by Laura Snider
“Well,” Katie said, crossing her arms. “I’m perfectly fine without your company.”
Forest ran a hand through his wavy hair. “You heard about the vote, didn’t you?”
“What vote?” Katie was going to make him say it.
“To reduce your budget.”
Josh scoffed. “Brine is a small-town PD, right?” His words were directed to Katie, trying to cut Forest out of their conversation. “You probably weren’t rolling in the dough to begin with.”
“No,” Katie said, her eyes locked on Forest, “we weren’t. As a matter of fact, thanks to Forest here, I might be looking for a new job.”
“Katie, you have to understand,” Forest said, his tone imploring. “There wasn’t anything I could do. The train had already left the station even before we had that chat at my office.”
“I’m so glad I wasted my time, then,” Katie said, turning her back to him.
Forest didn’t try to speak to Katie again, but she could feel his presence behind her. Those round, puppy-dog eyes begging for forgiveness. Something she would not give him.
“Officer Mickey,” Doctor Malloy called. “Officer Josh.”
Katie looked up and saw the doctor approaching her at a fast walk, nearly a run.
“Ms. Montgomery is asking for you.” Doctor Malloy paused. “Well, actually, she’s just asking for you, Katie, but I assume Officer Josh will want to sit in on the meeting.”
“It will expedite things if I come along,” Josh said.
Katie had hoped for a few moments alone with her friend, but Josh was right. They were on a time crunch. Crimes were best solved quickly. That forty-eight-hour rule didn’t only apply to murders.
Doctor Malloy’s eyes darted toward Forest as she noticed him for the first time. “Another officer?”
Katie shook her head. “No. Just a friend of Ashley’s.”
Doctor Malloy nodded. “He can go back, too. Unless that’s a problem from your end, Officer.”
Forest’s eyes darted from Doctor Malloy to Katie, then back to the doctor. Katie could practically hear the wheels turning in his head. He was trying to determine why Katie’s status as an officer mattered. Then his eyes widened with shock.
“It’s a problem,” Josh said curtly. “He’s a politician and I’d like to keep this interview private.”
“Very well,” Doctor Malloy said. “Follow me.”
She turned on her heel and strutted back down the hallway. Josh and Katie scrambled to follow her. The doctor did not look back to see if they were following; she knew that they were. Katie also did not look back to see if Forest was watching. She knew that he was.
23
Ashley
After two full days of hospitalization, Ashley was starting to feel more like herself. Fatigue still weighed on her, but her mind was active and she had no access to her case files. She needed her computer. That’s why she had contacted Forest Parker. He had become a friend over the past year after she represented his father, and she trusted him.
There was a knock on the door. A light rap of knuckles against hollow wood.
Ashley had a private room, but it was nothing fancy. A typical hospital bed with lots of buttons that Ashley had spent hours testing and still didn’t understand how to operate. A TV near the ceiling, controlled by a remote connected to her bed. A rocking chair in one corner and an uncomfortable chair in another corner. That was it. It was almost as uninviting as a jail cell.
The door opened a crack.
“Ms. Montgomery,” Doctor Malloy said through the small opening. “Can I come in?”
“Yes,” Ashley said, adjusting her sheets so they covered her from the stomach down.
There was potentially less privacy in a hospital than a jail. And worse clothing. She wore a standard-issue hospital gown, which was like a knee-length nightgown that opened in the back. Only three measly ties held the entire thing together, not nearly enough to be considered decent. It hung, baggy, from her thin frame, and was white with some kind of moth or butterfly as a “design.” She preferred the jail jumpsuits.
“How are you feeling today?” Doctor Malloy asked as she stepped through the door.
“Much better. Healed, actually.”
She swung her legs over the side of the bed in a mock attempt to get up. It had turned into a sort of game she and Doctor Malloy played. Ashley would pretend to get up, saying that she was fine. Doctor Malloy would then say that she was almost fine, but not quite ready for discharge. Apparently, the good doctor was tired of the same old song and dance because she merely gave Ashley a stern look.
“Fine,” Ashley said with a groan. “How much longer do you think I’ll be here?”
“As long as it takes.”
“In English, not doctor-ese.”
Doctor Malloy stifled a smile. “I should think another couple of days. You should probably be safe for discharge by Wednesday. But that’s only if you stay home for the remainder of the week and take it easy.”
Ashley nodded enthusiastically. Relaxation was a promise she wasn’t likely to keep, but she’d agree to anything so long as it meant she could go back to work. Rachel needed her, and so did all her other clients. They were probably wondering what had happened to her. Or they thought that Ashley had abandoned them.
“You have a couple of visitors,” Doctor Malloy said.
“Oh, good,” Ashley said, hoping Forest had come with her laptop. She’d texted him last night, begging for him to bring it to her. She couldn’t just sit around all day. It was driving her crazy. Disuse was a plague rotting her brain.
But then her thoughts snagged on the word couple. Meaning more than one. So, not just Forest Parker.
“Wait a minute,” Ashley said, narrowing her eyes, “I thought you weren’t letting me have visitors.”
It was a safety precaution. No visitors until the authorities could determine how rat poison had made its way into Ashley’s system. She’d thought that Forest would have to drop off the computer and leave without seeing her, but maybe not.
Doctor Malloy threaded her fingers together. “Two police officers. A woman from Brine, and a man from the Waukee Police Department.”
“Does the woman have red hair and freckles?”
Doctor Malloy nodded.
“Hot-tempered?”
A faint smile ghosted its way across her lips, but only for a moment before she regained her professional demeanor. “I had the benefit of overhearing a phone conversation that led me to believe that yes, she may have a little of that in her.”
“It’s got to be Katie,” Ashley said, hope surging in her chest. She hadn’t seen anyone in the past few days other than hospital staff. While everyone had been extremely kind to her, it would be nice to see a familiar face. Especially Katie’s.
“That’s her. Katie Mickey. Shall I let them in?”
Ashley nodded. She wondered who Katie had been arguing with. Was it Tom? Had she been trying to get him to come to the hospital? Had he refused? She hoped this other officer, the one from Waukee, would ask a few cursory questions and clear out. Ashley needed to talk to her friend.
Doctor Malloy stepped outside and closed the door behind her before saying something. Ashley strained to hear, but Doctor Malloy must have been used to eavesdropping patients, because she kept her voice low, just above a whisper. Ashley couldn’t make out a single word. A few moments later, someone knocked softly on the door.
“Come in,” Ashley said, pushing herself up with her hands so she was sitting upright.
It was more laborious than she had expected. Moments earlier, she’d felt fine, but her body easily tired. Even that small movement, the simplest of tasks, had a taxing effect.
The door slowly creaked open and Katie poked her head through. “Ashley,” she said, her voice tentative.
“Yes, yes,” Ashley said, adjusting the blankets on her bed, “come in.”
Katie stepped into the room. When the light from the window touched Katie’s fe
atures, Ashley could see that she looked tired. Heavy bags clung under her eyes, but her smile was genuine.
“Hey,” Katie said almost breathlessly.
Katie’s eyes traveled from one beeping machine to the next until they came to rest on the whiteboard. Anticoagulant rodenticide poisoning. Her expression hardened.
A male officer followed her inside, eyes cast downward, a bit sheepish. It was the hospital gown. Ashley was practically naked. She wished she’d have thought to cover herself with a robe first. But now it was too late.
“How are you feeling?” Katie asked.
She sat in the recliner directly across from Ashley’s bed. The male officer closed the door behind him but stayed close to the exit, apparently trying to remain unseen. Like Ashley would forget that he was there.
“I’m fine,” Ashley said, her eyes traveling toward the male officer. “Who is your boyfriend?”
Katie’s face reddened. “Not my boyfriend. This is Josh. He’s with the Waukee Police Department.”
“I know that. I can read the words on his uniform. What I don’t understand is why he’s here.”
Katie pursed her lips. “What do you remember about how you got here?”
“I was at the police department to pick up calls to service for the Smithson case.” She paused, looking pointedly at Josh. “Which, by the way, if you’re going to come around, you might as well do me a favor and bring those to me.”
“I, um.” Josh cleared his throat. “I’m not sure if I’m permitted to do that.”
“Does she have them?” Ashley nodded toward Katie.
“Yes.”
“Then I can have them. So, who is going to send them to me?” Ashley’s gaze traveled from one officer to the next.
“I will,” Katie said with a sigh. “I’m sorry, Josh. I should have warned you. Ashley can be a bit…prickly.”
Ashley laughed. “A bit? I’m very prickly. Especially to police officers. I’m only decent to this one”—Ashley gestured to Katie—“because she saved my life once.”
Katie rolled her eyes and pulled out a notepad. “Anyway. Let’s get back to the official purpose of our visit. Shall we?”
“We shall,” Ashley said, mimicking Katie’s formal tone.
“You’ve been poisoned, and we all know it isn’t a suicide attempt.”
“How do we know that?” Ashley couldn’t help it. It was in her nature to be sarcastic to police officers.
“Because you love yourself too much.”
“Fair enough,” Ashley admitted.
“So,” Katie said, “what Josh and I need to know is who potentially poisoned you. I know this is probably a long list, but do you know of anyone who would want to hurt you?”
Ashley sighed. “Yes. And no. I mean, just like last year, the answer is everyone, which isn’t much better than no one. You know how people feel about me.”
“What about what you ate?” Josh asked, stepping closer to Ashley.
The moment he stepped out of the shadows and the light touched his face, Ashley could see just how handsome he was. She wondered if Katie had any interest in him. If she didn’t, she should. Even if it didn’t go anywhere. Katie needed a little release.
“I ate some chocolates on my way from Tom’s place to the Waukee Police Department.”
“Where does Tom live?” Katie asked. “And why were you coming from there?”
Ashley gave Katie the address. She wrote it down and motioned with her hand for Ashley to continue answering the second question. Ashley sighed, her eyes darting momentarily toward the male officer. It was embarrassing to divulge the crashing and burning of her romantic life in front of a stranger. An officer, no less.
“Tom has been avoiding my phone calls and text messages for the past week or so. I was fed up. So, I drove up here to find out what was going on. But when I got to his place, I found out that he had a roommate, and that roommate was my former foster sister. She goes by the name Harper now, but her name was Lydia when we were young.”
Katie’s jaw dropped. “You’re kidding me. That son of a…”
Josh cut her off. “But did you eat anything?”
“Yes. Tom had sent me chocolates. Homemade ones. I ate nearly the whole box on my drive from there to the Waukee police station.”
“Is that the only thing you ate?” Josh said, jotting a note on his pad.
“Yes.”
“Have you received any other boxes of homemade chocolates from Tom?”
“Yes. One last week.”
“Did you notice any illness or fatigue since eating candy from the first box?”
Ashley paused to think. “Actually, yes. I thought it was stress, but I was getting nose bleeds and I was tired. I also had some strange bruising on my arms.”
“How many pieces of candy did you eat on your drive from Tom’s house to the Waukee police station?”
Ashley shrugged. “Maybe fifteen or twenty.” It was a little humiliating to admit that she’d eaten that many pieces of chocolate at one time, but she’d already told him her boyfriend was secretly living with her former foster sister. It couldn’t get much worse than that anyway.
Josh wrote the number down. “How many pieces did you eat from the package before that?”
“Maybe three. All on different days, though.”
Josh’s eyes shot toward Katie, who issued a small shake of her head.
The wheels in Ashley’s head began to churn, assessing that gesture, settling on his meaning. “Now wait a minute. Tom didn’t do this. There’s no way. He wouldn’t. Not to anyone, but especially not me. You’ve got to look elsewhere.”
“Like where? Usually, it is the person closest to the victim.”
Ashley rolled her eyes. “Don’t give me that usually bullshit. I’m a defense attorney. And a damn good one. I can read people and I’m telling you that it wasn’t Tom.”
“Then who? Who do you think it was?”
“I don’t know. Maybe Harper. She hates me. Or maybe it was one of those psycho stalkers who sends me stuff in the mail. Perhaps it was someone who dislikes me because I’m representing Rachel Smithson. It could be any number of people. But I’m telling you right now that it isn’t Tom. That’s a dead end. You can stop going in that direction.”
Katie placed a calming hand on Ashley’s shoulder. “You’re not supposed to get worked up.”
Ashley settled back, but she didn’t break eye contact with the Waukee police officer. She wasn’t backing down. Not while she was in the hospital. Not ever. Tom was a shitty boyfriend, but he hadn’t tried to kill her. No way.
“We will start by interviewing Tom and Harper,” Katie said calmly. “I would also like to get a hold of that box of chocolates. Did you eat them all?”
“Yes,” Ashley said with a nod. She laid her head back, a sudden burst of exhaustion overwhelming her. “But the box is still in my car. So is the note from Tom. You can get it.”
“Okay.”
“I mean you, Katie. Not him.” Ashley nodded to Josh. “And don’t go digging around. I have client files in there.”
Katie smiled. “I won’t. And what about the other box of chocolates? Was that one empty, too?”
Ashley shook her head, the room swimming with the movement. “I threw it away in my office. I was mad at Tom. There should be several pieces in the trash can. Ask Elena. She’ll be able to get them for you. Tell her I told you that it is okay.”
“Okay. I think I’ve got enough information to move forward.” Katie patted Ashley’s hand. “Tom is just the starting point. I’m sure that we will clear him quickly.”
Ashley nodded. Her eyes were so heavy. She’d exerted too much energy during the conversation, thanks to Officer Josh. The arrogant prick. Ashley had thought he was handsome, but she changed her mind. She didn’t want Katie to get involved with him. There were plenty of other fish in the sea. The thought reminded her of Forest.
“Katie,” Ashley said, “is Forest Parker here?”
; Katie snorted and crossed her arms. “Yes.”
Apparently, Katie had heard about the board’s vote. It made the front page of the Brine Daily Newspaper, so it wasn’t surprising. Neither was her reaction to Forest.
“Give him a break, Katie. He’s just doing his job.”
“Well, his job might mean the end of mine.”
“You’ll be fine,” Ashley said, laying her head back on her pillow. “Don’t be so dramatic.”
Katie’s intense gaze bore into Ashley. “That’s eerily close to what Forest told me during our meeting the other day. Do you two know something that I don’t?”
Ashley waved a dismissive hand. “No. But could you send him in here when you are on your way out? He’s got my laptop and I have work to do.”
Katie nodded, but she didn’t look happy about it. Then she left with Josh. That arrogant asshole. He wasn’t the type to listen to Ashley. That was the problem with men as officers and men in general. They were unwilling to rely on a woman’s gut, which was more often than not right on the money.
Ashley closed her eyes, only for a moment, attempting to gather her strength. But then she fell asleep. Quite by accident.
24
Katie
Archie and Langston. Katie read the two names on the mailbox outside Tom’s apartment. She and Josh drove straight there after interviewing Ashley. Katie had dreaded the meeting—the interview—the entire drive over. Coming face to face with her friend, analyzing his every move to determine whether he had attempted to kill her other friend.
And then there was the roommate issue. Langston. Tom had lied about her. Or at least hidden the truth. So what else was he hiding?
