A Deadly Secret

by Debra Sage

  There was only one thing left to do. After scrambling out of the locker room, he put the next part of his plan in motion.

  The tiny vial of fentanyl was the first step. The next was the carfentanil to make sure the job was finished.

  Lee went on a coffee run. Sure, they had inhouse coffee, but nobody could resist the special versions with steamed milk, whipped cream, or flavored syrups. He did it time to time as a way to say thank you to his dedicated staff. He picked up two boxes of donuts, placed the order of coffees and had their names written on each cup so he could differentiate the orders when he got back to work. They had a large six pack holder which made transporting the cups easier.

  He thanked the barista and walked the block back to the hospital. He stopped at a bench outside, sat down for a second and took a sip of his own coffee. He reached into the inner pocket of his jacket and pulled out what he needed. The tiny vials were dumped into one of the cups. The amount of drug needed was so small, there’d be no noticing it. The miniscule grains of powder quickly dissolved.

  It was now or never. The gamble would either pay off, or destroy everything he’d worked for. With a deep breath, Lee stood and gathered the coffee and donuts.

  The emergency room was bustling with activity. He brought the goodies and placed them on the counter for the staff. “Coffee and donuts. Thanks for all the hard work you do,” he said with a smile.

  “Awesome, thanks,” one of the nurses nearby said. She spun the cups until she found the one with her name on it. Lee did this from time to time, and it was one of the little things that was a little bit of sunshine on a crazy hospital day. They had standing orders so that if somebody went out to get stuff, they knew people’s usual choices.

  Greg came over. “Donuts! I’m starving.”

  “Enjoy,” Lee said, then leaned into the counter to talk to one of the doctors that was adding notes to a patient’s file. “How are the wife and kids doing?”

  They kibitzed for a few minutes.

  When Greg hit the floor, everybody stopped what they were doing.

  “Greg!” one of the nurses called out. “Greg’s down. Gabe, over here.”

  The on-duty doctor ran to Greg’s side. “Let’s get him to a room.”

  With everybody rushing around, Lee took it as the perfect moment to knock Greg’s coffee to the ground. “Oh, crap!”

  He made a scene, then squatted down and wiped up the mess with a towel from a rolling cart nearby. He tossed Greg’s cup into the trash can and cleaned up the floor.

  It all happened so fast. Everybody was in shock. They tried to revive him. His body wouldn’t respond.

  The staff wanted to stand around and stare at one another and discuss what was happening, to make it better, to cry, to wail in horror, to break down and absorb the reality that they’d just lost one of their own, but patients didn’t stop coming in and couldn’t be left unattended.

  Numb. Nobody talked. They moved silently through the emergency room, doing what they did best—working through the craziness of a trauma center and pushing their feelings aside until later.

  ***

  The police were notified of a suspicious death. He was young, healthy, and didn’t have a history of poor health. It looked like an overdose, though nobody suspected Greg of using. The only thing they’d seen was him eating a donut and sipping coffee, but they’d all drank the coffee and ate the donuts and nobody else was sick.

  When they pulled Lee aside to discuss the case, he sadly admitted he knew Greg had a problem, but as his friend he was trying to buy him time and talk him into going to rehab. Lee showed them Greg’s files, and talked about how he kept things under the radar. He knew he should have reported him, but well…he was his friend.

  The police would have to check his locker to see if there was anything important. They’d check his car as well to look for drugs.

  Lee nodded. “I don’t want him to end up with this reputation. He was a stellar nurse. He has a wife, a family.”

  “It’s all part of the job and investigation,” Bryce said, along with one of the other responders.

  Lee finally agreed and led them to Greg’s locker. “This is his. His car, he drives a new Lincoln, parked out in the employee section of the garage. We need to notify his wife. There wasn’t time.”

  The detective in charge told Lee that they’d handle the notification and were sending someone to the house. They’d want to check for drugs on the premise as well.

  Lee’s shoulders sank low. His face was slack. The plan worked as intended, but the harsh reality is that he’d taken another life. It overwhelmed him more than he thought. At least he looked like a grieving friend of a coworker.

  When the officers got access to the locker, the carefully stashed pills were found. “Yeah, looks like we’ve got something here.”

  What they hadn’t expected to find was the hammer. “Why does a nurse have this? Why is a hammer in his work locker?”

  Lee held his breath, not giving an inch.

  Chapter 21

  The circus that filled the emergency room space left everybody dizzy from confusion. There were other patients to attend to, but everybody’s mind was on their coworker who died.

  Amanda tried to stay calm, tried to focus on the women with pneumonia and the young man with a broken leg and the girl with gall bladder attacks. A heart attack victim was in another room. Inside, she couldn’t stop freaking out. Too many things had been happening; first Dawn, the attacks on her, and now Greg. Were they related? Was Greg a target, or was her mind playing tricks on her?

  They suspected an overdose, but the attempt to revive him told them this wasn’t any ordinary circumstance. She didn’t know. She didn’t think. He wasn’t a drug abuser, was he? He always resented that so many people assumed doctors and nurses were the biggest offenders, so the fact that he ended up being one of them felt like a raw deal. She shook her head, trying to make sense of his tragic end.

  Alex wasn’t one of the responders, so she texted him to fill him in on the news. It didn’t take long for him to show up. He joined the other officers in discussing their findings, and checked in with Amanda not long after. The hammer had his attention. They’d been searching for a blunt instrument, and the hammer was just the right size to keep hidden away. Tucked into a work locker, nobody would be the wiser. Something felt off. Why would he risk holding onto something like that? Why put it in his locker of all places? Someone might see it when he opened it, though it was likely that nobody would see a hammer and be suspicious. Hammers were common objects.

  He tried to piece the puzzle together. Maybe he was overthinking. Maybe it wasn’t “the” hammer, or maybe a hammer wasn’t even used, but with all the things that had come up over the last couple of weeks, it hit off a bell in his head. Greg had been a suspect, and they were suspicious of some of his reactions that seemed off-handed. Could he have been who they were looking for all along?

  Still, it didn’t feel right. He couldn’t place what was bothering him, but something seemed off.

  Bryce went through the motions of the evening again with Greg’s coworkers. He was fine. Nobody saw him using anything. He was with a patient, came out, grabbed a donut and some coffee, turned to go back to another patient, then dropped.

  Bryce eyed the donuts and closed the box. He saw the coffee cups on the counter, each with a name written on it. Greg’s wasn’t there. He looked around, then found it in the trashcan. Taking a glove out of his pocket, he retrieved the cup. There was nothing extraordinary about it. They could test it for poison, but everything was in plain sight of everyone.

  Bryce asked Lee if there was video footage of the emergency room.

  “Sure, this way,” he said, knowing nothing incriminated him on the video.

  The playback didn’t show anything obvious. Could Lee have tainted the cup of coffee before carrying it inside? There wasn’t a reason for that. They didn’t seem to have a grudge or issue that they were aware of, and Lee seemed genu
inely distraught to have lost his colleague.

  Bryce tossed the cup. It had to be related to the pills they’d found in Greg’s locker. The evidence was there. He had a small supply of pills that weren’t properly marked or prescribed to him in a bottle.

  Another wasted life. Drugs were a modern-day killer. An equal-opportunity destroyer.

  “What are you thinking?” Alex asked, after Bryce checked the video footage.

  “Nothing to see there. I’m chalking it up to a drug overdose. There were records on file about a hush-hush drug problem, and I suspect the drugs finally won.”

  Alex nodded. “Okay then. I’m wondering about the hammer. What’s it doing there? Is that the weapon we’ve been looking for?”

  “Dawn Lewis,” Bryce said.

  “Didn’t he have an alibi?” Alex asked.

  “Yeah, but maybe his wife was covering for him.”

  Alex nodded. “True.”

  “I wonder if he’s been the one behind the attacks on Amanda. I’d love to put this behind us. I just wish I could say it was him conclusively.”

  “I hear you.”

  ***

  After the police left and things got back into a regular flow in the emergency room, Lee headed back to his corner of the world and locked himself into his office. He slatted the shades for privacy and collapsed onto his chair.

  He’d offer counseling for the team and get somebody in that week. He’d need to pull another nurse into the ER to make up for Greg’s absence. It was growing more complicated by the moment. While his current issue was helped, it meant there was another piece of the puzzle that might end up pointing to him in the long run. He kept putting out small fires, but a forest fire raged behind him. He’d cover it up the best he was able, but he was close to getting burned.

  Not only had he taken a life, now he’d extinguished two. It wasn’t who he was, and yet he didn’t have any other choice. He’d be damned if he’d turn himself in. And what the hell was wrong with Mark’s inability to grab Amanda and drag her away? He grumbled under his breath, realizing he’d be on his own once again. The less people he involved, the safer it was for him.

  The smuggling operation was a lucrative sideline and paid him more than his position of running the hospital. The problem was without his position, he’d lose access to the supply he needed to keep the chain running smoothly.

  Lee dropped his head onto his desk and tried to clear his head, but everything stayed jumbled and clustered together. There was no point in trying to find a way out, because he’d gotten in too deep. He needed to point the police in a brand-new direction if this didn’t work. Hopefully, the shift of interest in Greg’s death would be a start.

  Mark was his next issue to tackle. What if he talked? He had as much to lose as Lee did. And he was none the wiser that Lee was responsible for Dawn’s death, but paranoia crept up his spine, leaving him trusting no one. He needed to get him alone and make it clear they both had too much to lose if he opened his mouth.

  Mark was the weakest link at this point, and the only one that could tie him into the garage incident with Amanda. The Devil Riders wouldn’t say a word about the drug-running, because it kept them swimming in profits, but this, this was different.

  Lee’s stomach twisted. It was as if his world were crumbling. He’d once felt in control, but as the days wore on, the illusion was slowly revealing itself to be a big, fat lie.

  Chapter 22

  Alex waited for Amanda to finish her shift. With everything going on, he didn’t want to leave her side. He obviously couldn’t stay with her all the time, but at least for now if he stuck around, he’d feel better about her safety. Too many bad things were happening, and now three of the people involved had been part of St. Mercy Mead’s hospital staff. Were they targeting nurses? Was it about the emergency room staff? Or was he grouping things together that were merely a coincidence?

  He was good and ready to leave when Amanda was finished working. Exhausted from the nonstop action and stress, he relished having a couple of days off. It usually took some doing for his brain to shut down, but eventually he’d steal a few hours not thinking about the latest case. Or so he hoped.

  With Amanda staying with him over the next few days, there was one thing he could think of which would be a healthy distraction for both of them. Alex wasn’t looking for a relationship, but he fell into one with Amanda. He liked being around her and wanted to protect her. He hoped it wasn’t his usual pattern of wanting to rescue somebody. He’d fallen into that trap before. A head game that sucked him in and fulfilled something inside, only to be disillusioned when things cooled off.

  Alex tossed around the idea of setting up Mark “Blade” Abbott and seeing if he took the bait. If they could get him to confess, get him to reveal more than intended, it might give them an edge. They’d hit a dead end without any new leads. And as much as he wanted to tie this latest tragedy into the Dawn Lewis case, it honestly looked like a sad overdose, something they were seeing more and more these days.

  When Alex approached Bryce with his idea, Bryce wasn’t sure it was smart. If they tried to trap him, he might strike out and cause more damage. He wasn’t against trailing the biker, but it had to be a solid, well thought-out plan that didn’t coerce him in ways that incriminated the police department.

  Alex played with the idea and sought out an answer that would work, but he hadn’t come up with a solution. Bryce was right; going about it in the wrong way might bring vigilante justice, but they had to do things by the book. Otherwise, the entire thing might lead to a mistrial when it came to court. Again, the bad guy would get away with the crime. And truth be told, while they had an inkling he was involved, there were no hard facts that proved the case, which is why he walked in the first place.

  ***

  Lee barely slept that night. He had things to do and people to see. He’d need to cut away from work at some point and have a talk with Mark. It was a mistake to have him do the job. He thought he could handle it, but instead it fell apart.

  Fuck him. Now he was in deeper, needing to take down Greg, and that left him with more threads leading back to him.

  Lee wolfed down a couple of eggs and was headed out the door.

  “What’s the hurry?” Suzanne asked.

  “Paperwork and stuff to clean up. We lost one of our staff last night. One of our nurses overdosed in the middle of the shift.”

  “What? Oh my gosh, hon. Why didn’t you tell me? Are you okay? That must have been traumatic.”

  “Sadly, we’re used to handling death in the emergency room, but when it’s one of your own…”

  “Oh, sweetheart.” Suzanne walked over and gave him a hug.

  “I’ll be okay. Just loose ends to tie up. I want to get a counselor in for the rest of the staff, and they’ll want to do an autopsy, even though we’re pretty sure of things. I feel like a jerk. I’d been covering for him. He had a problem. I should have forced the issue of rehab, but he said he had it under control. This is my fault.”

  “No, baby. You followed your gut. He was a friend.”

  “But I let that get in the way of my job.”

  Suzanne reached up and stroked Lee’s cheek. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

  Lee nodded. “Thanks. I really do have to go.”

  “Sure. Call me if you need to talk.”

  “Busy day?” he asked.

  “Surgery day at the animal hospital, so at least no patient appointments.”

  “See you tonight. Maybe we can go out for dinner. Talk a little. It’s been a while since we’ve taken time for ourselves.”

  “That sounds nice.”

  ***

  Lee got into his car and drove over to Mark’s place. He parked two blocks away. Before getting out, he popped open the center console between the car seats and pulled out a vial he’d stashed there the night before. There was work to be done.

  He knew it was early, but the sooner he dealt with Mark, the sooner he could get things b
ack to normal.

  Lee pounded on Mark’s door, knowing he’d probably be asleep. He hadn’t called to warn him he was coming.

  No answer.

  He pounded on the door again, then rang the doorbell a few times for extra measure.

  An angry, sleepy Mark answered the door in only a pair of jeans. “What the hell?”

  “We need to talk,” Lee said, walking past him.

  “Do you know what time it is?”

  “Yeah, some of us have day jobs,” Lee sniped.

  “What do you want?”

  “You screwed up. You missed the target, and now I have that to deal with. I should have hired somebody else, somebody who could finish what they started. You’re a worthless piece of shit that fucked up my plans.”

  Mark slid his hand into the pocket of his jeans and popped open a switch blade. “You come into my home and talk to me like this?”

  Lee threw his hands up. “Whoa, now.”

  “I ought to shove this thing into your heart and watch you bleed out.”

  Lee growled at Mark. “And if you ever threaten me again, I’ll cut you into tiny pieces and feed you to my dogs. The only thing that will be left of you will be dog shit in my backyard. We clear on this?”

  Mark walked to the table and put his knife down. “You have my money?”

  “Yeah. I’m giving you half. You didn’t finish the job.”

  “All of it. I’m the one who could have gotten caught.”

  “And you’d sing like a caged bird and rat me out…”

  “I’m no snitch.”

  “Good.” Lee pulled cash from his pocket. “It’s all there.”

  Mark picked it up and counted it.

  “Truce?” Lee reached into his jacket and pulled out a vial. “This is the stuff you like, right? A little hardcore blow?”

  Mark smiled. “Now we’re talking.”