Poison and Prejudice

by Field, Chelsea

  The SWAT team had found a crematory in a locked room, fully heated and ready to go. The African translator—whose name was Thoko, apparently—had dumped the garbage bag with the murder weapon and bloody clothes next to it, intending to burn the evidence.

  We believed he’d intended the girls to have the same fate.

  The SWAT team had also found cash. Eight million dollars’ worth. There was talk of the money being put into a fund to support the girls the way they’d been promised, with the surplus donated to well-respected charities fighting human trafficking and the conditions that made people vulnerable to it.

  They were positive steps, but it wasn’t enough. It would never be enough.

  I was lying in a bed in the Taste Society medical facility Connor had insisted I come to. He’d been glued to my side all afternoon, but I’d finally ordered him home. Allegedly so I could rest but more because I wanted a chance to process everything that had happened.

  As soon as I was alone, I rolled over and cried into my pillow. My whole body ached, and with my badly bruised neck and throat, crying hurt like a bitch. But it was my heart that ached the most.

  When I was done, I flipped the pillow over to hide the wet patch and looked for something to distract me. The doctor who’d been tending me was competent but lacked Levi’s warmth and charisma, so there was no help there. I closed my eyes but saw Thoko lunging at me and opened them again.

  Flowers appeared in my vision. Soft pink ranunculus. My gaze shifted to the man holding them. Levi.

  “I don’t usually come here on my day off, but then I don’t normally get to save the lives of six lovely girls either.” He pulled up a chair. “They’re all doing well by the way. They should recover fully. Thanks to you.”

  “I—”

  “Those flowers haven’t been stolen from one of my patients, if you were wondering. All of them were inconsiderate enough to be awake, so I had to splurge on the real deal.”

  “They’re beautiful,” I said. “Thank you.”

  “You did good, kid.” His gaze scanned over me. “I’d ask how you were feeling, but I have an inkling about the answer already.”

  He would too. While I’d turned the pillow over, my puffy eyes were harder to hide. That and the bruises liberally decorating my face and body spelled it out pretty clearly.

  His next words were more hesitant. “Look, even though things worked out the way they did, I wanted to let you know that you’re welcome to come over and visit Waffles anytime. Maybe you can try to win over Syrup too. She loves broccoli for some reason, the weirdo. And if nothing else, it’ll make me feel better about failing to win you over.” He winked at me and smiled, the light reaching his eyes this time, then leaned over to kiss my bruised cheek. “Connor’s lucky to have you. Now stop berating yourself and get some rest.”

  I watched him limp away, and my heart ached just a little bit less.

  Sunday, four p.m.

  While waiting to be discharged, I sent a message to Zac, apologizing for my absence, explaining I’d been mugged and had to go to emergency to be checked over.

  He told me to take as much time as I needed.

  Searching for distraction, I read the day’s newspaper and learned that director Torres had been arrested in relation to Alyssa Hill’s murder. He was being charged with second-degree assault with the intent to cause serious bodily harm or death. The story outlined how he’d spiked her food with flakka, waited until she was showing signs of its effects, and dropped her off at her recently separated husband’s place.

  Why? Because with the drug’s reputation for causing extreme aggression or paranoia, there was an excellent chance one or both of them would wind up seriously injured, which in turn would cause the movie they were starring in to be scrapped. The movie he was directing. All because he believed the script was so bad that the film would kill his budding career.

  The stupid, selfish, bleeping bastard.

  My words, not the reporter’s.

  I couldn’t believe I’d taken a black eye for the jerk.

  The article didn’t mention the flakka-spiked wine that had been gifted to Zac the same night, but I was betting that was compliments of Torres too. If they’d both been drugged, there would have been an even greater chance of something horrible happening. Nor was there any suggestion that the flakka had been modified to ensure the aggressive reaction rather than the paranoid one. The case might have been too high profile to cover up completely, but the Taste Society had a way of suppressing or downplaying the role of poison in celebrity news.

  The reporter went on to explain how Zachariah Hill had claimed self-defense, stating that the victim—his recently separated wife—had run at him brandishing a knife and threatening to kill him while under the influence. Fearing for his life, he’d pushed her away from him, tragically causing her to fall and fatally hit her head. In a state of shock, he’d initially covered up the crime, but guilt had caused him to later turn himself in and confess. Forensic evidence and an unnamed witness corroborated his account.

  Hopefully that meant Jennifer was now in police custody.

  Nice of Hunt to keep me in the loop.

  Sunday, five p.m.

  I was released from the medical facility and allowed to go home. Connor picked me up, but halfway back to my apartment we were intercepted by Jeff and Joe.

  Joe winced when he saw the bruises. “We wanted to personally thank you for your part in solving the human trafficking case.”

  Connor’s icy expression could’ve frozen hot coffee. “You mean solving your case, locating the victims, and taking down the perpetrator for you.”

  Jeff took a long sip of his juice—a juice that looked suspiciously similar to the one he’d bought for me near Zac’s place. “Yeah, but she doesn’t know anything about collecting DNA samples.”

  It was from them we got the details on how the whole trafficking ring had come about. Thoko had recovered consciousness a few hours ago and, seeing the writing on the wall, chosen to cooperate fully in the hopes of a few benefits in prison. His testimony, as much as anything else, erased the last of Homeland’s lingering suspicions that Zachariah Hill might have been involved.

  Apparently, Alyssa had been so enamored with the publicity she received for her and Zac’s generous charity that she wanted to do more of it. The problem was, she didn’t want to donate huge amounts out of her own pocket, so she devised a method of making the charity mostly pay for itself.

  She’d justified the exploitation by reasoning that the good she was doing far outweighed the cost of a few lives, and she’d managed to convince Dr. Dan to think the same way. A Homeland criminal profiler was suggesting she’d been a borderline psychopath, with little to no empathy for others, but one who’d learned to cover this deficit very well. Her exemplary skill as an actress had not been limited to when the cameras were rolling.

  Thoko was just in it for the money.

  The girls had indeed been fed the same lies the expectant parents had. It kept them docile, and then they “put them down humanely” and cremated their bodies, which was “a kinder end than they’d been rescued from anyhow.”

  Joe turned the questions back on me at this point. “How did you know the girls had been poisoned with niohydramine anyway?”

  “Thoko taunted me about it when he was trying to kill me,” I said.

  “Did he? Funny. He told us he didn’t say a word to you.”

  I shrugged. “Well, Harper did hit him pretty hard.”

  It was the same story I’d given Harper, and we’d explained Levi as a contact of Connor’s security firm. The hundred percent survival rate of the girls was harder to explain. Niohydramine had no known antidote in modern medicine—all they could do was try to fight the symptoms as they arose—but as Hunt had pointed out, the Taste Society had more than a few medical advances up its sleeve. Thankfully, the details of this miracle had been left up to Levi to rationalize. I was guessing he’d lied about how far gone the girls were by the time
he’d gotten to them or maybe claimed Thoko had muddled up the dosages. And if Harper ever wondered why I’d used the word antidote, I would plead ignorance.

  As for the rest of it, Dr. Dan had told Thoko he didn’t want to continue the scheme after Alyssa’s death; without her name to lend credibility in the eyes of potential clients or her position within the Hill Foundation to smooth over any bumps that might arise, he’d deemed it too risky. Thoko, realizing his payday was coming to a close, killed the doctor to avoid splitting the cash and had planned on taking it back to Africa where he could live like a king for the rest of his life.

  I felt curiously apathetic about Alyssa and Doctor Evil’s deaths. It couldn’t have happened to two nicer people.

  Sunday, six p.m.

  After seeing Joe’s reaction to my injuries, I took care to conceal as many of them as I could before hobbling into my apartment. I gave Oliver and Etta the same cover story I’d given Zac, with a little more detail. Like how the mugger had been strangling me, but when he heard footsteps coming down the alley, he’d thrown me into the wall and ran.

  The story matched my injuries pretty well, and I thought it was a good one. Until Oliver left to make me a cup of tea and Etta commented, “First the chance shooting, and now this mugging gone wrong. You sure seem to get singled out by random criminals on a regular basis. The odds must be astronomical.”

  I kept my expression smooth. “Yeah, Connor thinks I’m allergic to California or something.”

  She gave me a shrewd look. “That’s one explanation. Another is that you’re lying through your teeth. Someday I’m going to find out what you really do for a living.”

  Oliver didn’t say anything much. He was too busy shooting meaningful looks at Etta behind her back, reminding me of my pledge to get to the bottom of her strange behavior.

  Maybe I should’ve left a few more of my injuries showing so they treated me with more sympathy…

  Monday

  The story was released to the media, with my name, the Taste Society, and the names of the celebrities who’d used the service kept out of it. Jeff and Joe were happy to receive the credit for taking down the human trafficking ring and rescuing the girls. And Wendy from Gossip News did get her exclusive with Harper, who was identified only as “a civilian witness to the inside workings of the case.”

  Taryn Powers sent me a snap of her daughter, Willow, with a simple text saying “thank you.” And a few hours later, Jim, my handler, phoned to say the Taste Society had reviewed my case file and was ending my period of suspension. There would be no back pay, of course.

  I should’ve been relieved, yet a small part of me questioned whether I would have been more relieved if they’d fired me.

  I rescheduled my life insurance consultation for the end of the week.

  Tuesday

  Feeling a lot better after almost two days in bed, I drove to Zac’s. Like Joe, he flinched when he saw me and my bruises, which if anything were looking worse after the two days in bed. But good actor that he was, he recovered fast and invited me in for breakfast.

  After we’d eaten, he said he had a few errands to run and would be back soon. I took up my usual spot on the couch and pulled out a book.

  When he returned, he sat down across from me on the other couch, his face sober. “Look, I’m sorry, Isobel, but my reputation can’t stand up to walking around with a woman covered in bruises and strangle marks right now. Especially after witnesses saw me give you the bruise over your eye.”

  Gee, thanks. After I’d willingly accompanied him to the post-funeral reception of the wife he’d killed, he was just going to ditch me.

  Maybe the temporary Shade the Taste Society had provided over the past few days looked better on the red carpet.

  He dug through the bags he’d returned with, probably so he didn’t have to meet my eyes. “So I was thinking we could stay in for the next week or two. I wouldn’t mind keeping a low profile anyway, and I’m guessing you could do with a break. We’ll order takeout, drink a lot of good coffee, and read our days away. And if we must go somewhere, I got you these. How does that sound?”

  He handed me three parcels wrapped in tissue paper. There was a beautiful silk scarf that wouldn’t look out of place even on a warm sunny day, Bvlgari sunglasses, and three tubes of the no doubt expensive concealer I’d expressed interest in a few days ago. At first I thought three tubes was a bit of an overkill, but then I considered how many bruises I had.

  “Wow, that’s really generous of you, and it sounds great.”

  He beamed. “Excellent. Oh, I almost forgot.” He went to the kitchen and came back with one last thing. “This is your earring, isn’t it?”

  He was holding my favorite drop pendant earring. The one that had gone missing.

  Despite everything, I felt anxiety flood through me.

  Zac was oblivious to my fear. “I found it”—he seemed to pause, but maybe it was only time slowing down to torture me—“under the couch.”

  29

  Dudley was stretched out on one side of me, hogging most of the sofa, Etta was squished in on my other side, and Meow was curled up in my lap. Oliver was due back soon with takeout, but Etta had already started on the ice cream she’d brought over for dessert and was trying to convince me to join her.

  “Mark my words, dear, ice cream’s the best thing for a bruised throat. Slips on down with minimal resistance, and the cold is good for you, like an ice pack on the inside.”

  I stifled a snort of amusement. Oliver had claimed something very similar about alcohol’s medicinal numbing effects. Also, it didn’t explain why she was eating it. But I took the offered spoon and dug it into the tub, touched by her concern. I wasn’t sure about ice cream’s physical-soothing properties, but there’s something infinitely comforting about eating it in your PJs surrounded by loved ones.

  Dudley opened one eye, wondering whether he’d get some too. I was trying to work out how to oblige him without making a mess all over the sofa when Etta spoke again.

  “But when you’re healed, I’m going to strangle you again for leaving me out of your latest adventure.” She dug a particularly large spoonful out of the tub. “I don’t believe your cover story for a second.”

  I grinned and laid my head on her shoulder. “Well, aren’t you just the sweetest little old lady I’ve ever met.”

  Etta only liked to be thought of as old when it suited her purposes. She twitched in annoyance when my words hit home, then swatted me. “Shut up and eat your ice cream.”

  We sat like that for a bit, Etta hiding her smile and me wearing mine victoriously, until I couldn’t put it off any longer. I was finally going to have to get to the bottom of her strange behavior.

  “You know how I asked you to help me play matchmaker with Harper and Oliver?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good, because I wanted to check I didn’t accidentally tell you to make their lives miserable since I’d hate to be responsible for what you’ve been doing to them lately.”

  She scooped up more ice cream, utterly unperturbed. “If by responsible you mean my actions were the direct result of your request, then I’m afraid you are.”

  “What? What the heck were you thinking? I told you to work out how to get them in the same room, not ruin their existing relationships! How is that supposed to help? They both came to me days ago all upset and asked me to intervene—”

  Etta’s smile had been growing wider and wider as I’d been talking, and at my last complaint, she clapped her hands together. “Then my plan is working flawlessly!”

  “What?”

  “Like I told you before, the quickest way to mutual ground is having a common enemy, right?”

  “Um, sure.” I remembered her telling me that, but it hadn’t worked out so great with my Shade nemesis Emily.

  “Well, I talked to Mae about our little project, and she confirmed my suspicions that Harper is stubborn. If she knew we were trying to set her up, she’d dislike the guy on p
rinciple. So I had to be sneaky about it.”

  I still couldn’t see how being devious led to harassment.

  “Since you’re their one mutual connection to me, I figured if I drove them mad, they’d both come to you for help. Which gives you the perfect opportunity to invite them to work together to take down their common enemy. Not only would they be spending time in each other’s company, but they’d be working toward the same goal, a goal they both care about, which happens to be the ideal environment for fostering deeper relationships faster. It’s like those ridiculous team games corporate companies force on their employees, except way better.” She dug out some more ice cream and waved it at me. “So you’re welcome.”

  My mouth was hanging so far open that Dudley could’ve licked the ice cream out of it.

  “That… That’s actually brilliant.”

  “I know,” she said. “Did you ever have any doubts?”

  “Um.”

  She patted my arm. “Don’t answer that, dear.”

  Yet as brilliant as it was… “Even so, I’m afraid we’re going to have to call it off and fess up to them both. Otherwise, Harper’s going to blame Mae for it, and I can’t let that happen.”

  Etta deflated a little. “Well, all right. If you’re sure. But I won’t be able to work my magic twice, you know, especially if we reveal the trick behind the magician.”

  “I’m sure. But thank you for the trouble you went to.”

  Her expression was the kind that folks get when they’re reminiscing about the good old days. “Don’t worry about me, dear. I rather enjoyed myself.”

  Of course she had. Harper and Etta would probably be the most well-suited match of all if it wasn’t for the issues of their age gap and sexual preferences…