Hooked

by Jaime Maddox

  Mac had come here to help her, to take care of her. She’d kissed her. Mac’s intentions were clear. It was time for Jess to be honest. If Mac walked out the door, it would be hard for Jess. But if she didn’t tell her, it would be harder to lose her later, after she knew what those soft lips felt like on other parts of her body.

  “Why don’t you try the chair for a while? And I heated the soup for you.”

  “What kind?”

  “Chicken noodle, of course. You’re a doctor. Surely you’re aware of the healing powers of chicken-noodle soup.”

  “I’ve heard rumors.”

  As instructed, Jess sat, accepted the mug of soup, and even took a sip. Then she summoned all of her courage and told Mac to have a seat as well.

  “I thought I’d straighten up a little.”

  “Sit down, please,” Jess said as she met her gaze. Mac pulled a chair from next to the fireplace and placed it next to Jess’s.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “That kiss rocked me, Mac. You rock me. I feel something with you I’ve never felt before. You challenge me and make me laugh. I want more from you. I want you in my life, in my house, in my bed.”

  A smile erupted on Mac’s face. “That all sounds good to me. So good. I’ve tried to fight this, but I just can’t anymore.”

  “I have to tell you something. Before we go any further here, you need to know the truth about me. Then you can decide for yourself whether we explore our feelings any further.”

  Mac studied Jess for a moment. Though she tended to be serious, Jess had been relaxing more, joking, less stressed. Not now, though. She was all business.

  Was it because she wanted to talk about their relationship? Because, truthfully, that was all Mac could think about lately. The way Jess’s sarcasm matched her own and made her laugh. How they liked the same food and movies. That Jess was the only woman she’d ever known who understood the demands of her job. Mac didn’t get close to people, yet she’d opened up to Jess.

  “Okay. What is it?”

  Silently, Jess looked at the floor. Mac closed the space between them, touched her arm, her pulse pounding at an alarming rate. Suddenly, she was nauseated. Something was wrong. Something was wrong with Jess. “What is it?”

  Finally, Jess met her eyes. “I’m an addict, Mac. I don’t have the flu. I’m in withdrawal.”

  Mac felt her mouth fall open, but instead of the flurry of words that typically flew out around Jess, she felt helplessly mute. Jess wasn’t sick, as she’d feared. Not really. She was an addict. A drug addict. Before she could force her tongue to move, Jess continued with a drawn-out sigh.

  “I was a patient of Dr. Ball. The guy who was murdered on Thanksgiving. He’s been treating me with buprenorphine, which I’m sure you know about. Since he’s dead, my medication supply will run out soon. I decided to quit cold turkey now instead of later.”

  “Wow. This is some news, Jess.” Mac clasped her hands in front of her and rolled her thumbs. It was a lame reply, but Mac was too stunned to do better. She looked at Jess, though, searching for answers, some way to understand this. How did a doctor become a drug addict? Someone who had it so together and was so amazingly accomplished? How had she fallen in love with someone who’d managed to hide such a big part of herself? Because, honestly, that’s what this was. It wasn’t a familiar feeling, but you didn’t need to see the bullet to realize you’d been shot. And she’d definitely been hit by the full force of Jessica Benson. What the hell did she do now?

  Jess looked away from Mac’s searching gaze. It made her feel even more uncomfortable than she already was. “I know. We’ve never really talked about drugs, and I’m sure as a police officer you have strong feelings about them, so I thought I’d better tell you now because you kissed me, and it was wonderful, and I want more. You need to know the truth before you kiss me again.”

  Mac leaned back and slipped down in her chair. Defeated? Jess wondered.

  “So what is the truth?” she asked.

  Jess told her the entire story, from her broken arm to her buying drugs, to her stint at Hartley and her experience with Dr. Ball.

  “So your goal is to get off narcotics completely, instead of staying on the bup?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why? If you’re stable, why mess with it?”

  “Because addiction is never stable. I was doing great with Dr. Ball, and now he’s dead. First I have to find a new doctor. Maybe I’ll be able to locate someone, or I can stretch my strips a little, take one a day instead of one and a half. What’s the difference? Eventually I’ll run out. And if I find a new doctor, who’s to say another crisis won’t occur, and I’ll be in the same boat. As long as I’m taking these drugs, I’m vulnerable. I want to get off this stuff and regain control of my life.”

  Mac nodded. “What makes you think you can do it this time?”

  Jess smiled. “I don’t know exactly what happened, Mac. Near-death experience, maybe? Or the feeling I had on bup, like I was normal. I’d forgotten what that feels like. If I can get off this stuff, I think eventually I’ll feel good. I have a lot of reasons to live, and I want to. I want to enjoy my life, and my job, my friends—you—without this hanging over me. And I can see that life now. I can envision it. I have something concrete to aim for.”

  Mac reached out to Jess, took her hand, squeezed it. Staring at the tangled fingers, Mac knew how tangled her life already was with Jess. Her first thoughts in the morning had always been about cases, and interviews, and evidence. Now, she wondered if Jess was awake, if she could call. And she would, and they would talk about nothing at all, or something on their minds, until Mac absolutely had to get ready for work. During the day, Jess crossed her mind dozens of times, to the point of distraction. Focusing on her job had never been hard; it was what she lived for. Now, she found herself redirecting herself from visions of red hair and blue eyes and long legs. At night, when she couldn’t sleep, the Jess of her fantasies kept her warm, kept her company.

  Mac had no idea what life with a recovering addict would be like. Odds were, Jess would fail. Even if she were able to maintain her sobriety, it would be measured in days, a count-up, instead of a countdown, until she failed at her Herculean task and started over. Was that the life Mac wanted? Did she want to share the burden of addiction and recovery? Because it was a burden, a huge weight that could pull them down, force them apart, destroy their relationship, perhaps destroy them.

  Entering a relationship with Jess would be hard. Friendship was no longer an option. Mac was way past that stage. If she walked away from Jess, how would she feel?

  Mac supposed she could return to her former life. Her job had always offered an escape, a vacuum to eat up the hours of her days and the days of her weeks. She still had friends, and she still had her family.

  Jess brought something else to her life, though. It was a brighter and happier world with Jess in it. Mac liked it. She wanted it.

  “I’ve never had a relationship with an addict before. And if you’re in recovery, I can live with that. I can be with you. But I’m a police officer, Jess, and I can’t be with you if you’re doing anything illegal. I just can’t.”

  Jess understood that would be a challenge for Mac. “Nothing illegal, I promise. But even by the books, this might be hard.”

  “What’s your plan?”

  “I’m going to sweat it out. Be tough. When I’m through the physical part, in a couple of days, I hope, I intend to keep going to meetings, because they ground me. And I plan to exercise, and meditate, and live a little. Enjoy things and people, take pleasure that way, stress less. I want to have no reason to take drugs, so I’ll have no desire. And I need an escape plan, so when I feel stressed, I can do something safe to alleviate it, so I won’t use.”

  Mac nodded, and they were silent for a minute before she spoke again. “Let me check the dryer.”

  Jess sat in the chair, staring at the vacant fire, wondering about her future. Would she be able to work o
n Friday as planned? She hoped so, but she couldn’t go to work without a clear head. Lives depended on her, literally. She would not put anyone else in danger just to avoid the questions that would inevitably come with a request to change a shift. Would she be able to make it through the next thirty-six hours, or however long it took, fighting the pain and anxiety? She thought she could. She wanted this, badly, and she intended to lock herself in the bathroom and just meditate until she felt better, if that’s what it took. What about the future, though? Did she have the resolve to stay clean? She thought so. In rehab, she’d seen so many people who really had it tough—they were in abusive relationships, or wracked by poverty, or had health issues. Some had no one to turn to for support.

  Jess faced none of those issues. If anyone could beat this disease, it was her.

  She only hoped Mac was willing to join her in the fight.

  On cue, she came down the stairs carrying a bundle of bedding and proceeded to fix the couch for Jess.

  “I don’t suppose there’s anything they can do for you in the ER, is there?”

  “Fluids, maybe. But I think I’m okay. I haven’t thrown up in an hour.”

  When the couch was ready, Mac suggested a movie.

  Suddenly, Jess was overcome with emotion. This was the time to escape. Mac had done her duty as a friend, making sure Jess was alive and had a little soup and clean blankets. Now she could walk out the door and go on with her life. But instead, she’d suggested a movie. Mac wanted to stay, to be with her. She was willing to give this a try.

  The last thing Jess wanted to do was watch a movie. Listening to the dialogue was taxing, and the lights and noises were almost painful. “Okay, you can pick,” she said, and she moved back to the couch and lay down on her side, her feet tucked up against Mac’s thigh.

  Emotionally and physically exhausted, she fell asleep that way and awoke hours later, to find Mac asleep beside her.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Sponsor

  Using his small finger, Derek pushed the pills aimlessly around the kitchen table. His supply was dwindling, and he had no way to replenish it. He always told himself he could quit using when he wanted to, but for the past few years, he’d had no reason to. A steady supply of narcotics was at his command, and he made use of it, regularly taking ten or more pills a day. Since Dr. Ball’s death, not only was he out of a job, but he was also out of pills. He had no source, other than the orthopedics office in the strip mall. He’d been cruising it regularly, but it had been hit-and-miss. They had been slow on the day after Thanksgiving, and the Monday after as well, since apparently some of the bone specialists had been out deer hunting that day. He’d made his supply stretch for a week, but he was feeding two mouths, not one, and Lucy was quite hungry. Her narcotic needs were double his, and as a result, he’d started taking less. And he felt it. Aching muscles, anxiety, sniffling. If he didn’t replenish his supply, it would only get worse.

  It was time to pay Dr. Jessica Benson a visit. He’d been sitting at the table trying to work out the details. He was usually good at such things, but today, he just wasn’t able to focus. Maybe it was the withdrawal, or perhaps just stress in general. Dr. Ball’s murder was all over the news, it was all everyone in town was talking about, and if that wasn’t enough, the police had questioned him. Apparently, he was the last one known to see the doctor alive. Well, no shit.

  Browsing the Internet, Derek found the phone number for Garden Memorial’s emergency room and dialed. “Hi,” he said. “This is Dr. Roman from Endless Mountains Medical Center. I’m wondering if I can speak to one of your doctors about a patient we have here.”

  “Sure, just a minute, Doctor. I’ll get Dr. Benson for you.”

  When he heard the elevator music, Derek disconnected the call, hopped into his car, and was in Garden an hour later. He told the registration clerk he had back pain and was placed in a room to await his meeting with Dr. Benson. This might not have been the most carefully crafted plan of attack in history, but he was truly desperate.

  She arrived with a smile on her face, but Derek could see the skepticism in her eyes. She’d probably checked his chart and knew he’d been here before for back pain. It was months earlier, but still, it had probably alerted her that he might be abusing drugs. And who would know better than her, right?

  Sitting in a bariatric recliner beside the bed, she opened her laptop and began typing. After a moment, she looked up. “So it says you have back pain. What happened to your back?”

  Derek sat up in the stretcher and dangled his legs over the side. “Here’s the deal, Doc. I was one of Dr. Ball’s patients. I’ve been scrambling for medication for the past week, and I need help. I need you to prescribe me some oxys, enough to get through until I can find another source. I have three friends who also need their medication, and I need you to do the same thing for them.”

  He saw her take in a deep breath before she spoke. “Sir, I can empathize with you about your situation, but the ER is not the appropriate place to get your medication. Have you considered rehab?”

  Derek leaned forward. “Who says I need rehab? Why would you assume I’m an addict?”

  The doctor stammered. “I’m sorry, I, I shouldn’t have implied that. But still—”

  “No need to apologize. You’re right. I am an addict. Just like you.”

  He stared at her for a moment, watched as her cheeks flushed bright red. “You’re mistaken,” she said, not meeting his gaze as she fumbled with her computer and stood.

  Derek laughed. “Listen, Doc. I’m not here to argue. I’m here to help you. I know you need your drugs as much as I need mine. I’ll make you a deal. You write me the prescriptions, me and my friends, and I’ll get you your supply. Easy enough?”

  She looked confused, and shocked, and she sat back in her chair, staring at him, her mouth slightly open, her hands slack at her side.

  “Doc, it’s okay. I won’t tell anyone. I’ll treat you right if you treat me right.”

  Meeting his eyes, Jess found the courage to speak, even though she felt like passing out. Her sweaty hands were shaking and her heart was pounding. “I don’t need your drugs. I’m clean. I weaned myself off. Now I think you should leave.” She tried to sound firm, but she was frightened. Who was this Derek Knight, and how did he know about her? Did he work in the doctor’s office, or had he somehow broken into the electronic medical records?

  Studying him a moment, she thought he looked familiar. He was wearing jeans and a North Face sweater, and boots that probably cost more than she made in a day. She pictured him in a uniform, though, and she remembered. He’d waved to her on several occasions outside Dr. Ball’s office, and her friend had mentioned someone buying drugs. He was the ambulance driver.

  “Good for you, Doc! You’re clean. But what are the rest of us supposed to do?”

  Jess stood. She needed to get out of this room, away from Derek Knight, and she hoped like hell he didn’t follow her into the ER and say something defamatory or become violent.

  As he stood, Jess tried to maneuver around him, but he grabbed her arm, pulling her back. “I’ll scream,” she said.

  “Go ahead. You scream, and it’ll be the last thing you do. I’ll slice your windpipe just like Dr. Ball’s. Help me, and I’ll leave you alone. I won’t say a word. What’s everyone going to think about the star witness in the kidnapping trial when they find out you’re an addict? That creep Hawk will walk. Will the hospital let you work here? What will you do for a job? What will the state board have to say? You’ll probably lose your license. You’ll be fucked. Even if you live, you’ll wish you were dead.”

  Jess stopped and met his gaze with one of fire. She hated him. He was no different than Hawk, holding her hostage in a different way. “What the fuck do you want?”

  Chapter Twenty-three

  You Can Never Leave

  The next day’s shift dragged as Jess waited for Derek to arrive. Finally, in the late morning, his name appeared on her c
omputer screen.

  She leaned against the wall outside the room where her fate awaited her, wondering how this could be happening again. How could she be in the crosshairs of another killer? Because she had no doubt Derek Knight had killed Dr. Michael Ball. By this time she was an expert on the doctor’s murder, having watched every television news account and read every written report, and none of them, not a single one, had mentioned his trachea had been lacerated. Only the killer had that piece of information, and she wondered if Derek even realized he’d let it slip. He’d been angry, and anxious, no doubt desperate for his narcotic fix, and she wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d forgotten his way home the night before. He’d confessed to murder and probably didn’t even know it.

  Since his confession, she’d spent countless nauseating, anxious hours trying to figure out what to do. If she cooperated with him, would he kill again? Perhaps her, or someone she loved? If she didn’t, would he follow through on his threats to expose her?

  It was time to find out.

  “Hi, there, Mr. Knight. How are you today?” she asked as she walked in the room.

  He studied her for a moment before speaking. “How the fuck do you think I am?”

  After a moment of scrutiny, she nodded. “Not very good. You’re in withdrawal.”

  “Well, no shit. I told you I need a prescription, and I need it now. Don’t fuck with me, Doc. You do not want to make me mad.”

  “Or what? You’ll murder me just like you murdered Dr. Ball?”

  “That’s fuckin’ right, bitch!” He jumped off the stretcher and slashed his hand across his throat. “I’ll slit your throat just like his—”

  “Hands up!” Jess heard Mac shout as she burst into the room, pushing Derek away from her before he had a chance to react. Another officer on her heels pulled Derek around and handcuffed him, and he turned his head, glaring silently at Jess. Mac spun her around and pulled her from the room, out of the ER. They’d arranged for another doctor to take over after the arrest, and he was already there. Jess hung her lab coat in the staff locker room and, with Mac beside her, walked out into the bitter December day.