“I’ll have to fill you in more later as the investigation reports come in, but it looks like someone stabbed him multiple times from the front. The wounds aren’t typical—the doctors have commented several times on the bizarre nature of the lacerations. Maybe a custom butterfly knife, or, well—one likened it to a hunting injury. Specifically, possibly an arrow.”
No way. I look around. “But . . . that can’t be. Right?”
Matteo takes too long to shrug for my taste. “Truthfully, I don’t know. Our suspect continues to insist that he has no knowledge of those items being in his house. And his alibi is shaping up to be pretty watertight. Unless he’s a part of a duo, definitely something we’re considering, I’m not sure we’ll be able to hold him for this. He’s already hired about the best lawyer in Los Angeles and has made arrangements to make bond. I’m waiting on the journal stuff before we make the call.”
So many layers to think through. “There’s nothing in the journal. Nothing I can find anyways. It’s worth talking to Lawrence when . . . if . . .” Tears threaten to spill over, and Matteo shushes me again.
“He’ll be awake soon. Then we can ask him what happened. Hopefully he remembers, and we can ask him about the journal.”
“Do we know at all what happened?” My mind flashes directly to the homeless network and Lawrence’s friend. Had it been a setup for the money?
Matteo frowns, then slowly says, “Well, we got a 911 call about a mugging. Bad neighborhood. He was taken to an emergency room not far from the Casey property, actually, and then transported here. His driver’s license flagged our case, and I was notified as he was transported. Do you have any idea why he’d be in that sort of neighborhood?”
I nod slowly. “Lawrence has been trying to find that guy from the party. The one he thought he recognized from when he worked for Casey Senior.”
Matteo’s mouth compresses into a hard line. Not pleased.
“I know, but he basically said that none of these people would trust or talk to police. Or anyone they think is connected with police. So, he went to visit friends, told them a ridiculous story about how Casey Junior hired him to give out the reward, and today he got a text from one of those friends that they had information.”
“So, let me get this straight: Lawrence went into a bad neighborhood, spread it around that he had access to a large amount of money, and then made a meeting with someone who thought he may potentially have money on his person.”
“Well, when you put it that way, it doesn’t sound so good.”
Exasperation shows clearly on his face. “It wasn’t a good plan to begin with.”
“Hey. If it had netted us a lead, you wouldn’t be so upset—”
“Yes, I would.”
“Okay, fine. You’d be upset, but you’d also be appreciative.”
Matteo sits back and rubs his eyes with the heels of his hands. “You and your friends and your ideas about ‘helping’ may be the end of me.”
We both glance at the closed door to the right of our chairs. It almost was the end of Lawrence.
Matteo clears his throat. “So, have you been okay? It’s been killing me not to see you this week.”
I know we haven’t talked about where we’re at yet, but that sounds promising enough to me. I lace my fingers through his, and relief floods through me when he squeezes mine back. “I haven’t really been okay, but I needed the time to think. So, I guess I’m grateful. Plus, I’ve been crazy busy, as per usual. I have a lot to catch you up on.”
Matteo nods. “Me too. The drug results came back, for one.”
I sit up. “Really.”
He nods, but his countenance doesn’t lift. “Yeah. The drugs from the party were a partial match for Muñez’s signature recipe.”
“Partial match? How can they be a partial match?”
“Well, here’s the weird part. In eight years as detective and a fair number of years on patrol, I’ve never exactly seen this. It’s the same recipe, but it’s in a different form. It’s in a capsule. Or at least we assume so, since we found trace amounts of gel capsule in the mix, which can happen when someone opens a capsule by hand.”
“Like the capsules I saw at the first party.”
“Agreed. And more than that, the capsule fragments had LSD casing. It’s essentially an epic high wrapped in a hallucination.”
“That’s insane.”
“Dangerous is what it is; no wonder that kid overdosed. The hallucinogen skews even that part of the brain—people could take one, lose their inhibitions, and end up just taking a handful and OD’ing—they’d have no idea what hit them.”
“So, this means . . . what?”
“It means that either someone got ahold of Muñez’s stash, which is possible, or it means that this Queen of Hearts is somehow related to Muñez’s business. All of our previous theories could still hold water: she could have stepped into Muñez’s place because of the opening, or she could have been working with him the whole time. There’s really no way to know, and as of now we’re scouring Muñez and Sosa’s case for any sort of unfollowed lead, but every known operative that is in our files is either in custody or is in another location right now. We also don’t know at this point if the Queen is just the top dealer, or given the complex work at hand—this is no amateur-mix-with-flour sort of deal—the Queen could be the actual chemist and distributor. Like, maybe when Muñez was caught, the Queen just . . . kept going.”
Well, none of that sounds like a good option.
We both fall silent as several nurses walk by, chatting about what they ate in the cafeteria for dinner.
Matteo is the first to speak again. “So, really nothing in that journal? I was so sure.”
“Me too—”
“Are you the family?” A voice interrupts us; I hadn’t even heard Lawrence’s door open. I spin around so fast, I nearly topple off the chair.
“Yes,” I answer automatically.
She casts a critical eye over my decided non-blackness.
“I’m as close to family as he has,” I amend.
She looks tired and harried, and her long black braids are slipping from the netted cap perched on her head. After one more look at me, she turns her eye to Matteo. “And you’re the detective?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She rolls her shoulders and then motions us up. “I’m Doctor Sholey, and it’s past visiting hours, but I want to see if he’ll wake to someone he knows.” She turns a critical eye on Matteo. “You may ask questions if he wakes, but if he gets upset in any capacity, I’m excusing both of you. He’ll be well enough for real questioning in a few days.”
“Understood,” Matteo agrees, and we push through the heavy wooden door and into Lawrence’s room behind Dr. Sholey.
An astringent smell assails my nose as we walk through the pulled curtain, and our shoes squeak on the floor that’s recently been mopped.
“Watch your step—one of his wounds reopened on the way to his room from the ER, and we had quite a bit of blood to clean up.” Doctor Sholey catches my gaze where a small puddle of blood still sits under the side of the bed. “It’s always interesting that people think the floors in a hospital are so clean. Operating rooms? Yes. The other floors? We clean them as we can, but . . . you wouldn’t catch me using the ten-second rule around here.”
I give a nervous laugh.
A few people file past, some of them carting several red biohazard bins with them, and suddenly we’re alone in the room.
I haven’t had enough courage yet to even look at the person in the bed. It steals my breath when I do. Lawrence looks small. Helpless. It’s so different from my vibrant and constantly moving best friend that I wonder for a wild moment if we’ve got the wrong room.
But no, there’s the small scar next to his eye that he got from an unfortunate eyelash curler incident his first year as a queen. The pitter pat of tears falling onto the bed alerts me that my faucet is on again, and I hastily wipe my face with my arm. This sh
irt is going straight in the wash when I get home, it’s got snot and mascara all over it.
After a nod from Dr. Sholey, I tentatively grasp Lawrence’s unmoving hand. Thank God it’s warm and not cold, or I’m fairly certain I might have fainted.
“L?” My voice cracks, and it’s hardly loud enough be heard above the beeping coming from the computer monitor of completely baffling, medical-graph things up on the wall.
Dr. Sholey reaches up and presses one of the areas on the screen, and the beeping stops. “Try again,” she urges gently.
“Lawrence? Hey, it’s me. Can you open your eyes?”
Nothing.
“Can you hear me? L, just let me know if you can—oh!” My hand flies up from the bed, and I turn to Dr. Sholey. “I think he just moved his fingers. That’s good, right?”
She smiles encouragingly. “That’s good. Keep talking. He’s been drugged for all the procedures, so it might take him a little.”
The beeping begins again, and she repeats the measure to silence the machines.
L’s fingers move almost immediately after I grab his hand again, and I lean over his face so that if he opens his eyes, I’ll be the first thing he sees. It’s nearly ten minutes of talking and coaxing before one eye slides open, and even then, it’s hardly enough for me to catch.
“L? Can you see me?”
Squeeze.
“He’s responding,” I say to the room at large, and the mania in my own voice echoes back at me off the block walls.
L’s eye opens a little further, focusing on my face for several long moments before wandering around the room.
“You’re in the hospital. Do you remember anything?”
There’s a long pause before I feel his fingers squeeze mine again. I guess he tries to speak because he moves his head from side to side and makes several noises in his throat that end in a coughing fit.
An alarm on the computer monitor on the wall goes off, and Dr. Sholey regards it for a long moment before nodding at me to continue. She’s less enthusiastic now, and I gather that the alarm wasn’t a good one.
“Don’t try to talk if it hurts,” I offer. “We can stick with yes and no answers.”
I swear Lawrence rolls his eye at me. Then he starts moving his head again, like he’s trying to get his shoulders unstuck. IV lines pull taut, and Dr. Sholey leans down.
“Lawrence, my name is Dr. Sholey. I’m your attending physician for tonight. You’re at Good Samaritan in the intensive care step-down unit. Don’t move around much, you’ve got a lot of stuff attached to you, okay?”
Lawrence’s eye rolls from her face to the screen up on the wall. His gaze moves back to me, and instead of relaxing, he moves his head again. More coughing. Another alarm.
“I’m going to have to ask you to leave,” Dr. Sholey says quietly. “His heart rate is just too high; he can’t handle a visit right now.” She presses a button on his bed, and almost immediately a nurse shows up in the doorway. They discuss a pain med, and the nurse turns back to the hallway, presumably to go get a dose.
I turn to leave, but Lawrence’s hand snakes out with a speed I don’t expect from a man in his condition. He tugs at me, and I lean down over him.
“L, love, I have to go. They’re going to help you with the pain, but I promise I’ll be back the moment they say I can—”
Lawrence’s lips are struggling with something. He’s attempting to talk. The alarm on the wall is sounding continually, and it saws at my already frayed nerves. Would it kill the doctor to silence it again? We said we’d leave.
The nurse bustles back in, enters something on the computer and then administers the syringe into the IV line closest to the bed.
L’s lips move again, and this time I’m sure he’s trying to talk.
Matteo grabs my hand, trying to lead me out the door, but I shake him off, and instead lean over L so my ear is near his mouth.
Only one word is clear, and the rest sounds too much like whispers to make out.
“After?” I ask Lawrence. “Is that what you said?”
Lawrence gives the smallest of nods. He looks exhausted by the effort. His lips move, and this time no one stops me as I lean over again. Dr. Sholey thankfully silences the alarm so I can hear better.
There are a few words I can’t catch, maybe something about a hat? Then “After the Arrow” is clearer. Lawrence labors.
“After the Arrow,” I repeat back, my gaze flying to Matteo.
Lawrence’s eyes are starting to flutter shut. The pain med is taking effect, and taking L along with it. His lips move again, and I basically plaster myself to him.
“MG,” he says, squeezing my hand. I get the sense that he’s just looking for comfort. His family.
“Love you, L.” Tears prick my eyes again. “I’m here.”
I think L’s finished, but he doesn’t let go of my hand. I lean over, and though his lips don’t move, I make out the next three words. “Hat. Tell Ryan.” And then he’s asleep, fully quiet in the big hospital bed.
“I will. I’ll make sure he comes as soon as he can,” I promise, hoping L can still hear me.
Dr. Sholey hustles us out of the room and into the hallway. All around us the unit has a sense of sleepy productivity. The hallway lights are on half power, and nurses crowd around stations for some sort of change-of-shift meeting. Matteo and I make our way to the elevator, which opens on a harried-looking Ryan.
“Ryan!” I exclaim as he fairly spills out of the stainless doors. He looks awful.
“Is he okay?”
“He’s sleeping, but he’ll be okay,” I say, and know exactly how it feels as I watch his shoulders sag in relief. Ryan pulls me to him. He’s vibrating. “I was at the gym, so I didn’t see my phone. I was so scared I was too late. I should have been here earlier.”
“Ry, you’re shaking. It’s okay, you’re in time. I had the same thought. He’s not dead. He’s going to be okay.”
“Are you sure? Is it bad? How much blood did he lose?”
Matteo reaches out and grasps Ryan’s shoulder. “He needs a transfusion, but they have a match. We just were in to see him for only a minute. The doctors say he’ll recover.”
Ryan’s eyes blaze. “You saw him? Was he awake? Did he say who did this to him?”
“He isn’t that with it yet,” I answer. “All he wanted to know was that I was there, and that somebody told you he was here. He was just worried about us, Ry.”
“Well that, and ‘After Arrow,’ whatever that means,” Matteo says, watching Ryan closely. “Did you know about his insanely stupid project to find that guy on his own?”
Ryan straightens. “After Arrow? That doesn’t make sense. And yeah, I knew.” He straightens up a bit, when I’m expecting him to be sheepish. “I thought it was a good idea; the police can’t be everywhere at once.”
Matteo’s mouth hardens, and he takes his hand off Ryan’s shoulder. “It’s likely what landed him here. The doctor who first admitted him said that several of the lacerations missed arteries by millimeters. Whoever did this meant business. It didn’t look to the surgeon like a random stabbing; this person meant to kill Lawrence.”
We all reenter the elevator in silence, and I bet we’re all thinking about the same thing.
After Arrow.
The invention of a painkiller-altered brain? Or a message? If it’s a message, obviously it has to do with the Golden Arrow. The question is, what does it mean, and was it worth nearly getting killed for?
CHAPTER 28
If anyone wants to know what a float-size bust of a drag queen looks like in their lives, they need wonder no longer. Lawrence’s vision for the Halloween float is at once monstrous and somehow grand. Like the prow of a great ship, she hangs like a benevolent overlord to all of us peons slaving to finish her varnished wood hull. Slay, Girl.
Beside me, Paige tosses her paintbrush into a bucket and grimaces as dirty water splashes the wheels of her chair. Luckily, the concrete floor in this shop has se
en worse, so I don’t even worry about it. The dance studio’s neighbor recently moved out and the landlord was open to renting the space to us at a low cost for float construction while he contracted for some upgrades. In fact, the ripped-out floors, ceilings, and walls really give the whole thing a Hunger Games post-apocalyptic kind of vibe that goes well with constructing a Halloween float.
“Thanks for offering to help with this,” I say, trying not to sound desperate. With L still in the hospital and Daniel still in custody, Ryan and I had no choice but to divide and conquer this massive undertaking—one of which we have middling understanding of at best. Geek girl and gamer boy, putting the finishing touches on a drag-queen float? Probably one of the weirder things to happen in recent drag herstory. Ryan and I haven’t talked much about exactly why we’re doing so much work to see this through, but I think both of us want to uphold L’s vision. His project to bring drag queens of all ages and backgrounds together, to strengthen community. To spread the message that is so prominently wired on the side of the float: LOVE YOURSELF. Well, actually it says the S.S. LOVE YOURSELF, because the whole theme of the outside of the float is a boat, but close enough.
We have exactly one week to go until Halloween, and we’re going to be scrambling to get things done. I even asked my coworkers if they’d pitch in tonight after work, rather than doing whatever normal nerds do on a Friday night. To my surprise, nearly everyone has come—only Kyle and Nina had existing plans. Paige surprised me by agreeing first, followed almost instantly by Simon. Andy waffled a bit but ended up saying something about “teambuilding” and actually ended up being an impressively dab hand at papier-mâché sculpting. His creation of her abundant cleavage was a pièce de résistance—oh, the things you learn about your coworkers if you hang out outside the office. I can’t believe I missed years of this. And truthfully, our relationships have only improved for hanging out as friends. I don’t respect Andy any less; I may even like him more. I still think him the human version of a suck-up fish, but baby steps.
The Queen Con (The Golden Arrow Mysteries Book 2) Page 28