: Brides of the Kindred 12 (The Brides of the Kindred) (4 page)

At last, at the bottom of the
transmission, he found her coordinates. There wasn’t an exact pinpoint
location—more like a map of the areas she frequented. That was enough for Six.
He knew instinctively that he would sense her more clearly the closer he got.
But she would never sense him. She would never know that he had come to watch
over her for a little while before leaving again.

“Tampa, Florida,”
he muttered under his breath as he punched in the coordinates. “Mei-Li, I will
see you soon…even if you don’t see me.”

Chapter
Four

Mei-Li sighed and put her head down on her
desk. It was turning out to be the day from Hell and there was no end in sight.

She had come to work early, intending to
make a serious dent on the mountain of paperwork waiting for her before the
phones started ringing at nine. But that was not to be. Before she’d even sat
down behind her cheap metal desk, the Emergency CPI had told her that the
mother of one of her clients had been caught wandering up and down her
apartment complex, banging on doors and shouting unintelligibly in the early
hours of the morning.

The minute she got the report, Mei-Li knew
who it was about before the Emergency CPI even gave her the name. She had
dubbed this particular woman “Drunk Mom” in her head, not to be mean but
because she was almost always inebriated. Mei-Li had tried with varying degrees
of success to get her into AA but it never worked for long. Drunk Mom always
relapsed, usually at three o’clock in the morning, and made a huge,
embarrassing scene.

Mei-Li had no choice—she got in the car
and went directly to Drunk Mom’s house. The woman had three children, all under
the age of seven, and if she was three sheets to the wind it meant that the six
year old was in charge of the toddler and the infant—not a good scenario.

On arriving at Drunk Mom’s house, Mei-Li
had indeed found her sitting on the couch crying and reeking of alcohol and
puke which was snarled in her hair and drying down the front of her shirt. Her
kids, thank goodness, were all safe and unharmed. They were dirty and the house
was messy but there were no bruises or signs of obvious neglect. Better yet,
their grandmother was there to watch over them and she assured Mei-Li grimly
that her daughter would tow the line from now on. Which would probably last for
as long as the grandmother was there. Mei-Li hoped she was planning on a long
visit.

She knew some CPI’s that would have
decided to take the kids considering the state of the house but she had seen
worse—much worse. And while the grandmother didn’t seem to be much more
inclined to clean than Drunk Mom, at least she didn’t reek of alcohol and she
was making sure the kids were being fed and cared for. It was a judgment
call—sometimes you had to go with your gut. And Mei-Li’s gut told her the kids
weren’t in danger which was her main concern.

Oh, they might need years of therapy when
they were grown or have drinking and substance abuse problems themselves but
they weren’t going to be any better off ripped away from their biological mom
and sent into the foster system. No, better to leave them where they were and
just keep a close eye on them. She left, promising herself to do a drive by
check later on.

Next it was back to the office for a
seemingly endless meeting about policy change. After that, Mei-Li had just been
sitting down to her mound of paperwork again when she got a new call to check
out. Someone had complained that a neighbor’s house was infested with vermin
and her children were at risk.

Sighing, she had gotten back into the car
and gone to take the call which was on the bad side of

The address was the left half of a rundown
duplex and when Mei-Li rang the doorbell, a tired looking girl with straggly
blonde hair who couldn’t have been older than nineteen opened the door. She had
dark circles under her eyes and was holding a red-faced squalling baby in one
arm. A toddler with grape jelly smeared on his mouth was clinging to the skirt
of her waitressing uniform.

When Mei-Li explained why she was there,
the girl glowered at her.

“You can’t come in. My kids are fine.”

“I’m sorry, Ma’am but once a complaint is
filed, we have to check it out. This should only take a short time.” Mei-Li
made her voice firm and uncompromising. Her tiny stature had forced her to
develop a fierce professional personality which she employed now.

“But…” The girl began to look uneasy.

“I need to come in.” Mei-Li tilted her
chin to look the girl squarely in the eyes. “I need to look around.”

“Oh…all right,” the girl said hopelessly.
Her thin shoulders sagged as she stepped away from the doorway which she had
been blocking.

When she finally got entry to the little
duplex, Me-Li almost wished she hadn’t. The place made Drunk Mom’s messy
apartment look nearly pristine.

Trash covered the floors—so much that she had
to kick it away to walk. Paper plates, some with half eaten, moldy food still
on them, empty drink cans, broken toys, and other debris was everywhere. The
couch in the living room was piled with mounds of dirty clothes and Sponge Bob
was blasting from the battered TV set.

The ceiling fan overhead whirred
ceaselessly, probably because there didn’t appear to be any central air. The
heat was stifling. Mei-Li could feel herself sweating beneath her professional
dove gray jacket and skirt combo but she made no move to take her jacket
off—there was no place to put it and besides, she wasn’t sure what else she
might encounter. She wanted a barrier between herself and any creepy crawlies
that might be lurking.

The bedroom was in the same shape. There
was no bed frame—just a bare mattress on the floor covered in junk and wadded
up blankets. The air smelled like garbage and urine—probably because of all the
dirty diapers piled in one corner.

But the kitchen was the worst room of all.
Dishes filled the sink and overflowed onto both countertops. A pot on the stove
looked like it had once held oatmeal. Now it was home to a growing colony of
squirming maggots. Mei-Li kept her face blank and struggled not to gag. When
she lifted an empty Corn Pops box from the pile of garbage that dominated the
tiny kitchen table, a roach ran up her arm.

Mei-Li gave a muffled shriek and dropped
the box reflexively. She could handle mice or rats but she
hated
roaches. It took all her professionalism not to dance around shaking her arm to
get the roach off. Instead she took a deep breath and, with a practiced flick,
she sent the insect skittering to the floor. It rushed away and squirmed into a
dirty crevice under the stove, disappearing from sight if not from mind.

Mei-Li turned to face the mother who had
been trailing her around the whole time as she went from room to room.

“Ms. Fagen…”

“Just call me Brandi,” the girl said.
“Look, I know this don’t look so good but I can explain. I work nights at the
Ihop and my aunt watches the kids but she comes over once they’re asleep and
she sleeps too. When I come home I’m really
tired
. I know things are
kinda piled up but—”

“I need to look at your children,” Mei-Li
said. “What are their names?”

The girl lifted her chin. “I told you—my
kids are fine. Not a mark on ‘em.”

“Still.” Mei-Li kept her voice calm but
firm. “I need to look.”

“Okay, fine. This one’s Carl,” Brandi
said, nodding at the baby which was still crying. “I think he’s hungry. You can
look at Butch, here,” she nodded at the toddler, “While I get Carl a bottle. Go
on, look ‘im over—I ain’t got nothing to hide.”

“All right.” Normally Mei-Li liked to sit
down somewhere so she could get on the child’s level but there wasn’t a single
surface in the whole living area to sit that wasn’t covered in trash. She
contented herself with crouching down to get on eye-level with the little boy.

“Hello, Butch,” she said softly, looking
into his wide, mistrustful blue eyes. “That’s a pretty tough name.”

“It
is
tough ‘cause I’m named after
my Daddy. He’s tough too.” The little boy nodded decisively and scratched his
mop of straggly blond hair which looked a lot like his mother’s. “Least he was
when he lived here.” His lower lip quivered. “I wish he still did.”

“I’m sure you do,” Mei-Lei said gently.
She scanned rapidly to see if there were any suspicious looking bumps or
bruises on the little body. It was easy to see because the little boy was
dressed in a white t-shirt and a pair of faded Spiderman underpants and nothing
else. Other than the grape jelly smeared on his face, he looked healthy enough.
No bumps, cuts, burns, or bruises and he didn’t seem malnourished. Then Mei-Li
saw something crawling in his hair.

Taking a deep breath, she pulled a pair of
purple latex gloves from her suit pocket and slipped them on.

“What’re those?” Butch’s eyes got wider.

“My magic gloves.” Mei-Li smiled brightly.
“They’ll help me find out why your head is itchy. It
is
itchy—right?”

“All the time!” He nodded vigorously and
scratched again with short, grubby fingernails.

“Okay, then.” Mei-Li stood up and made
sure that the ends of her own long hair were tucked safely back. She wished
she’d thought to put her hair in a bun this morning as she usually did but
she’d wanted to look nice for court later on. Taking a deep breath, she bent
over the small, blond head. It didn’t take long to confirm her suspicions—the
little boy’s hair was crawling with lice.

“It itches a lot!” He scratched his hair
again and Mei-Li nodded, keeping her face carefully blank.

“I bet it does.”

“Does he have lice again?” the young
mother said, coming up behind Mei-Li.

“Again?” Mei-Li raised an eyebrow.

“It’s them neighbor kids.” Brandi lifted
her chin defiantly. “Butch plays with them and they give him lice. It’s not my
fault they’re dirty.” She had the baby clasped firmly in one arm and she was
feeding him a bottle which had apparently just come from the refrigerator
because the side was beaded with condensation. Well, at least she wasn’t giving
him something that had sat out in the heat of the apartment and spoiled, Mei-Li
reflected.

“He does appear to have lice,” she said
neutrally. “That’s going to have to be taken care of.”

“I’ll take care of it. If I could just get
some decent tips…that damn medicated shampoo is so expensive and if you got to choose
between feeding ‘em and letting ‘em itch…” Suddenly her lower lip quivered and
her formerly defiant eyes filled with tears. “Lady, you’re not gonna take my
kids, are you? I know my place ain’t great but I make sure they’re fed and
clothed and I
love
them!”

“I can tell you do,” Mei-Li said gently.
“But, Brandi, it’s not safe for them to live in these conditions. It’s a health
hazard.”

“I’ll clean up,” the girl promised wildly.
“I swear I will! Just please, don’t take my kids. They’re all I got and since
Butch left me I got no one to help me. I work as many shifts at the Ihop as I
can just to make rent on this lousy place and I’m so tired all the time.” She
started sobbing. “I’m just so
tired.”

“Mommy, mommy!” The little boy ran to her
and threw his arms around her waist. “Mommy, don’t cry! Please!”

Mei-Li felt her heart clench in her chest.
No matter how many times she saw a situation like this, she never got used to
it. She couldn’t, in good conscience, leave the kids here in these conditions
and she knew if she called in another CPI they would agree with her assessment.
Still, the children didn’t appear abused or neglected and it was clear the
mother loved them and they loved her. She looked around the duplex and took a
deep breath.

“I tell you what,” she said to the young
mother. “Maybe I can help you out a little bit. Just let me go out and get a
few things from my car.”

She returned a moment later with a box of
garbage bags, some cleaning supplies, and a bottle of lice shampoo. She always
kept a few spare bottles in the trunk for this exact situation which she sadly
encountered all too frequently.

After making sure the baby was safely
installed in a small, grimy playpen and the toddler was watching Sponge Bob,
she and Brandie waded through the house, picking up the garbage. It was a big
job and in the end, they filled seventeen big bags with trash. Though she
looked like she was about to drop, the young mother worked with a will,
cleaning as if her life depended on it. It made Mei-Li glad to see her determination—she
was doing this for her kids. It also reinforced her gut feeling that this
family needed to stay together.

After putting out the trash, it was time
to tackle the dishes. Mei-Li cleared out one side of the sink and filled it
with hot water. There was no dishwashing liquid but she had some of that too.
She and Brandi washed and dried, stacking the plates and cups in the mostly
bare cabinets until the sink and counters were clear. Mei-Li noticed there
wasn’t much food in the cupboards other than a few boxes of Kraft macaroni and
cheese and a dusty can of green beans. She promised herself to drop by the food
bank and bring Brandi and her kids a food box as soon as she had a spare
minute.

The maggot filled pot she saved for the
last, mostly because she just couldn’t bear to touch it until she had to. She
emptied it out in the back yard, shivering as the slimy mass of writhing white
grubs plopped into the small hole she had dug in the dirt with the heel of her
best court shoes.

Mei-Li sighed as she scraped clods of
earth over the disgusting mess. She was hot and sweaty from working in the
filth and heat, her hair was stringy and now her shoes were caked with dirt. So
much for looking good in court—after this she would be lucky to even look
presentable. But it was either pitch in and help or take the kids and she
didn’t want to break up this home. Even if it was messy and the mother was
young and inexperienced, there was clearly love here.