Broken Grace Page 12

  “You can talk to me. If you remember anything. I’m on your side.”

  But those words, I’m on your side, took on a menacing tone as they repeated in her head. A little voice inside suddenly wondered if this was a trap, if she could trust him. Maybe this was a good cop/bad cop routine. But how could they trap her into some sort of confession when she didn’t know anything? She sat back, distancing herself, suddenly anxious.

  Officer Hackett looked around the room, combing his fingers through his thick, dark hair. “I wish I could snap my fingers and give you your memories. But I want you to know that I’m working on leads that are pointing away from you.”

  “Like what?”

  He hesitated. “Michael won a lot of money the day before he was killed. Ten thousand dollars. I’m thinking maybe his death was about the money, that someone knew about the winnings, or maybe he owed someone a lot of money.”

  “I wish that meant something to me. It doesn’t.”

  “There’s also reason to believe someone may have had a longstanding beef with Michael. Someone threw a rock through his window, and about a year ago his tires were slashed . . .”

  “On my birthday,” she said. Shit. She couldn’t say what Lisa had shared, that she’d done it.

  “Do you remember that?” Hackett asked.

  “I don’t know, exactly.” She smiled, nervousness pinballing through her. “This must seem nuts to you.”

  “Not at all.” He stood and walked to the mantel before turning back to face her. “Grace, do you remember your boss, Dave Jacks?”

  She swallowed hard, remembering the unpleasant feeling when he’d touched her on the beach. If she’d cheated on Michael, that wouldn’t look good. “I . . . met him. I went to the restaurant for my check.” That was true. “Why?”

  “I think he has feelings for you.”

  She said nothing. She felt trapped again. Maybe he was just supposed to come here with his good looks and his kind smile and trick her into some sort of confession. “I’m sorry, I don’t feel very good. I think I’d better lie down now.”

  Hackett nodded, obviously surprised, but he walked to the door, then turned back. “I’m on your side. I just wanted you to know that.”

  She watched him walk to his car. Was she getting paranoid? His face, his expression, his voice soothed her, but he was a cop. There’d been a murder and she was a suspect. Lisa had warned her not to say too much. And suddenly she was equally sure she shouldn’t tell Officer Hackett’s gruff partner that he’d been to see her.

  She went to the kitchen and poured a cup of coffee, but before she could even take a sip, she heard her phone vibrating in her purse. When she pulled out the phone, a reminder filled the screen: She was supposed to see that doctor today.

  She put down the coffee and got dressed, her heart pounding. The appointment was in an hour. This doctor knew her. If she was a therapist, she was bound to have some answers. Grace swung into the kitchen to grab her purse and looked down at the pill piles. Her head was feeling okay and her ribs were less sore than the day before. She was getting stronger. She needed to stay clear to drive. She put the pills in her pocket and mapped out the address.

  THIRTEEN

  WHEN HACKETT ARRIVED AT THE STATION, he went straight for the coffee machine for a strong dose of caffeine. Seeing Grace this morning, making her smile, had brought a jolt of energy he’d needed, though there was something distant in her reactions. She obviously didn’t remember him at all. He wondered if she ever would.

  His initial silence about knowing her was starting to feel like it might back up, roll him over, and crush him. Maybe if he’d come forward, Bishop could have dealt with it, let him off the hook. But it was too late now. He needed to be sure the real perp was found. For all he knew, whoever killed Michael could have intended to harm Grace too. She could be in danger.

  But Alice’s comments at the bar last night hadn’t made him feel any better about his secrets. He’d lain awake much of the night, wondering if she knew who Grace was. He’d been to The Pub too often to count since moving in last summer, and he’d only seen Grace there twice, so maybe he had nothing to worry about. But saying that to himself didn’t help him sleep any better. He’d even pulled up An Officer and a Gentleman on the tablet, watching until about four a.m., thankful to be absorbed in the story and chuckling when he heard the dialogue Bishop had mimicked. Though if he’d realized it would be a love story, he’d have watched Stripes instead.

  Bishop was on the phone when Hackett got to his desk. They’d asked forensics to rush the tests of Grace’s clothes from the accident, so Hackett called the crime lab to see if they’d made any progress. Miles said it would be another day or two before he had an answer, but then came the zinger: “Hey, I did get that drug identified though,” Miles said.

  The pills they’d found at Dave Jacks’s place. “Yeah, what is it?”

  “Scopolamine. It’s prescribed for motion sickness.”

  “Jacks said they were vitamins, but that doesn’t sound too bad.”

  “Actually, it is. What you sent us wasn’t a prescription. Those were cold capsules that had been emptied and refilled with scopolamine powder.”

  Hackett frowned. “Do people take that to get high?”

  “Not that I know of. And the dose in those capsules was many times greater than what’s medically acceptable. Those are some dangerous pills.”

  “What do they do?”

  “On the street, it’s used in connection with criminal activity. Robberies, rape, things like that. Makes people totally submissive.” He went on to describe some of its side effects, including hallucinations and violence.

  Hackett took notes during the call, circling the drug name as they spoke. “Do you know how long it stays in the system?”

  “Depends what you mean. Its effects can be felt for nearly twelve hours. But it’s not easy to detect. Doesn’t come up in blood or urine tests. We could test his hair sample for it though. Drug tests on hair can go back, like, ninety days.”

  “What if it was given to him around five days before his death?”

  “I don’t think we’d be able to tell. It generally takes between five and ten days for drugs to show up in the hair. Sounds like he died before it would have gotten into the shaft.”

  “Can you do it anyway? Just to be sure.”

  When Hackett hung up, he shared the drug findings with Bishop.

  “What about Grace’s clothes?”

  “Nothing yet. But I think we should focus on Jacks and this drug for a minute. All that stuff of Grace’s from the hospital—it was all running gear. We know from Vicki Flynn’s text that Grace had planned to run on Saturday morning. Lisa seemed to think she could have been out running too. Or getting coffee after her run.”

  Bishop’s cell rang then, and after looking at the number, he walked into the break room to take it. A few minutes later, he returned and grabbed his coat from the chair. “That was my wife,” Bishop said. “I gotta go.”

  “Everything okay?”

  He shook his head. “Not really. She thinks it’s going to happen today. She wants me to pull the kids out of school and bring them up to the hospital to say good-bye to her mom.”

  “Oh God, I’m so sorry.”

  “I don’t think this is it. That old bird has faced death so many times. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if I get up there with the kids and she’s sitting up, smiling. But,” he continued, putting on his coat, “I do what I’m told. No one would forgive me if she’s right and they didn’t get to say good-bye.” He checked his watch. “Do me a favor. Put some pressure on the phone company about those cell records. I want the names of every person Grace called in the two days before the murder. If we’re lucky, maybe she even made a call in the car just before the crash. And call that other bartender from The Rack and see if he saw Cahill on that Wednesday. I’m
sorry to leave you hanging, kid. I’ll try and get back here by late afternoon.”

  Hackett nodded, idly tapping his pen against the notes in front of him.

  Bishop gave him a shove. “What are you thinking, rookie? You look a million miles away. You solve this case?”

  It was Miles’s comment about the effects of the drug in Jacks’s apartment. Memory issues, robberies, and that doctor at the urgent care said Michael had no memory of the day before. He’d had hallucinations and was violent with the staff until they’d sedated him. He looked up at Bishop. “Not yet,” he said, closing the notepad. “Sorry. I know you gotta go.”

  “I got a second. Out with it.”

  “I was just thinking. We didn’t find the ring or the casino winnings at the house. The ring wasn’t on Grace when she got to the hospital—I checked. Couldn’t this be a robbery?”

  Bishop bobbed his head from side to side. “Maybe, but nothing about this seems random. An iPad was sitting on the coffee table, and Cahill’s wallet too. If someone took that money, he or she was looking for it.”

  Hackett nodded, but a robbery felt like a viable angle. “If that Facebook comment was about the money, we know that every ‘friend’ he has saw that. And he has a ton of ‘friends.’ ”

  “But the only responses to the post were question marks and guesses. No one knew what it was about. There was nothing indicating that comment was about money or how much.”

  “What about the waitress’s friends?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “She posted the picture and tagged Cahill. Everyone in his network got that picture, but everyone in her network got it too. Her friends would know she works at the casino. Maybe they’d guess it was about a big win. Maybe someone did a little digging and saw him as a target.” Before Bishop could respond, Hackett rushed on. “Or maybe she posts pictures like that as a signal. She watches for big winners, takes a picture, and posts it. Next thing you know, these guys are robbed. Maybe this one went wrong and she’s skipped town. We need to find that waitress.”

  Bishop zipped up his jacket and put on his gloves and a hat. “Well, that’s not gonna happen before Friday,” he said. “We hardly have a basis for some national search for the woman. And I certainly hope you’re not right about this Facebook stuff.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I want the possibilities to narrow, not expand. We don’t solve this inside a few weeks, we’re looking at a case that’s going to get as cold as that snow.” He nodded toward the open field of frozen white outside the station window. “And Christmas is right around the corner. I’d love to be able to stamp this baby closed by then.”

  As soon as Bishop left, Hackett jumped online and began reading up on the black market uses of scopolamine, known on the street as Devil’s Breath, a pretty common street drug in South America, particularly Colombia. Even the US State Department website posted warnings for travelers to be wary of leaving drinks or food unattended in that region, where criminals use the drug to rob and rape. It was an odorless, tasteless powder, put in cigarettes, food, drinks, even blown into the faces of intended victims, who became little more than zombies, conscious and coherent but deprived of any reasoning skills. According to reports, once the drug wore off, victims had no memory of what had happened to them. One man learned that his bank account had been completely drained, and the investigation uncovered video footage of the same man walking into his bank with two strangers, calmly asking the teller for his money. He had no memory of it. Another victim, a mother desperate to find her son, reported waking up naked in the street with no understanding of what had happened to her. Her last memory had been of being on a bus with her child heading to the market. Colombian prostitutes reported giving it to victims before taking all their money.

  Hackett’s thoughts turned to Grace: Her memory loss wasn’t unlike victims of this drug. He looked down at his notebook, reviewing everything they knew. Her name was on those initial notes from the crime scene, her full name, as found on a cable bill by the door. Grace Abbott. Circled several times. Missing? Suspect? he’d written. He looked down, remembering the feel of her small hand in his and the moment he’d felt her fingers press against his, like it wasn’t just him. She’d felt something too. The guilt in her eyes had faded as he’d pulled her closer, and that kiss—hesitant, tender, but then so passionate—had filled his thoughts for days. She was It.

  The trail of blood had to lead to someone other than Grace. She wasn’t a murderer. She was the girl whose smile, whose eyes, had haunted him since they’d first met. The girl who’d made him see that he was going to be okay.

  The doctor’s office was a block from Brewster’s, right off the main strip in New Buffalo, on the second floor, above a coffee shop. Grace walked up the narrow staircase and knocked on the heavy wood door. “Come in,” she heard. It was a small reception area. An older woman, maybe fifty or sixty, smiled and said, “Hello, Grace. Take a seat. The doctor will be right with you.” Nothing about the woman, who had already turned back toward her computer screen, was familiar.

  Grace sat across from a large framed photograph of a lighthouse surrounded by thick ice, with pointed shards like spikes expanding toward the water. It was like a sculpture or an artifact from the ice age. She’d seen it before. Here? She stepped toward the photograph and read the description in tiny print at the bottom: ST. JOSEPH, MICHIGAN. How many times had she sat in this office?

  Grace flipped through a fashion magazine, unable to focus on anything other than the hope that Dr. Newell held answers. A heavyset man suddenly emerged from the inner office, avoiding eye contact, and behind him, a tall woman in black-rimmed glasses stood and smiled. “Come on in, Grace.”

  Grace followed the woman into her office and scanned the shelves, pictures, and furniture. Nothing sparked. The woman wore wool pants and a sweater, her perfectly cut platinum-blonde hair neatly pulled back. She looked like some sort of cross between sexy and smart, maybe forty, and she exuded control and confidence, everything Grace lacked. She sat in her chair and suggested Grace take a seat beside her on the sofa.

  Grace quickly explained the situation—the accident, the memory loss, Michael’s death. The doctor’s slightly raised brows were the only visible signs of surprise as she took notes. Grace stopped talking and watched the doctor continue to write for another minute.

  When Dr. Newell finished, she dropped her pen and sat back. “Well, I’m glad you’re okay, Grace, and I’m glad you’re here. I was concerned when you’d missed these last two weeks, but obviously this explains it.”

  “But you, of all people, can help me, right? I’m so foggy. I didn’t even remember making this appointment yesterday until I got a reminder on my phone. It’s like everything’s a dream. Not only my life before the accident but since then—like bits of each day disappear when I go to sleep. I only knew who you were when your assistant left me that voice-mail message because the police told me about some Xanax in the house you’d prescribed to me.”

  “Are you still taking them? Are you sleeping?”

  “The police have the pills. They’re evidence. There was Xanax in Michael’s system.”

  The doctor nodded, making another note.

  “But the hospital gave me a bunch of stuff for the pain and some stuff to help me sleep.”

  “Okay, I’d like to get the names of those medications.”

  “Why?”

  “There are a lot of potential side effects with medication, and it’s helpful for me to know what to look out for. Grace, you don’t remember why you were on the Xanax?”

  “No. I think the police are looking at me for this guy’s murder, and I’m starting to wonder if I could have done it. Apparently things were not good.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Well, you should know, right? I mean, if you were my therapist, what did I talk about?”

  “
A lot of things. What you wanted to do with your life, stresses you were having. And you were starting to talk about your parents a bit.”

  “How long have I been coming to you?”

  “About a month or so.”

  “When was the last time I came?”

  “You were supposed to come on Friday, the sixth, but you canceled.”

  “Did I say why?”

  “No.”

  The silence rose up between them. Eventually, Grace said, “I’ve learned that Michael had a temper. He was also apparently a gambler, a pot smoker, and a cheater.”

  Dr. Newell nodded and took more notes. “I had not heard any of that before.”

  “But then again, apparently, so was I.”

  Dr. Newell stopped writing and looked at her. “What do you mean?”

  “My boss at work seems to know me intimately. He wanted me to know that he didn’t kill Michael and he wants me to lean on him. The thought made me sick.”

  “And your boss”—she paused, reviewing pages in her notebook—“is that Dave?”

  “I mentioned him?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m starting to wonder if this memory loss is a way to avoid dealing with who I am and what I’ve done.”

  Dr. Newell closed the notebook, removed her glasses, and smiled at Grace. “I know that we didn’t have a lot of time together, but I’m pretty good at getting a sense of my patients, of knowing who’s unstable. I think you were—you are—a young woman trying to figure out what to do with her life. I never got the sense you would be capable of violence.”

  She wondered if she’d ever shared her history of punching walls and slashing tires. “Do you know about my childhood?”

  The doctor replaced her glasses and opened her notebook. “How do you mean?”

  Grace pulled up her shirtsleeve and offered her forearm as evidence. “I guess my dad did this to me.”