by Merry Jones
‘So where are the pills, Anna?’
Anna’s eyes didn’t waiver. ‘No one will believe you if you accuse me, Loot. I’ll deny having any part in this, and I’m the only one left. The others are all dead, so they can’t say anything.’ Anna’s whisper was gentle, matter of fact.
‘Tell me where they are. Look, Anna. This isn’t over. If more people take them, more might die.’
‘I know. It’s terrible.’ She sighed.
‘So where are they?’
‘I told you. I don’t know. I kept some for myself, used some in the cake, and I delivered the others. Larry made a connection. A guy from New York. That’s why we freaked so bad – Graham died before giving us the numbers, and we had to deliver.’
‘Who’s the guy?’
‘Who knows? I did what Larry said and left them in a pile of duffel bags on the quad. By Andrew Dixon White’s statue. Guy picked them up, I guess. I have no idea who he is. He knew us, but I never saw him, never heard his name.’
‘So you just gave them away to a stranger?’
‘Of course not.’ Anna bristled. ‘We’re not stupid. The guy paid in advance. Six hundred thirty-five dollars. Apiece.’
The money in Graham’s book bag. His share of the payment. Harper closed her eyes, doing the math. Six hundred thirty-five dollars times four kids. About twenty-five hundred dollars for thousands of potentially lethal pills.
Harper studied Anna, saw no signs of malice or concern, no indication of sorrow. She seemed truthful. In fact, she seemed to be the same ivory-skinned, lonely, shy, vulnerable girl that Harper had imagined her to be. Except that she had no conscience whatsoever.
‘Stupid Graham.’ Anna wiped an eye.
Was Anna crying? Maybe she wasn’t as emotionless as she seemed; at least she had feelings for Graham.
‘It was the drugs, Anna. Like you said, he never would have jumped otherwise.’
Anna smiled sadly. She watched a police officer, making sure he was out of hearing range. ‘But if he was going to jump, couldn’t he have given us the numbers first? No, he was too fucking stupid.’
Harper was speechless.
‘The asshole couldn’t think ahead, so he just left them on his desk where you found them. Which is why everything got so fucked up. Larry asked you politely, but you wouldn’t give him Graham’s stuff, so Monique had to go chase you down and grab it—’
‘Monique?’ Anna had to be mistaken.
‘She borrowed a bike and took after you to get Graham’s book bag.’
Monique? Not Wyatt? Monique had been tall, athletic. Strong like her assailant. Might have liked peppermints. Harper remembered gouging the skin off the mugger’s arm with her nails. And the bandage on Monique’s arm the next day.
‘And,’ Anna went on, ‘if we’d had the numbers, Larry and Monique wouldn’t have gone behind my back to your house, and I wouldn’t have caught them there. And I wouldn’t be sitting here waiting for the police to give me the third degree. Well, hell with that. I’m not getting in trouble because of a moron like Graham. Frickin’ freak. All his damned poetry and music, but he couldn’t even follow a simple plan.’
Anna sat back, taking a long drink of Cherry Coke.
Detective Rivers was frowning. Before Harper could say anything, Anna swooned, leaning against her.
‘Anna—’ The detective knelt, catching Anna, not letting her fall.
Anna swayed and rolled her eyes, faking. Harper moved away and watched, thinking about what to say in her statement to the police.
‘Sorry. I feel so weak,’ Anna breathed. ‘Maybe it’s because I haven’t eaten all day. They just left me tied to the bed.’
In seconds, a policeman was dispatched to get Anna some food. Meantime, someone went to the vending machine for another Cherry Coke. When she thought no one was looking, Anna took a couple of pills from her pocket, popped them into her mouth.
Harper saw. She moved closer. ‘What did you just take?’
Anna swallowed. ‘Narcolepsy meds.’ She smiled. ‘What did you think? I was taking Graham’s pills?’
Yes. That was precisely what Harper thought.
‘We’re ready, Mrs Jennings. You’re sure you don’t want a lawyer?’ Detective Rivers waited.
Harper stood. ‘I don’t need one.’ At least not yet.
As they walked away, Anna called, ‘Hey, Loot, good luck. I’ll be thinking about you.’
Threatening her.
Detective Rivers led Harper to an office where a bald detective named Stenson recorded her statements. With the door closed, the room was small and windowless, suffocating. Harper spoke quickly, refusing an attorney, volunteering information, and, with the exception of her intimacy with Ron, telling everything she knew, starting with Graham’s suicide and ending with this evening in the lobby with Anna. She raced through information, talking until her mouth was dry, desperate to get the process over with so that she could get out of the airless, fluorescent-lit room. Hank would wake up soon, and, if they’d let her, she’d take him away from the Center and its experimental procedures, drug trials and subterfuge. Home.
Or no, not home. The place was still a mess from the ransacking. And, worse: the bed sheets were still rumpled from her romp with Ron. Ron? Oh God. Had she really had sex with him? Bashed his head with a beer bottle? Been consumed by overpowering rage? Even in combat, she’d never felt fury that intense.
But, then, she’d never taken those drugs before. And she’d eaten not just one but several slices of Anna’s cake, must have taken quite a dose. But she was lucky; it could have been worse. At least she hadn’t jumped out the window like Graham. Or stripped at a bar. Ron would recover; the harm she’d done would reverse itself. She hoped.
No use thinking about it. She needed to tell the police about Anna and get back to Hank. Take him somewhere safe – somewhere besides home.
‘OK. That’ll do it for now.’ Detective Rivers folded her hands on the desk.
‘I can go?’
The detectives watched her, not nodding, not shaking their heads. The entire time she’d talked, they’d shown no indications of belief or doubt, hadn’t let on what they thought even as she told them about Anna.
Harper stood.
‘Mrs Jennings, one more thing.’
‘Are you sure?’ Detective Stenson frowned. ‘We should wait—’
‘It won’t matter. Either way, she’ll find out.’
‘Find out what?’ Harper sank back on to the cushioned office chair. Her eyes moved back and forth from one detective to the other, reminding her of REM therapy, of flashbacks, of Marvin and the burning dust of Iraq. She blinked, biting her lip, causing pain.
Detective Rivers’ hands remained clasped. Harper noticed, for the first time, that she wore a simple gold wedding band. ‘Remember the waitress? Chelsea? She had your grade book with her when she was killed?’
Of course Harper remembered.
‘The phone call I just took? Seems Chelsea knew Larry. The young man found on your porch.’
So? ‘I don’t understand.’
‘Chelsea’s purse and some of her jewelry were in the back of Larry’s car. As was a plastic sheet covered with her blood.’
Harper swallowed. Larry had killed Chelsea?
He’d taken the drugs. Instead of getting pierced like Terence or dancing naked like Gwen, Larry’s impulsive acts had been raping and murdering someone. Damn.
Detective Rivers unfolded her hands, standing, walking Harper out of the room. ‘According to your statement, the stolen drugs are being peddled now in New York. Think about it. Before this is over, how many more Chelseas do you think there will be?’
She opened the door, letting Harper wander into the hall. ‘You can go, but don’t go far. I’ll be in touch.’
Darker and darker. Harper knew exactly what had driven Larry to kill Chelsea. She had felt the darkness swell, feeding urges until they erupted, snuffing out all else. She’d felt rage boiling inside her as she’d lung
ed at Vicki, clawed at Ron’s flesh in bed, then tried to crush his skull with unrestricted force.
Oh, yes. Harper knew how the pills could take over a person’s judgment and will. And, suddenly, she knew something else, too: the pills Anna had taken earlier hadn’t been for narcolepsy.
Harper headed for the lobby where Anna sat quietly near the elevators, chewing a turkey sub, perfectly calm. An officer sat beside her, holding a coffee cup. Harper caught her breath, relieved, and looked around for Hank. Vaguely, she noticed Detective Rivers entering the lobby, approaching Anna.
But where was Hank? She headed into a hallway; someone had pushed his gurney into a quiet corner. Ahead, in the shadows, she saw it, but the gurney was empty. No Hank? Maybe this was a different gurney. Or maybe he’d awakened and wandered somewhere.
‘Hank?’ she called, but instead of an answer, she heard a scuffle behind her. Furniture scraped; people yelled. Harper spun around. The air filled with dust and smoke; gunfire erupted in the distance.
‘Believe me.’ It was a woman’s voice. ‘You don’t want to do this.’
Harper squinted through the haze. A police officer was down, on the ground. And Sameh was standing on a chair, holding a gun to a young man’s head.
But, of course, it wasn’t – couldn’t be – Sameh.
Harper had no lemon, no flashback-fighting tools. She smelled smoke, heard flies buzzing even as she told herself that neither was there. Stop it, she commanded; focus on the present. Count something. Quickly, she counted the people in the lobby who were holding guns. Two uniformed officers. Two detectives. Plus the woman who wasn’t Sameh. That made five people with weapons, all raised and ready to fire.
‘Nobody move. I swear I’ll kill him,’ Sameh shouted. No, not Sameh. Anna. The voice belonged to Anna. And Anna sounded confident, in control.
‘Drop the gun, Anna.’ Detective Rivers, on the other hand, sounded loud, rash. Not in control.
A third uniformed policeman lay on the floor beside Anna, limp and unmoving, his holster empty. Harper crept forward, assessing the scene. The hostage was young, dressed in scrubs, maybe an orderly. He was the only civilian visible; the receptionist and others must have fled. The police stood in a row like toy soldiers, all facing Anna, not spread out across the open space, not positioned effectively.
But what about the officer on the ground? Harper saw no blood, had heard no gunshots. Keeping out of Anna’s sight, she stepped closer, peered around the corner. Saw a syringe lying beside the body. A syringe. Harper blinked at the improbable object. Until she remembered. Wyatt. Of course. Anna had lifted his syringes when she’d stabbed him. She’d injected the policeman. Taken his weapon, the weapon she now held against a young man whose face was white with fear. But who at least, Harper noted, had a face.
Anna nodded at Detective Rivers. ‘Loot talked to you about me, didn’t she?’
‘Anna, put down the gun.’
‘Did she tell you I put Graham’s pills in that cake? Because I only put in some of them.’
‘Let the man go. We’ll talk.’
‘No. See, I kept a bunch of the pills. For fun. I wonder what went on today at that alumni picnic on the quad—’
‘What? Are you saying you drugged the food?’
Oh God. Harper pictured alumni erupting in random violence, unpredictable impulsiveness.
‘Oh, and a coffee urn right here at the Center.’
Not just alumni . . .
‘And a tray of cupcakes for sale on a table outside the Straight.’ Anna giggled. ‘They probably thought the icing had sprinkles.’
. . . but people all over campus.
‘Anna—’
‘Sorry, I can’t remember all the other spots. It’ll be fun to see what happens, right? But I didn’t give out all the pills. I saved a few for myself. Actually, I just took some with my Coke.’
Harper exhaled, felt her adrenalin surge.
Rivers muttered something to an officer who scooted off, talking into his cell. ‘Listen, Anna. I know you never meant to hurt anyone. It was the drugs – they altered your thinking. None of this is really your fault.’
The gun seemed huge in Anna’s hands. Oversized. Like the eyes of her hostage.
‘Really?’ she called back. ‘So you know what I meant or didn’t mean. You’ve been in my head?’
‘Let your hostage go, Anna.’ Rivers spoke too fast. ‘No one will blame you for what’s happened—’
‘Fuck off.’
‘You’re way outnumbered—’
‘No. It’s equal, one on one. You against me and me against him.’ She jabbed her hostage in the head. ‘If one dies, we both die.’ Anna squinted, her eyes slits. The hostage cowered.
Across the lobby, a couple of orderlies suddenly went at it, shouting. Shoving. A cop struggled to separate them, but, apparently, the scattered pills were taking effect. The police had lost control, couldn’t regain it.
Still unnoticed, Harper eased her way backwards, away from the scene. It was a stand-off. Harper could smell the outcome: blood would spill, and soon. Unless she stopped it. Old instincts, training kicked in. In combat mode, she moved across the hall to get a better view of the lobby. Direct access to Anna was impossible; any frontal or lateral approach would be seen and resisted, causing casualties. Her only choice was to move in from the rear.
Silently, she slipped back down the hall, searching for makeshift supplies, finding nothing. Just empty polished floors. And the gurney without Hank on it. It would have to do. Releasing the brakes, she pushed down narrow pathways, around corners, past the coffee shop, the gift shop, the Sleep Clinic entrance, until, finally, approaching the lobby, she slowed, emerging stealthily into the hallway just behind and to the right of the elevators where Anna held the young man.
‘This doesn’t have to go bad.’ Rivers’ voice had become ragged, discouraged.
Anna wasn’t convinced. She nodded toward the still-belligerent orderlies. ‘Look around, lady. It’s already gone bad.’
Hugging the wall, Harper stepped forward enough to catch Rivers’ eye. Rivers cocked her head subtly, no, but Harper insisted, yes, motioning that she was about to create a commotion. A diversionary tactic. Again, Rivers twitched her head, no. But Harper, in command, indicated that Rivers should draw Anna’s attention away, distracting her. Then, she rushed back behind the gurney, measured the distance to her target and waited for Rivers to comply.
And Rivers did. She moved across the lobby talking, taking Anna’s attention with her. When Anna’s back was turned, Harper shoved the gurney with all her body weight, propelling it forward, sending it suddenly careening, clattering into a cluster of chairs near the reception desk.
Anna spun toward it, instinctively aiming the gun away from the hostage and toward the noise.
Harper pounced from behind, shoving the hostage away, taking Anna to the ground, grabbing for the gun.
Anna fell, slamming the tiles, but she held on to the weapon. In fact, she rebounded, hurling herself forward, using the momentum of her fall to roll on top of Harper and flatten her against the unconscious cop lying on the floor. Harper’s damaged leg twisted under Anna’s weight and, as she shuddered in pain, Anna firmed her grip on the gun, struggling to aim it at Harper’s temple.
Harper could hardly breathe, and her leg was on fire, but she pushed back, turning the muzzle away from her head, toward the wall. Then, thrusting her torso forward, she threw Anna off balance, closed her arm around Anna’s neck. Twisting the arm that held the gun, she faced Anna, eye to eye.
‘This is over,’ Harper panted.
Anna grunted, rolling her eyes. Harper reached for the gun, wrapped her fingers around the barrel. Pushing against each other, they fought for control until, suddenly, Anna stopped struggling. Her eyes faded, her gaze turning inward. Was she giving up? Feigning narcolepsy? For a nanosecond, Harper shifted her weight, reacting, and in that briefest of moments, Anna lurched, flicked her wrist, aimed at Sameh’s head. And fired.
Warm bits of brain, blood and bone sprayed all over Harper’s face. For an eternity, she sat on the floor, cradling the body that had been Anna’s – or Sameh’s – oblivious to the commotion around her, only vaguely aware of the bustle, until someone approached her with a warm, wet towel and started gently cleaning her face.
‘Hoppa.’
Harper turned. Hank took her hand and lifted her into his arms. Where had he come from?
‘Men’s. Room. In. Not. Hear.’ Or not here.
Limping, even with one weak arm, he carried her past the gawking police to a cushioned chair, where he washed the reopened cut on her cheek. Gradually, Hank’s touch and kisses grounded her. Her flashback faded, and she was staring not at Sameh but at yet another dead student.
‘Ma’am?’
Harper looked up to see the hostage. The boy with a face.
‘Thank you.’ He held out a hand. He was sweating, shaking. His name was Myles. He was an orderly, a pre-med student at Cornell. ‘You saved my life—’
‘But only because she was lucky,’ Detective Rivers interrupted. ‘What were you thinking? You almost got yourself and the rest of us killed.’
Stenson wanted to arrest her. ‘If not for you, Mrs Jennings, we’d have followed procedure, retrieved the weapon and freed the hostage without anybody, including the suspect, getting shot—’
‘With all due respect,’ Myles interrupted, arguing that Harper had been the only one to do anything to help him. That she’d risked her life for him and actually saved him. ‘If not for this lady, that lunatic would have killed me.’
Stenson and Rivers ignored him, indignant that Harper had overstepped, insisting that she’d had no business interfering. Stenson listed charges. ‘Reckless endangerment, interfering with police procedures . . . and, oh yeah, that girl is dead, possibly because of your actions. How about manslaughter or negligent homicide—’
‘Stop.’ A new voice rumbled into the discussion, a thunderous voice that caused Stenson and Rivers to shut up. ‘Hero.’ Hank glowered. ‘Hoppa. Saved him. You. Shame on.’
The detectives stared at the large man holding a bloody towel. And, suddenly, both detectives found other issues to attend to.
