Finding Katie

Chapter 1

Katie

The man up on the dais looked more likely to turn and run out the door than to give a speech. My boss was looking out over the room before him, beads of sweat lined up on his brow, and he was clutching the glass of orange juice he'd just tapped a knife against so tightly that I feared the glass would shatter in his hand.

I wanted to put my hands on Vincent's shoulders, look him in the eyes and remind him to breathe, but if I spoke to him right now, he'd forget every one of the words he had spent the last week painstakingly rehearse.

Instead, I smiled at him from my position by the side of the room and silently willed him to relax. And crossed my fingers behind my back.

Vincent swallowed tightly a couple of times, then managed a smile at the audience before him. "It is my very great pleasure to declare the Southwark Centre for Rehabilitation open," he said in a steady voice. Then winked at me as he lifted his glass and added, "May there be abso-fucking-lutely no use for us so we can shut this place down again as soon as possible."

Laughter and applause and a few whistles filled the common room that took up all of the back of the undistinguished, yellow brick building we were in, and the breath I hadn't realized I was holding burst from me on a laugh. My fingers relaxed again.

Shaking my head at my boss, I looked round at the guests.

Vincent's unorthodox choice of words had lightened the mood in the stuffy room where more than one shirt was clinging to a sticky back and most long hair had long since been gathered up and away from clammy necks. More than one flyer was being listlessly waved to and fro, and yet there was nothing but pleased and proud faces around me.

Though not one person here could match my own pride and satisfaction.

This was the moment I had been working towards and looking forward to for six months. Ever since I had first heard about the quest to raise enough funds to open a new drug rehab centre in London, and the reality of all that hard work coming to fruition was bringing a smile to my face that hadn't been there in a very long time.

Vincent held up a hand, and the room fell silent again. "I want to thank all of you," he said, looking at each person in the small crowd in front of him, meeting my gaze as the last, "for all you've done, all your help, and all your contributions, big and small. Without you, we wouldn't have been able to do this. I especially want to thank our benefactors, known and unknown, for your generosity and for making this possible. I and all those kicked to the ground by bloody drugs give you our heartfelt thank you."

His voice wobbled on the last words, and his Adam's apple bobbed a few times while he struggled to remain composed.

I made sure to keep my smile in place over the sudden lump in my throat. If I started to cry, my boss would too, but Vincent knew what he was talking about.

At one of our first meetings back in Bournemouth, he'd told me about his former addiction. He was seven years clean now, but the compulsion was still there, and only his girlfriend, Mary-Ann, and his work as manager of the new rehab centre kept him from falling headfirst back into the dark obsession. He always said he was too busy helping others fight their addiction to give in to his cravings.

Vincent's story was one I had heard so many times before all over Britain, but this time it had made me want to stay and actually talk to the people who needed a place like this.

Seeing the hope and the relief in the faces of our first few residents already installed on the floors above the common room, their gratitude, was the whole purpose of my mission and why I had chosen to start it at all.