Hooked

by Jaime Maddox

  “Not too good. Do you think you can come over after work?”

  Jess heard concern in Ward’s voice. “Why? What’s up?”

  “Because I’m scared! Hawk tried to kill me!”

  Jess heard Ward sigh. “I know, Jess. I’m sorry. I won’t get out of here until eight, though, and I have to be back in for seven tomorrow morning. Can’t Wendy stay with you?”

  Jess felt anger rising like bile in her throat, unexpected and uncontrollable. Without trying to hide her feelings, she said, “Yes, but she went through the same thing I did, and I think she’s just as scared as I am. I can’t believe she went to work today.”

  “Maybe it’s a distraction.”

  “Maybe. But how can you be in love with someone you just met?”

  Ward was silent. “I don’t know. We just clicked, that’s all.”

  “And you really love her?”

  She could almost see Ward’s smile through the phone, just as she heard the joy in her voice. “I do. And she understands that I care about you, and that I need to be here for you because of what you’ve gone through. She’s a nice person, Jess.”

  “You could spend the night here. On the couch. Leave for work from here.”

  “She’s not that nice.”

  In spite of her misery, Jess laughed.

  “Have you seen the news?” Ward asked when Jess was quiet.

  “No. I’m just sort of hiding from the world. I haven’t eaten, I haven’t showered, and I don’t even have the energy to get off the couch. But I think the reporters are still camped out in front of the house. I can hear them.”

  “They are. The last CNN report was live from Garden. They’re here in Factoryville, too. Someone must have told them that we reported Hawk to the police, or they’re just following his trail. Either way, the story’s out and it’s going to be crazy for a little while. Do you think you can deal with it?”

  “No. I really don’t.”

  “How much of this is Hawk, and how much is withdrawal?”

  Jess tried not to snap, but she couldn’t help it. This was why she’d never told Ward about her addiction—she knew Ward would overreact and blame everything from menstrual cramps to an ingrown toenail on her drug use. “I’m not withdrawing! I’m taking my Percocet every four hours, and I’m fine.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Trust me. I know withdrawal.”

  “Hmm. So if it’s not withdrawal, it’s emotional. A stress reaction, maybe.”

  Jess didn’t even need to think about it. She knew she was traumatized. “I think you’re right.”

  “How would you feel about going to a hospital? Someplace that deals with post-traumatic stress disorder. And addiction, too. Kill two birds, you know? They can help you, and they’ll get you away from the reporters, at least until you’re feeling well enough to talk to them. Can you get the time off from work?”

  Jess had already thought about work. She was an ER doctor, and she took care of people with serious medical issues. “I talked to the CEO this morning and took a leave. For a month. I can’t even manage a fucking shower. How can I go to work? Lives depend on me.”

  “I agree. That’s why I think you should try to tackle this head-on. You’ve been through something horrific, and who knows how it’ll affect you long term?”

  Jess stared at the high plastered ceiling above her, then flipped over onto her side. Rays of sunlight defied the blinds and painted streaks on the wall, across the fireplace, all the way down to the floor. It seemed she wouldn’t be able to hide from the sun, and she wouldn’t be able to avoid the reporters outside her house, either. Could she do any better at hiding from her emotions? “I’m scared.”

  Ward’s voice softened. “I know. That’s why you should go someplace.”

  “No. I mean I’m scared of going someplace. What if someone finds out I’m a doctor and I lose my license?”

  “Wait. You didn’t worry about losing your license for abusing prescription drugs and buying them from your patients. Why would you worry about this?”

  “Fuck you,” she said softly.

  Ward didn’t respond.

  Jess swallowed the tears that sprang up again. “It all seemed rational when I was doing it. Now it seems ridiculously stupid.” In truth, the addiction to prescription pain pills had crept up on Jess. They were legitimately prescribed, for a real injury, and then one day, her doctor had told her he wouldn’t give her any more. Her concern at that moment had been for her pain, because she was convinced it was real. It wasn’t until twelve hours passed without Percocet that she began to understand the gravity of the situation. Somehow, in treating a relatively minor injury, she’d gotten hooked on narcotics. And she was too embarrassed, and too scared, to ask anyone for help.

  She’d always blazed her own trail and didn’t rely on others, so she tackled her addiction alone, too. The mistakes she made were big ones, and they weighed heavily on her. Any day, the state could revoke her medical license, and life as she knew it would be over. Perhaps Ward was right about getting professional help.

  But life as an impaired physician wouldn’t be a picnic, either. She might still lose her license during the treatment process. Afterward, she’d be closely monitored. That wouldn’t be much fun.

  Yet what were her other options? She could sit around and wait for the walls to come crashing down around her, or she could be proactive and hope for leniency. She had to consider another factor as well, and Ward had very astutely pointed it out. Jess had suffered a major emotional trauma. What would the effects of that be? She’d had a drug problem before, when life was good. What could she expect after enduring the torture Hawk had put her through?

  The longer she pondered her options, the more pointless it seemed to refuse help. If she didn’t need it now, she would at some point. And when would she ever again get this kind of time off?

  Ward cleared her throat, and Jess saved her from the burden of a reply by clearing hers as well. “I’ll see if I can find a place.”

  She could almost hear the relief in Ward’s voice. “It’s a good idea, Jess.”

  Suddenly Jess felt panicky. What would happen? Where would she go? What about her house, and the bills, and the police investigation of Hawk? “Can you take me? I don’t want anyone else to know. I mean, if your girlfriend will allow it.”

  Wishing she could take back the comment the moment it left her mouth, Jess closed her eyes tightly and winced. Why did she keep turning this on Ward? None of it was Ward’s fault. She supposed the long hours of captivity had caused her to think about what was important in her life, and she’d realized Ward was at the top of the list. She didn’t want it to be over. But the way to win Ward back wasn’t with sarcasm or anger. It was by being strong and smart and good. Like Ward.

  Ward groaned. “Jessssss.”

  “I’m sorry, Ward. I shouldn’t have said that.”

  Ward’s frustration came out in a long sigh before she answered. “I can’t keep this from Abby. I’m just starting a relationship with her, and I’m not going to sneak around and tell lies while I’m helping you.”

  Wishing all her problems would just go away, Jess pulled the blanket up over her eyes. “Fine. You can tell her I’m going for the post-traumatic stress diagnosis, but not the addiction.”

  “Okay.”

  “Because I’m not sure I need treatment for that.”

  “Jess, I understand that you have this under control. You’re treating yourself with prescription pain pills. But what happens if your doctor cuts you off again? Are you going to forge prescriptions like you did before? Or buy drugs illegally? It would be so much smarter to get off them, or into a treatment program. It’s more stable.”

  Jess knew Ward was right, but she didn’t want to talk about it anymore. “I’ll call you when I have more information.”

  Jess disconnected the phone. She stared at her fingers. She’d broken two nails in her struggle with Hawk, and though she’d clipped them, they looked
awful. A manicure was a good idea. Was a psych hospital a good idea, too? She’d hated her psych rotations as a medical student, thought the classes and clinical experience a waste of time. She was very much a person who’d controlled her own destiny, a small-town girl from a middle-class family who’d gone away to the big city and graduated from medical school at the top of her class. Taking no for an answer was never an option, and neither was making excuses. And that was how she saw the whole realm of psychiatry—it was a great arena for people who persistently screwed up and then blamed someone or something else for their failures.

  Was that what she’d be doing if she asked for help? Whose fault was it that she was trembling too violently to get off her couch? Could she have done anything differently to avoid the violence that was delivered unto her? She knew she couldn’t. She’d made bad choices with regard to her drug habit, and that was her own fault. She admitted she couldn’t blame anyone but herself. She’d cried in pain, told her doctors she needed medication, and they’d given it to her. Instead of being tough and taking the pain, she’d been a wimp and took the pills. Too many pills. As a physician, she should have known better. She’d just never thought it would happen to her. Yes, her addiction was her fault. But the fear and the anxiety she was feeling now were Edward Hawk’s fault. She supposed she’d been wrong all those times she’d callously blamed her psych patients for their troubles. Now, she knew better.

  And she knew she needed help. Wendy was in no shape to care for her. Neither was her dad. And Ward, the one who’d always been there, had moved on. If this had happened a year earlier, Ward would have taken a leave, too, and stayed home with her, or driven her to the beach to get away. She would have held her hand, and wiped her tears, and done whatever Jess asked of her, and other helpful stuff Jess didn’t even know she needed. But this was now, and Ward was gone, and who else was there? If Jess didn’t get professional help, she didn’t know if she’d make it through this ordeal.

  Gathering her courage, she threw back the blankets and stood before she had a chance to change her mind. At the front of the house, she peeked through the blinds. It was just as Ward said. A dozen news trucks were parked on the street, their occupants standing around talking to each other and her neighbors as they waited for her to emerge from hiding.

  They’d be waiting a long time.

  She shuffled into the kitchen, checked the lock on the door, and surveyed the scene in back. Her house sat in the middle of the block, with homes on either side. The rear of her property was guarded by a line of hedges that offered enough privacy to prohibit anyone from spying on her backyard barbecues. It also prevented her from seeing the property beyond. She wouldn’t be surprised to find more news people there, preventing an escape in that direction.

  Turning back to her kitchen, she put water on for tea, then headed to the powder room. She frowned at her reflection. Her red hair was greasy and limp and hung lifeless across her shoulders. A perfectly matched pair of circles surrounded her blue eyes, and her mouth and chin were bruised where Hawk had grabbed her to hold the Ambu bag in place when she wasn’t breathing. She was in the same clothes she’d changed into the night before. She supposed she should change into something fresh, but she didn’t have the energy. It was all she could manage to fix her tea, and when it was ready, she took a soothing sip.

  From her bag beside the kitchen table, Jess retrieved her laptop, fired it up, and sat down before it. What the hell do I look for? She typed inpatient treatment post traumatic stress disorder and drug addiction into the search engine and was rewarded with thousands of hits. Some directed her to treatment facilities, some to informative websites, others to pharmaceutical ads. Two words appeared again and again—dual diagnosis—and they helped her refine her search. She knew about the topic—the simultaneous diagnoses of mental illness and substance abuse—because of the plethora of psych patients that passed through the ER. As she read, she found she really knew very little at all.

  Fuck! PTSD was a serious disorder. According to the inarguably accurate information available on the web, she could suffer a multitude of plagues due to PTSD. Depression. That seemed to have already started. Incarceration. Well, only if her past crimes came back to haunt her. She was a model citizen these days. Poverty. Quite possibly, if she didn’t get her act together and go back to work. Her savings would only last so long. Relationship issues. Duh. Substance abuse. At that, she laughed out loud. Most people with this diagnosis ended up using drugs to help them cope. Since she already used them, was she more likely to lose control and slip back into a pattern of bad abuse? At the moment, her drug abuse was really well controlled. She used a consistent dose of oxycodone every day, and she felt fine. She was the most functional addict she knew.

  The information she read was depressing. Overwhelming. She pushed the cover of the laptop closed, popped a Xanax into her mouth, and headed back to the couch. Her phone was there, and her father’s number was on speed dial. A few seconds later, the familiar, rich timbre of his voice comforted her. Even if she was angry with him, he was still her father.

  “How are you, my sweet girl?”

  Jess snuggled into her blankets and closed her eyes. “I’m not doing very well, Dad. Do you think you can come over?”

  Twenty minutes later, she heard his key in the lock, and she was impressed when she saw the bag of groceries cradled in his big paws. It was a fifteen-minute ride. How’d he make it so quickly and find time to shop? Lights and sirens, perhaps? He was still the sheriff, after all.

  “I brought ice cream,” he announced. “And all the trimmings.”

  “I can’t eat,” she said and dove under the blankets.

  “Nonsense. I’ll cook.”

  She didn’t bother protesting but instead cowered under her comforter, thinking about what she’d read on the Internet. In the thirty-six hours since she’d been kidnapped, she hadn’t slept a wink, and she was depressed and anxious. It sure sounded like PTSD, as Ward had suggested. And the PTSD was likely to ignite her addiction into a raging inferno. Her life was falling apart, without a doubt. In less than a year she’d left a great job, moved, buried her mother, separated from her partner, and been brutally attacked. All this while managing an addiction problem that frequently left her scrambling to find drugs. A major crisis was looming, and she had no one to help her through it. Again, Ward was right. Ignoring her drug problem, or treating herself, was a mistake. She needed to go into the hospital and get professional help.

  Integrated care. That’s what she needed. She’d read those words on the Internet, and it sounded right. She didn’t need a psych facility that treated her PTSD but neglected her addiction, or a rehab facility that treated the addiction but ignored the PTSD. An integrated care plan would do both. If she could only find one, she’d be set.

  “Here you go,” her dad said, handing her a bowl spilling over with the fixings of a hot fudge sundae. Fortunately, he handed her a pile of napkins, and she wiped the bowl before digging in. Seeing the chocolate syrup and whipped cream restored her hunger, and she took several satisfying bites before she spoke.

  “Thanks for this.” She nodded to the bowl. “And for coming over.”

  He nodded and ate. “I don’t suppose you’ll want to leave the house with all those reporters out there.”

  “No.”

  “I spoke to the state police. They want to talk to you again. The preliminary hearing is in nine days.”

  She sighed, felt a frown appear on her face. The female officer had been cute, and Jess only wished she’d met her in the ER, or at a party, where they could have talked about something pleasant. Discussing Hawk was the last thing she wanted to do. Just thinking about it, Jess felt panic pushing the ice cream back up into her throat. “I don’t have to testify, do I?” Facing Hawk, even in handcuffs, was a frightening proposal.

  “I don’t think so. The state police just need the facts for now. And I’ll be with you. I’ll take care of you.”

  “After what
happened, I think I need a little more help than you can give me.” Sitting back, she looked up at him and forgot why she was angry with him. Wasn’t he only, always, trying to protect her? Even with Ward, when he’d driven her away, he was trying to help her. He loved her unconditionally, worshipped her. How could she tell him her worries ran so much deeper than Hawk and what he’d done? What if the police investigated her and learned she’d obtained drugs unlawfully? What would happen to her? For so long, she’d fooled herself into thinking she had her life under control, but she’d been lying to herself. Her life was a mess.

  She finally understood that, though. It was time to get it together.

  He paused and looked up, met her gaze, studying her from behind the lock of hair that fell across his forehead and over his eye. The blue eyes matched her own, and she could see worry there. It seemed he understood what she wasn’t saying, and it must have disturbed him, because her loquacious father was at a loss for words.

  Jess spared him. “I don’t want to talk to the police. Not right now. I mean, this is hard. Don’t you feel upset that a really crazy guy tied you up and held a gun to your head? Your own gun, as a matter of fact.”

  Jess saw him swallow. “I was in Vietnam, honey. That was much worse than getting tied up by a little sissy man. I was upset about you. I didn’t want him to hurt you.”

  “He hurt me, Dad. Inside,” she said, tapping the side of her head for emphasis. “You can’t see the wounds, but they’re there. I’m nervous and scared and depressed.”

  “I think that’s understandable.”

  “Ward thinks I should go away. To a hospital, to recover. I’ve been considering it, and she’s right. I can’t get through this on my own.”

  Bracing for his rebuttal, Jess leaned into the couch and studied her father. He was tense on the edge of a chair and made a production of chewing his ice cream. Wondering if he’d heard her, or was confused, she looked away. It was brighter since her father opened the shades, and the room was dazzling in the sunlight. Shiny hardwood floors, carved molding around the edges of the room and the fireplace, nice art on the tables and walls. Even the television, set into a frame on the wall above the fireplace, looked classy. It was a beautiful room in a beautiful house, and she was miserable and wanted to feel better.