Deadly Medicine

by Jaime Maddox

  “It’s all right, now. You’re safe,” she said, but in spite of her desire to hug Jess, she turned to find a knife to help Frieda. “Abby, can you grab some water?”

  Ward pulled a knife from the kitchen drawer and knelt before Wendy. For some reason, she wasn’t ready to touch Jess yet. “Thanks,” Wendy said to Abby when the water was placed to her lips. Her raspy voice told Ward she’d needed it.

  Abby repeated the offering with Jess, and she drank but remained silent. Ward studied her as she carefully worked the ropes on Wendy’s wrists. In spite of the fact that the cabin was cool, Jess was sweating profusely. Her pupils were dilated, and the hairs on her arms stood straight up. Tears poured in streams from both eyes, and even though she was tied to the chair, it was moving with the tremors wracking her body. Jess was in withdrawal.

  While Frieda worked on Wendy, Ward started on Jess’s ankles. “How are you? Are you hurt?”

  Jess cleared her throat. “Every muscle in my body is cramped. He shot me with IM sux.”

  “Succinylcholine?” Ward asked to clarify.

  “Yes. And let me tell you, it’s as bad as they say.”

  With her binding free, Wendy stood and began stretching. “Oh, yes. It’s that bad.”

  “You, too?” Ward asked.

  “Yes, I’m afraid so.”

  Jess’s feet were free and Ward stood, looking at Hawk on the floor. The posse had arrived, and they filed in to survey the situation. Several of the men pulled Hawk to a seated position and began to bind him with the same rope he’d used on his victims. Someone shoved a handful of paper towels into Hawk’s face to staunch the bleeding.

  “Don’t suffocate him,” Ward said.

  “Why the hell not?” someone asked. “It’d save the taxpayers the cost of a trial.”

  “She’s right. Go easy on him. He don’t seem the type that can handle any rough treatment.”

  “Do I look like I give a shit? This scum don’t deserve no special treatment.”

  Ward ignored their arguing and turned back to Jess. “You look like shit, Jess.”

  “In a good way?” she asked, her voice quaking but the humor unmistakable. The joke took Ward aback. That was the old Jess, the one she hadn’t seen in years.

  Ward leaned close enough to smell Jess’s shampoo and sweat, and whispered in her ear. “Are you okay?”

  Jess seemed to understand the deeper meaning in Ward’s question. “No. I’m pretty shaky right now.”

  Ward saw it all so clearly now. The moods, Jess’s desire to be alone, her disinterest in things she’d once loved, including Ward. She thought back to the day before. Jess had disappeared sometime around the time of her seven o’clock shift. Presuming she’d taken her last dose of the oxycodone at her bedside then, she was about thirteen hours out from her last dose. An addict on a regular schedule of this drug would start craving it after just a few hours and be in withdrawal at this point. The COWS, short for clinical opiate withdrawal score, would probably measure Jess in moderate withdrawal based on the severity of her symptoms. That was only going to get worse.

  “Jess, why don’t you walk around, see if you can get those muscles to loosen up a little. Do some stretching.” Ward didn’t mention that it might relieve some of the anxiety associated with opiate withdrawal as well.

  Ward motioned to Zeke, who followed her onto the porch. “You still keep your medication in your truck?” she asked.

  “Yes, I do. I always keep it with me, for emergencies.”

  Zeke’s doctor had prescribed him oxycodone for the arthritis in his knees. “I want one of your pain pills. Jess is in agony, and it could be another twenty minutes before the ambulance arrives.”

  He reached into his pocket and pulled out his keys, then folded them into Jess’s hand. “I’m sorry, Ward, for chasing you away. You’re a good girl, and if it wasn’t for you comin’ in with the boys, me and those two would most likely be dead now.”

  Ward accepted the compliment with a shrug. “It’s over, Zeke. No worries.”

  “Promise me you’ll take care of Jess.”

  “I will,” she said and nodded at him, then turned and nearly ran over Abby.

  “Hi,” she said.

  Abby’s expression told Ward she’d heard the conversation with Zeke, but Ward had no words for Abby right now. Her adrenaline was running out, and combined with the lack of sleep and the jumbled thoughts in her head, she wasn’t sure she could form a coherent sentence.

  “What’s up?” she asked.

  “I just needed to get out of there. Too much testosterone.” Abby shrugged.

  “They haven’t killed him, have they?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Give me a sec, Abby. I need to get some medications for Jess. She’s really hurting.”

  Abby eyed her with concern, or perhaps suspicion, but Ward just winked at her before turning toward Zeke’s truck. It was parked in the shadow of the hearse, and she was glad the multitude of men hovering about couldn’t see her reach in and pull Zeke’s medication pouch from the glove box. Fishing for the right bottle took a few tries, but then she pulled out the oxys and studied the label. They were five-milligram tabs, only half the strength of the tablets on Jess’s bedside cabinet.

  The problem Jess faced now was the acetaminophen dose. Each tablet of oxycodone, the medication Jess needed to fight her withdrawal symptoms, also contained acetaminophen, a common drug that wreaked havoc on the liver. Ward could give Jess only three of the tabs without risking trouble. Jess wouldn’t die from the withdrawal. While narcotics leave misery in their wake, they only kill when they’re used. Alcohol and benzodiazepine withdrawal, on the other hand, are fatal. Letting Jess sweat it out might have been a great way to teach her a lesson, but Ward feared that her reputation would suffer if someone figured out opiate withdrawal rather than succinylcholine toxicity had caused the constellation of symptoms Jess was exhibiting.

  Ward wanted to just give her a modest dose of narcotics to bind in the empty receptors in her brain and ease her symptoms. After that, Jess was on her own.

  She noticed Abby leaning against a railing at the far end of the porch and knew she should say something to her, and she would. Just as soon as she took care of Jess.

  She found Jess in the kitchen, shakily lifting a glass of water to her pale lips. “I’ll tell the medics to give you morphine, but this should take the edge off for now. How long do you think it’ll take?”

  Ward made it clear by her tone and the look she gave Jess that denial wasn’t an option.

  Jess answered without hesitation. “I should start feeling a little better in twenty minutes.”

  “Okay. Other than the sux, you don’t have any injuries? He didn’t punch you or anything?”

  “No, just the sux. But believe me, that’s enough.”

  “I’m going to give you IV fluids and some morphine, but I think you’ll be fine. We’ll check labs at the hospital. If you’re feeling better this afternoon, you can probably go home.”

  Jess nodded but didn’t add anything else, and the wail of the ambulance siren was suddenly audible in the silence. Faint, but getting closer by the second.

  “So tell me what happened,” Ward said.

  “After I finished talking to you, I decided to get some work done. I turned on the computer and checked my e-mail. I had something from Wendy, an autopsy report on a young guy, a trauma victim with multiple broken ribs, a broken clavicle, facial trauma. I was suspecting cardiac tamponade or some other catastrophic injury. But he died from a venous air embolus.”

  “Shit.”

  “Yeah, that’s what I said. As much as I didn’t want to believe it, I figured I’d better check out the other deaths that happened under Hawk’s watch. I walked over to the hospital a couple of hours before my shift, and he cornered me in my office with a syringe full of sux. I don’t know how he knew I knew, but he did.”

  “I’d called the ER looking for you. Maybe it tipped him off.”

&nb
sp; “Maybe.”

  The ambulance crew pushed their way into the room and the crowd parted, leaving a clear path toward Ward and Jess.

  “I’m sorry, Ward. For not trusting you.” Jess’s eyes brimmed with tears, and she reached a trembling hand to close the two-foot gap between them. She squeezed Ward’s forearm, then raised her finger to gently brush Ward’s cheek. “You didn’t deserve to be treated the way I treated you. And even if I was going to push you away, I should have at least had the guts to tell you why. There’s something else I have to tell you, too.”

  Ward turned to greet the medics, and her eyes met Abby’s. Before she could even smile, the medics pushed their way closer, and Ward was trapped by the barrier the stretcher created.

  “We’ll talk later, Jess. Right now, let’s get you taken care of.”

  The paramedics eased her onto their stretcher and began questioning her. One of them smiled at her in recognition. “Dr. Benson was given a large dose of succinylcholine, and the side effect is severe muscle pain. I want you to start an IV and give her a shot of morphine as soon you can. She’s really uncomfortable.”

  As the medics set about their work, another siren sounded, and within a few minutes two state police officers walked into the cabin. One was a middle-aged man with hair graying at the temples, and the other was Ward’s age and could have been the centerfold on the women-in-uniform calendar. She was blond and cute and fierce-looking. The officers were pointed in Zeke’s direction. He’d taken a seat on the couch, and Ward suddenly realized he needed to go to the ER for an evaluation, as did Wendy. Both probably needed further testing to make sure Hawk’s terror hadn’t caused any serious injuries to their brains or their kidneys.

  “Can I catch a ride with you?” Ward asked the medics. She knew it wasn’t protocol, but this was Garden, and Jess was the medical director for the ambulance, so she figured they might bend the rules on this occasion. “You can call me your acting medical director. I’ll fill in until Dr. Benson can return to her duties.”

  “No problem, Doc,” the senior medic said to Ward. “Let’s get her in the rig.”

  Ward took two steps toward Zeke and Wendy, who sat beside each other as they answered the officer’s questions. “I’m going with Jess. But you both need to come to the ER and have some tests. Zeke, that head wound needs a stitch, and you need a CT scan. Wendy, you need some IV fluids. As soon as you’re done with the officers, I want you there. Agreed?”

  “I’ll bring them myself, Doc,” the cute, blond officer said as she winked at Ward.

  Under other circumstances, Ward might have smiled, but she was too tired, too frazzled. She looked around for her friends. She’d abandoned them in order to care for Jess, and now she needed to let them know that she needed to stay until she was sure Jess and Zeke were okay. They were still her family, no matter what.

  Abby was just climbing into the passenger seat of Frieda’s truck when Ward found them. Frieda was behind the wheel. “Hey, wait up!” she called.

  Abby offered her a weak smile. “Hey,” she said.

  “Where’re you going?”

  “Well, you’ve got your hands full, Doc. Frieda’s going to take me home. Your car’s still at her house, but we’ll drop it off at the hospital on the way.”

  Ward was about to protest, but then she realized it was probably the best move. Her attention would be elsewhere for the next few hours, and truthfully, she needed to focus on Jess. Having Abby at the hospital would be a distraction.

  “Okay. That’s a good idea. I’ll call you later.” She wrapped her arms around Abby for a quick hug. Ward pulled her close, but Abby’s arms seemed to hang limply. “You okay?” she asked.

  “Fine. Just a little tired.”

  “Understandably. Go get some rest. And thank you.”

  She pulled away and looked around Abby to Frieda. “Frieda, thanks so much. You guys really helped save the day.”

  Frieda swatted away the compliment like a pesky fly buzzing around her face. “When are we golfing?”

  Ward laughed. “I’ll call you.” Then she turned and followed the paramedics and Jess toward the ambulance.

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Sutures

  During the ambulance ride to the hospital, Ward could see a visible transformation in Jess. Her complexion seemed less pale. The restlessness subsided. Sweat that seemed to pool on her forehead and lip had evaporated, and while her hair still looked a little damp, she no longer appeared to have just gotten out of the pool. She appeared uninjured. She really was going to be all right. Ward sat back and closed her eyes. For the first time in twelve hours, she relaxed.

  Jess seemed to have a good handle on her addiction, Ward realized. It had taken about twenty minutes for the symptoms of opiate withdrawal to subside, just as she’d predicted.

  Good, Ward thought. No one at the hospital was likely to suspect a thing. Jess still looked like she’d been kidnapped, tied up, and sleep deprived, with her hair in disarray and her clothes a wrinkled mess, but that was okay. It was expected. As far as what the ambulance crew knew—and they’d seen her at the worst of her symptoms—Ward was certain they’d been paying more attention to the excitement of the crime scene and the bloody killer tied to the chair than the subtle details of Jess’s condition. Jess was fine, after all. The real action was still happening at the cabin, where the state police were taking statements and the local coroner and a bunch of ATV riders were going to make the news for helping bring down a serial killer.

  A flurry of excitement greeted them in the ER, and while Ward was tempted to back off now that Jess was in capable hands, one look from Jess told her she needed to stay close by. Whether it was the psychological trauma of the kidnapping or the lingering anxiety from opiate withdrawal, Jess wanted Ward by her side.

  For six months, that was all Ward had wanted. To be with Jess. For Jess to love her again, completely, the way she once had. For Jess to look at her with something other than contempt. And now, it seemed, all of her wishes had come true.

  What had changed? Ward wondered. Had the near-death experience caused Jess to question the life she was living and the decisions she’d made? Was it dissatisfaction with the life she’d chosen to live in Garden? Or was it the relief that must have come with discovery that was allowing the real Jess to escape the biting shackles of secrecy that had held her prisoner for so long?

  She squeezed Jess’s hand. It was probably a bit of all of those reasons that had caused Jess to open her eyes. It didn’t really matter. What mattered was she saw a glimpse of the real Jess in the eyes staring back at her, and she was happy.

  “How do you feel?” the ER doc on duty asked Jess as he walked into her exam room. He nodded politely to Ward, and they both watched as the medics helped Jess onto the hospital stretcher and the nurses took over, attaching monitor leads and hanging the IV bag, adjusting the pillow and assessing their new patient.

  “Achy all over, but much better since the fluids and the morphine.” Jess smiled. “And a little groggy. I’d like to just close my eyes and take a snooze.”

  Ward was sure Jess had thrown in the last sentence as an after-thought, because the morphine was expected to cause drowsiness. Jess looked wide-awake to her.

  “Probably the morphine. Just let me check you out and I’ll let you rest while we’re waiting for your lab results.” He asked Jess a series of questions about her medical history and then about her ordeal and finally examined her carefully, checking each body system from head to toe. When he finished, he told Jess to close her eyes and rest, promising she could leave the hospital later in the day if her potassium level was okay and her pain was tolerable.

  “Just what you said,” Jess told Ward.

  She shrugged at the compliment.

  “Thank you for taking care of me, Ward.”

  Ward looked up into the eyes she knew so well, and they held. Jess’s began to fill with tears, and hers soon followed. She retrieved tissues from a box on the counter and gav
e some to Jess before wiping her own eyes.

  “How did this happen to you?” she asked after she regained control of her emotions.

  Jess cleared her throat. “My broken wrist.”

  She was shocked. Jess had been knocked from her bike by a car, a relatively benign crash other than the damage to her left wrist. The fracture required a surgical repair, and Jess had spent two months in one sort of cast or another.

  “God, Jess. That’s been three years. You’ve been hooked on narcotics for that long and I never noticed? I’m such a jerk.” She closed her eyes and shook her head in disgust.

  “No, no. It’s not your fault. Addicts are very good at hiding it.”

  “Still, I’m a doctor. I should have noticed.”

  “Well, you picked up the withdrawal crisis in a heartbeat.”

  Ward didn’t tell Jess she’d broken into her house and found the large bottle of narcotics on her bedside table. That had certainly been a big clue. She wasn’t going to mention it, either. Things were going well with Jess; she refused to give her a reason to be angry. Jess seemed to find them without any help from her.

  “Again, I’m a doctor. But how did I live with you for those three years—well, two and a half—and not figure this out?” She closed her eyes and thought back to the accident and the months that followed. Jess had naturally been depressed. It was the summer, and instead of being able to enjoy the outdoors and the good weather by swimming and golfing and having fun, Jess had been stuck on the patio reading, because even walking jarred her arm and caused pain. A leave of absence from work had been necessary, and while her disability policy had covered her salary loss, Jess was isolated from her colleagues and friends and the intellectual stimulation she thrived on. Ward’s schedule was even worse without Jess at the hospital, because she’d been one of the doctors called upon to help pick up the slack.

  As she thought back to that time, she realized that’s when the changes in Jess began. She’d enjoyed their time together before the accident, but afterward, she withdrew from Ward. She went to work and did the same good job as always, but it seemed to drain her. After work, she wanted to rest and be alone. She declined invitations to play golf or hike, and didn’t want to travel. She cancelled a vacation to Italy they’d been planning. Even things like the theater, which had once entertained her, lost their appeal. When they moved to Garden, Jess had become even more distant. Ward had always thought Jess’s grief had been the cause, but looking back, she knew it had been going on for much longer. Since her wrist injury. If she’d only known.