Gitta pulled on a strand of her long hair and twisted it around her finger. “So what’s going—” she started to whisper, but cut herself off when a young man, clad in a white shirt and apron with black pants and tie, approached.
Wait—a waiter? In here? Okay, okay, I should have known—this was Boca.
“My name is Jason, and I’ll be your server this evening.” He held out a leather-bound menu. “I apologize we only have one menu, so you’ll have to share. For some reason, they’ve all been disappearing. What can I get you to drink?”
“I’ll have an Arnold Palmer, please,” Gitta said.
That sounded borderline obscene. Or alcoholic. I raised my eyebrows at Gitta.
“Don’t look at me like that,” she said. “It’s just lemonade and iced tea.”
“Oh.” That sounded pretty good. “I’ll have that, too,” I said.
Jason turned to Lars. “And for you? The same?”
“No thanks, I don’t do caffeine. I’ll have some coconut water, please.”
Coconut water? Sure, every restaurant had that in stock. But Jason didn’t blink an eye. “Coming right up.”
“So what have you found out?” Gitta pounced as soon as Jason left.
I glanced around the dining area. The water nymphs were giggling, and the T’ai Chi masters were high-fiving each other about something. The two teen girls were still in intense discussion, leaning toward each other, while the boys sat back, silent. No one seemed remotely interested in our conversation.
In low tones, I quickly filled Gitta and Lars in on what I knew so far. When I told them that the deaths of the first two teens were reportedly non-homicidal, Gitta insisted, “But all the other patients say they were murdered.”
“I’m not saying they weren’t. I’m merely objectively reporting to you, as my client, the information I’ve uncovered as your investigator.” Okay, maybe I said it a little testily.
“She’s right, Mom,” Lars said. “Further investigation will be needed to reconcile this apparent discrepancy in the manners of death.”
The kid sounded a little nerdy. Worse, he sounded more than a little eager. Was he angling to assist in said investigation? I hoped not. The last thing I needed was an adolescent apprentice.
Jason arrived with our drinks. “Have you decided what you’d like to eat?” he asked.
“Oh, I’m sorry, we haven’t looked at the menu yet,” Gitta said.
“I’ll give you a moment,” Jason said and left.
Lars held the menu in the middle of the table so that all three of us could peer at it.
Appetizers
Prosciutto-wrapped grilled asparagus
Corn and crab fritters
Yellow bean salad with marinated mushrooms
Entrées
Miso-glazed sea bass
Veal chop Milanese
Roasted squab
Desserts
Fresh strawberries with Chantilly cream
Warm pear cobbler with vanilla bean gelato
Chocolate fondant layer cake with caramel sauce
Wow. Culinary choices like these were typical fare for Boca Babes. But those foster kids must have thought they’d died and gone to heaven.
I caught myself mid-thought in shame. Some of them had died, for Chrissake.
When Jason returned, Gitta ordered the asparagus and sea bass, and I went for the fritters and veal chop.
Lars said, “I’m sorry to be a bother, but do you have any vegan choices?”
“Sure,” Jason said. “We have Portobello tacos with chipotle salsa, mock meatloaf with scallion pancakes, and tofurkey burger on a twelve-grain bun with an Asian fusion salad.”
Asian fusion? What the hell was that? Did he mean Confucian? Clearly, I was in a state of confusion.
Lars, apparently, was not. “I’ll have the tacos,” he said. “Thanks.”
Jason departed. Gitta smiled at her son and told me, “Lars is a health food enthusiast.”
As if I hadn’t detected that already, ace PI that I am. I thought for a moment. I sure didn’t want Lars as an investigative assistant, but maybe he could be a source. “Do you know anything about teen drug use in Boca?” I asked him.
“My son is not—” Gitta started to say.
I cut her off. “I’m not saying he is. I’m just asking if he knows anything.”
“It’s intense,” Lars said. “At least at my school.”
Gitta stared at him.
“What school do you go to?” I asked.
“Boca Country Day.”
My own high-priced alma mater. The private tuition had been generously sponsored by my stepdad No. 4, Mortimer Rosenberg, owner of Mort’s Mortuary chain, whom Mom had snagged when I was fifteen.
The drugs of choice back in my day had been booze, roofies, and Ecstasy. Not that I ever partook . . . okay, maybe once or twice. But I’d quickly realized I didn’t like losing control. Of course, I still enjoyed my daily glass of Hennessy. In fact, right about now was the time for it. I took a sip of my Arnold Palmer. Nice. But it didn’t quell my craving.
“So, what do you mean, it’s intense?” I asked Lars.
“The competition. We’ve all got to get into the top colleges, right?”
“Lars’s first choice is MIT,” Gitta interrupted, patting him on the shoulder. “Harvard is his safety school.”
“Uh-huh,” I said. “So if kids are doing drugs, how can they expect to get into those places?”
“You’re thinking the wrong kinds of drugs,” Lars said. “I’m talking performance-enhancing pills.”
“Like what?”
“Ritalin. Adderall.”
“What are those?”
“Stimulants. They’re prescribed for attention deficit disorder. But if you don’t have ADD and you take them, your brain power skyrockets. You get ultra-focus and energy. You can pull all-nighters and ace exams.”
“Lars, are you saying you use these . . . ?” Gitta asked.
Lars rolled his eyes. I guess he had some typical teenage traits after all. “No, Mom. I inherited Dad’s brains.”
Gitta didn’t seem to take this as an insult to her own intelligence.
I just hoped the kid hadn’t also inherited his father’s morals. The late Lapidus O’Malley, Gitta’s first husband, had been the sleaze-ball founding partner of the law firm that Bruce had worked in. They defended big companies against lawsuits brought by families who’d lost loved ones due to corporate malfeasance. Like pharmaceutical companies who knowingly sold meds with deadly side effects. Speaking of which . . .
“So these pills,” I said. “How do kids get them?”
“Dealers,” Lars said matter-of-factly. “There are a few kids who get prescriptions from their doctors, then they sell the pills to the other students.”
Just then, yells erupted from the other side of the solarium. I looked over. The commotion was at the teens’ table. The two girls were tugging on a half-empty Coke bottle.
“Gimme that, Amber, you bitch!” Red Dreadlocks yelled.
“Screw you, Jessica!” Black Spikes screamed.
Dreadlocks pulled the bottle out of Spikes’ grasp and gulped the contents.
I stood up and started to head over to intervene.
Gitta gripped my arm. “No, Hailey,” she said, with emphasis. “Don’t call attention to yourself.”
Out of the corner of my eye I saw the staff—Jason, Sandy, and Miss Sea World—running toward the table.
“Amber! Jessica! Stop it!” Miss Sea World yelled.
But before any of us could reach it, Black Spikes picked up a fork, raised it over her head, and stabbed the tines into Red Dreadlocks’ neck.
Chapter 8
SCREAMS ERU
PTED throughout the dining room as blood spurted from Jessica’s neck. I ran over, reaching the girl before the staffers did. I grabbed a linen napkin from her table, and kneeling down to where she lay on the floor, pressed it to the wound, where the fork was embedded. The girl’s freckled face was pale, her eyes glassy.
Sandy and Miss Sea World restrained Amber, who seemed to be lunging for the disputed bottle.
“We need medical help!” Sandy said. “Where’s Dr. Stillwater?”
“She’s left for the day,” Miss Sea World said. “Jason, call the detox nurse, Mercy,” she told the waiter, who whipped out his phone.
The other diners all gathered around the scene in a circle, screaming, grabbing each other, and generally acting useless.
We needed more than medical help—we needed the cops. “Somebody call 911!” I yelled.
The patients stood rooted like trees. It felt like a replay of that afternoon when Gitta and I had found Demarcus stabbed in the Meditation Maze. Finally, Gitta’s son, Lars, pulled out a phone, punched in the numbers, and relayed the information.
The napkin I held to the girl’s throat was now soaked with blood. When Lars hung up, he handed me another one. As I switched them, a squirt of blood streaked onto my chest. The girl’s breathing became shallow and irregular, and her eyes rolled back in her head.
“Hold on, Jessica,” I told her. “Help is coming. You’re going to be fine.”
I soon heard pounding footsteps as the nurse arrived, followed shortly by the paramedics and police. I felt arms pulling me away. Then I watched, strangely detached, as if I were seeing a movie, as the medical personnel administered first aid to Jessica and the cops handcuffed Amber. Then they swooped the victim and the assailant to their respective holding cells, the hospital and the jail.
I was left sitting on the floor, my hands and chest covered in blood, a throng of people surrounding me. The sensations, the smell, the stickiness—suddenly I was no longer in the dining room of The Oasis.
I’M IN THE ballroom of the Boca Raton Beach Club. I’ve just shot Bruce with his own gun, in the middle of a friend’s wedding reception, as he’d been about to strike me with his fist. Blood is spattered on my chest, my face. It feels hot, smells metallic. I’m surrounded by people in a cocoon of silence. Then screams erupt. From them. And from me.
“Hailey! Hailey!” Someone was shaking my shoulder. Slowly my consciousness came back to the present, and I saw Mercy, the nurse, gazing into my eyes.
“What?” I looked at my hands, saw the blood, noticed that it had seeped under my fingernails, pooling there. Looking back up, I saw the other patients staring at me, immaculate in their designer duds.
Mercy reached a hand to me. “Let’s get you up. I know this has been a traumatic experience.”
No. Shooting Bruce had been my real traumatic experience. This was like an aftershock to an earthquake. I brushed away Mercy’s hand and struggled to my feet.
Dammit, I’d thought I was over the post-traumatic stress—the nightmares, the flashbacks like the one I’d just had. Would it never end? Maybe I did need help.
Nah. I needed Hennessy. Or my Hog.
The staff, though, seemed to think we all needed help. “We’re going to have a trauma debriefing for all the patients in half an hour,” Mercy said. “So let’s get you cleaned up, and then we’ll come back here.”
She escorted me to a restroom, where she instructed me to wash with disinfectant soap. As if I couldn’t figure that out myself. She said she’d be right back, and a few minutes later she returned, carrying a form-fitting pink polo shirt with “The Oasis” embroidered on the upper right.
“It’s from the gift shop,” she said.
Of course. Just like any other high-priced hotel. No doubt the cost would appear on my—or rather, Gitta’s—bill.
I changed tops and threw my old one into the trash. Even if the bloodstains would come out, I didn’t want the reminder.
We went back to the dining atrium, which was now full of people, all jabbering simultaneously, like birds of different species each singing its own tune. The table and floor where the stabbing had happened were wiped clean. The smell of disinfectant hung in the air.
Gitta and Lars occupied the same table we had earlier, and Gitta waved me over. She bombarded me with questions before I even had a chance to sit. “What’s going on? Is that girl—Jessica—going to be all right?”
As I sat, a microphone emitted one of those ear-splitting squeals. The room went silent as people cringed and covered their ears.
“Sorry about that, everyone,” a voice said. It was Dr. Stillwater, evidently having returned to the facility to deal with the crisis. She stood on a platform at the front of the room. “If I may have your attention, please.” She waited a moment, then continued. “We’ve all had a very difficult day here at The Oasis. As I’m sure you’ve all heard by now, we sadly lost a member of The Oasis family, Demarcus Pritchard.”
The woman seemed to be a master of understatement. Difficult day? Sadly lost? How about a day from hell with a vicious murder?
“And a short time ago,” Dr. Stillwater continued, “we had an incident here in our dining area resulting in injury to a young lady, Jessica Jarrett. But I want everyone to know that you are safe. The police have arrested the two individuals responsible for these incidents, so I am confident the matters are resolved.”
Murmurs went around the room. “Yeah, right,” I heard. “So you say.” It sounded like she had failed to reassure the restless inmates. Including me.
As far as I was concerned, nothing was resolved. What was the real cause of the girls’ fight? There had to be more to it than a simple conflict over a Coke. And was it connected to the murder of Demarcus and the deaths of the other two teens?
“Now, at times like this,” the doctor continued, “it’s very normal to feel anxious. These events may have re-traumatized many of you, brought back unpleasant memories from your past.”
Now heads were nodding. Including, I noticed, my own. Stop it, I told myself. I didn’t need to be sucked into this psychobabble.
“Those of you who have been with us a while here at The Oasis know that one of our guiding principles is that we all must recognize and get in touch with our feelings,” the doctor said.
Oh, gag me.
“It’s normal at times like this to crave a return to old using habits. After all, that is how people with addictions deal with feelings—by repressing them with mood-altering substances. So today presents us with an opportunity to practice newfound skills. I would like to invite anyone who would care to share their feelings to do so now.”
Not only was she a master of understatement, but of reframing, too. Murder was not an atrocity. It was an opportunity. And someone was seizing it; a hand went up in the middle of the room, and the microphone was passed. The hand belonged to one of the T’ai Chi men from that afternoon, a buff guy in his thirties. He wore shorts, and for the first time, I saw that he had a metal prosthesis in place of his right leg.
“When I saw that boy lying dead on the ground today,” he said, “it took me right back to Iraq, the day my best buddy was killed by friendly fire.”
The room went even more silent than it had already been.
“My life was never the same after that,” the man said. “Sure, I’ve been successful, made a lot of money since then . . . but it’s like some part of me died that day too, you know what I’m saying?”
“You’re right, Kyle,” Dr. Stillwater said. “A part of you did die. That hole in your heart will always be there. But with time and support, you’ll learn to live again. Your life won’t be the same, but it will be a life worth living.”
Heads nodded again, and a murmur of support went around the room like a wave.
Gitta raised her hand, and Kyle passed the mike to her.
I heard a few gasps.
Gitta twisted her hair around her finger. “That was the way it was back then,” she said. “You had to put up with it if you wanted to win. If you told anybody, they’d blame you, saying you made him do it, you didn’t know how to behave properly.” She stopped again and took a few trembling breaths. “I’ve never told anybody about it until now.”
Wow. No, she sure had never told me about it. I was starting to see her in a different light.
“That took a lot of courage for you to share, Gitta,” Dr. Stillwater said. “And now that you have, you can start the healing process.”
Gitta nodded, still pulling on her hair, and passed the mike to a thin woman who slumped in her chair, her stringy hair obscuring her face.
“I feel so sorry for that murdered boy’s mother,” the woman said. “I lost my son when he was five.”
“Renee, it sounds like you’re turning a corner in your recovery process,” Dr. Stillwater said. “You’re able to see others’ pain. Your own may not be as overwhelming as it once was.”
“I think you’re right, Dr. Stillwater,” Renee said.
Hmm. I had to give Stillwater credit. She did seem to be skilled in responding to the patients, despite what I took as her earlier insensitive statements—including the gripe I’d overheard that afternoon about the teens’ deaths potentially disrupting her Italian vacation plans. Lupe had told me the staff was topnotch, and maybe she was right. That didn’t preclude them from having human faults.
A few more patients told their testaments of trauma. After about an hour, Dr. Stillwater cut them off. “It’s getting late, but I want to thank you all for sharing. It’s important for each of us to know that we’re not alone, that there are others who have had similar experiences. Now we’d like everyone to go back to their units, and remember, the staff is always available to talk if you need to.”
Boca Undercover Page 7