Chapter 1

The sound of a car horn woke him. Gabriel stared at the stained, peeling paint on the cracked ceiling, feeling disoriented. A fly buzzed his face. Memories seeped into him as sat up on the edge of the lumpy mattress.

Angry voices carried through the open bedroom window and the horn blared again. “Get the fuck out of my parking spot.” Gabriel winced and reached for the window. He looked along the brick apartment building at the row of curtain-less grimy windows. Looking down three stories, two men had gotten out of their cars and began pushing one another. He closed the window, muffling the voices from below, and instantly the room became unbearable warm.

He rose from the rumpled bed and stepped gingerly through the scattered mess to the bathroom. He ran his fingers through his greasy, overgrown hair. Looking into the cracked mirror, he groaned. Pink. Why did it have to be pink, he thought.

Scrounging around the bathroom, he found a razor. He flipped on the shower, pulled open the mildewed curtain and stepped into the chipped bathtub. Cold water poured out the showerhead and he jumped back, knocking over the shampoo. After a minute of running cold water, a lukewarm spray emerged, allowing him to soap himself with the shampoo and quickly scrape the week old beard from his face before shutting off the now cold water. Satisfied, Gabriel toweled himself off with a small, questionably clean towel.

He reentered the bedroom to try to find his clothes amidst the mess. He had just pulled on a pair of jeans when he realized he wasn’t alone in the apartment.

The giggling drew him into the living room, where a smiling infant lay in the middle of a grubby playpen with faded ducks and frogs on the plastic floor. A couple of discarded pink bottles littered the floor outside the reach of the baby. Her smile was a beacon, and he drew closer. The patch of fine, blonde baby hair circled her head like a halo. She held a bottle of bright red Kool-Aid, shaking it as she kicked her scrawny legs. Her face radiated an inner joy despite the sickly yellow tint to her eyes and skin.

Gabriel glanced at the meager surroundings. A large console television in the corner with a scratched wooden cabinet played the news announcing that police had found the third body in the “Stripper Ripper” murders. A sunken couch with torn cushions held a pile of wrinkled laundry. The coffee table was littered with old beer bottles and empty fast food containers. Was that a stack of dirty diapers in the corner? A rat scurried away from the pile. Gabriel swallowed hard.

"Jesse?"

Gabriel turned at the sound of the woman’s husky voice and looked at the woman standing in the kitchen. "I told you, you'd left something here last time." She nodded toward the baby.

"What is her name?" Gabriel asked.

"Lily."

The woman's drawn face and empty eyes told of the ravages of a hard life. She was probably years younger than she looked, but her stringy red hair lay limply around her face. She glanced down and picked at her arm, drawing a drop of blood.

He approached her warily, suspecting what he would find. Still, he needed to be sure. She smelled of stale cigarettes and sex. He reached out and touched her shoulders. He found his answer. No. This one was hopeless. Still, he ran his warm hands up and down the arms etched by scars and sores.

“What do you want, Jesse?” she drew back suspiciously and crossed her arms under the fake breasts that rose unnaturally on her emaciated body.

Gabriel paused, a plan forming. “I want her.”

She eyed him cynically and blew out an irritated stream of cigarette smoke. “You’ll have to pay for her.”

“I figured as much. How much?” he asked as if he were negotiating for a used car instead of a six month old.

“Five, no six hundred,” she spat out.

“Fine.”

“Oh yeah, Jesse, and how the hell you gonna get that kinda money when you can’t even pay for Ice,” she stabbed her cigarette out in the sink full of dirty dishes and putrid food.

“Don’t worry about the money. Bring the baby and meet me outside St. Mary’s in an hour. You think you can do that?”

She nodded and then glanced over at the baby bouncing happily at the colorful images dancing across the television. “What are you going to do with a baby?” she asked coldly.

“Do you care?”

“Not really, the little brat cries all the damn time.” Her shaky hands struggled to light up another cigarette. “Make sure you get the money, I need a fix.”

He answered her with a silent glare. He found what looked to be his shoes and a questionably clean shirt by the front door. Stuffing his feet into ratty Converse, he took the shirt with him as he stalked out the door. The baby wailed.