I let my gaze sweep Kia’s face. “I think we’re good enough friends that we can see each other at our worst,” I said sweetly.
I moved around her, rapping my knuckles on the door.
Julia didn’t answer, but Kia was watching me, her lips curled in distaste, her dark gaze making my skin itch with resentment. It was the same way Nate had looked at me earlier: suspicious. I turned away and pushed the door open.
“Julia?” I called.
The entry was dark, but the kitchen light was on at the end of the hallway. I shut the door and moved toward it. The thick oatmeal-colored carpet in the hallway cushioned my steps. To my right, a stairway led into darkness.
In the kitchen, Julia was bent over the island, a pile of pills and a crumbly line of powder in front of her.
“Julia!” I gasped. “What the hell are you doing?”
Julia jumped, a little gasp of surprise bursting from her mouth. She scooped up the pills and pushed them into her pocket. She looked exhausted and stressed, wearing a tattered old T-shirt and lumpy gray sweatpants. I felt overdressed in my cashmere turtleneck, tall brown boots, and infinity scarf.
“It’s not what you think,” she rushed to say.
“Really? Because I’m thinking you’re crushing up pills and snorting them. Does Kia know about this?”
“God, no!” Julia glanced over my shoulder, eyes wide. “She’s gone, right?”
“I think so.” I studied the white powder. “Let me guess. Oxy? So you were stealing the samples!”
“Fine, what do you want me to say? Yes, it was me. I took them.” She sighed, her eyes glittering with tears. She dabbed at them with a tissue. “But I’m not a junkie, I swear. I just take what I need to manage my condition.”
“What condition?” I couldn’t remember Julia being sick once in the time I’d known her.
“I have lupus.”
I was stunned. Like other autoimmune diseases, lupus caused the body’s immune system to attack its own tissue and organs. It caused excruciating joint pain, stiffness, and swelling. Julia was energetic, bubbly. I’d never have guessed at her pain. Maybe doctors thought we knew what people were going through, that we could read the signs and symptoms, but maybe in the end we were just guessing.
“Your wrist.” My eyes flew to Julia’s bandaged wrist, remembering how she’d blamed the pain and stiffness on carpal tunnel syndrome.
“Yes. It’s advanced to lupus arthritis.” She smiled sluggishly. “Here, let’s sit.”
Julia walked unsteadily toward the living room, tipping abruptly to the right and almost falling. The immediate high evident in her speech and movement came from crushing and snorting the pills instead of swallowing them. It rendered the extended-release mechanism obsolete.
“Come on.” I curled my hand around her elbow and helped her to the living room. We sat on an overstuffed couch offset by blue-and-white-striped cushions. The living room was a small but neat space with rich wood panels, antique furnishings, oatmeal-colored area rugs, and a box-beam ceiling. The tiled fireplace opposite was covered in candles of every size and shape.
Julia leaned her head back and closed her eyes. She sighed as the drug wound through her system, her whole body limp as an old washcloth. When she spoke, her voice was soft and dreamy.
“I was diagnosed with lupus when I was sixteen. My older sister had it too. We both lived with chronic pain our whole lives. Stephanie, my sister, she lost her hair, her body broke out in rashes. The pain was constant. She killed herself two years ago. She couldn’t cope anymore.”
“I’m so sorry,” I murmured. “Is that why you moved here?”
I’d only lived in Skamania for a year when Julia arrived; being the new person in a small town was one of the things that had bonded us.
She nodded. “Yes. I wanted to start over. And I was doing really well. I’d been put on a low dose of OxyContin to help the pain, and it made my life manageable. Under normal circumstances I couldn’t work at the clinic, I couldn’t see patients or go grocery shopping, or even get out of bed some days. I wouldn’t be able to work. I would lose my home. But the oxy allowed me to reclaim my life.”
She adjusted her position on the couch, her eyes bright, the pupils constricted. She used both hands to lift one leg over the other knee, wincing as she did. “But six months ago, my doctor told me he had to lower my dosage. He said the amount I was taking would put up a red flag on my chart and that would alert the DEA. You know yourself all the laws that are changing around oxy, how prohibitive they are. They’re kicking people off their pain management plans so abruptly it’s leaving them with no option but to head to the streets. People are killing themselves because they can’t live with their pain. That’s what my sister did.”
Julia shook her head slowly. “I know it was wrong to take the OxyContin. I know I shouldn’t have done it, and now I’m going to lose my license. I might even go to jail. But the dose I get now is too low. I have a standing order with this dealer. She’s not exactly legal, but she delivers a few extra oxy to me every month. It’s been over a week since she left any, though. So I took a few extra from the medical supply closet, just to tide me over.”
“You get them delivered? Where?”
“The birdhouse on my front porch.” She chuckled. “Sophisticated, right?”
“No, I meant, where—who—do you get them from?”
She shrugged and looked away, not answering.
My mind was churning, too fast to keep up with. Was it Violeta? Had she delivered drugs to people like Julia? But now that Violeta was dead, there was a gap in the supply chain.
“Why didn’t you tell anyone you were suffering so much?” I asked.
She snorted. “I was afraid! Pain management is such a taboo subject, you know? I was scared people would think I was a bad person for needing it.”
“You’re not a bad person, Julia.”
“I need your help.” She clutched my hand. Hers was icy-cold, the skin stretched tight over bony knuckles. “Can you prescribe me some pills? Just a few to get me through until I can get more?”
I coughed to cover my surprise. “Julia…”
Julia laughed, a hard, dry sound, like straw scraping against asphalt. “No, sorry. I shouldn’t have asked.”
She dropped her face into her hands. It took me a minute to realize she was crying. I put a hesitant hand on her shoulder.
“When did the war on drugs become a war on the disabled?” she asked bitterly.
The opioid epidemic was a complex one, not nearly as black-and-white as politicians tried to make it seem. Almost lost in the national controversy surrounding the epidemic was the reality that some people genuinely needed opioids. Badly. And these people were being forgotten, betrayed by a system desperate to look like it was righting a past wrong.
For so long, doctors had been told that morphine was evil, addictive. Then the drug industry shifted its marketing, telling the medical community that freedom from pain was a fundamental human right. And we’d lapped it up. Until people started dying and we had to cut our patients off.
All this time, I’d thought I was wrong to forge those prescriptions, to illegally sell oxy. I knew I was doing it for the right reason, but I still thought my choice was immoral.
Now I wasn’t quite so sure.
My job as a mother was to keep my son alive. And my job as a doctor was to help people, not watch them suffer.
“I used to believe in justice,” I told her. “I thought life was fair, that karma existed and everything would eventually roll around to equity. I don’t believe that anymore. Bad people stay healthy, good people become addicted, loved ones get sick and die. Some people suffer blow after blow, while others drift along easily. The world is unfair and unjust and just really damn cruel. I wish I could help you, Julia.”
“You can. I’m not an addict. Maybe I’m addicted, but I’m not an addict. I just need pain relief. Please. Without it, I don’t know if I can go on living.”
&n
bsp; CHAPTER 20
NATE TOSSED HIS KEYS and wallet on the console table at home, his mind still on Emma’s strange behavior at the hospital. Nate questioned suspects every day, and they all displayed the same signs when lying: too many details, slowed-down movements, helpfully offering other explanations.
Her statement about not seeing anybody at the hospital included all of those hallmarks. But she’d left before he’d had a chance to confront her.
The house smelled of the rich, tantalizing scent of beef stew and freshly baked bread. Charlie loped over to him, pressing his nose into Nate’s leg and licking his palm. Nate scratched him behind the ears.
The living room was a complete mess. Toys formed an obstacle course across the carpet. Picture books were scattered everywhere. Dirty plates and cups were stacked on every available surface. Nate was surprised. Emma usually ran the house, and their lives, with such military precision.
Despite the clutter, the fireplace was on, the flame flickering in the grate, making a cheerful crackling noise. If only they’d had the time to put up the Christmas lights, to hang the stockings and decorate a tree. Still, the room was cozy and warm. Like a home. A family home.
Josh was bent over the coffee table coloring while Pokémon fought an epic battle on the TV in the background. The knobs of his shoulders and arms and knees were sharp and severe, his skin a sickly shade of pasty white.
Nate’s heart squeezed with a sudden fear. What if Josh died and it was all because he couldn’t pay for the treatment? It would be his fault.
“Daddy!” Josh lifted his arms and waited for Nate to scoop him up. Nate gently pulled his son into his arms. Josh’s body was small and vulnerable, lighter than ever. Like he was already disappearing.
“Hey, buddy.” Nate’s heart crunched fiercely. Josh still smelled the same, like mango shampoo and day-old socks. His giggle was the same when Nate’s breath tickled his neck. “What are you drawing?”
Josh showed Nate a swirl of dark colors, thick strokes over twists of thinner ones, shades of blue and red. “Do you like it?”
“Of course I do!”
“That’s you and that’s Mommy. And this”—Josh pointed to a particularly dark swirl—“is the Empire. And that’s all of us and we’re fighting the Empire.”
“Wow! It’s amazing!”
“Grandma said I might be an artist when I growed up, and I said if I’m a famous artist I’d have very much money and I’d buy all the kids with cancer their medicine so they’d live.”
Nate pressed his lips to the top of Josh’s head, unable to reply.
“Here.” Josh handed it to Nate. “It’s for you.”
“Thanks, buddy. I’ll put it on the fridge, ’kay? Is Grandma cooking?”
“Yup.”
Nate went into the kitchen, Josh and Charlie trailing behind.
Moira was bustling about, filling bowls with a bubbling stew and slathering chunks of steaming white bread with slabs of butter. The kitchen was warm, steam rising from a colander sitting in the farmhouse sink. The cabinets, breakfast bar, and dining table were rich with woodwork, giving the area a homey, rustic vibe. Moira had music playing on her phone, an old Stevie Nicks song.
Nate remembered that when his parents had bought the house, it was a complete dive. His dad had spent weekends remodeling it. He’d begged Nate to help him tear out moldy carpeting and rotten wood, paint the new woodwork, and install toilets, but Nate had refused. He was a teenager and wanted to hang out with his friends. He regretted that now. Regretted that he hadn’t spent time with his dad before he’d been incapacitated by the stroke.
His parents had used the house as a rental until Nate and Emma moved back to Skamania. Now their rent helped pay for Matt’s care.
“Hey, Ma.” Nate kissed his mother on the cheek. “It smells amazing.”
“Well, maybe you’d get a home-cooked meal more if I got to see you more,” she replied tartly, but she smiled and patted his cheek to soften the words.
“Can I help with anything?”
“Nope, it’s almost ready.”
Josh moved past Moira. “Alexa, make a fart sound.”
Alexa complied with a fart sound. “That was a long and windy one,” she said.
Josh giggled, and Nate rolled his eyes, unable to hide his smile. Emma had taught that trick to him the other day, and Josh had been asking Alexa about farts ever since.
“Josh, Grandma’s listening to music.”
“No, no, it’s fine.” Moira turned the music off.
“Is Siri Alexa’s best friend?” Josh asked.
Moira chuckled and kissed Josh’s cheek. “You remind me so much of your father when he was your age!”
“I look like Mommy, though.”
Josh looked at Nate, who shrugged. It was true, Josh was all Emma, from his dark hair to his sharp jaw. His eyes were blue, but not Nate’s dark blue, Emma’s lighter sapphire blue. He was strong-willed and determined, in a way Nate loved.
“But you have your daddy’s smile.” Moira turned to Nate. “Where’s, uh…” Her eyes flickered behind Nate.
Nate’s gut clenched with a familiar disappointment. “Emma will be here in just a few minutes.”
Moira nodded and resumed serving up stew—but not before Nate noticed the scowl on her face. She’d never explained exactly why she didn’t like Emma. He’d asked her once, the day Emma and he had gotten married. He’d arrived at the courthouse, and Moira had been waiting on the steps outside. She’d pulled him aside and whispered urgently in his ear.
“It isn’t too late. There’s no shame in canceling this.”
“Mom, we’re having a baby!”
“Well… accidents happen.”
“Mom!” He’d pulled away, stunned. “What’s your problem with Emma?”
“Nothing. She’s lovely.”
“Then you need to accept she’s going to be my wife.”
He’d brushed past his mother without another word.
Sometimes he felt stuck between them. As if he had to choose sides. He felt guilty, like he was doing something wrong, when all he wanted was to take care of his mother because she was all alone. He wanted to take care of Emma too, but she was fiercely independent and so strong. She didn’t need him the way his mom did. And maybe he liked that a little. It was nice to feel like for once he didn’t have to carry the burden all by himself. That he had a partner.
“I’m going to go wash up,” he told Josh and his mom now.
Upstairs, he headed for his office, first grabbing a sheet of tracing paper from Josh’s room. He pulled the business card he’d taken from the morgue out of his pocket and laid it flat on the surface of the desk.
He’d nearly shit himself when he bumped into Emma at the hospital. He’d only decided to stop by the morgue to get the business card from the evidence bag at the last minute after promising Emma he’d come home.
Maybe, he realized, he’d felt like Emma was lying because he had been lying.
He felt like a complete dickhead. On the spur of the moment, he opened Google and searched for the item he’d been thinking about for Emma for Christmas. He smiled as he ordered it and left a message for the seller. It wasn’t much, but they didn’t have a lot to spend this year. And he knew Emma would appreciate the thought more than anything.
Once he was done, he picked up the water-damaged card and turned it over in his hands.
He knew he shouldn’t have just taken it. He should’ve checked it out in the evidence log, but the evidence bag had still been lying there under the gurney and nobody had been around, so he’d taken it. And he needed a lead. Anything that would get him closer to solving this case.
Was it the right thing to do? Nate had no idea. What was right and what was wrong was becoming increasingly blurred to him. His frustration curdled into a sharp anger. He hated himself for feeling useless and ineffective, hated that this promotion felt miles away and that he needed it so desperately.
Nate laid the sheet of tracin
g paper over the business card and rifled through the desk drawer. When he found a pencil he scratched it over the tracing paper, the shape of the business card, slowly revealing the embossed logo on the front.
A thick cross was surrounded by a circle, a set of wings to the left and right of the circle. Beneath that, the bold capital letters AL GIA CE.
Nate opened Google again and found the website he was looking for. He compared the tracing paper to the website. The logo was the same.
ALLEGIANCE HEALTH CLINIC
It was Emma’s clinic.
* * *
LATER THAT NIGHT, Nate was lounging on the couch. Emma’s feet were on his lap, Josh curled like a bean on hers. He was too big to sleep on her anymore, but he didn’t like to be left alone, and Emma seemed to need him close. Charlie was on the floor making funny little sucking sounds in his sleep.
The TV murmured in the background, the fireplace crackling and casting a sepia glow across the screen. All of Emma’s usual rules—strict 7:30 p.m. bedtime for Josh, flossing and brushing teeth, laundry on a Monday night—had gone out the window. Even her glass of wine was propped on the coffee table without a coaster, unheard of for Emma.
Emma was looking down at Josh’s sleeping form, gently stroking his cheek, her eyes so full of love it made Nate’s heart ache.
She looked tired. Exhausted, really. Her hair was tied into a tangled ponytail, limp tendrils hanging around her face, not a speck of makeup on. But when she looked at him and smiled, it made everything in him go warm with happiness. There was no woman in the world more beautiful than his wife.
Watching Emma watching their son filled him with a powerful sort of love and fear. He loved them both so much and was terrified he wasn’t protecting them the way a husband and father should.
“We should put up the Christmas decorations,” Nate said.
Emma didn’t answer, just kept stroking Josh’s cheek.
“Em?”
“Hmm?”
“Did you hear me?”
“Sorry, no.”
Do No Harm Page 13
