Tea or Consequences

by KC Burn

  The elevator doors opened and Riley got in, still staring at the image. Zooming in confirmed the penicillin not only came from a different pharmacy, but it was one closer to the office than it was to Floriana’s house. There was a Shoppers Drug Mart location closer to the office than the Rexall was, so hitting the Rexall for the sake of expedience didn’t make sense. If Floriana needed a prescription desperately, it would make more sense for her to stick with a Shoppers Drug Mart, which would have all her insurance information. It didn’t make any sense for Floriana to go to a different pharmacy for penicillin.

  He tapped out another text to Tad.

  Something’s wrong. I looked through that medicine cabinet after the memorial service. NO PENICILLIN. Filled at different pharmacy. Proof = my fingerprints on ALL other bottles.

  That last bit might convince Tad, but in retrospect it maybe demonstrated he hadn’t properly thought out his supersleuthing. What if he’d made himself look guilty by touching the wrong thing? Like if that pill bottle had been there on Thursday, he could have been in deep, deep, Marianas-Trench-deep shit.

  ???

  Great. That was a helpful reply. And here he was at the damned office again, with a potential murderer. The only thing he knew was that Floriana probably hadn’t killed her mother and probably hadn’t had anything to do with Riley being poisoned, whether she was a scientist or not. A frisson of fear twisted his stomach. He was going to be here thirty minutes, tops. Nothing was going to happen.

  The elevator doors opened, and he hung back a moment, seriously considering just going back home and forgetting all about proving something to himself. No one was going to be impressed.

  Nothing is going to happen. That was his new mantra of hope going out to the universe. He wasn’t even going to need thirty minutes. Ten, maybe.

  He stepped out, and Alisha immediately squealed, rushing him with her arms open. “What are you doing here? How do you feel?”

  Riley let himself get enveloped by her hug. “I feel okay, thanks. And I’m just here to pick up my stuff.”

  Alisha stepped back and frowned. “You’re not staying?”

  His laugh was bitter. “Would you?”

  “Fine. I guess I wouldn’t. But… but….”

  Riley smiled. “I’m not leaving you behind. I’m probably going to take this week to rest, but if you’re up for it, come to game night on Sunday. It’ll be fun.” Partly because they hadn’t had a girl there in ages—not since Holly got married and moved to Niagara Falls—but mostly because he thought Alisha would fit in and have a good time.

  Her eyes shone with tears. “It’s a date, Riley. No backing out—you’re stuck with me.”

  “I’m okay with that.” Riley’s eyes burned just a bit. “I’m heading in. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

  Making the conscious choice to take the path past Gabrielle’s office, he arrived at his desk without anyone actually noticing he was there. Cody’s door was shut, and Riley didn’t know if he was trying to keep Gautier hobbling along after Floriana’s arrest or if he’d taken a much-needed mental health day.

  He scooped out his lockbox but opened it and dumped out the contents, just in case. There wasn’t anything from this place he wanted to put in his mouth. His Star Wars Pop! figures went into his bag. It took all of about two minutes.

  If Floriana wasn’t the murderer, did that mean Cody was still in danger? The question was so absorbing, he didn’t realize he’d started walking toward Mary’s desk.

  “Riley, oh you poor dear.” Mary leaped out of her chair and bustled around her desk to give him a warm, motherly hug. Okay, he might miss Mary just a bit. “How are you feeling?” She peered at his face and tapped his cheek with her palm.

  “I’m fine, Mary. Just need some more sleep.”

  She clucked her tongue. “Make sure you eat too. You’re too thin.”

  Ha. Not hardly. But he did have a tendency to avoid food when stressed, unlike many other people he knew. “I will, Mary, I promise.”

  Be easier if he had a boyfriend to lean on, but at least he had good friends.

  “Since you’re here, let me ask you a question?”

  “Sure, Mary.” Did she even have a clue this would be the last time she’d see Riley? He didn’t much feel like enlightening her, though.

  “Do you know of a good dry cleaner around here?”

  Since she’d dropped a handful of plastic-sheeted shirts when she’d seen him, he had to assume she knew of at least one.

  “Which one is that?” Riley didn’t wait for her to respond; he just reached out and smoothed the receipt stapled to the front of the stack. “Sorry. This is the one I use. Never had a reason to find another one. What’s wrong?”

  She let out a great gusty sigh. “They just delivered Mr. François’s shirts, and this one….” She grabbed one of the shirts and shifted it to display the arm. “See? This yellow grease stain? I specifically told them it needed to be taken care of, and you can see it looks almost untouched.”

  The air around him got suddenly thin, like he’d been rocketed to the top of Kilimanjaro. He had a grease stain that looked almost exactly the same, on the cuff of the shirt he’d been wearing when he’d found the penicillin-spiked tea container in his desk drawer. The same one he chose not to pull out for fear of completely ruining the shirt with grease stains.

  His breath got shallow and his heartbeat galumphed. The last thing he needed was to panic—he’d already had enough cardiac incidents for one lifetime—but he couldn’t help it. The coincidence was too much. Too much.

  “Hey, Mary, did François recently have a dental procedure or surgery maybe?”

  “Oh, no. That Mr. François. He keeps postponing his root canal. I keep telling him it’s nothing to be scared of. I think we rescheduled it for next month.” She shook her head, exasperated, and completely oblivious to the fact that Riley was just about ready to pass out. Or scream. It had never occurred to him to check everyone’s calendar for future dental appointments.

  “What does that have to do with the dry cleaning?”

  “I have to go, Mary, thanks.”

  Adrenaline in his system demanded he run, and run as fast as he could. Somehow he kept his exit to a controlled fast walk.

  “Call me later, Riley,” Alisha said as he passed the reception desk.

  He waved a hand at her but didn’t stop. Too jittery to even wait for the elevator, he slammed open the door to the stairs and started down. Everything in him demanded out, out, out, fast as you can.

  Running down fifteen flights of stairs wasn’t nearly as physically demanding as going up them, but it was enough to burn off some of the adrenaline, enough to smooth out some of the shaking. He burst out into the windy gray day and walked to the side of the building, then slipped into the alleyway there. Backing away from the street might be silly, because no one had followed him.

  His fingers trembled as he initiated a call to Tad. And got his voicemail. No, this was too important to leave on voicemail—people never checked the damn thing right away. And his fingers weren’t going to work well enough to text it all out. He tried again. Then a third time. The fourth attempt connected.

  “Detective Tad Martin.” There was a trace of exasperation in his tone, but Riley ignored it.

  “It’s not Floriana. It’s François.”

  “Riley, is that you? Where are you?”

  “At Gautier. But you’re wrong. About Floriana. It was never Floriana.”

  Something heavy slammed into him from behind, and he fell to his knees, phone skittering away. “Tad,” he yelled before he twisted around to face his attacker.

  Stupidly, he hadn’t bothered paying attention to the other end of the alley.

  Rage twisted François’s face, and he brandished his briefcase in a threatening manner. Riley had a moment to be thankful they didn’t work at a baseball-bat factory as he scrambled away from the next blow.

  However ludicrous trying to beat him to death with a briefca
se was, François had already committed murder once and tried for a second one. He wasn’t to be dismissed, and he was desperate.

  François loomed over him, and Riley managed to get to his feet and run for the street. A cracking sound informed him of his phone’s demise, but all he needed was the street, and people. A taxi.

  The briefcase came low and hard, getting tangled in his feet. Riley went down, hitting his head.

  He rolled over, vision swimming, feeling like he was trapped on a tugboat on the lake. “Help! Help!”

  He tried to block François, who was attempting to wrap his hands around Riley’s neck.

  “Help me,” he tried again, but it wasn’t as loud this time. He was going to die in this alley, strangled by an asshole accountant.

  Weakened by one poisoning attempt and the knock on his head, he didn’t have the strength to get the upper hand with a man who outweighed him by at least thirty pounds.

  He scrabbled at François’s fingers, digging in his nails, trying to loosen his grip, but it was a losing battle. His vision blackened at the edges. He had another second or two.

  “Hands up!”

  Everything held still for a moment, hanging in limbo. Then a dark blur moved over him. François jerked, his hands opened, and he went down, Tad on top of him.

  Riley sucked in great heaving breaths and twisted his head around. Detective Wilson held a gun in the direction of Tad and François, but François was no challenge for a trained police detective, and he was already facedown on the ground, cuffed.

  Sirens blared, getting closer, and Riley tried to haul himself up, but he couldn’t manage more than a bleat of distress. Detective Wilson moved closer to François while Tad gathered Riley into his arms and rocked him while Riley clung to him and cried.

  “It’s okay, it’s okay,” Tad whispered into his hair.

  Riley had never been so scared, not even when he’d been poisoned. He’d thought he was brave for standing up to bullies, but those had only been bruises. He’d never had anyone want him dead before. Brave he wasn’t.

  Then EMTs pried him from Tad’s arms, and in the ensuing medical attention, he lost track of Tad.

  ANOTHER DAY, another hospital room. This time the drugs were a bit better. His throat and head were still painful, but the pain was muted, buried.

  The curtain rustled and Jonathan appeared, looking wan, worried, and ruffled. Riley stifled a groan. It hadn’t even been a week since his last hospital visit—he hadn’t had time to change his emergency contact information.

  “Riley.” His tone was conciliatory, but Riley wasn’t buying.

  “What?”

  “I’m worried about you. This… I don’t want to lose you.”

  If he died, Jonathan’s life wouldn’t materially change. Sure, he’d miss the occasional phone call, but before long, Jonathan wouldn’t even notice the lack.

  “You’re the only family I have left. I want to make a point of making more time for you. For us to spend together.”

  Riley would believe it when he saw it, but he could at least believe his brother believed what he said. In no time at all, they’d be back to brief phone calls on birthdays and holidays, and all plans to get together would keep getting postponed.

  “Fine. We can try.” He was a lying liar. He was all out of trying. If his brother was serious about this, he was going to have to do more than meet Riley halfway.

  The deep discomfort on Jonathan’s face didn’t fade.

  “I’m so sorry I didn’t listen to you.”

  Riley frowned in confusion. His brother didn’t apologize. Not since that fateful day when he’d had to break the news about their parents. “What?”

  Jonathan scrubbed his hands over his face, mussing up his hair. “You were right. Merry admitted she’d lied, and more than once, to keep us apart. And I’m so fucking sorry, Riley.”

  Holy shit. He’d never expected those words in a million years.

  “We’re going to… take a break, spend some time apart.”

  “I’m sorry, Jonathan.”

  “No.” His brother practically glared. “This is not on you, this is on me. Things will be different from now on, whether or not my marriage survives. I was blind and I… want you and I to rebuild, if we can.”

  “I think we can do that.” Riley didn’t know if he had blind faith ready for his brother, but he’d be willing to see how it went. He hadn’t wanted to cut ties.

  “Good.” Jonathan smiled and patted his arm.

  “Excuse me.” Tad’s voice was stern. “We’ll need to ask Riley some questions.”

  Jonathan looked slightly startled, but he acquiesced, and in the blink of an eye, Tad stood at the foot of his bed.

  “We?” Riley croaked.

  Tad gave him a sheepish smile. “It serves a useful purpose, but at the moment, it’s just me. Emma will be along in a few minutes.”

  In an uncomfortably poignant déjà vu, Tad sat down in the seat beside Riley’s bed and grabbed his hand.

  “You have to stop scaring me like that. I thought… I thought….” Tad’s voice broke. Yeah, Riley had thought that too. “If I hadn’t heard you call out, I might have just gone in the building and gone upstairs and been too fucking late. Thank God I was already in the area.”

  “I’m fine.” Concussion, and massively inflamed tissues in his neck, but mostly he was fine. Or he would be eventually. He understood his phone had not been nearly so lucky.

  Tad threaded his fingers through Riley’s and squeezed. “I’m so sorry. Those penicillin tablets were the first piece of real evidence we had, and because this case has gone on too long and you’d been poisoned, I leaped on that bottle too fast. What tipped you off?”

  Riley explained how he’d asked a pharmacist about penicillin and found out it was sometimes taken before dental procedures as a safeguard against infection, and the grease on François’s sleeve, and his upcoming root canal. Take that, Jessica Fletcher.

  “Incredible. When you called, Emma got on the horn and hounded the lab. She was able to confirm pretty quick that your fingerprints were on all the bottles in the cabinet, and there was a suspicious lack of prints on the penicillin bottle. And I have to say that was incredibly dangerous. Snooping can get you in a lot of trouble, you know.”

  Whatever. He hadn’t been poisoned for snooping, and he didn’t think that even this would deter him in the future, although he might reconsider it if there was another murderer involved.

  “Do you have enough evidence now? Especially if you get the shirt? I bet Mary still has it; François wouldn’t have had time to destroy it. What about following up on the prescription? I bet you’ll find the name is illegible or was written out to an F. Gautier.”

  “We’ll get the shirt. As for evidence, Floriana’s and Cody’s fingerprints were all over the outside of the gift box with poison, but all of the vials were wiped clean. Except for a partial on the inside of the body cream lid. And that belonged to none other than François. We also tracked down the prescription. You’re right, it was made out for an F. Gautier, and the pharmacist identified François as the person who brought in the prescription and said it was for Floriana. He’d been planning to frame her all along and take over the company.”

  “Shit. I can’t… no, I guess I can believe it. But it’s still weird that I know a murderer.”

  “And with your suggestion about the prescription, we should be able to tie François to Gabrielle’s murder as well.”

  Riley smiled and rubbed Tad’s thumb with his own. Now he could finally relax. All the pieces made sense.

  “Do you know why? I mean, obviously he wanted the money, but that’s a big step. It’s not like the whole family isn’t well-off.”

  “There was a mountain of financial data, and we’re not all the way through it, but it’s starting to look like François and Bethany were living beyond their means, with a significant amount of gambling debts. It was one of the leads we’d been pursuing until you got poisoned.”
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  “I can’t even conceive of being able to spend that much money, never mind that money not being enough to live on.”

  Tad snorted. “Ain’t that the truth.”

  “You might want to check the launch events and holiday parties first. I noticed something weird with the amounts, but I never got a chance to track it down.”

  Shaking his head, Tad chuckled. “You trying to get a recommendation to the police academy?”

  “Uh, no. I think maybe I’ve had enough sleuthing.” Although it was still so fucking cool that he’d contributed to the whole thing—found out who was behind it all before the police. Not bad for a nerdy gamer. “What happens now?”

  “We’ve got him dead to rights on assault and attempted murder, and it’ll only be a matter of time before we get the proof for Gabrielle’s murder too.”

  “Good.”

  Tad cleared his throat. “Uh. So, I have to be going. Thank you for your help.”

  Riley’s jubilant mood splattered all over the floor. “You’re leaving.” Again.

  To be fair, Tad looked stricken. Torn. But it didn’t help. Their situation wasn’t any different from when Floriana was arrested and Tad had outlined why they couldn’t be together. It still fucking hurt, and it was going to take a hell of a lot longer to heal than his concussion.

  “I’m sorry.” Tad leaned over and kissed him, heat and love and want all there for Riley to taste in a fraction of a second, but it didn’t belong to him. It would never be his. His sinuses burned with the sudden onslaught of tears, and he struggled to hold them back. His control over his emotions was nonexistent, and he didn’t want Tad to see him cry again.

  Although it was almost physically painful to draw away, Riley did so nonetheless. He couldn’t prolong the agony any longer.

  Tad stroked his cheek one last time, and he turned away.