Cavanaugh's Secret Delivery. Marie Ferrarella

and her makeup was on correctly or even at all. A one-time picture of perfection, now Linda Tanner only cared about finding her next score and the sooner she found it, the better.

      Her window of comfort had come and gone and she was desperate now. A ring of perspiration circled her hairline and she was rocking in her seat as she talked to him, as if the perpetual motion would somehow help soothe her.

      It didn’t.

      “You wouldn’t have anything on you, would you?” she asked. She knew he didn’t, but she was hoping against hope anyway. Hazel eyes darted toward the woman sitting beside the cop. “How about you? You have anything? I just need a taste, just a little taste, that’s all. I’m going crazy here,” she told Dugan, her attention shifting back to him since he was the one she knew. Her fingertips turned almost pale as she dug them into his arm. “C’mon. Please,” she begged, looking from one to the other. “Just a little taste to see me through.”

      Toni had seen junkies before, some up close and personal, like this one. But there was something about this woman that seemed to hit closer to home than the others.

      Toni shifted uncomfortably, looking at Dugan. They were sitting opposite the woman in a communal room at the city jail.

      Toni turned her head so that only he could hear her. “Can’t you do something for her?” she asked.

      “Are you suggesting that I get her drugs?” Dugan asked, wondering just what it was that she wanted him to actually do.

      “I’m suggesting that you do something to help her get past this point. Something to tide her over,” Toni said. Otherwise, all they’d hear was her lamenting her situation.

      “Is that what you want, Linda?” Dugan asked, looking at the wild-eyed young woman. “You want something to tide you over?”

      “Yes,” she cried, saying the word with such emphasis her eyes looked as if they were about to pop out of her head if she squeezed them any more.

      Toni wasn’t sure what to expect. Part of her thought he’d tell the woman no. Instead, she heard Dugan say, “You know the game, Linda. You have to give me something to get something.”

      Toni looked at him. Then he was going to give the woman something?

      He’d done this before, she realized. It made him no better than some of the people he was looking to put away, but she supposed there was some sort of justification for what he was doing. In his place, she wasn’t sure just what she would do, especially if she had something in her possession to give to the woman.

      “I don’t have anything to tell you!” Linda cried, desperate.

      “Think, Linda,” Dugan said calmly, his voice a direct contrast to hers. “You haven’t heard of anything going down? No shipments supposedly coming in now or at a later date?”

      “Later, maybe,” Linda said, her eyes really wild now as she seemed to struggle to think. “Later,” she repeated. “Out of Baja,” she added. “The fifteenth of next month. Maybe the twentieth.” She licked her lips as she scratched her arms. She continued scratching, all but taking the skin off.

      “Is it a small shipment?” Dugan asked.

      She shook her head, her matted head moving like a separate entity about her head. “No, not small. Large. I overheard them. They said it was a large shipment.” Her breathing grew a little more shallow. Whether it was the excitement of what she was saying or the idea that she was going to get something to alleviate the awful craving she was experiencing wasn’t clear. “When they saw me, they stopped talking, but I heard what I heard,” she maintained.

      “I’m going to have to check it out, Linda,” Dugan said.

      “I’m not lying,” Linda cried. “You know me. Please,” she begged. “You said if I told you something, you’d get me something.”

      “And I will,” he told her.

      There were tears in her eyes as she clutched his arm. “Now!