“We didn't do anything to him. It was that sick fuck, Marcus.”
Drake spat a wad of blood on the floor and straightened his neck.
And then he smiled.
“You don't even know what your dad did, do you?” Drake said.
Wesley scowled and pulled his fist back again.
“If you say another word, I don't care what Ken wants; I'll kill you myself.”
Drake laughed.
“It was your dad, you idiot! He's the one who had Thomas set up, he's the one who got him killed. His own father, your—”
This time the punch struck Drake in the side of the head, and the stars vanished. In their place was a blanket of empty universe that guided him into unconsciousness.
Chapter 29
During the entire forty-minute drive from DSLH Investigations to NYU Medical, a growing sense of anxiety brewed deep within Screech’s stomach.
He remembered the first time he really spent any time alone with Dr. Beckett Campbell, Senior Medical examiner for New York State. They were in the Virgin Gorda, and at first, they’d had a good time. He was actually a breath of fresh air, pretty much breaking every stereotype and misconception about doctors in general.
But then things had gotten… strange, least of all the two dead models found in his bed.
With Beckett passed out between them.
Screech took a deep breath as he pulled into an empty parking spot. He just sat in his car for a while, trying to decide if there was any possible way to deal with the Mrs. Armatridge situation without involving Beckett.
If there was, he didn’t know of any.
A clean break… after DSLH gets this monkey off our back—or snake, as it were—we can do a clean break from all of this, Beckett included. Start over. Fresh.
Screech rubbed his eyes, grateful that last night he’d somehow managed a full six hours of sleep. The alcohol had helped, of course, but it still counted.
Or so he hoped.
Screech quickly made his way down a sterile hallway, eventually arriving at the pathology department. Once there, he was greeted by a secretary sitting behind a large desk. A photograph of the woman with her arm wrapped around Chris Hemsworth was proudly displayed for everyone who approached to see.
“Hi,” Screech said, offering his warmest smile. “I'm here to see Dr. Beckett Campbell?”
The woman pushed her lips together and then typed away at her keyboard for a moment.
“Is he expecting you? I don't see any appointments on his calendar.”
Screech shook his head.
“No, I don't think so. But I'm a friend… my name’s Screech and I thought maybe we’d have lunch.”
The woman looked at him with a raised eyebrow and then picked up the phone and dialed a number.
The pathology department was so small that Screech actually heard the phone ringing. He followed the sound with his eyes, eventually resting on an office. Even though the door was closed, it was mostly glass and Screech could see right in.
And then things got weird. He half expected to see Beckett behind his desk, but this wasn’t the case. The office wasn’t unoccupied, either. As he watched, Screech saw a hand snake up from underneath the desk, grope around, then finally grab the receiver before disappearing out of sight again.
Meanwhile, the secretary said something about a visitor, grunted a few times, then hung up.
“I'm sorry,” the woman said, drawing Screech’s attention, “but Dr. Campbell isn’t in right now.”
“What? I saw him—he’s in his office. I saw his hand.”
Screech had to give it to the woman; even in the face of this ridiculous charade, her expression didn’t falter.
“Dr. Beckett Campbell's not in today, sir.”
“Come on… his hand… look, did you tell him that it was Screech visiting?”
“Dr. Campbell is not in.”
Screech rolled his eyes and debated just waltzing over to the man’s office and pulling the door open. In the end, he opted for diplomacy; getting arrested wouldn’t help DSLH’s client prospects any.
“This is ridiculous,” he muttered. “Okay, sure, he’s not in; do you know when he’ll be back, at least?”
“Nuh-uh.”
Screech threw his hands up.
“This is insane.”
He was about to walk away when he spotted a young woman approaching.
A young woman he recognized.
“Suzan!” he exclaimed. He didn't know the Cuthbert girl very well, but when they had been together, they’d gotten along.
Her head was down, but when she noticed him, her face lit up.
“Screech!”
The woman surprised Screech by reaching out and embracing him. Screech awkwardly hugged back.
“How you been? How’s—”
Screech thought that Suzan was going to bring up Drake and he pre-emptively cringed.
He still couldn't believe that the man had abandoned his child and girlfriend to pursue Ken Smith. There had to be more to the story because not even Drake was that bad at prioritizing.
Thankfully, the conversation took a different course.
“—Triple D?”
“Good, good. We actually just moved into a new place. Come to think of it, that’s kinda why I’m here. I wanted to chat with Beckett about a particular case.”
“Oh, cool. Well, he’s in his office—follow me.”
Screech smiled. It took all his willpower not to stick his tongue out at the secretary as he walked past.
Chapter 30
The elevator pinged and the doors to Ken Smith's penthouse condo opened. Drake stepped into the lavish space, breathing in the thick cigar smoke. The back of the mayor's chair was facing him, but he could make out tendrils of smoke rising from the man seated in it.
“Ken,” he cursed.
The reply came in the form of a hearty, deep-throated chuckle.
Furious, Drake strode forward, grabbing the back of the chair with both hands. He intended spinning it around, or in the very least toppling it when a figure rose in front of it.
“Jasmine?” Drake gasped, stumbling backward.
She wiped her lips with the back of her hand as if it weren’t clear enough what she’d been doing. Instead of defending herself, or saying anything at all, Jasmine just looked at him, her eyes dark and blank.
The laugh got louder.
When Drake finally came to his senses, he grabbed the back of Ken’s chair again and wrenched it around. It spun fluidly enough that Drake had to step back to avoid being struck.
What he saw this time set him off-balance, so much so that he fell on his ass.
Ken Smith was seated in his chair, the pants of his bespoke suit spread wide, a massive Cuban cigar dangling between his fingers.
Only he didn’t look the way Drake remembered him. He didn’t look like a person at all. This Ken Smith didn’t have any skin or blood or sinew to speak of. He was a skeleton.
And cemented atop his gleaming skull was a crown of finger bones.
It was the Skeleton King—he was back.
The chuckle was suddenly so loud that Drake felt that his head might explode. He dropped to the ground and curled into the fetal position, pressing his palms against the sides of his head in an attempt to block out the terrible sound.
It was no use.
The sound wasn’t coming from the Skeleton King or from Jasmine or from anywhere in the apartment.
It was coming from him; Drake was the one laughing.
Chapter 31
“Don't be such a fucking child, Beckett,” Suzan said as she opened the door. “He knows you're in here—we both do.”
Screech followed Suzan into the office, his eyes darting about the room.
It wasn’t a particularly large office with barely enough room to fit a microscope and a computer on the sole desk. But said desk was large enough to hide a full-grown man beneath.
“Beckett, I just—”
“
I'm not here,” a voice hollered. “Move along now.”
Suzan rolled her eyes and shrugged. As she walked around to the other side of the desk, Screech’s gaze fell on an open newspaper resting half on and half off the microscope. The main feature was of some sort of pastor or preacher and the man’s face was circled in red pen. There were also Xs on his eyes, and someone had drawn a red tongue lolling out of his mouth.
The title read, Father Alistair Cameron Cures Death.
Very subtle, Screech thought. Who was it written by? The Pope?
“Just get up,” Suzan said, her voice dripping with annoyance.
This seemed to do it; Beckett suddenly crawled out from beneath his desk.
“Oh, fancy seeing you guys here. My meeting ended early, soooo…” He ran his hand through his blond hair and shrugged. “Oh, Screech, always a pleasure. What can I do you for?”
Screech sighed. Despite the charade, it was clear that he wasn’t the only one dreading this encounter.
“I need a favor.”
A mock smile appeared on Beckett's lips.
“Of course you do, shit, I expected nothing less.” He turned to Suzan and waved a hand in her direction, not bothering to hide his annoyance at the fact that she’d let Screech into his office. “Move along now, little Suze. The grown-ups need to do a little talky-talky.”
Suzan’s lips formed an O shape.
“Keep it up, Beckett; you know that vacation you promised me? Well, the number of stars at the hotel we’re going to stay at just jumped up as did the price tag. I’m thinking that this is gonna be a Cardi B-style vacation, minus the stripping. What do you think?”
Without waiting for an answer, Suzan turned and left the room. When she was gone, Beckett walked over and made sure that the door was closed. Then he took a seat at his desk and folded his arms across his chest. He was no longer smiling.
“What do you want, Screech? I already told you that I can't be involved with Drake anymore. I just can't do it.”
Screech nodded; the man had never been shy about his feelings regarding Drake.
Friends, foes, lovers, hoes… isn’t that how the song goes?
Screech tried to clear his head; obviously, he hadn’t gotten as much sleep as he thought he had.
“It's not about Drake, it's about a client of mine. A Mrs. Armatridge… apparently, she's been charged with murdering her husband. I managed to get one of my guys, Leroy, to pull the ME report, which was done by a Dr. Karen Nordmeyer? Anyways, it states that the man had been killed, likely by being pushed up the stairs.”
Becket stared at him blankly.
“And?”
“And I was hoping you could look into it? I mean, the woman spends most of her time in a wheelchair. I don’t know if…” Screech let his sentence trail off, hoping that Beckett would cut in with a comment.
He didn’t.
“She's an eighty-one-year-old woman, Beckett. And I mean, sure, she has some issues, don’t get me wrong, but I doubt she killed her husband. Do you think—”
“Do I think, what? Do I think that I can go and interrogate one of my underlings about a medical report that she wrote on this Mrs. Armatridge? Do I think I should further alienate myself from my peers and my community? For you? For Drake? For Triple D?”
“Actually, we’re not called Triple D anymore. We’re now—”
“I care not.”
Screech chewed the inside of his lip, fighting the urge to plead his case further. He hadn’t expected such a visceral reaction from Beckett. Sure, he’d thought that the doctor would be annoyed, but this was different.
This seemed like… like fear, if he didn’t know any better.
“Screech, how many—” Beckett stopped mid-sentence and grabbed his forehead.
“You okay? Beckett?”
Beckett continued to grimace even as he reached for the top drawer of his desk with his free hand. Screech watched as he popped open a bottle of Aspirin and chewed three different tabs.
“Yeah, fine. I'm fine. Just a headache. See what you’ve done? You come here, and all of a sudden I have a raging headache.”
“I'm sorry. Look, to be honest, I didn’t want to come here. I really didn’t. But I need help, and I didn’t know where else to turn.”
“Why do I get the sneaking suspicion that it isn’t just about Mrs. Armadillo’s dead husband? Why do I think that there are many more layers to this onion, Screech?”
Screech glanced at his feet in silent admission.
“Yeah, that's what I thought. I'll tell you what, Screech, I will look into this, but if I’m letting you take me from behind, grip my hips and whatnot, you have to do the honorable thing.”
Screech’s eyes flicked up.
“Excuse me?”
“A reach around; it’s only polite.”
It took Screech a couple of seconds to understand the meaning behind the man’s crude analogy. This was another reason why he’d dreaded coming here. The last thing he wanted was to owe Dr. Becket Campbell a favor.
But what choice did he have?
“Okay,” he nearly whispered. “Fine.”
“Shout it; I want you to shout my name, Screech. I want you to put your hands in the air and shout my name to the heavens like you mean it.”
Screech took a deep breath and started to raise his arms.
“Dr. Beckett Camp—”
“Are you retarded? Keep your voice down, Screech. Jesus.” Beckett stood, a smirk appearing on his face. “I'll look into it. How's Drake, anyway?”
Screech swallowed hard.
“He's on vacation,” he replied. It wasn't a lie, not completely. But he didn't see any value in telling Beckett that Drake had left his girlfriend and kid to go to Colombia, of all places, to hunt down Ken Smith.
“Damn, I wish he’d taken Suzan with him. This trip really is gonna cost me.”
Chapter 32
A filthy hand covered Drake's mouth, silencing his scream. His eyes snapped open and he immediately started to struggle. But with his hands still bound behind him, the best he could manage was a languid kick at his assailant.
The hand on his face tightened and a knee was crossed over his shins, stopping his feeble leg thrusts.
This is it, Drake thought absently. This is how I die: alone and tied up in a filthy dungeon. This is the end.
And yet, despite this revelation, he didn’t feel a sudden pang of sadness that one might expect.
If anything, Drake felt relief.
“Shut up,” a familiar voice hissed in his ear. “Stop screaming and keep your voice down.”
The man pulled back and Drake finally got a clear look at the man who’d accosted him.
A single word, first uttered by Diego, echoed in his head.
El phantasmo.
“I’m going to pull my hand away from your mouth, but you can’t scream.”
The man nodded and slowly released his grip on Drake’s face.
“Dane? What the hell are you doing here?”
His brother brought a finger to his lips and hushed him. Then he reached behind Drake’s back and snapped the zip tie that bound his hands.
Drake grunted and pulled his hands out in front of him. They’d been bound together for so long, that his shoulders had long since gone numb. And now, as blood flooded his arms again, he fought the urge to cry out once more.
“Can you walk?” his brother asked.
Drake simply stared at the man for a second. His face was covered in some sort of black paint and he was wearing a camo hat and fatigues. In short, Dane Drake looked like a soldier straight out of Apocalypse Now.
Dane reached out and slapped Drake gently across the face.
“Damien, can you walk? We need to get out of here—I don't know how long Wesley will be away.”
Drake blinked again but eventually nodded. He needed his brother’s help to rise to his feet but after stretching his legs, he found that he could indeed walk.
Together, with his brother
's arm wrapped around his waist and the other one leading with a pistol, they made their way to the open cell door.
There were so many questions running through Drake’s mind that it almost made him dizzy. And when he saw several men, one of whom was the massive security guard from the medical center, with bullet holes in the backs of their heads, lying flat on their faces, he felt sick.
He knew he shouldn’t look, but when they stepped over the bodies, Drake couldn’t help himself.
They’d had no chance; none of them had even pulled their weapons.
“Jesus,” Drake nearly moaned. When Dane pulled his arm, he looked over at his brother. The man’s face was a thin pink line buried in the war paint.
He seemed unfazed by the carnage that he’d inflicted.
For some reason, Beckett’s words came to him then: Everything you touch, every person you come in contact with, turns to shit. You try to do good, to do the right thing, but everything always seems to turn so wrong.
Sure, these men had kidnapped him and, if Wesley was to be believed, would have killed him without a second thought.
But if it weren’t for him, if Drake wasn’t here, if he hadn’t smuggled himself into the country, these men would still be alive. And who’s to say that Wesley or Ken didn’t hold something over them to get them to do their bidding like they had with Diego?
Did they really deserve to be gunned down like cattle in an unregulated abattoir?
Bile suddenly rose in his throat and his stomach lurched. Sensing this change, his brother looked at him, then yanked his arm. Drake stumbled through a dark passage, his swollen head and confused mind barely taking in the fact that they were deep underground somewhere.
He became disoriented, and if it weren’t for Dane pulling him along, Drake had no doubt that he would have quickly become lost. Eventually, they climbed up a small ladder and emerged in a diner of sorts.
The smell of grease and fried food only worsened his nausea and when they passed over two more dead bodies, one of whom was still wearing an apron, Drake started to lose the battle with his roiling guts.
Dane was unrelenting, pulling Drake through the doors and into the night.
Drug Lord- Part II Page 9
