Page 49 of Truth, Lies, and Second Dates
“Ava. This is serious.”
She sighed and perched on the end of the bed. “I know. I’m just a little numb right now. To this and… everything.”
“Will you tell me about your drug test?”
“It flagged me for PCP, ecstasy, weed, coke, benzos, oxy, and PCP.”
“You said PCP twice.”
“Apparently there was a lot of it. A lot of fake PCP.”
“But the test was wrong.”
“Of course. Wait, why do you know that? We’ve known each other less than a week. Who are you to say I’m not a raging cokehead?”Wait. Am I actually offended that he assumed I’m clean?
“Point. However, it’s difficult to picture you breaking the law and jeopardizing your healthandyour license for something as oddly specific and ultimately mercurial as a benzodiazepine-PCP-cocaine-MDMA-marijuana-oxycontin high.”
“Well. Yeah, that’s mostly true. But.” She cleared her throat. Took a sip of ginger ale. Coughed again. Good God,she’d told this story to any number of counselors, employers, and coworkers. Why was it difficultnow? “Uh. Back in the day, after Danielle and my folks were killed, I started having trouble sleeping.”
“Having trouble sleeping” was code for lying in bed night after night after night after night, staring at the ceiling with gritty eyes and seeing Danielle’s corpse and the demolished wreck that had swallowed her parents (she’d talked the insurance agent into letting her look at the pictures, an action they both immediately regretted), and wondering if anyone would care—or at least notice—if she OD’d. Over-the-counter Unisom turned into booze, but she had to drink too much of it to get numb and disliked the taste of just about all of it. Or, as she told her T-group, “I failed as a drunk. Just couldn’t get it done.”
So she turned to Ambien, which turned into scamming prescriptions from just about every doctor within a 120-mile radius, which turned into buying loads of it online, which turned into popping six to eight Ambien a night to sleep, then being a zombie during daylight hours, only to gulp down another half-dozen Ambien to force herself under again, and somewhere in there she lost track of a year.
“I ended up in a Minnesota slough—Hazelden—for just under a month, and they helped me get my shit together,” she explained. “I’ve been clean for close to a decade. But hearing I’d flunked a routine screening brought back bad memories.”
“Of course it did.” He didn’t sound judgmental, just upset on her behalf. “It would be unpleasant for anyone, never mind someone with your history. Which makes for an extra sadistic touch, don’t you agree?”
Yikes. When he put it that way, it seemed alotmoreominous—and personal. It suggested the killer didn’t just know her but had kept up with her post-Danielle history. Could it be?
Dumb question. Of course he or she kept up—they managed to reach out from wherever and fuck up my drug test. Among other things.
“Tell me about the irritant.”
“He’s sitting about eight feet away.”
Tom chuckled. “I suppose I earned that. When did the symptoms start?”
“Late yesterday. I didn’t think much of the itching at first, because I’d misplaced my damned moisturizer, so I figured it was just my skin crying out for more Eucerin.”
“And then you found it again.”
“Yes.” On the driver’s-side floor of her rental car, as a matter of fact… she’d looked down and seen the top of the bottle sticking out. At the time, she’d wondered how she had missed it when she ransacked the car earlier.
“Which you then immediately, and generously, applied.”
“Oh my God. What the hell did that shithead put in my lotion?” Poison? Bodily fluids?Please, please let it be poison…
“I mean to find out.” He reached into his pocket and shook out… a gallon-sized Ziploc bag? “May I have it, please? I’ll have the lab take a look.”
“Absolutely. And good fucking riddance.” She got up, went to the dresser, opened the top drawer, and pulled out the bottle, using a pair of clean panties as a glove. She let it plop into Tom’s bag. And let the panties plop into the garbage can. “That applies to the bottleandyou, in case you were wondering.”
Tom sealed and tucked the bag away somewhere. “Someone has done their research. Which is why I’m here. I have to help you.Pleaselet me help you.”
This made her pulse pick up, which was annoying.Down, girl.“How do you know I’m not self-sabotaging?”
“If you were, you would still need help,” he pointed out. “Just of a different kind. But, again: you love flying too much. I can’t see you risking your license, health, and freedom in order to gain misplaced sympathy when it’s inevitable your deception would be discovered. And given what we know about the drug test and the lotion, I don’t think your illness is a coincidence. But I cannot fathom how someone has been able to salt your food with a regurgitant. You’re in a hotel, you’re not dining in a private home, and you likely haven’t eaten at the same place twice.”
“I like variety,” she agreed. “And bread pudding.”
