Brick City Baby – Part 3: “The Watchtower”
Joy never planned on becoming a private investigator. She was just trying to survive.
It started with favors. A missing check here, a runaway cousin there. People came to her because she listened—really listened. And because things around her had a way of… working out. Quietly. Precisely. Like time folded just enough to make things right.
The apartment became the office. Files replaced food on the counter. A battered laptop hummed beside Lily’s therapy worksheets. Above the couch, a small plaque read:
Brick City Investigations. In memory of Tay.
She didn’t charge much. Sometimes nothing at all. Just asked folks to pay it forward—or bring her information if trouble stirred.
Trouble had a name now: Cowboy.
He rolled through the blocks like a devil in denim—gold teeth, snakeskin boots, and a gun he called “Mercy.” Claimed it was just business, but everyone knew Cowboy was building something ruthless. Filling the cracks The Crown left behind. Pressing in harder.
Joy watched him move—slow, polite, always smiling. But his violence came soft. Like a lullaby before a nightmare.
And he knew exactly who Joy was.
—
Some days, being a mother took everything.
Lily didn’t speak much. Her world was texture and sound—certain colors made her flinch, certain songs made her breathe. Crowds were too loud. Strangers, too close.
Joy learned to read silences. To notice the things no one else did.
Lily loved clocks. Not the glowing numbers—real ones. The kind that ticked. Moved. Measured the world in something steady.
That’s why Joy never touched the old wall clock above Tay’s name. It stayed frozen at 3:17.
It made Lily smile.
—
The first time Cowboy showed up on Joy’s floor, he didn’t knock.
He just taped a flower to her door.
White. Clean. Innocent.
But Joy knew better.
In Brick City, nothing bloomed without blood.
AutismhoodMedia 