The Girl Who Cried Murder

by Paula Graves

  “Is this an interrogation?” she muttered.

  “No, I just—” Trask cut off whatever he’d been going to say when a thin black man in green scrubs entered the waiting room and headed for Amelia Strong.

  “Mrs. Strong?” the doctor asked as Amelia stopped pacing and turned to watch his approach with anxiety-filled eyes. “I’m Dr. LeBow. I’ve been treating your son.”

  “Is he going to be okay?” Amelia asked, reaching her hand toward Charlie.

  Charlie caught Amelia’s hand and gave it a squeeze. Trask moved up to stand on her other side. She quelled a grimace.

  “The good news is, the CT scan didn’t show any sort of brain injury, and the cut on his forehead seems to have caused only minor bruising and minimal swelling.” Dr. LeBow’s deep voice was calm and reassuring. “The tox screen came back negative, but the urine test Deputy Trask requested came back positive for gamma hydroxybutyric acid. It was probably ingested shortly before he lost consciousness.”

  “So how do you treat something like that?” Amelia asked.

  “For a GHB overdose, we primarily offer supportive care—he’s breathing on his own, but if his respirations dip to a critical point, we can intubate and breathe for him until the drug is out of his system.”

  Charlie’s heart squeezed at the thought of Mike on life support, all because he was trying to help her. “Do you think you’ll have to do that?”

  “At this point, no. He’s already starting to show signs of waking, so we’ll continue to monitor his vitals. He’s fit and, from what you’ve told us and we’ve observed, in good health. He has an excellent chance of full recovery with no lingering effects.” He lowered his voice, even though there were no other people in the waiting room at the moment. “Has this ever happened to Mr. Strong before? Is he a recreational drug user?”

  “No,” Amelia snapped. “Of course not.”

  “He wasn’t using drugs tonight,” Charlie said firmly. “I was with him from about five o’clock on, and the only time he left my sight was tonight at the bar, when he picked up our drinks from the waitress. He was drinking ginger ale. I believe someone spiked it.”

  Dr. LeBow looked mildly skeptical. “I see.”

  “It can’t be the first time you’ve treated someone who was roofied,” Charlie said, not quite able to hide her annoyance.

  “No, but the victim is usually female.” Dr. LeBow glanced at Trask. “I’m going to have to get back to my other patients. We’re moving Mr. Strong to ICU until we’re satisfied that he’s awake and able to maintain his respiration and blood pressure without intervention. The waiting room for ICU is on the fourth floor. Let the nurse know you’re there and she’ll let you visit him for a short time.”

  Amelia followed the doctor out of the room. As Charlie started to follow, Trask caught her arm.

  “What?” she snapped.

  “We weren’t finished talking yet. You know you won’t get to see him right away, so what does it hurt to hear me out?” He nodded toward the seats they’d recently vacated. “I promise, I’ll go upstairs with you when we’re done and make sure you’re allowed to see him if you’ll stay here and finish answering my questions. Deal?”

  She sighed, frustrated and anxious. She knew he was right, even if she didn’t want to admit it. She wasn’t family. In most people’s eyes, she’d barely qualify as a friend. Archer might be her best hope of getting to see Mike again tonight at all.

  And maybe it was time to bring Archer Trask in on what she was beginning to suspect about Alice’s death. Her murder had been his first case as an investigator. If he had lingering doubts her death was anything but a hit-and-run accident, then he had almost as much incentive as Charlie had to get to the truth.

  She sat in the waiting room chair and folded her hands on top of her knees, waiting for him to sit, as well.

  He pulled one of the chairs around to face her and took his seat. “What have you remembered about that night, Charlie?”

  Slowly, carefully, she told him about her dreams. “I know you’re thinking they’re just dreams. My imagination running ahead of me. But I think they’re real.”

  “So you were there on the street that night that Alice was killed.”

  “I think so. And I think the reason I can’t remember much of that night is that I was drugged, just like Mike was tonight.”

  Trask’s eyes narrowed. “Who drugged you?”

  This, she knew, was the part that would be hard for anyone else to believe. But she had to say it.

  “I think it was Alice.”

  Trask stared at her for a moment. “Why would you think that?”

  “I had a memory of hearing Alice talk to me when I was barely awake. She said, ‘I’m sorry, but I have to do the rest of this by myself.’”

  “Do you know what she meant?”

  She shook her head. “But she was being really mysterious about something. She did that, sometimes. Went all Trixie Belden on me.”

  “Trixie Belden?”

  “Books Alice and I read when we were kids. Trixie Belden, girl detective. Or maybe Alice was emulating Veronica Mars or something. She just liked to solve puzzles. Sometimes, she stuck her nose where it didn’t belong, and the people at school would get mad at her.” Charlie smiled grimly. “They couldn’t stay mad, though. Alice had a way about her.”

  “Yeah, that’s the picture I got of her, too.”

  Charlie looked at Trask through narrowed eyes, feeling as if she might be getting her first real glimpse of the man behind the badge. He hadn’t been that much older than her and Alice when he caught the hit-and-run case. Midtwenties at most. Which put him in his midthirties now, around the same age as Mike. Funny how much older he’d seemed ten years ago.

  “You never thought it was just a hit-and-run, either, did you?” she asked.

  He held her gaze a moment without speaking. Then he looked down at his hands, which twisted together almost nervously between his parted knees. “No. I didn’t.”

  “I thought you suspected me. Am I right?”

  “You were a person of interest,” he admitted. “Of course. You were there with her that night. You disappeared. You claimed you couldn’t remember anything that happened and you couldn’t account for your whereabouts between eight that night and four the following morning.”

  “When you put it that way...” she murmured.

  “You didn’t exactly cooperate.”

  “When you’re a Winters, it doesn’t pay to cooperate with the police.” She tried out a wry smile.

  He answered it with a quirk of his lips. “Fair enough.”

  “Do you believe me about that person I saw in the alley tonight?” she asked, a little afraid of how he’d answer.

  “Yeah, I believe you.”

  “Even without seeing him?”

  “I sent an officer to ask around the bar after we left,” he said. “I gave him your description of the man you saw. The clothing, the build, the general impression that he was young and fit. Three people at the bar remembered seeing a man in a hoodie come in not long after you and Mike. One of the officers is watching the bar’s surveillance video to see if he can spot the guy.”

  “I didn’t even think about security video.” She rubbed her gritty eyes. “I didn’t think about anything but what was happening to Mike. I wish I’d never gotten him involved in all this.”

  “If I know anything about Mike Strong, I doubt you could have stopped him from getting involved if it was something he wanted to do.” Trask sighed, frustration beginning to show in his sharp eyes. “Don’t you think it’s weird that you were drugged in this bar ten years ago, and now you’re there again and your buddy Mike gets slipped a mickey?”

  “Yes. And what if it’s connected?”

  Trask’s eyes narrowed. “You sai
d Alice drugged you.”

  “Yeah, I think she did. Her father had warned her and me both about date rape drugs before he let Alice go to any parties. And as curious as Alice was, I can easily see her finding out where to get her hands on GHB or something like that if she thought it would be helpful to whatever she was investigating.”

  “Investigating,” he said skeptically.

  “Trixie Belden, remember?” She looked at Trask. “Can’t we talk about this later? I really need to see Mike. I need to see for myself that he’s getting better.”

  Trask’s expression softened and he rose to his feet. “So let’s go see what we can do.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Mike could hear a steady cadence of beeps and the occasional sound of voices in quiet conversation in the distance. The ringing of a phone. A voice over what sounded like an intercom. A medicinal tang filled his nose when he breathed, giving him a vague sense of unease.

  Something was wrong. He couldn’t seem to open his eyes. He couldn’t move. He knew he wasn’t where he was supposed to be, but he didn’t know where he was.

  “Mike?” Her voice sliced through the haze in his brain, and he latched onto it like a lifeline.

  Charlie.

  “Can you hear me, Mike?” She sounded worried. Afraid. That wasn’t the way Charlie was supposed to sound. Charlie was snappy comebacks and whistling in the dark.

  “I need you to wake up, Mike. Please. I need to know you’re going to be okay.”

  For you, Charlie, he thought, I’ll crawl through glass.

  His eyelids felt like lead weights, but he made himself open them. The world spun a few times before coming to a stop, and he finally got a look at his surroundings.

  Hospital. ICU, maybe. Lots of monitors, lots of annoying beeps. There was a nasal cannula pouring oxygen into his nose and a blood pressure cuff folded around his right arm. A clip on his finger measured his blood oxygen level.

  And standing next to him, her face pale but her hair a shock of color in the otherwise drab room, was Charlie Winters, gazing at him with a quivering smile on her lips.

  “Hey,” he said, his voice coming out raspy.

  “Hey.” Her smile widened, and it was as if the sun had come out to dazzle him. “Do you know where you are?”

  “Either the worst hotel room in the world or the hospital. What happened?”

  Her smile faded. “You don’t remember anything, do you?”

  “No.” He grimaced, lifting his hand to his head, which had started to ache behind his eyes. His fingers touched a bandage on the side of his head.

  Right. The assailant in Charlie’s house.

  When had that happened? It seemed like just a few minutes ago, but he’d been able to go home, hadn’t he? He’d gone home because Charlie needed him.

  Hadn’t he? But why had she needed him?

  “Was my head injury worse than I thought?” He was starting to worry now. Why couldn’t he remember anything? He tried to think past the run-in with the man at Charlie’s, but everything seemed to be a blank.

  “No.” Charlie took his hand in hers. Her fingers were cold, but her grip was tight. “Do you remember anything about last night?”

  “Last night?” He frowned. “What time is it?”

  “It’s about three thirty in the morning. You’re in the hospital.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “We went to the Headhunter Bar. Do you remember anything about that?”

  That’s right. They had planned to go to the bar that evening. He’d gone to see Randall Feeney and ended up talking to Craig Bearden.

  But what had happened after that?

  “What happened to me, Charlie?”

  “The best I can tell, someone drugged your drink at the bar.”

  “At the Headhunter?”

  Her thumb was doing all kinds of distracting things to the inside of his wrist. He had to exert a lot of mental effort in order to focus on what she was saying. “We ordered drinks. You had a ginger ale. I had a beer. You drank the whole glass of ginger ale pretty quickly, which is probably why it hit you so fast and hard.”

  “Did I pass out in the bar?” It was stupid to feel embarrassed by the idea, since he’d done nothing wrong. But still, he didn’t like the idea of face-planting in front of a bunch of strangers.

  “No, you fell down outside. We were going to see if the road where Alice died would jog my memory.”

  “Did it?”

  “We didn’t get that far.” She bent closer, near enough that her clean, crisp scent managed to mask even the sharpest of medicinal smells in the hospital room. He breathed her in, let the heady scent of her fill his lungs. “Mike, I’m so sorry. I’m sorry I ever got you involved in any of this.”

  He reached up and touched her face, ignoring the painful tug of the IV cannula in the back of his hand. “I’m not sorry. Not about trying to protect you, trying to get to the bottom of what’s happening to you. So wipe that guilty look off your pretty face and give me a smile.”

  She managed a weak smile. “Better?”

  “Much. Who else is here?”

  “Your mom,” she answered. “And Deputy Trask was here for a while, but he went home to get some sleep. He said he’d be back in the morning.”

  “Archer Trask? From my class?”

  “He was at the bar last night. He was a big help when you passed out.”

  There was something she wasn’t telling him, he thought, but he didn’t feel clearheaded enough to call her on it. He’d get it out of her later. “Have you called anyone from my office?”

  She shook her head. “Everything’s been so crazy here, waiting for you to wake up. Do you want me to call one of them?”

  “Call Maddox Heller. Tell him what’s happened. And then get him to come pick up you and my mom and take you to my place. Tell him I want someone to stay there with you until I’m released.”

  He had expected her to argue, but she simply inclined her head and said, “Okay.”

  Now he knew there was something going on that she wasn’t telling him.

  “They’re going to kick me out of here any minute, so do me a favor and get better, fast. Okay?”

  “Count on it.”

  At that moment, a nurse entered. “Well, look who’s awake.”

  “Hope I haven’t been too much trouble,” Mike said. “Have I been here long?”

  “A few hours. But your vitals have been improving steadily.” The nurse looked at Charlie, her expression sympathetic. “I’ll need you to skedaddle for a bit. Someone will let you know when Mr. Strong can have a visitor again. Meanwhile, why don’t you try to get some sleep. You don’t want to end up in here yourself.”

  Mike held on to Charlie’s hand when she tried to slip away. “Call Heller. And talk my mother into going home with you.”

  She bent and kissed his forehead. “Try not to rush this getting-better thing, okay? Do what the nurses and doctors tell you. I’ll be in touch soon.”

  He watched her leave, wanting to ask her to stay with a desperation that caught him by surprise. He wasn’t a guy who formed attachments easily. Life as a Marine had been a life constantly on the move, from base to base or battlefront to battlefront. He’d connected to his band of brothers with all the instant camaraderie of war, but romantic entanglements had been short-term affairs, no strings, with women who understood the score. But what was happening between him and Charlie felt different. Long-term and intense.

  Permanent? Maybe.

  He’d never thought of a relationship outside his family as permanent before. Could what he was feeling for Charlie be different?

  He had to get out of this hospital bed, he decided as the nurse finished taking his vitals. He needed to get back to Charlie. It was his j
ob to keep her safe. His job to help her unravel the hidden secrets of her past.

  He’d be damned if he was going to hand it off to anyone else.

  * * *

  “WHAT DO YOU THINK?” Archer Trask asked, his voice tense.

  Charlie peered at the video on the computer screen, trying to make out the fuzzy images on the security video. “He’s the right size, and the hoodie looks right. But the picture’s pretty awful.”

  “It’s the best we could do.” Trask sighed.

  “I know. I’m sorry. I just didn’t get a good look at him. He was basically a silhouette, and I didn’t see his facial features at all.”

  “It was a long shot at best.” He took the flash drive out of her computer and put it back in its evidence bag, which he stashed in his jacket pocket. He nodded at the open doorway, where Maddox Heller was standing guard. “What’s going on with the muscle?”

  Charlie saw Heller’s lips quirk in a half smile. “He’s keeping an eye on Mrs. Strong and me until Mike comes home.”

  Trask leaned against the window and cocked his head. “What aren’t you telling me, Charlie? You and Strong go to the bar where you and Alice spent her last night on earth, and he ends up in the hospital with a GHB overdose. Then he sends a bodyguard to watch you and his mother until he can get home. Does he think you’re a target or something?”

  “I think maybe we’re both targets now,” she admitted.

  “When did this start?”

  “Well, for me, I started getting the feeling I was being watched or followed a few weeks ago, after I started having the dreams about Alice’s death. I tried to contact Craig Bearden, to see if he’d talk to me, but he never returned my call.”

  “What kind of message did you leave?”

  “I told him I thought I was remembering things about that night, and I wanted to talk to him about it.”

  Trask’s gray eyes narrowed. “And he never called back?”

  “That’s weird, isn’t it?” Charlie worried her lower lip between her front teeth. “You’d think if there was anything new about the case, he’d want to know about it. But he never called, never sent an email or anything.”