Accused (Troubled Boys, Strong Men #1)

by Wendy Byrne

  No doubt they were worried about what he remembered. Bits and pieces were slowly but surely falling into place, and he knew as soon as they figured that out he was a dead man. Even if they didn’t figure that out, he’d still no doubt be a dead man.

  Shit. He needed to focus. But his eyelids weren’t cooperating. Every time he tried to lift them, they seemed to have a mind of their own and refused to stay open.

  He shook the cobwebs out of his brain, forced open his eyes and glanced around. Carlos and Slash were both asleep and snoring. He didn’t see Jeremy so he could be standing guard, or even dead. Something bad had happened when they went to that house in Brentwood. A shudder ran through him. There wasn’t a doubt in his mind, that he’d be next.

  This was his only opportunity. Dying of cold or starvation while lost in these woods had to be preferable than at the hands of these morons. He didn’t know for sure who “the man” was yet, but he had a pretty good idea. He only wished he could tell his mother to warn her.

  He had to find a phone like yesterday.

  ***

  “Are you sure you want to do this?” Sam regretted ever making the suggestion. He should have known she would jump on the sliver of hope he’d dangled before her. “I could call Cole.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. He can’t risk his career for a possibility.”

  He laughed despite the circumstances. “But we can?”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “Okay, we’ve established we’re both morons for even attempting this, so let’s get started. There should be a fire escape in the back. You probably can reach it if you stand on my shoulders. If not, we’ll have to bring around the truck and stand on that. Sound like a plan?”

  “Perfect. I hope you remember I’m afraid of heights. Don’t get shaky and drop me.”

  “I’m two hundred plus pounds of whomping, stomping dynamite, I’ll have you know.” He smiled and hoped everything would go without a hitch. “I’m as steady as a rock.”

  She held his hand while they walked through the deserted streets to the building. The tremor in her fingers let him know this wasn’t easy for her. When they got to the back and spotted the steel structures, he figured this might work after all.

  “That’s pretty high.” Her eyes trailed up the back of the building. “Maybe we should go through the front entrance. I have a key code Travis and I used for appointments with Dr. Stern.”

  “No doubt they shut those down after hours. This is the only way. Are you up for it?”

  “I don’t have a choice, do I?” Without another word, she kicked off her shoes and urged him to stoop down, motioning with her hands.

  When she had her feet planted on his shoulders, she slowly came to a standing position. He held tight to her calves.

  Wobbling, she grabbed the rail and steadied herself, letting out a breath. When she yanked on the end, the ladder slid down, stopping a few feet off the ground.

  “Piece of cake.” Despite her words, her voice was unsteady as they made the ascent together.

  When Sam tried to open the window and found it locked, he didn’t give up. During his misspent youth he’d done more than his fair share of B&E. Some things were hard to forget. He slipped out his pocket knife. Seconds later, he hopped inside with Jillian trailing behind him.

  “Are you sure there’s no alarm system?”

  “Can’t be one hundred percent positive, but it doesn’t look like it. If we hear sirens we’ll know we were wrong.” He grabbed her hand and pushed through the door into the vacant hallway. “Which one is Dr. Stern’s?”

  As expected, it was dark inside. A number of doors lined the hall. She chewed on her fingernail. “Let me get my bearings.” After closing her eyes for a second, she pointed to the left. “Room 463.”

  He grabbed her hand as they ran together. It took him only a few more seconds to get into the office itself. They avoided turning on the light, instead utilizing the flashlights they’d brought.

  “Where do we start?” she whispered.

  “Let me find the key to the file cabinets. That makes the most sense.” He riffled through the desk drawers until he found a key ring. “Voila!” He then went down the line opening each of the cabinets.

  Ten minutes later, they were knee deep in therapy notes, but had found nothing. “I think we might be on the wrong track. This isn’t proving anything except that the good doctor takes rather obscure notes on his patients,” she said.

  “In case his files are subpoenaed, he’s made sure there’s nothing incriminating in them.”

  “I don’t know whether I should be happy or nervous you know so much about this stuff,” she said as she kept shuffling through paperwork.

  “There’s something we’re missing. He’s got a lot of client information that could potentially be problematic for him if it was leaked, but he doesn’t have a security system. Why would that be?” Sam asked.

  “He trusts his clients?’

  “But there’s nothing of significance stored here.”

  “What are you thinking?” Jillian asked.

  “I’m thinking he either keeps important stuff with him, at his house or maybe has a safe or something here.”

  “Wait.” She held out her hand. “He gave me a prescription for Travis once that he took out of a safe. I was a little crazed at the time, so let me think about it for a minute.” She sat down at the desk and closed her eyes as if replaying the scenario in her head.

  “We were in his office.” She pointed towards the closed door.

  They walked to the door and tried every key on the ring, but none worked. “He must keep it with him.” Rather than be dissuaded, Sam pulled a credit card and a small screwdriver out of his pocket and went to work.

  “Should I be scared you know how to do this?”

  He smiled over at her as the tumblers fell into place. “Misspent youth. What can I say?”

  “I guess sometimes that kind of stuff comes in handy. Just don’t tell Travis I said that.”

  They walked inside and glanced around. There was a rolling chair behind an ornate desk. Behind it a credenza held various framed certificates and photos of the doctor with celebrities. A leather sofa was positioned along one wall with dark brown print chairs in front of it.

  “No photo that doesn’t include him. Can you say narcissist?” Sam opened all the drawers of the desk without finding anything of merit.

  “Maybe the doctor needs to work a little on his own issues.” Jillian looked through the drawers of the credenza with similar results. “Where did he get the prescription from?” She surveyed the room. “He greeted me in the outer office, but we came in here. I was pacing a lot and talking a mile a minute while he went to the bookcase. There’s something in or around the bookcase.”

  Sam moved toward the bookcase with Jillian right behind him. He started on the left while she started on the right. They searched each and every book, starting at the top and working their way down.

  “Found a safe,” Sam said.

  “I don’t suppose your misspent youth included safe-cracking?”

  “Unfortunately no.” He began to examine the books closest to the safe. “Maybe he kept the combination in one of these.”

  “Wait. I think I found something.” She handed him a photo with a series of numbers scribbled on the back.

  He could only hope this was it. With her leaning over his shoulder, seconds later the safe was open. Despite the whisper inside his head telling him it was a bad idea, he kissed her. “Brilliant. But what the hell is this?” He pulled out small plastic container filled with capsules. Underneath it was a piece of paper covered in scientific symbols.

  “Those things didn’t come from a drug company.”

  “Does it look like the stuff he gave you?”

  She drew in a shaky breath. “I don’t remember and I flushed the remainder of what he gave me.”

  “Is the good doctor making his own drugs?” Sam asked even while he knew the answer. />
  “Could be.”

  “We need to take these capsules and have them tested to see what’s in them.” He shoved the capsules in his pocket, along with the piece of paper that must be the formula.

  “But he’ll know it’s missing.”

  “What is he going to do, call the cops?”

  She nodded, and rested her butt against the bookcase. “Whatever this is, maybe it’s what he gave me when I had that weird reaction. The pills were in one of those prescription vials, so I didn’t think anything of it at the time. Wait. There’s something written on the back of that paper too.”

  “Holy crap.” Sam stared at the paper which held a listing of names and dollar amounts.

  She pointed a shaky finger to the list. “Max Gill – freebie. What does—” She stopped talking suddenly at the sound of something outside and glanced out the window. “Cops.”

  “Shit,” he whispered into her ear. “The good doctor must have had a silent alarm set up in this room.” He pulled the capsules out of his pocket and gave them to her. “Go down the fire escape and bring these to Cole. I’ll grab some of those prescription samples out of the file cabinet and let them arrest me. I’ll tell them I was looking for drugs.”

  “No, we can both get away.”

  Based on the sound of the footsteps, it was clear the police were getting closer. It sure as hell wasn’t his first choice, but right now one of them had to get out, and it was better that he be the one getting caught. He handed her the keys. “Take my truck and get those capsules to Cole. Then tell him to come to the station and bail me out.”

  “Sam,” she had tears in her eyes, “please, there’s got to be another way.”

  “No sense both of us getting arrested. If this stuff gets into the hands of the police, it will take forever to get processed, and the good doctor will have a crack at Travis before we can find him.”

  “I don’t want—”

  He stopped her protest by prodding her out the back way. After closing the office door behind him, he went to the file cabinet, and stuffed the drug samples into his pocket and waited for the inevitable.

  Chapter Thirty-two

  “Lexie, what did you do?” Her face looked distorted.

  He blinked his eyes to clear his vision, but it didn’t help. Nothing helped. He staggered to his feet. The noise in the background seemed to reverberate around him like the loudest base speakers he’d ever heard.

  While he couldn’t remember getting to her house, he found himself in the grass. With more effort than he thought he could manage, he stumbled his way inside the open front door.

  “What the fuck is wrong with you?” The voice sounded like Dr. Stern’s, but what would he be doing at Lexie’s house?

  Damn, why was he holding a gun? And why was Lexie’s mother standing there as well?

  This was fucked up.

  Where was his car? He needed to get out of here. He stumbled back out the door, but heard the rumble of voices behind him. Where was Lexie? Did she know what happened?

  He tripped and landed on the ground. His eyes fluttered closed seconds before everything went black.

  What the hell? Travis shook his head to erase some of the memories that had surfaced during the dream. No, it wasn’t a dream at all. He remembered.

  That asshole! He needed to let somebody know what happened.

  Travis felt woozy when he got to his feet. The trees seemed to tilt before they finally came back to a semi-vertical position. Oh man, that was so fucked up.

  Whatever they’d given him was messing with his mind and his coordination. How could he get anywhere like this?

  He didn’t know how, but he was determined to try. Uncertain if it was a dream or not, he remembered a conversation between Carlos and somebody on the phone. Whoever was on the other end of the line was going to meet up with them later today and settle this whole thing. Travis figured that spelled bad news for him and maybe his mom too.

  The sound of the leaves rustling beneath his feet seemed amplified. Nervous, he glanced over at Slash and Carlos, but they were still fast asleep, snoring. Right now, he couldn’t think about anything but his own survival.

  He wasn’t sure how long he walked until he spotted a break in the trees. At the rate he was moving, he couldn’t have gotten far. The blackness surrounding him combined with his equilibrium issues made it slow going.

  Finally he was able to see the moonlit sky, which was a welcome relief. The stars had always seemed magical to him, but tonight they had a practical use.

  ***

  “Cole, its Jillian. Sam’s been arrested and I have some drugs I need you to have tested.” She could barely breathe as she spoke into the phone. While she’d waited until she was a few blocks away from Dr. Stern’s office before making the call, she couldn’t shake the fear that the police would creep up behind her any second.

  “Wait a minute.” She heard a woman’s voice in the background and the rustling of sheets as Cole moved out of bed. “What the hell is going on?”

  “We thought we—” Oh God, she was starting to hyperventilate. Panic threatened to overtake her. She struggled to maintain an even breath.

  “Take a deep breath, Jillian, then let it out slowly.” He listened on the other end of the line without saying a word. “Now do that again. And again. Are you ready to talk?”

  She nodded even though he couldn’t see her. A sliver of calm started to return. “We were…ahem…in Dr. Stern’s office looking for a client list. Instead we found what I think is a client hit list and do it yourself pills.”

  “Where are you?”

  ***

  Pretty quickly Sam remembered why he hated jail. The smell, the sense of claustrophobia that crawled inside when he wasn’t looking, the despair that hung over everything like a black cloud.

  “I see those rumors about you were right, huh?” When Sam didn’t respond to the bait, the guard continued. “Hot shot professional athletes think they’re above the law. With all your money, getting hooked on prescriptions is a joke. Why didn’t you just get one of your bad docs to write you the scrip, huh?”

  Sam ignored his barb and walked to the back of the cell to lean against the wall. Cole couldn’t get here soon enough.

  ***

  Why had he started doing drugs in the first place? One time was all it took. A sense of being part of something and accepted by his peers had been the draw.

  All the stupid decisions Travis had made in the past came to settle in his brain one by one. He could see the first time he smoked a joint, thinking he was cool. Everybody was doing it he’d reasoned at the time. After that, his circle of friends had expanded, not that they were good friends, but he thought they were so funny. So cool. Man, was he stupid.

  The next thing he knew he was stealing stuff to get some money. His mother was on to him, even though she didn’t want to admit it. He saw it in her eyes, like she begged him to tell her what he’d been doing. His father was oblivious as always and he kept doing stupid shit.

  Geez, was this one of those life-flashing-before-his-eyes-moments? Travis hoped not. He wasn’t ready to die yet.

  No doubt he’d been walking around in circles for the longest time and going nowhere. If he didn’t get his act together and study the skies like he knew how to do, he’d be right back where he started.

  He forced himself to focus and gazed at the starlit sky to locate the constellations. They were all there, just as they were when he was on his back deck looking through his telescope.

  Suddenly, by some miracle, Travis’ head began to clear. It was as if purging his mind of all the idiotic stuff he’d done had left a pathway for him to start to think.

  “Due north. Is that a road through the trees?” The fact he’d started talking to himself didn’t bother him too much. If he had the energy, he’d so some kind of happy dance. That was definitely a road visible through the trees.

  It was a small two lane deserted highway. He wasn’t sure if he should take a chance
on the remote possibility he might be able to flag down a car.

  But he didn’t have a lot of time since he was pretty sure Slash and Carlos would be waking soon and they had the wheels to come look for him. No doubt they’d be traveling this same road once they realized he was gone.

  Uncertain, he hung back closer to the bushes, ready to take a dive into the field if need be. He heard the sound of a car up ahead and crouched. The red lights on top gave him pause. Should he or shouldn’t he trust the system?

  He’d tried that once and it hadn’t turned out so well for him. The one responsible for what had happened to him was part of the system itself. The man could do no wrong. Except, of course, he’d done plenty wrong. Travis knew now he’d been setup from day one.

  He needed to get to a phone. He needed to get to his mom before it was too late. She’d never see it coming.

  ***

  Jillian felt like she’d run a marathon but still called Mama Iris on the way home. “Hi, Mama.”

  “What’s wrong, child. I heard that my boy Sam went back to drugs. I know that’s a load of manure. He’d never do that.”

  “He got himself arrested to protect me and my boy. We were looking for something in Dr. Stern’s office when the police showed up. He made sure they didn’t see me and made it look like he broke in looking for drugs so that I could get away and get the evidence to Cole.” Tears threatened as she considered what Sam had done for her. “But Cole is bailing him out. He’s also going to talk to somebody about what we found.”

  “It’s a darn shame you two had to do the work the police should be doing. But it will be all right. I knew that boy did nothing wrong.” She hesitated a second. “Have they found Travis yet?”

  “Not so far, but I’m sure it’s only a matter of time.” Jillian had to think that or surely she’d go mad. “Cole or Sam is supposed to call as soon as Sam’s released.”