Think Twice

by Lisa Scottoline

  The other nurse said, “Hmm, looks like a dog bite on the right hand. She’ll need a shot, and we’ll clean her up. She looks like she’s been in a fight, from her hands. Odd. Definitely smells like she tied one on. I’ll take blood, for a tox screen.”

  “That right hand looks broken, doesn’t it? I’ll get her on the sked for X-ray. That’s the farmer’s shirt she’s wearing, with her skirt. He thinks she’d been with her boyfriend. She was almost topless when he picked her up.”

  “Jeez, think it’s a rape? Should we call the cops, get a kit?”

  “Triage put in a call, but the cops are on skeleton, with vacations and all. Playtime for everybody but us, eh?”

  “Everybody’s gone to the moon. You know that song? My dad loved that song. Wow, she has nice veins. She must work out.”

  “I don’t think we need the rape kit. It’s so intrusive, and her skirt’s not ripped or anything. Undies intact, no other signs.”

  “Good. Did she tell the farmer she’d been assaulted?”

  “Not that he told us, so no. No ID, wallet, handbag, phone. She didn’t give him any other information except that she was from Philly.”

  Bennie felt her right hand being manipulated, and miraculously, it didn’t hurt at all. She opened her eyes. “I’m feeling no pain.”

  “Understatement of the year,” the nurse in pink said, setting her hand down. “What’s your name? Do you remember how you hurt your hand?”

  “Uh huh.” Bennie wanted to tell them about Alice, but it was hard to form coherent thoughts. “I drank too much and . . . Alice put me in a hole.”

  “What? Can you repeat that? Are you on any medication? Miss? Miss?”

  Bennie felt herself doze off.

  “Miss, did you take any street drugs? Miss?”

  “Wicker.” She’d been trying to say whiskey and liquor, but it came out wrong.

  “Did you take street drugs of any kind?”

  “No, no, no.”

  “Are you on any medication?”

  Bennie wanted them to call the cops but couldn’t make the words. “I want to get . . . Alice. I have to tell you about Alice. We have to—”

  “Miss, what is your name?”

  “Bennie.”

  “Bonnie?”

  “Bennnneeee!”

  “Stay calm, don’t shout, I hear you. Penny, what’s your last name?” Bennie let it go. “Rosato.”

  “Risotto?”

  “Rosato.”

  “Arzado? Okay, Penny Arzado.”

  Bennie nodded. Close enough. It didn’t matter. She had to get Alice. Throw her in prison.

  “Penny, do you have health insurance? Do you know what kind of insurance you have?”

  Bennie couldn’t answer any more questions, or listen. She had to go to sleep.

  “Penny, talk to me. Penny?”

  Chapter Forty-eight

  Alice went downstairs to the kitchen, where Grady was cleaning up. It smelled like something good was baking, but she couldn’t tell what, because there was nothing on the stovetop and no ingredients on the counter.

  “Hey sweetheart.” Grady turned from the sink, drying a bowl. He set it down with the dishtowel and gave her a hug. “You didn’t have to come down. I told you, I was bringing it up.”

  “I thought I’d keep you company, maybe have a drink.”

  “Okay, good.” Grady released her and brushed a stray hair from her forehead. A look of pain crossed his eyes, deepening his crow’s feet. “I’m sorry all this happened, especially tonight. We’re in the kitchen when we should be upstairs.”

  You, man, you.

  “I’m sorry about last night, too. You know I have a better track record than that.”

  “I know.” Alice reached up and gave him a Bennie-like peck. “I want a rain check.”

  “You got it.” Grady grinned, his relief so obvious that she doubted he suspected her. Still, she wasn’t about to change her mind. He had officially became a loose end.

  “I forget if I have any wine.” Alice opened the cabinet above the refrigerator, but it held a stack of reusable shopping bags. She moved to the next cabinet, but it contained plastic bags of brown rice, a few cans, and boxes of spaghetti. “God, my head is killing me. I can’t even think where I put the wine.”

  “You don’t want wine with this anyway, do you?”

  Oops. “Tonight, I want wine with everything.”

  “I got milk, if you change your mind.” Grady opened the oven door, releasing the delicious smell of baking brownies.

  “I’ll get it.” Alice went to the refrigerator, turned her back to him, and seized her opportunity. Quickly she picked up the milk carton, popped off the cap, then grabbed a glass from the overhead cabinet. She poured the milk into the glass, then dropped the roofie into the drink. She took another glass from the cabinet and filled that one, too, taking her time so the roofie would have a chance to dissolve.

  “Looks like we’re good to go.”

  “I’ll get napkins.” Alice opened a drawer, retrieved two napkins, and set them next to the plates. She felt as if they were playing house, except that mommy was about to kill daddy.

  “Would you get the ice cream, too?”

  “Sure.” Alice went to the freezer, got a new tub of Cherry Garcia, and closed the freezer door. She took a scooper from the silverware drawer and set it all on the table, figuring that the roofie should be dissolved by now.

  “These look great, if I don’t say so myself.” Grady cut the brownies. “Of course, we won’t wait until it’s cool, because otherwise we won’t be able to burn the roofs of our mouths.”

  “Hear, hear,” Alice said, because it sounded like Bennie. She picked up both glasses and carried them to the table, making sure to give herself the one without the drug.

  “Am I good or am I good?” Grady wedged two brownies out of the dish, put them on the plates, and brought them over, then they sat down.

  “You are good.” Alice took a big bite of hot brownie, which was delicious. “Amazing.”

  “Thank you.” Grady popped a brownie into his mouth. “Not bad. Did you burn the roof of your mouth?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good.”

  “Agree.” Alice set down the brownie and took a drink of milk. Got Rohypnol?

  “So, brownies for dinner. Unorthodox, yet terrific.” Grady kept chewing, showing no sign of reaching for his milk.

  “Very terrific.” Alice could barely stand more stupid banter. She was afraid to speak for fear of saying the wrong thing and she was fresh out of brownie conversation.

  “Starting to feel better?” Grady asked. He kept not drinking his milk, and she wondered if he’d seen her slip the pill into his drink.

  “Absolutely, thanks.”

  “Brownies are nature’s cure-all. Your words.”

  “I’m right, as usual.”

  “You having ice cream?”

  “Not yet.” Alice couldn’t wait any longer. “How can you eat a brownie without milk?”

  “Ugh. When have you ever seen me drink a glass of milk? You know I hate it.”

  Damn! “How quickly they forget, huh? What’s your name again?” Alice laughed, hiding her flub.

  “Out of sight, out of mind.” Grady grinned crookedly, and Alice smiled, again. So he didn’t drink milk. Now she would have to figure out another way to drug him. She sipped her milk.

  Trying to remember which drawer had the butcher knives.

  Chapter Forty-nine

  Mary signed the last copy of the sales agreement, exhilarated and nervous, both at once. She was finally buying her own house, and it was a dream come true. On the downside, she didn’t know how Anthony would react and she’d never spent so much money in her life. When she saw how much of her mortgage payment went toward interest, she decided that the line between federal banking and organized crime was way too fine.

  “Well done.” Janine gathered the papers into a stack. “And your check? Can’t forget that.”

>   “No, we can’t, can we?” Mary opened her checkbook, made out a check for the earnest money, and handed it over. “Ta-da!”

  “Happy?”

  “Yes. Very.” Mary couldn’t help but clap. “I bought a house! All by myself!”

  “Good for you!” Janine laughed, her lipstick fresh after all these hours, though the same couldn’t be said for her linen suit. “But I have to warn you, your offer hasn’t been accepted yet and there’s still lots to do.”

  “Like what?”

  “We have to schedule the inspection within ten days, and there’s plenty of other details I’ll go through with you, if they accept.”

  Janine stuck the check and the thick packet of agreements in a manila envelope. “I’ll be back to you as soon as I can.”

  “Do you think it will be tonight?”

  “It could be, and if I have an answer, I’ll call you right away. What time do you go to bed?”

  “Call me anytime. I doubt I’ll sleep much, anyway.” Mary’s head was already swimming with thoughts of paint chips and swatches, rug samples and curtains. A homebody at heart, she’d dreamed of her first house like some girls dream of their wedding day. And wedding days weren’t something she wanted to think about right now.

  “The seller has forty-eight hours to either accept or reject our offer.”

  “Gotcha.” Mary walked the realtor to the door. “I should’ve known that, being a lawyer.”

  “A partner, even?”

  “Not yet, and don’t jinx me.” Mary opened her apartment door, and Janine gave her a businesslike hug.

  “Good luck!”

  “Thanks,” Mary said, surprised to find herself welling up.

  She closed the door and stood there, savoring the moment, alone. In the movies, she would have felt bad because she didn’t have anyone to share it with, but in reality, she didn’t mind. It was her moment, only. She’d worked for this moment every day since law school, and it had finally come to pass, because she willed it so. She had changed her life with the stroke of a pen. And a very large check.

  Ring! It was her cell phone, and she ran back to the kitchen, where she’d left her BlackBerry. She picked it up and checked the display. Anthony, read the screen, and Mary braced herself.

  “Hello?” she said, pressing the green button.

  “Hey.” Anthony sounded subdued. “Sorry I missed your call. I was at my mother’s, fixing her sink.”

  Mary swallowed hard. “Sorry if I got hysterical. I needed to make a decision, and I did.”

  “So?”

  “I made an offer on the house.” Mary’s mouth went dry. “I hope you understand. If you want, I’ll come over and we can talk. It’s probably not a conversation we should have over the telephone.”

  “Well, I’m happy for you.” Anthony’s tone softened, and Mary could hear the genuine emotion in his voice.

  “Thanks.”

  “You should be proud of yourself. I’m proud of you, and I’m sorry for what I said in the house today and the way I spoke to you.”

  “I’m sorry, too,” Mary said, biting her lip. She almost rather that he’d yell at her or be angry. She heard a new resignation in his voice, and a finality.

  “We have a major issue that we should explore, and I think you’re right, we shouldn’t do it over the phone. Let’s give this some thought, then we can talk about it another time. Does that sound good?”

  Gulp. “Sure, you free for dinner tomorrow?”

  “I think it will take me a little longer than that. I need some perspective. I think we need to take a break.”

  Mary felt stricken. Suddenly she heard a beep on the phone that meant another call was coming in, but she wasn’t about to interrupt him. “I don’t think we need a break.”

  “We do. I do.”

  “For how long?”

  “I don’t know. I’ll call you.”

  “Anthony, are we breaking up?”

  “I don’t know. I’m sorry. I have to go. I’ll call you. Bye.”

  Mary hung up, anguished. It was one thing to tell yourself you can accept the consequences, but another when they actually happen. Still she wouldn’t take the decision back, even now. Buying the house was either the best or the worst thing she had ever done.

  Does being me cost me you?

  The BlackBerry beeped, signaling that someone had left a message. It could have been Janine or a client, so she pressed a button for voicemail and a message came on.

  “DiNunzio, it’s me.”

  It was Bennie, but she sounded strained.

  “Don’t worry, I’m fine, but I’m calling you from Pellesburg Hospital, which is God knows where. I need you to feed and walk Bear. Ask my neighbor next door, with the red shutters, for my house key. Then call Marshall and tell her to cancel all my credit cards. Call me back and I’ll tell you the details. I don’t know the hospital’s main number, just call me back.”

  Mary pressed END, bewildered. Bennie was in the hospital? What happened? Was it some kind of accident? What was she doing in Pellesburg, wherever that was? And why all this stuff with the credit cards?

  Mary checked her phone log, which showed the last call, so she pressed the number and a woman answered, “Pellesburg Hospital.”

  “I’d like to speak to Bennie Rosato. She’s a patient there.”

  “Thank you.” There was a clicking sound, then the operator said, “We have no one here by that name.”

  “I’m sure she’s there. She just called me a minute ago.”

  “Sorry, but I show no listing for a Bennie Rosato, and in any event I couldn’t ring a patient’s room at this hour. We don’t permit calls after ten.”

  “But she just called me.”

  “I show no one by that name, and as I say, we do not permit patients to receive calls after ten. Call tomorrow morning after eight o’clock.”

  Mary felt confounded. “But she said it’s an emergency. That I should call her back.”

  “Please call back in the morning. Those are the rules.”

  “Thank you,” Mary said, and hung up, worried. If Bennie said it was an emergency, it had to be an atomic bomb. She felt honored that Bennie would call her for help. They really had turned a corner in their relationship.

  Partners!

  Chapter Fifty

  Bennie left a message for DiNunzio, then hung up the bedside phone. Her head was clear, and so was her mission. She had to get Alice. It wouldn’t be easy to find her, now that she had such a head start, but it was all Bennie could think about. Being in that box had changed her, she could feel it. Something had happened to her. She felt different, inside.

  Her right hand was in a splint wrapped with an Ace bandage, and her left was bandaged in gauze, but she wrestled with the thick guardrail to put it down and threw off the cotton coverlet. Cuts and bruises covered her legs, her feet were swollen, and two toes on each one had been bandaged together. She swung her legs out of bed, leaned on the IV stalk, and was standing up, painfully, when a nurse entered the room and rushed over.

  “No! Please, don’t get up.” The nurse looked about fifty years old, and had concerned brown eyes, a graying braid, and white scrubs with dancing kittens. “You’re not ready to walk around yet and you’ll disturb the IV.”

  “I need to get to the police. I can’t wait any longer.” Bennie knew she sounded abrupt, but it was as if she couldn’t help it. She wasn’t herself.

  “We called them, twice. We called in triage, and so did my supervisor. Please, sit down.” The nurse pressed on her shoulder, firmly, and Bennie sat back on the bed, for the moment.

  “What did the cops say? Why aren’t they here?”

  “They said they’d come and take your statement as soon as they could. We have only a small force, not like a big city.” The nurse checked the IV and rolled the metal stalk back into place. “Right now, you must be still. I’m surprised you’re even awake.”

  “Will you call them again, or ask the supervisor to?”

>   “I will, and if they arrive in the meantime, I’ll show them right in. Do you remember the last time you ate or drank anything?” The nurse reached into a metal basket on the wall and retrieved a blood pressure cuff.

  “Friday night, at dinner with my sister. She gave me a drug, then she tried to kill me. She buried me alive in a box, in a field—”

  “I saw something like that in your file. You told that to triage, in the ER.” The nurse wrapped the cuff around Bennie’s arm. “How did you injure your hand? You have a small break.”

  “I had to get out of the box, then there was a wolf. It attacked me and I had to fight it off.”

  The nurse lifted an eyebrow, pumping the black rubber bulb. “You were under the influence when you arrived. Do remember what you had to drink?”

  “Whiskey. The man who picked me up gave it to me.”

  “I see.” The nurse cocked her head, eyeing her watch and listening for the telltale tick, then she released the bulb and the cuff deflated. “Your blood pressure is quite high. Did you use any drugs of any kind, whether prescription or street?”

  “As I said, my sister drugged my wine, without my knowledge. I don’t know what she gave me, but it knocked me out. She’s my twin and she’s jealous and resentful of me.” Bennie could see the nurse didn’t believe her, but was too polite to say so. “When can I get out of here? I need to see the police. I really am a crime victim. This was attempted murder. She stole my car and my wallet, too.”

  “You will not be released tonight. Doctor’s orders. You’re under observation until we have your vitals back to normal and you’re stabilized.” The nurse tried to press her down toward the pillow, but Bennie stayed sitting up.

  “I want to leave. I can discharge myself.”

  “Please, if you try to get out of bed again, I’ll have to call security.” The nurse pursed her lips. “Please, cooperate. We already called the police. They’ll be here as soon as possible.”

  “I have a better idea.” Bennie picked up the telephone receiver, but there was no dial tone and she hung up. “What’s the matter with the phone?”

  “Calls are not permitted after ten o’clock.”