Chapter 2

2.

"Today Was A Good Day" bumps through the windows as Tyler rattles the jammed driver door open.

"We gotta find Ngoc Ngoc." Traci stammers hastily as Tyler reclines back in the seat.

"Whatta ya mean," Tyler queries, "you said Melissa wasn't there only Shamrock."

"I know" Traci fumbles grasping for worry words, "but if she didn't come home maybe Ngoc Ngoc got held up by the same people who came after Shamrock."

"You haven't been able to get ahold of her?" Tyler follows along. "Is there something I missed talking with the officers?"

"I heard something else," memories drift out of Traci's afternoon nap, "there were alarms going off across the street, then the backfire from the studio."

"In the middle of the night? Man, that's a hot corner they live on." Tyler thinks aloud. "You weren't running stuff out of there you weren't telling me about were you?" Only slightly suspicious.

"No, Ngoc Ngoc and Shamrock don't allow anybody to do stuff like that. That's why it's a safe place for me. I keep everything on me nobody bothers me." Traci clutches the backpack partially full of product a little bit tighter, guilty.

"Well let's leave your bag in the car when we go tell the police what you heard." Tyler didn't need Traci any more mixed up in this without having to help in a homicide investigation. 

"You're sure there wasn't anything else? Why would somebody be at their place with a gun?"

Traci puzzles, "I guess maybe somebody could have followed me? I wasn't running anything out of there I was doing drops way over the other side of the park. You kept me away from anybody who works shady blocks I didn't think anybody noticed me."

"Maybe somebody else is talking with the cops besides me." The seriousness of Tyler's racket wrapping up his friends in local turf disputes lands on him like a meteorite.

"I'm getting us out of this, T, this is too far. You can just stay with me and Elena until we get you set up someplace with the agency." His girlfriend might not like having the kid around, but then she could not like having him leave if that's the choice he had to make to live up to his mistakes.

"You can just have me stay?" Hopeful, but not misplacing kindness for weakness on Tyler's part.

"Trace, we've been doing this for too long, and if something else is following you around now too maybe we just need to make a bigger move. You're almost old enough to be emancipated anyway. We can keep you out of foster it's only a few more months."

"I just can't go back there." Traci muttured. It wasn't an absolute disaster, but jumping from a warm home to a group den was a tidal wave of snow melt runoff to an emotional teen. "Me and Ngoc Ngoc can stay someplace else if we can find her."

"Melissa had been out cleaning houses and hotels all week, you think maybe she stayed over like she did sometimes when she had back to backs?" Tyler's proposed solution wasn't out of the ordinary for Melissa, it happened routinely.

"Ya, and see maybe somebody was bothering her too," sometimes Melissa ran into characters cleaning up other people's messes. "I'll try Ngoc Ngoc again."

Traci slid out the phone Tyler had bought and no sooner did the thumbs paddle the screen and the ringer get cut short on the first tone.

"Traci?! You're ok?!?!?! What happened?!"

"Ngoc Ngoc I didn't know what to do..." Traci gushed and both their words trailed into muted thought.

"I'll come meet you guys, are you going to the police now?" Melissa more than a little shaken at the potential of having lost not only one, but two, dearest individuals.

"Where are you staying," Traci tangents, "I wondered if you were at that hotel again down in the south of downtown district. Would it be safe for me to spend time with you there too?"

"Honey," Ngoc stoically replies, "I think somebody must have followed you because nobody has been bothering ME lately. We need to get you a real job and you have to put the satchel down and just focus on your agency things and getting back to studying."

Traci had quit school when CPS had spun life out of control all those months ago, and it was almost an afterthought now that Tyler and Melissa were so regular in life. It felt like home.

"Can you bring me something to eat?" Traci pined hungrily. "I barely had anything today me and Tyler grabbed sandwiches but I'm starving I want a banh mi or whatever you made last time." Ngoc Ngoc comfort food might be the only thing taking away Traci's pangs of self judgement over Shamrock.

"I made spring rolls I still have some with me and Hoisin and chili. You take it easy now we'll be alright, let's get you to the police so you can tell them what you saw. I wasn't around I stayed at work." Melissa was only clued in by the trouble in Traci's behavior.

"Ok," Traci murmurs almost without breathing, "I'll call you again so we can meet up after me and Tyler talk with them. You stay safe at the hotel ok."

"I'll be fine kiddo but you need to work with the police to figure out who was trying to cause you a problem, Tyler and I will keep you safe." Ngoc hangs up knowing to expect a better explanation in a few hours when there actually was one.

"T, staying with Ngoc is probably the best thing for you right now," Tyler treads carefully. "I don't think they're after me but if somebody made a move on you I don't want you any more mixed up in what I'm doing, Elena can help but you and I need to watch out."

Tyler's deal was almost wrapped up. Three years of parole was miles better than 47 months inside. Tradeoffs. He wouldn't trade the kid off.

"I don't blame you Tyler, maybe I wasn't careful enough and we tried to look out for each other. It had to all be an accident." Wishing could just possibly make it so in a mindful teenager's head. 

"There's something else they said and maybe this makes more sense to you than me," Traci continued, "y su eh droga. Is that like and these are your drugs? Maybe Shamrock did that stuff and Ngoc Ngoc didn't know or just didn't let anybody know. I wouldn't have touched these pills if I had known he would get hurt."

The pharm farm was coming home to roost, Tyler knew. "This isn't your speed, t. I own it it isn't on you. Party favors college kids who knows who's hopped up on what mixed up in what." It was supposed to be harmless kids' stuff, but it just got real ill.