A new pain clamped onto his skull. Picture? Footage? His head was spinning. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I would never have hurt that woman.” He knew that. He’d never been violent. Angry, yes. Panicked and shouting. But he’d never hurt anyone. Even in the heat of those nightmares in his first weeks back, he’d never been violent. Ever.
He closed his eyes. They had to believe him. Only it wasn’t true. He had been violent with the Afghan woman. Behind his eyelids he could see the unnatural angle of her neck, the sickening crack it had made when it had broken.
All of that for nothing.
The doctor had found something in his tox screen, an unfamiliar drug that might be responsible for the seizure. Had it made him violent? Was he responsible for Abigail Jensen’s death?
Oh God. What if . . . his throat clamped closed. His lungs burned as he struggled to breathe. He couldn’t get air. He gripped the thin hospital sheet in both fists. The buzzing of a chainsaw filled his head, drowning out the voices around him.
A hand on his. He looked down and saw the long, thin fingers. What was happening?
“What should I do?” Lily asked.
When he looked up, the detective and the patrol officer were gone.
He felt a wave of anger at her. This had all started when she’d shown up. Then she’d lied to the police.
She took a step backward, pulling her hand away. “Iver?”
He put a shaking hand over his eyes. It wasn’t her fault. His blackout had happened before she’d come to his house. The night before. She had been trying to help him. Or had she?
“Should I call someone?” she asked, keeping her distance. Was she afraid of him? For him? He wanted to reach out, to feel her hand in his, but he held himself still, focused on his breath.
“Do you have an attorney?” she asked.
He shook his head. The only attorney he knew was the one who had handled his father’s estate. But he would start there. “I need my phone.”
Lily pointed to the bedside tray. “It’s there.”
Iver grabbed the phone and texted Mike. He’d have to handle the bar. Or close it down. He paused. Mike had said something about going out of town. Hell. This trumped his vacation plans, didn’t it? He asked Mike to call him, ASAP, or he’d have to put someone else in charge of the bar. Kevin, maybe.
As he searched for the attorney in his contacts, he heard the door open. He looked up. Lily was leaving. “Wait.”
She looked back, her eyes glassy.
“I didn’t do this,” he said.
“I believe you.”
He studied her face. Did she really? The evidence was damning. He couldn’t worry about what Lily thought. He had bigger issues. Much bigger issues. “Will you watch Cal? Just until I can figure something else out?”
“Of course.” Her eyes were clear, open, trusting. God, he hoped she trusted him. He needed her trust.
Just then, his phone buzzed in his hand. Mike. Iver answered the call and explained what had happened.
“We’re not even an hour outside of town,” Mike said. “We can come back. What do you need?”
Iver exhaled. Of course Mike would change his plans. They’d always have each other’s backs. By the time he looked up again, the room was empty.
Lily was gone.
CHAPTER 35
KYLIE
Kylie left the inpatient corridor and returned to the hospital’s main entrance. Down the other hallway—the hospital only had two—was a small empty conference room she’d noticed once or twice. She ducked inside for some privacy to contact Sheriff Davis.
While Kylie waited for Marjorie to put her through to his office, she again looked at the image of Larson they’d found in Sarah Ollman’s pictures. There wasn’t enough of the woman’s profile in the photograph to be able to confirm that the woman whose arm Larson was gripping was actually Abigail Jensen. Her head was turned away from the camera, leaving only a section of her chin, her hair, and part of her arm. Kylie wanted to put the photo on a larger screen, zoom in to make out some detail on the woman’s hand in order to confirm she was Jensen, but she hadn’t had time.
As soon as Marjorie put her through to Sheriff Davis, the first sound she heard was the telltale screeching of a chair. They were in Vogel’s office.
“Milliard, hi,” Davis said. “You make the arrest?”
“I did, sir, but Larson’s in the hospital, and his doctor wants to hold him for observation for another day or two. I’ve got Gilbert stationed outside his door now, and I’ve requested another patrol officer to relieve Gilbert. We’ll have to keep an officer posted until his release.”
“What the hell is he in the hospital for?” Vogel said.
“Hello, DA Vogel,” Kylie said. “One of our patrol officers and Lily Baker entered Larson’s home and found him in the midst of a seizure. An ambulance brought him to the hospital two hours ago.”
“Christ,” Vogel muttered.
“It’s only a day or two,” Davis said, “and as long as we’ve got someone posted on the door full time, we’ll get him soon enough.”
“Yes, sir,” Kylie said.
“In the meantime, let’s get this case airtight,” Davis added.
“As you know, I spoke to the lab about sharpening the image of Larson in Sarah Ollman’s photographs.”
“The lab conclusively matched the blood type from Larson’s truck to Jensen,” Vogel said.
“Yes. The blood is A positive, same as Jensen,” Kylie said. “I just checked with Larson’s doctor, and he is O positive.”
Davis made a whistling sound, and Vogel must have moved energetically because his chair let out a tremendous shriek. She paused a moment in anticipation of the break, but it didn’t come.
“It turns out that A positive and O positive are the two most common blood types, representing approximately two-thirds of the Caucasian population.” She didn’t mention that some of the information had come from Lily Baker and not the doctor, but Kylie had confirmed it with Google. “DNA results will take weeks or longer. When I spoke to the lab, they were still processing the fiber from the truck and the glass from the bar. We’re waiting for confirmation that the shoes belong to Abby. The fingerprints are smudged, but we’re hoping the state lab can make the match.” Kylie glanced at her phone screen. It was after seven now. “The lab’s closed for the weekend now.”
“Great,” Davis said. “We won’t see anything until Monday.”
The sound of Vogel speaking reached her, but the words were muffled.
“Sorry?” she said.
“I’d like you to follow up with Pamela Nolan. Make sure she has an alibi for her husband’s accident,” Davis said, and she wondered if that was what Vogel had whispered.
“Right,” she said. “Did you receive the highway patrol report about the accident? Everything at the scene indicates that the car hit ice and spun. Ross said the guardrails are outdated, so that’s how the car was able to break through.”
“He shared that with us,” Davis said. “But we still need to confirm that alibi, especially if she knew her husband was with Lily Baker that night.”
“She said she’d driven from home the morning after his accident,” Vogel cut in. “We’re crossing our t’s on this one,” he went on. “I don’t want anyone coming back and saying that we screwed it up.”
Kylie pulled out a chair and sat down. “You mean, like maybe Mrs. Nolan ran her husband off the road?”
“If he was having an affair and she found out . . . stranger things have happened,” Davis said.
“But there’s no evidence of another car in the accident,” Kylie said. “How do we think she might have been involved?”
“She could have been standing in the road or caused some other obstruction,” Vogel announced with a huff. “Is it far fetched? Yes. But it won’t take much to confirm the alibi.”
She thought about the hair in the passenger seat, Lily Baker’s fingerprints. Baker had given her nothing, and
Nolan’s accident was just that, an accident. Following up on his wife’s alibi was stupid busy work—busy work that could have been done by anyone. Hell, they could have Marjorie in Dispatch make the call, if they were so intent on having it be women’s work. If they kept her processing traffic accidents and chasing false leads, she’d never get back to Fargo. Kylie was the detective. She needed to focus on the murder investigation.
She drew a deep breath and cracked her knuckles, one by one, feeling some of the frustration seep out with the tightness in the joints. It was just another example of Hagen’s boys’-club bullshit, keeping the rising star detective in her place. But it wasn’t worth a fight, not with these two. “Okay. I’ll talk to Mrs. Nolan.”
“Good girl,” Vogel said.
Kylie took a long, slow breath before saying goodbye and ending the call. Good girl. She popped every knuckle on both hands, blowing out a breath as she counted to ten. If Glen Vogel called her girl in person, she was going to shove him out of that damn chair.
Kylie stepped out into the cold evening air and fingered her car keys. Larson would be in the hospital for another day, and the lab was still working on the evidence. Tonight, though, all she wanted was to go home and put her feet up, look more closely at the image of Iver Larson and that woman, and find something to link the picture to Jensen. It had to be there. They were so close she could taste it.
As she started for her car, a voice called to her from behind. She turned back to see Dr. Prescott.
Her stomach fell. “Did something happen with Larson?”
“No. He’s fine. But if you have a minute, there’s something I’d like to show you.”
Kylie stepped back to the hospital entrance. “Sure.”
“I’m new to Hagen,” Prescott said. “And I don’t know Mr. Larson from Adam, but I think you should see this.”
“Sure,” Kylie said again, crossing her arms as Prescott opened a manila folder and pulled out a piece of paper. The wind picked up and snapped the page in her hand. Kylie took it and walked back through the automatic doors and into the still-warm air of the hospital. How close she’d been to getting out of there. She scanned the page and frowned. “What am I looking at?”
“This is the report from Mr. Larson’s blood draw. We found this compound in his blood.” She pointed to a long chemical name and, below it, a weird shape that reminded Kylie of how poorly she’d done in geometry.
“What is it?”
“Flurazepam. It’s a very fast-acting sedative. He says he’s never taken this drug.”
“He’s probably lying.”
“Perhaps,” Prescott said. “But it’s not a drug he’s ever been prescribed, and he has a similar drug in his medicine cabinet to help with sleep. So why take a new drug?”
“I can’t answer that, Doctor.” Kylie turned to go.
“Detective, this drug also has a relatively long half-life—forty-seven to one hundred hours.”
Kylie gave her a blank stare.
Prescott nodded. “Based on the concentration in his blood, if this was given to him earlier in the week as he suggested, then Mr. Larson ingested a lot of it. A much larger dose than is indicated for his insomnia.”
Kylie exhaled. “I don’t know what you’re saying, Doctor.”
“I’m saying that this drug would normally knock someone out. But with Mr. Larson’s other medications, the physical reaction could have been quite unexpected.”
Kylie’s ears perked up at the doctor’s words. “Could this drug have made him angry or violent?”
“Actually, this drug on its own should have sedated Mr. Larson.”
Kylie shook her head. “We have evidence that Larson showed aggressive behavior Wednesday.” She handed the paper back. “So maybe he took it Thursday.” She’d certainly want to take a lot of sedative if she’d killed someone.
“Perhaps,” Prescott said. “It’s also possible that in combination with his regular medications, the sedative effect was mitigated. The contraindications of these drugs together—the ones he takes normally and this particular drug—have been known to cause aggressive behavior. It’s not common, Detective, but it can happen.”
Kylie pulled out a notebook and recorded what Prescott had said, along with her name. “That’s very helpful. They teach that in med school?”
“Actually, I called a pharmaceutical rep friend to get it sorted out. But that’s not all,” Prescott went on with a glance over her shoulder.
Kylie held her pen poised. This was going to be great for the trial.
“While the drug interaction has been reported to cause aggressive behavior, flurazepam’s side effects include blackouts and a severe lack of physical coordination. Not to mention that it’s also likely behind the seizure.”
Kylie stopped writing. “Severe lack of physical coordination?”
“It’s not my place to speculate, Detective. But from what I have learned, this medication may have caused anger, but it would also have made it difficult to strangle someone. His strength would have been diminished and his hand-eye coordination off.”
Kylie put her notebook away. “It doesn’t take that much coordination to wrap your hands around someone’s neck and squeeze.”
Prescott closed the folder. “But it takes a lot of strength. And it requires even more to lift a hundred-and-forty-pound woman into a dumpster.”
“But it’s possible that he took the drug after Wednesday? Like yesterday or even earlier today?”
“Yes.”
“Is there any way to isolate when the drug entered his system?”
“Not unless we know how much he took to begin with. Then we could extrapolate with the drug’s half-life.”
This would come up in the trial. “But what if you took another blood sample in twenty-four hours? Wouldn’t the difference help you calculate how much he had to start with?”
The doctor looked momentarily flushed. “I’m not certain. It’s outside my expertise. I’d have to do some research.”
“Please do. And if it will allow you to identify when he took the medication, please run the blood tests as often as necessary. It could be the difference between freedom and a life in prison.”
“I will,” Prescott said.
“And let’s keep it between us for now.”
She didn’t want Larson’s attorney to stop the tests.
“I’ll need Mr. Larson’s approval.”
“Well, tell him it’s so we can find out when he was drugged. If he says he didn’t take that stuff, then someone else gave it to him.”
“I will.”
Kylie turned to leave again, but as she reached the doors, she turned back. “Thank you, Dr. Prescott.”
The woman smiled.
It was obvious Dr. Prescott was hoping the drug test might exonerate Larson. Fine with Kylie. She was hoping it would tighten the noose on his neck.
CHAPTER 36
LILY
As Lily left Iver’s hospital room, it was impossible not to feel like she was the reason that he’d been arrested. But the shoes in his truck? The blood? She hadn’t done that. She just didn’t believe he could have killed someone.
Maybe you’re not a very good judge of character.
But what if she was right? What if he was innocent? Maybe she hadn’t been with him when Abby was killed, but she had been with Abby that night. Wasn’t that what she remembered? The two of them standing in the snow, in the woods? That was near the bar. They’d been huddled together, shivering. She could feel the fear as intensely as in that moment. Someone was coming. He was coming. But not Iver.
She squeezed her eyes closed and tried to picture a face, but the only one she could see was Abby’s—the intensity of her friend’s eyes as they scanned the dark, the pupils large with terror. And then her friend lying in the snow. Not moving.
She would go to the police. She had to. Whatever memory lurked on the periphery of her mind would identify the killer and prove it wasn’t Iver Larson.
&nbs
p; Lily clenched Iver’s truck keys in her fist and made her way toward the hospital exit. Walking toward the doors, she passed Dr. Prescott, who was striding down the hallway in the opposite direction. The doctor nodded without a word.
Outside, Detective Milliard was crossing the parking lot.
Lily called out, and Milliard spun around. Lily ran toward her. “Detective!”
“I can’t talk about the case,” the detective said, opening her car door.
“Please. I need to talk to you. There’s something you need to know.”
Milliard turned back, her eyes angry. “Now you want to come clean?”
“I’m sorry.” Lily scanned the parking lot. They stood in the exact spot where Tim Bailey’s wife had found her and Tim the morning before. One day ago. How was it possible? “I was scared.”
“Fine,” Milliard said. “Talk.”
Lily pulled her sweatshirt down over her hands and tucked them under her arms. A heavy bank of dark clouds had rolled in, and it pressed down on her, making the open parking lot feel small. Her gaze scanned the icicles that clung to the edge of the hospital’s roof, the slush that collected along the curb and at their feet. Anywhere but the detective’s face, which was still hard. Confess. She just had to confess. But she was slow to speak, trying to find a way to break the seal of the secrets she’d been holding. How much did she admit? If she said the wrong thing, would she end up in jail with Iver?
Milliard sighed. “It’s late, Baker, and it’s been a long day.”
Lily straightened her back. “I was in the car with Brent Nolan when he had the accident.”
“No shit,” Milliard said. “What caused it?”
Lily swallowed something sharp. “I don’t remember.”
“Christ.” Milliard opened her car door again and turned to get in.
Lily grabbed hold of the door. “Please. It’s the truth. I don’t remember. Not the accident, not anything.”
The detective stood motionless, waiting.
“I swear to you,” Lily whispered. “I have no memories. I don’t remember anything before waking up in that car, on the overpass. I mean, I have a few memories, but they’re jumbled, like a dream.”
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