“Can I help you?”

The kid behind the counter looked to be in his late teens. He had unkempt dark hair sticking out from underneath his knitted beanie hat, and there were silver gauges in his ears. Cisco tried to set aside his judgments. He didn’t know the kid. Maybe the young man was a really hard worker with some individuality issues or something. It wasn’t for Cisco to decide what was cool and what wasn’t anyway. He’d been wearing loafers since he’d put his boots in the closet and went to college.

Cisco tried to make sure his smile was pleasant and friendly. “I’m looking for Melody.”

Okay, now the kid was just pissing him off. The young man actually laughed. “She’s not here. She got cut for the last part of the shift and sent home. You could try her there.”

“At home?” Cisco knew where her apartment was, of course, but he’d never been inside. “Are you sure she went home?” It would have made more sense for her to wait here for him. Surely she realized they needed to talk about a few things regarding her case.

“I’m positive, dude.” The kid grinned. “That girl has one crazy-ass life though. I’ll tell you that! First that other crap, now you. It’s too much for one day!”

Cisco did not ask for a clarification on the “other crap.” He wasn’t entirely sure he wanted to know at this point. So, he simply nodded to the young man and then left the coffee shop. It would be no big deal to run by Melody’s building on his way home. It would be simple. And if he was lucky, he could convince her to have some dinner with him so they could discuss the strange developments in her case.

Finding someone in an apartment building with no lock on the front door and no doorman was not necessarily a difficult task. You just walked inside and looked at the mailboxes. Of course, Cisco felt a little odd going to Melody’s apartment in the first place. He only knew where her building was because he’d taken her home the night before after the shocking end to their evening at the Farrell ranch. She had been adamant that she had not needed his help getting inside her apartment. Cisco had every suspicion that this was due to her feeling self-conscious about her humble circumstances. That was the way Melody was wired. He could respect that, but he really needed to speak with her this evening. The coffee shop had been a dead end, so here he was at her apartment.

Cisco knocked on the dingy door and tried to decide what he was going to say. The problem was that he didn’t hear anything at all. There was no noise inside that might tell him if she was in there or not. There were no shadows moving behind the door to suggest that she was hiding. Although it was possible that the hallway was just too dark and dingy to show him anything.

So, for now, he was completely stumped. He stood there for a moment in the hallway. He looked out of place. At least that’s what the very odd stares from several other people told him as they walked by on their way to the stairwell.

Cisco wasn’t unaware of how he looked standing there in a suit and tie with his Italian imported loafers. He looked like a bill collector or a service processor or any number of really negative things. Of course, he was a lawyer, so arguably that was just as bad. Insurance salesman came to mind too.

“You looking for the girl in that apartment?” A woman stuck her head out into the hallway. She had stringy gray hair scraped back away from her face into a threadbare bun, and her skin had the sallow look he often associated with very sick people.

“Yes, ma’am.” Cisco tried to smile. He needed to be polite if he wanted help. “Have you seen her this evening?”

“Yeah. She came home. Then she left again, and I heard her on the phone talking to that girl who lives across the street.”

“The girl across the street?” Cisco was going to need a little more than that. “Do you mean”—what was the name of her friend—“Allie?”

“Yeah. That one.”

“Did she go to Allie’s apartment?” How did this old woman know this stuff? Did she just stand at her peephole all day long watching what happened in the hallway?

“Yep. That’s where she went,” the woman assured him. “You better go after her if you want to arrest her.”

“Not a cop, ma’am,” Cisco called over his shoulder as he left. “But that was nice of you to rat her out anyway.”

Sometimes people absolutely blew his mind. Why they seemed to revel in other people’s misfortune was beyond him. Of course, Cisco was a lawyer. People in his profession basically reveled in everyone’s discomfort. So, maybe he couldn’t really pretend he was any different than anyone else.

He nodded to the old woman and turned to leave. It was odd. Her door closed. He heard it. Yet there was no doubt in his mind that she was watching him every single step of the way as he exited the building. How this was possible he did not know, but Cisco would have bet a month’s worth of paychecks that it was true.

He stepped back outside and headed for his car. The low-slung sports car looked odd parked on the curb beside half a dozen beat-up four-wheel-drive SUVs, a few sedans, and a few even older trucks. He did not belong in this neighborhood, and the longer he stayed here, the more obvious it was likely to become.

Cisco stopped walking several car lengths away from his vehicle and paused to look around. There were mostly large, nondescript cement buildings here. It was nearly all residential dwellings. Some of the ground-floor units were occupied by things like barber shops or cafes, but for the most part, he was in one of the most densely populated areas of Denver. In fact, there weren’t many areas like this one in Denver. The buildings were not very tall. They looked nothing like the tenements or projects in other large cities. For the most part, Denver was a newer city and far more urban than anything else.

The sound of a shout drew his attention. He was not the only one. Kids playing in a park nearby, some young men talking together and passing a basketball between them, and even a few mothers who had been watching their children while enjoying a conversation with their neighbors were all suddenly staring in fascination at a five-story cement block of a building.

“Bitch, you had better get your ass out of our apartment and don’t come back!” A male voice drifted out of the building’s double front doors. “We don’t need your attitude and your complaining. Do you understand me?”

To Cisco’s horror, he absolutely recognized the woman who fired the next verbal volley. “Oh, I understand you, but I’m not going to listen! Do you get that? You don’t live here. You don’t pay the bills or help out with the rent! Your name isn’t on the lease, and you’re a damn drug addict who brings your junkie friends over to eat every scrap of food in the apartment!”

Cisco held his breath as he realized that it was most definitely Melody shouting at the top of her lungs as she exited the building pushing a scrawny man in his early twenties down the stairs in front of her.

If her expression was anything to go by, Melody was on fire! Her green eyes were shooting sparks, and there had to be fire crackling off the spiky knot in her hair. She was still dressed in her work clothes, and she was wagging her index finger in the young man’s face as though he was a little boy caught with his hand in the proverbial cookie jar.

“Ryan Pullman, you are the biggest waste of space on this planet!” Melody shouted. “You are sucking my best friend dry, and I’m done letting you do it! Do you understand me?”

Ryan started to push back a little, but Melody was ready for him. She had claimed a position two steps up from the man, and it gave her a little bit of height on the guy. When he tried to push back, she just lashed out with her foot and caught him in the knee.

“Hey!” He looked around at the people watching. “You saw that! She attacked me! Call the cops, man!”

“Dude!” One of the other young men started laughing. “You want us to call the cops because you’re getting assaulted by a chick? You sure?”

The young men were still laughing when Ryan snarled something barely intelligible at the second woman who was cowering behind Melody as though she had just woken up from a Rip Van Winkle worthy sleep.

“No!” Melody snapped. She swung her open hand at Ryan’s face, but he dodged back just in time. “Don’t you talk to her! You’ve got this poor girl so high she can’t tell up from down. She lost her job because of you, asshole! She’s got no money and no prospects, and this is your fault! Do you get me?”

Cisco felt his internal warning bells start to jangle, but at the last second, Ryan seemed to fold. He held up both hands. Snarling insults underneath his breath, Ryan stomped off down the block. Melody watched until Ryan was around the corner. About that time, Cisco realized that she had spotted him. He didn’t care that he’d just witnessed a scene, but he could tell that she did.

For the moment, it felt like the best thing to do was to focus on the other woman—Allie. At least that was who Cisco figured the pathetic creature was. She was considerably thinner, paler, and far more pathetic looking than the last time Cisco had seen her at the coffee shop, but in Cisco’s experience, a bender could do that to people pretty quickly.

“You don’t have to help.” Melody’s tone was terse.

Cisco glanced around at all of the people now staring and yet not making a single move to do anything other than gawk. “I think I’m just fine. Thanks.”

The two of them struggled to get the young woman back into the dingy apartment building. She was stumbling and lurching from right to left as she walked, as though she could not manage to find her balance anywhere in the middle.

With a group effort that included Allie biting her lip as she struggled to walk up the stairs, Melody and Cisco just barely managed to get Allie back into the building. The door hissed shut behind them, and they were inside a darkened hallway that smelled faintly of stale chicken noodle soup.

“Her apartment is on the first floor.”

That was the only thing that Melody said as they helped Allie lurch down the hall toward her doorway. It was hanging open. That made getting her inside easier. Of course, it wasn’t like Allie was fighting them. She kept muttering that she wanted to go back to bed. It was difficult to understand what she was saying. It was a lot of mumbling and choking and gurgling as far as he was concerned. He had no idea what the woman was on, but he had a bad feeling that it wasn’t going to end well.

“Should we call a doctor?” Cisco finally asked Melody. “She doesn’t look very well.”

“She’ll be fine.” Melody gestured to a sagging couch. “Let’s just get her there.”

Allie stumbled and nearly fell flat on her face when she spotted the flat padded surface. Cisco growled as Melody was almost pulled off her feet. This was not working. It was ridiculous.

“Here. Let me.” Cisco tried not to sound bossy, but that was difficult under the circumstances.

He scooped Allie up off the floor. She smelled vaguely of old sweat and something else really unpleasant. He deposited Allie on the sofa. She immediately curled into the back of the ancient piece of furniture and closed her eyes. Cisco wondered deep down if she felt as though the room had suddenly stopped spinning because she was now stationary. It had been long years since he’d had any experience with this sort of thing. His youngest brother, Met, had been a heavy drinker since high school. It most certainly ended in more than one bender and a whole slew of hangovers. But for the most part, his brothers had never required Cisco to provide more than a place to crash for the night. This felt different.

“Are you sure we don’t need to call a doctor?” Cisco asked Melody once again. “She looks pretty bad. I don’t know what substance she’s taking, but aren’t you afraid she’s overdosed?”

“On weed?” Melody snorted. “Not likely. “Unfortunately, it’s legal here in Colorado.”

“Right.” Cisco looked at Melody. “Surely that’s not all. Look at her.”

Melody sighed. She put her hand on his arm and gazed up into his face. “Thank you. Really. I do appreciate your concern and your help.” Melody paused and gazed down at her friend. “She smokes until she can’t think about anything. I know that studies say that weed isn’t addictive and all that. I know what the research shows. But the problem is that a person can become addicted to the feeling they get from escaping reality.”

“So, that’s what’s happening here?”

“She just smokes until she doesn’t know her own name and couldn’t tell you a thing about the sorry state of her life.” Melody sighed. She put her hands on her hips and stared up at the stained ceiling. “You know, like the rest of us. She just wants an end to all of the drama and problems.”

“I think that’s fair,” Cisco whispered. He sucked in a quick breath. The apartment smelled horrible. He really wanted to get out of here. He really wanted Melody to get out of here too. The place was an absolute pigsty. He knew from experience that people needed to clean up after themselves. That was part of the recovery process. The more others kept cleaning up messes and making things better, the more the addiction kept spiraling.

“I should probably stay here,” Melody said with obvious regret.

Cisco pursed his lips. He didn’t like that idea, but it was her choice and not his. “What will you do for her if you stay?”

“I don’t know.” Melody glanced around at the cluttered dirty mess of paper plates, pizza boxes, takeout containers, and rotten food scattered about. “I should clean up, I guess.”

“That’s not helping her,” Cisco pointed out gently. “She needs to see the results of her decision. It’s her life to clean up. Not yours.”

“Then, I guess I would make sure she doesn’t get choked or something.” Melody leaned over her friend and peered at her lifeless-looking body snoring away on the sofa. “I just feel like I shouldn’t leave her alone.”

“Because if you do she might get into more trouble?” Cisco was guessing, but it made sense. Melody was a constant caretaker. It was sort of her thing.

“Well, I guess. Maybe. I don’t know.”

“Sweetie,” Cisco said gently. “I need to talk with you about some things that happened today. You need some food. I need some food. So, let’s go get some food. I’ll bring you back in a little while and you can check on her.”

Melody seemed to waffle for a moment, but only a moment. Then she bobbed her head and let out a bone-deep sigh. “All right. I won’t lie and say that food doesn’t sound good.”

Thank God he hadn’t had to hogtie her and throw her over his shoulder. His hogtying skills were even more scuffed up and out of use than his cowboy boots.