Save Me: A Singular Obsession Novella

by Lucy Leroux

  “I haven’t gambled in years,” he protested.

  “And you haven’t been back to this town in all that time. You haven’t been tested.” Calen put a hand on his arm. “I don’t want you here if it’s going to set you back. You’re a grown man and I’m not going to tell you what to do. But please think about leaving if you start to feel the itch to place a bet.”

  “Trust me, gambling is the furthest thing from my mind.”

  “Just promise me you’ll go home if being here starts pushing your buttons. Mike will watch out for Andie. And if he vouches for her and continues to believe she’s innocent, then so will I.”

  Eric inhaled and nodded. “I appreciate that, but I really am good right now. I don’t think my being here is going to be a problem. I should have come back sooner.”

  If he had, then he’d know where Andie was right now. Maybe none of this would have happened.

  Calen nodded before leaving. Eric watched him go, feeling he had done the best he could for Andie so far. As long as Calen was willing to give her the benefit of the doubt, then she’d have a real chance of getting out of this.

  Turning back to the security office, he offered to help Mike in whatever way he needed.

  “Just stock up on your anti-overdose drugs and be here tonight,” Mike said. “I’m assigning some of our off-site security personnel to go over this camera footage and flag whatever is suspicious.”

  “I will,” he agreed. “Do you have any idea where Andie might have gone? Her neighbor said she moved out last week before all of this happened.”

  Mike pursed his lip, looking at him from under surprisingly thick lashes. “She might have moved in with her boyfriend.”

  An actual punch to the gut couldn’t have surprised him more.

  “Oh.”

  It’s been forever. Of course, she’s moved on. He cleared his throat. “Do you have a name for him? An address maybe?”

  “Yeah, but there’s not much point heading out there now with rush hour traffic starting. He’ll be in for his shift at eight.”

  “His shift?”

  “Todd’s a bartender.”

  “Okay. Was he around a few years ago?” The name rang a bell. He thought he remembered a bartender named Todd. A handsome guy with brown hair. Popular with the ladies.

  “Yeah, he was around. You would probably recognize him if you saw him. Used to be a swimmer. Has a few tats.”

  It didn’t sound like the guy he remembered. The guy he was thinking of didn’t have any visible tats, but that could have changed since he was here last. “I want to talk to him.”

  “You can, but only after I talk to him. If this is an investigation, we have to treat him as a suspect. Although honestly, we’ve never had an issue with him either. He’s one of the reliable barkeeps. He used to work at the Caislean in Manhattan.”

  Crap. That meant he’d been vetted. The Caislean had the strictest hiring standards in the industry. “Still, there’s other people to consider. Some of them have records,” he said.

  Calen was a big believer in giving people second chances. Mike scoured their backgrounds to pick only those deserving of one. But maybe one of the undeserving slipped past him.

  “I’m getting a list together,” Mike said when there was a knock at the door.

  Two uniformed cops entered the room. “Hello. Are you Mike Ward?” one of them asked.

  “Yes, come in. Eric, why don’t you head out to your hotel and take a nap. It’s going to be a long night.”

  Reluctant to go now that the police had shown up, he stood slowly. Mike shot him an exasperated glare and Eric excused himself, trusting him to do as Calen promised and leave Andie’s name out of this.

  He detoured to the bathroom on his way out, wanting to splash some cold water on his face before getting back into his hot car.

  The black marble floor of the men’s room partially camouflaged the pant leg sticking out from one of the stalls. Eric blinked several times until his brain caught up and he realized the leg wasn’t just lying there floating unattached in space. It was connected to a body.

  Eric rushed to open the stall door. A young man dressed all in black was lying on the floor, pale and unmoving.

  Chapter 4

  Andie didn’t notice the coffee mug being held in front of her at first. Wiping the tears from her eyes she squinted at Juliet.

  “Sorry, I’m such a mess. I just can’t believe this is happening. Two weeks ago everything was great. I was about to graduate, I had a boyfriend who wasn’t a lying, cheating asshole, and I made bank at the hottest club on the strip. Now I have no boyfriend, no job, and I lost my apartment cause my roommate stiffed me on three month’s rent.”

  Her friend winced. “You forgot the possible drug charges.”

  Her stomach roiled. “Oh God. Do you think they’ll report me to the cops?”

  “I don’t think they have a choice,” Juliet said, sipping at her own mug. “Do you want me to ask Mike when I go in?”

  Juliet was also a waitress at Lynx. She wasn’t a close friend, but she did owe Andie her job. The younger woman had been good friends with one of Andie’s cousins. They had both grown up in Las Vegas, but Juliet had a rougher time of it than Andie. She had gotten kicked out of her house as a teenager for being gay, and had bounced around friend’s houses or in shelters.

  Technically, Juliet hadn’t been old enough to work at Lynx when she applied. All the staff had to be over twenty-one, but she had gotten a fake ID somewhere. She asked Andie to put in a good word for her with the hiring manager, which she had done. It had been a small gesture on her part, but Juliet was still grateful—enough to give Andie a place to crash since her roommate had bailed on her.

  It was a good sign that Juliet was willing to talk to Mike. She had gone through some bad shit at the hands of the men in her family, and Mike was an intimidating motherfucker until you got to know him. Andie was still a little bit nervous around him, but he had obviously earned her friend’s trust.

  Andie leaned back on the beat-up couch. It was an alley discard, but as street couches went she’d slept on worse. “Thank you, but if they’re going to the cops then I should do something now, right? Like go talk to them.”

  Her friend held her mug closer. “In my experience, going to the cops and expecting them to help you is a bad idea. Maybe getting out of town for a while would be better.”

  Andie rubbed her face. “And run away? I get what you mean about the cops, I really do, but if the shit is about to hit the fan maybe I should get out in front of this.”

  Juliet raised a brow. “You think the cops are going to believe you when you tell them the drugs just showed up in your locker?”

  “I hope so. I mean what else can I tell them? I don’t have a record, and I have a degree now. Or at least I will when I pay my last outstanding library fine. That has to count for something, right?”

  Juliet didn’t look convinced. “It would be better still to give them someone else to suspect.”

  Andie’s brow creased. “Like who?”

  “Like Todd, the shithead you caught banging another girl in the bathroom,” she said, crossing her arms. “He was pissed when you broke up with him wasn’t he? He would totally do something vindictive like this to get back at you.”

  Is she serious?

  “They weren’t technically banging. Not yet.” Andie tapped her nails against the coffee mug. “You don’t think he’d do something like that? Todd’s not into drugs. He still swims like fifty laps a day. I’ve never seen him do anything stronger than shots. He’s one of those my-body-is-a-temple douchebags.”

  Juliet nodded, “Just because he likes to exercise doesn’t mean he’s not selling shit or isn’t above some sort of petty revenge. Doesn’t he have your locker combination? Cause I think I saw him opening it once.”

  Andie drank more coffee. “Did you? I don’t know anymore. I don’t think I gave it to him, but I never changed it from the default one Mike gave me, even thoug
h he told me I could. I guess I should have. But even so, I’m not sure Todd is the one who did this. He wants to get back together. He’s still texting me, trying to convince me what I saw in the bathroom was totally innocent.”

  “And you buy that? You already suspected him of hooking up with other girls. Why else were you dropping in on your nights off?”

  Andie stared down into her mug as if contained all the answers. “I was trying to catch him cheating,” she admitted. When she finally had, she’d broken up with him right away. But it was long overdue.

  Todd had jerked her around for so long about so many different things—where they ate, what she wore, who she talked to. She wasn't a doormat, however, and she tried to call him on his shit when it came up. But Todd had this knack for convincing her she was the one in the wrong. He was so skilled at it, her thoughts had grown so muddled, she had started to doubt her right to question him.

  There was a word for that. Gaslighting. She’d written a paper on it in college, and felt like a fool when she realized she had been experiencing it for months—albeit in a less extreme form.

  I’m done with those fucking head games. Maybe she should give the police his name. Todd could be out for revenge.

  “I’ll think about mentioning him.” If he hadn’t done it, she was doing him a major disservice. He may have been a crappy boyfriend, but he wasn’t a criminal.

  “Think hard,” Juliet said, pointing at her. “You have to look out for yourself, cause in my experience no one else will.” She put down her mug and checked the time on her phone. “I should jump in the shower and get ready for work.”

  Andie winced.

  “Sorry.” Juliet wrinkled her nose. “I’m sure you’ll get your job back. Or better yet, you can start searching for jobs in nursing.”

  “I’m trained as a physician’s assistant. It’s not exactly the same.”

  “Well, it’s medical. Maybe getting fired will turn out to be a good thing. You can throw yourself into finding something in your field now.”

  “Yeah, maybe,” Andie said, trying to sound more optimistic than she felt. She didn’t mention how badly depleted her bank account was. That would seriously hamper any sort of job search.

  And if I get charged with a drug-related offense it all goes away. She’d never be able to get a job working in medicine. “I’m going to get dressed too. I think I have to go to the police station. Now.”

  There was an urgency building in her. She had to make sure she wasn’t going to go down for something she didn’t do.

  Andie left at the same time as Juliet, but the urge that sent her to the police station to file a report dissipated the longer she waited to speak to an officer.

  Determined not to waste time, Andie sat on a hard plastic chair and took out her phone. She started making a list. The first few items were things she might be able to sell. Juliet was willing to let her crash for as long as she needed, but Andie paid her own way. At the very least she could contribute to groceries and the utilities. Her cell phone bill would be due soon too and she needed to keep it active. Without it all her job prospects were dust.

  The wait stretched and eventually her mind wandered. She glanced down at her notes and her heart dropped to her knees when she read what she’d mindlessly typed—Call Eric.

  Oh, hell no. She deleted the note and shoved the phone in her pocket.

  She wasn’t going to get in touch with him. Not after all this time. Andie swallowed and blocked the mental image her brain had just thrown up, but it was a particularly vivid one of Eric’s head buried between her legs.

  Squirming in her chair, Andie flushed while fighting tears. It had been two years, but it still hurt to think about him. Recklessly in love for the first time, she’d done things with Eric she still regretted.

  I was a completely different person back then, she reminded herself. Everyone had one person they went completely stupid over. Dr. Eric Tam was that person for her. But he was in the past—and he was staying there.

  Andie ground her teeth, trying not to think about him. Which meant he was the only thing on her mind now.

  When Eric had first started coming to Lynx as a regular she’d been immediately infatuated with him. He was tall, with broad shoulders and movie star good looks. She’d gone so far as to bribe another waitress to give her his table. After a night of determined flirting, he’d made sure to sit in her section whenever he came back. One night she had “bumped into” him in one of the dark corners of the club. He’d wasted no time taking her up on her unspoken offer. They had jumped into a physical relationship that night, her very first.

  Images of wild lovemaking in expensive hotel rooms flooded through her…dancing and having sex on the roof of the hotel…hooking up in the storeroom. Sucking him off in the bathroom—which to her shame had been her idea.

  He didn’t even realize you were a virgin your first night with him. She hadn’t told him.

  Andie had been in her early twenties and worried he would find her inexperience gauche. But she hadn’t wanted anyone enough to get physical before. Not until she met him.

  Eric lived up to her every secret desire and expectation for a first lover. Soon she was like an addict, panting after him like a sex-crazed lunatic.

  Stop it.

  In the end, the man of her wet dreams had left her in the dust like everyone else in her life. It didn’t matter that she loved him. It was over and done with. And the only salve to her savaged pride was the fact he had no idea how deeply she cared for him. She never told him and he never asked.

  Men were idiots.

  Juliet was right. Andie had to watch out for herself. Getting up, she marched back to the reception desk. “I’ve been waiting for almost two hours and I really need to make a statement about a bunch of drugs found at Lynx last night.”

  That got their attention. She hadn’t mentioned the club when she’d first come in, but everyone here must know about Calen, the club’s owner, and his ties to the Irish mob.

  Within minutes she was ushered to a private office. There she wrote out a statement, giving them Todd’s name, and explaining how she thought the drugs got into her locker.

  Yes, she was throwing her ex under the bus. If he hadn’t done anything wrong, he had nothing to worry about. And if he was the one who’d planted those drugs in her locker, then the cops were the least of his worries. She would kill him herself.

  Chapter 5

  “Is he going to be okay?” Calen asked Eric as he checked out the patient lying in the hospital bed.

  The OD Eric found in the bathroom had been identified. He was a local college kid who’d come to the club with friends. The others assumed he’d hooked up with a girl he’d been eyeing and took off with her. He hadn’t been missed till the next afternoon.

  “He should pull through,” he assured his boss, checking the student’s chart once again. “It’s just a good thing we found him when we did.”

  Overdose drugs had been administered as soon as he’d been able to get his kit from his car. It had been touch and go there for a while, but the young man had pulled through. His parents were flying in from Colorado to take over his care.

  Eric had stayed all night at the local hospital—his former workplace. It had been awkward as hell at first, but the staff didn’t seem to hold any of his bad behavior against him. It was a credit to their professionalism that they didn’t boot him out on his ass when he walked in. It helped that the ER staff had changed in the few years he’d been away. There was always a high turnover there.

  Also, the fact his “mobster” boss was around might have also helped with greasing the wheels with the hospital administrators. They’d gone out of their way to welcome him when they learned he was there.

  Calen saves me yet again.

  He turned to the man in question. His employer looked as tired as he felt. There were dark circles under his eyes and his hair was mussed for the first time in memory. A few years ago, Eric would have guessed he was wor
ried about the viability of his business, and how this overdose would affect his bottom line. He knew better now. Calen genuinely cared about people, whether they were his staff or just customers.

  “You should get back to the hotel. Maia is probably worried about you. And given the situation back home, she shouldn’t be left alone.”

  Calen acknowledged his advice with a tilt of his head, but his eyes didn’t leave the kid in the bed. “I asked one of her other friends, Peyton, to come with us so she’s not on her own. And I don’t want to take Maia home just yet. I will, however, get out of here as soon as Mike arrives. It’s only a matter of time before the cops show up to take your statement. I’d rather they meet me at the club when my attorney is present.”

  “Which one is on standby?” Calen had a lot of lawyers.

  “Lee.”

  Eric nodded. “I’ll make sure the hospital staff keeps me updated. If anything changes with his prognosis, I’ll call you.”

  “Sounds good.”

  He stepped into the hallway and spoke to the charge nurse about his request.

  “Sure thing,” she said with a bright smile and a flutter of her lashes. Eric blinked and glanced at her name tag. Nurse Ellie. Was she the one who had started calling him Asian McDreamy?

  He decided she was when she winked at him. He nodded politely and retreated back down the hallway, embarrassed.

  Mike stood at the open door of the patient’s room next to two men. One was a short Hispanic male. The taller one was an African-American woman, whip-thin with a no nonsense expression. Their suits screamed plainclothes detective.

  “Eric.” Mike waved him over. “This is the doctor I was telling you about. Can you tell the detectives about finding the student?” he asked, gesturing behind them.

  The room was empty save for the patient. Calen had ducked out ahead of the cops’ arrival. Eric launched into an explanation, briefly detailing his position and how he’d treated the overdose.

  The woman, who only gave the last name Carter, did all the talking. She asked several questions and then proceeded to shock the hell out of him.