by Diane Kelly
She smiled and laughed again. “Do I look upset?”
Alexa tried to help. “How many times have I heard you call Logan an asshole and a jerk?”
Logan didn’t even have the sense to be offended. He laughed, too, smirking. “People can change their minds.”
When he went to take Paige’s arm, I slapped his hand away. “She’s on Molly right now. We all know it. You’re just trying to take advantage of her.”
“It’s okay,” Paige said, not denying she’d used the drug. “Nobody’s taking advantage of anybody. Logan’s not so bad, really. I mean, look at him. He’s actually kind of hot.”
Logan grinned lecherously. “You know it, girl.”
I was shouting in Paige’s face now. “You’re not leaving with him!”
When she merely blinked at me, Logan responded for her. “What she does is none of your goddamn business!”
God, how I wished I had my badge and my gun and my nightstick right now. My partner, too. I’d take my baton to Logan’s backside and let Brigit tear him a new one. Unfortunately, I was armed only with my wits and my words. I looked Logan in the eye. “Unless you want to find yourself facing sexual assault charges, you’ll get your sorry ass out of this bar right now!”
That wiped the smirk off his face.
“That’s bullshit!” he yelled back. “I’m not forcing her into anything.”
Hunter stepped between us. While he was thinner than Logan, he had a couple inches on the guy. “Look, man,” Hunter told Logan. “This is getting out of hand. Just go before this gets any uglier.”
Logan looked from Hunter to Paige to me. He leaned into my face and snarled. “Cunt!”
His expletive made me want to rip his lips from his face, but at least he walked away then, aiming straight for the doors and leaving the club.
I turned to Hunter. “I could so kiss you right now.”
He leaned down, lowering his face to mine and looking into my eyes. “Do it,” he said. “I dare you.”
I giggled and turned my head.
He put his mouth to my ear now. “Are you refusing because you’re not interested? Or are you refusing because you’re a cop?”
I stiffened reflexively.
Hunter pulled back a few inches, eyed me, and put his mouth back to my ear. “I knew it.”
I grabbed his hand and pulled him toward the door that led to the restrooms. Once we were in the hallway, I looked up at him. “Why would you say something crazy like that?”
“About you being a cop?”
“Yeah.”
He smiled. “You mean how did I know? It wouldn’t take a rocket scientist to figure it out. But with me being an engineering major that basically makes me a rocket scientist, huh?”
When he saw the irate look on my face, he got down to brass tacks.
“Okay. One,” he said, counting on his fingers, “a bunch of kids in the dorm take drugs and end up in the hospital. Two”—he held up a second finger now—“right after that, a new girl moves in with a dog that’s supposed to warn her of oncoming epileptic seizures. The dog is a shepherd that looks just like a police dog.” He added another finger. “Three, the girl watches everyone in the dorm very closely and asks me questions about drugs.” His pinkie shot up now. “Four, the girl who is allegedly an epileptic has spent the entire evening in a bar with flashing lights and hasn’t twitched once.”
Whoa. He had a point. Flashing lights were known to induce seizures in those suffering from epilepsy. I hadn’t stayed in my undercover character well enough. I’d really screwed things up, hadn’t I? I should’ve let Jackson go with one of the rookies rather than insisting she give the job to me.
While I mentally chastised myself, Hunter continued. “Five,” he said, holding up his hand with all four fingers and his thumb splayed. “You pulled me over once for speeding. Three or four months ago. You were really nice and didn’t give me a ticket, just a warning. I checked out your ass in my side mirror as you walked back to your cruiser. A guy doesn’t forget an ass like that.” He smiled, his eyes flicking down to indicate my backside. “Plus, I saw your dog in your cruiser that day. She was standing up in the back and wagging her tail.”
As much as I wanted to convince him otherwise, I realized any such attempt would be futile. I could only hope he’d kept his conclusions to himself. “Does anyone else know?” I asked him. “Did you mention it to your friends or roommate?”
“No,” he said. “I saw what drugs did to my older sister. She used to go to TCU, too, before she started partying all the time and flunked out. She wasted a lot of our parents’ money and a lot of her time. It’s so stupid. I want drugs off the campus as much as you do.”
“So you’ll keep this information secret?”
“Hell, yeah, I will.”
My body relaxed in relief. “Thanks, Hunter. I really could kiss you now.”
He repeated what he’d said earlier, though this time he did it with a soft grin on his lips. “Do it. I dare you.”
I stood on tiptoe and gave him a peck on the cheek.
“That’s all?” he said. “My tax dollars ought to get me more than that.” He shot me a wink and took my hand. “You realize you’ll look more legit if you hang with me, right?”
He had a point. “As long as the expectations are clear,” I said.
“I’m just trying to build some street cred,” he said. “I think I’m the last remaining virgin on my floor.”
I gave him a smile. “I bet you’re not. I suspect there’s more talk than action going on, especially when it comes to guys bragging.”
“You could be right.”
When the nightclub closed at two A.M., Hunter and his friend walked us back to my car. It was a thoughtful, chivalrous gesture. He’d make some girl a really good boyfriend someday.
Paige frowned. “Logan would never walk a girl to her car,” she spat. “I can’t believe I almost left with the guy! Did y’all know he has gonorrhea?”
“I thought it was herpes.”
“That, too!”
Given that Paige was saying snarky things about Logan again, it was clear the effects of the Molly had worn off. She teetered at several points along the way, still a little drunk, though. Several times one of us had to grab her arm to keep her from falling. Fortunately, though, she was showing no symptoms that would require medical attention.
When we reached the car, Hunter opened the back door and helped Paige in, going so far as to snap her buckle into place. She reached up a hand and stroked his hair. “I love your curls. You’re like a tall, sexy poodle.”
He took her comment in stride. “Sexy poodle. The words every guy longs to hear.”
She gave him a smile. “I bet you don’t have gonorrhea or herpes.”
“Nope,” he said, cutting a look my way. “I’m disease-free.”
After he shut the back door, he bent down and gave me a peck on the cheek this time. “See you later, Morgan.”
As he walked away with his friend, Alexa and I climbed into the Jeep. She glanced my way from her seat, giving me a knowing smile. “So. You and Hunter, huh?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Me and Hunter.”
I started the car and circled down to the bottom level. As I took the last turn, Paige moaned and issued a burping sound, a telltale precursor of more to come. “Oh … God.”
“No!” I cried, slamming on the brakes and jabbing the button to lower the back window. “Not in the car!”
But it was too late. Before I could get the window down far enough for Paige to stick her head out, she’d belched vodka-scented Dr Pepper all over herself and my backseat.
Blurgh.
I looked at Alexa. “Does she do this a lot?”
“All the time,” she whispered.
We unrolled all of the windows and, after paying the machine the parking fee, aimed for the dorm. Though I slowed out of habit, the Jeep had no problem with the potholes in front of Flynn Blythe’s apartment complex. I wondered if Fort
Worth PD had a problem, though. Derek’s cruiser was once again in the lot, though this time he wasn’t in it. Where was he and what was he doing?
Unfortunately, I could do no investigating for the time being. I had to get Paige back to the dorm and clean out my car.
When we entered their dorm room, Paige began making gagging noises again. Alexa and I led her to the toilet, and I found myself once again holding back the hair of a college student as she puked her guts out. When she’d brought up virtually everything but her spleen, Alexa and I put her to bed, laying her on her side so she couldn’t aspirate if she threw up again.
“Keep a close eye on her, okay?” I said. “I’m going to go clean my car and pick up Britney.”
Alexa nodded.
Though I could have exited from Alexa and Paige’s room, I decided to pop into my room and grab a bottled water from the minifridge. Watching Paige empty her stomach, along with the heat of the night, had made me queasy. Some cold H2O could help with that.
I walked through the bathroom and opened the door to my room. A lamp glowed from Emily’s desk. Her computer was on and the coffee mug I’d bought her sat on the desktop, but my roommate was nowhere to be seen.
Two steps into the room and I tripped over something large on the floor, falling to my hands and knees.
Holy shit!
That something large was Emily!
She lay in a crumpled heap, her eyes closed. I shook her shoulder and screamed her name. “Emily!”
There was no response.
Alexa appeared in the door that led from the bathroom. “Oh, my God! What happened to Emily?”
I put two fingers to my roommate’s neck to check her pulse. It was fast and erratic. She seemed to be having trouble breathing, too.
Alexa came into the room and knelt down next to me. “Is she okay?”
I was already dialing 911 and had no time to answer.
The dispatcher’s voice came over the airwaves. “Nine-one-one. What’s your emergency?”
“I just found my roommate unconscious!” I cried. “Send an ambulance!”
The dispatcher asked several questions in quick succession. Where were we? What was the sex and age of the victim? But then she asked me several questions I couldn’t answer. “Has she ingested any drugs, medications, or alcohol?”
“I don’t know! I’ll look around.”
I handed the phone to Alexa while I quickly rummaged through Emily’s dresser drawers. I found nothing there. I looked through the purse and backpack on her bed. Nothing. I moved over to her desk and jerked the drawer open. Lying there in the drawer was a package of over-the-counter caffeine pills. Had she been taking these all along? That would explain her jitters and mood swings and sleep problems.
I ran back to Alexa and grabbed the phone out of her hand. “I found caffeine pills in her desk,” I told the dispatcher. But were the caffeine pills the only thing Emily had taken?
In minutes, the EMTs arrived. I recognized them immediately. They’d come from Seth’s fire station. I could only hope they wouldn’t recognize me out of uniform.
No such luck.
As one checked Emily’s pulse, the other eyed me. “Meg—?”
“My name’s Morgan Lewis,” I said, giving him an exaggerated wink to let him know he should play along. “I’m Emily’s roommate.”
He nodded, still looking a little confused but going with it. “Okay, Morgan. You said you found caffeine pills in her desk?”
“Yes.” I handed him the package.
“It would take a lot of these to cause an overdose. But it’s not unheard of.”
As they loaded her onto a gurney and rolled her out into the main hall I followed them, turning back in the doorway to address Alexa. “I’ll be right back. Go stay with Paige.”
As the medics pushed the gurney into the elevator, I squeezed into the car with them, having to flatten myself against the cold metal to fit. As soon as the doors closed, I said, “I’m a cop. I’m working undercover. You guys know about all the Molly problems, right? All the kids who’ve been rushed to the hospital?”
They nodded.
“I worked the one at Panther Pavilion,” one of the guys said.
“Is that why you’re here?” the other asked in a whisper.
I nodded. “I found some Molly hidden in my dorm room,” I said. “I’m not sure if it belonged to the girl who lived there before me, or if it might belong to Emily. There’s a chance she might have gotten more somewhere.”
“Thanks,” they said. “That’ll help us figure out what we’re dealing with here.”
As the doors slid open on the first floor, Emily began to come to, turning her head. “What’s going on?”
“I found you on the floor,” I said, jogging alongside the stretcher as they wheeled her into the lobby. “You were unconscious.”
Her eyes went wide. “What?”
The EMT addressed her as he rolled her out the front doors and down the ramp. “Did you take something? Any medications or drugs?”
“Caffeine,” she said, tears forming in her eyes. “I’ve got a test on Monday and I was going to pull an all-nighter.”
“How much did you take?” the guy asked.
“One an hour since noon,” she said.
The EMT glanced at the clock and did the math. “Fourteen pills, then?”
She nodded weakly. “I washed them down with coffee.”
My heart twitched in my chest. I never should have bought her that travel mug.
“Did you take anything else?” the paramedic asked. “MDMA? Meth? Anything like that?”
“Absolutely not!” she spat. Her disgust sounded sincere.
I put a hand on Emily’s arm before they loaded her into the back of the ambulance. “Should I call your parents?”
“Please don’t.” She squeezed her eyes closed as if to fight her tears, but only managed to force them out. “They’d only worry. I’ll be okay.”
“I’ll come to the hospital,” I told her.
She turned her head on the gurney to look at me, a tear rolling from the edge of her eye into her ear. “Thanks, Morgan.”
I returned to my room, grabbed my purse, and headed back to my car, which was filled with the stench of regurgitated vodka fermenting on the back floorboard. As disgusting as the odor was, I had to take care of business first. I drove to the W1 station and dropped off the three cups.
The tech slid on a glove before removing them from my purse. “Which cup belongs to who?” he asked.
I’d been in a rush at the club to sneak them into my purse without being spotted and hadn’t been able to mark them. “I don’t … Wait.” I’d been about to say “I don’t know” when I spotted telltale lipstick stains on the rim of the cups. “The one with the coral lipstick belongs to Paige McQuaid,” I said. “The one with the plum lipstick is Alexa’s.”
The tech jotted the information down before looking back up at me. “And the one with no lipstick?”
“That’s Logan’s.”
“Got it. I’ll let you know once we run the tests.”
“You’ll compare these prints to the ones that were lifted from the cell phone?”
“Of course. I’ll let Detective Jackson know the results as soon as we’ve got them.”
I thanked the tech and returned to my car. From there, I drove to my house. Brigit announced my arrival in the driveway by barking her head off at the front window and waking Frankie, who met me at the door.
I cringed in apology as I stepped inside. “Sorry.”
She waved a hand. “No worries. How’d tonight go?”
“My roommate’s in the emergency room being treated for a caffeine overdose and my Jeep’s full of puke.”
“Is that good?”
I snorted. “How can an ER visit and a car full of vomit ever be good?”
“I’m assuming it’s progress, right? Police work is dirty and messy. You’ve told me that yourself.”
She had a point. It wa
s my point being tossed back at me, but it was nonetheless valid.
“You’re right. It’s progress.” After all, I knew now that Paige used Molly. I still didn’t know whether she was dealing it, too, but I was a step closer to finding out. And I knew now that my roommate wasn’t using illegal drugs. She was abusing legal ones. Maybe not a whole lot better, given that she ended up in an ambulance all the same, but at least caffeine caused only short-term adverse effects and didn’t leave the user with long-term damage.
I went to the kitchen, where I rounded up a roll of paper towels, a spray bottle of lemon-scented disinfectant, and a garbage bag. I headed back out to my car for puke patrol.
Ten minutes later, the floorboard and mat were as clean as they were going to get and I was high on chemical fumes. I tossed the garbage bag in our rolling can by the garage and returned the remaining paper towels and cleaner to the kitchen. After thoroughly washing my hands, I gave Frankie a hug. “Thanks for watching Brigit tonight. I’m sure she was glad to be home.”
“No problem,” she said. “Any idea when you might be coming back?”
“Hopefully soon,” I said. “The techs are running prints on cups I swiped from the bar. How much longer this will take depends on what they find out.”
“Be careful,” she said.
“Ironic words coming from a woman who’s planning on running into burning buildings for a living.”
“I’ll be careful, too.”
“Good.”
FORTY-TWO
EAU DE EW
Brigit
Megan opened the back door of the Jeep and Brigit hopped up into the seat. Immediately, her nose detected odors that had not been in the car when Megan had dropped her at their house only hours before.
There was the acrid, citrusy scent of cleaning spray. Underneath that, there was the scent of liquor and intestinal fluids. She was very familiar with those scents. Her first owner had been a stoner who smoked too much weed, drank too much cheap beer and whiskey, and hung with a crowd of losers just like him. Overdoing it was something they did regularly.
