Blood Lies (3 page)

I stumbled out of Emily’s apartment in a state beyond exhaustion. I had no idea whether Helen or Rick had bought my explanation for glossing over my engagement to Emily. Nor did I care.

I needed a fix. Anything to settle my inner tumult. As soon as I parked the car, I changed and grabbed my helmet. Fifteen minutes later, I was pushing my mountain bike as hard as I could through the trails. Every stump, bump, and jump was a welcome distraction. The branch that nearly decapitated me brought the first smile to my face in hours. A mental train wreck, I should’ve known better than to hop on a mountain bike. But I needed the rush. No matter how steep or treacherous the hill, I couldn’t ride fast enough.

Nothing worked. I couldn’t shed the vision of Emily sitting lifeless against the same bed where we used to make love. And that damn engagement gift from my brother! I never even liked the book. I always associated it with the beginning of the end for Emily and me.

Six years earlier, twenty-eight years old and fresh out of ER residency, I was determined to knock down my debt load. I vacuumed up shifts no one else wanted, which meant I wound up working a lot of weekends and nights. I’d just finished one such brutal Friday-evening shift at St. Jude’s. (An inner city hospital, St. Jude’s is the Ellis Island of Seattle—welcoming, with varying degrees of enthusiasm, her poor, huddled masses of disenfranchised psychiatric patients and addicts.)

The downtown had been in a surly mood that Friday. Her denizens couldn’t punch, club, stab, or shoot each other fast enough. But it didn’t dampen my mood. Stitching up the slit that, thanks to a cheated hooker wielding a wine bottle, ran from ear to ear along the scalp of my final patient, I hummed loud enough that the old drunk warbled along with the tune.

At one
A.M.
, I changed out of my scrubs, grabbed the bouquet of flowers (that had drawn so many friendly digs from the staff) from the bedpan-cum-vase in the staff lounge, and raced home to my new fiancée.

Hoping to rouse her from sleep—one of our favorite ways to initiate lovemaking—I was disappointed to hear noise coming from inside the apartment. I opened the front door to find a small party in the living room.

“Welcome home, bro!” Aaron rose from the chair and greeted me with a hug before heading into the kitchen.

“You didn’t need to bring flowers,” my cousin, Kyle Dafoe, called from the couch where he sat with an arm draped around his flavor-of-the month hard-bodied girlfriend. “Your presence alone is sunshine enough for me.”

“I’ve got something other than flowers in mind for you,” I said. “Something a lot heavier.”

“Join the club.” Kyle laughed. “Good to see you, Ben. Been way too long.”

I followed Aaron into the kitchen. I stuffed the flowers into a vase.

“Beer?” Aaron asked from behind the open fridge door.

I nodded. “Where’s Em?”

“Bathroom.” Aaron handed me a cold bottle. “How was work?”

I took a long swig, savoring the cool sweetness. “Usual Friday-night crowd.” I pointed to the counter, littered with empty beer bottles and a nearly drained twenty-six-ouncer of Johnnie Walker Red Label. “I’m surprised none of you ended up there.”

I heard Emily’s voice from behind me. “Honey, it’s a celebration!” I smelled her perfume as her arms wrapped around my waist, hugging me from behind. “And you brought lilies! My favorite. God, you’re sweet.”

I spun to face her. I hadn’t seen her in three days, and her cropped blond hair came as a surprise. I’d never seen her with short hair. It framed her sharp features, full lips, and blue eyes, somehow changing the accent on her face, making it rounder. Softer. Sexier, too. The haircut, the tank top showing off her rippled midriff, and our time apart melded into a dizzying aphrodisiac. I wished away the guests. I wanted to take her right there.

Reading my face, she whispered one word
—Soon—
in my ear.

“What are we celebrating?” I was concerned she might have told my cousin about our engagement.

She understood immediately.
Not that,
she mouthed with a wink. “I heard from school today.”

“You heard!” I picked her up and spun her around. “And?”

Still in my arms, she kissed me full on the mouth. Her soft tongue slipped between my teeth, arousing me to the point that I ignored the faint taste of alcohol on her breath. She pulled her face back a few inches. “You just French-kissed an MBA,” she said, beaming.

“Cheers!” Kyle called out from the sofa, and drained the last of the scotch from his glass tumbler. “Now it’s official, Emily. You’re way too good for him.”

I laughed. “Kyle might have a point.”

She cupped my face in her hands and kissed me on the nose. “I’ll never be good enough.” Her smile flickered. “I love you.”

“An MBA, Em!” I kissed her on the lips again. “We’re gonna be rich!”

“We’ll see about that, tiger-boy.” She jumped on me, almost knocking me into the fridge. Her lithe legs straddled my waist. The pressure of her pelvis against mine was deadly sexy. She whispered in my ear, “We’ve got to lose these guys. I can’t wait much longer.” Her tongue darted in and out of my ear.

“You’re the one with the master’s degree in ruthlessness.” I laughed. “Cut the deadweight loose, while I go use the john.”

Washing my hands at the bathroom sink, my smug smile stared back at me in the cabinet mirror. I couldn’t fault myself too much for it. I was as happy as I could remember. Things had finally fallen in place for us.

Not for long.

Turning off the tap, I noticed the little red straw that had fallen behind the faucet. It looked as innocuous as a straw from a child’s juice box, but I knew better. I stared at the nasty remnant for a long time. Snatching it up, I crumpled it into a twisted mess. Fucking junk! I stomped out of the bathroom, squeezing the straw in my fist until it stung.

When I got back to the living room, Aaron and Emily were sitting on the couch with their feet resting on the coffee table. Aaron was drinking a beer, Emily a mineral water. Kyle and his girlfriend were nowhere to be seen.

Emily thumbed at my brother. “He wouldn’t leave.”

Aaron shrugged. “Don’t know what Kyle’s rush was, either. It’s early.” He grinned. “And it’s not even a school night for his girlfriend.”

Emily patted the couch beside her, but I stood firm.

Aaron pulled out a wrapped package from behind his back. “Now that it’s just us, no harm in celebrating your hush-hush engagement.” He held out the gift, but I didn’t move.

Emily took it out of it his hands. “You’re too sweet!” She leaned over and kissed him on the cheek.

“What can I say?” Aaron shrugged. “Good-looking as he is, you picked the wrong brother.”

“You wish.” Emily tore open the package. Her forehead crinkled. Tears welled in her eyes. “Oh, Aaron…” She cradled the baby-name book in her hands, as if
it
were a baby.

Aaron gently reached into her hands and flipped the cover open to the page with his inscription. He tapped it. “No joke. I want to see some nieces and nephews. As in yesterday.”

They both looked at me for a reaction, but I stood stone-faced.

Aaron grinned. “Too masculine for you, huh, Ben? Knew I should’ve got something else. A tea cozy, lace doilies, or maybe those little frilly—”

I held out my hand and opened my fist, revealing the bent straw. Aaron stopped in mid-joke. The room fell into cold silence. Emily looked away.

“That’s mine,” Aaron finally said.

I stared at Emily. “You promised, Em.”

He stood up from the couch and stopped within arm’s reach of me, blocking my path to her. “You hear me, Ben? I brought the coke. She didn’t touch it.”

I eyed him ferociously. “You and Kyle, and your goddamn drugs!” I was as close as I’d been since we were twelve to punching him. “You bring this crap over to our place? To Emily, when you know…” I shook my head in disgust. “You had no right.”

“Are you listening, Ben?” His voice rose to match mine. “She didn’t touch it.”

“Don’t play me for an idiot!” It was as if I was yelling at my own reflection in the mirror. “Look at her bloodshot eyes. The dilated pupils. If I checked her pulse and blood pressure, they’d be up, too! Shall we run a urine drug screen and make it official?”

“Stop being a doctor for two seconds,” Aaron said. “You’re just reading what you want—”

“It was a celebration,” Emily said softly, cutting Aaron off in mid-defense.

I pushed Aaron aside. For a moment, he resisted and I thought we might end up in our first fistfight in sixteen years, but then he relented. He walked to the door. With his hand on the door handle, he turned back to us. He stood there for a long moment, as if he was about to say something, but he left without a word.

Emily sat on the couch, clutching the book in her hands and staring straight ahead. I walked over and sat beside her. Our bodies were inches apart, but the divide between us was expanding rapidly.

Emily cleared her throat. “It’s not their fault.”

“You don’t pour gas on a wildfire.”

“That’s how you think of me?” She turned to me, genuine hurt in her eyes. “Totally out of control?”

I shook my head. “It’s hard enough without them waving temptation right under your nose.”

“Ben, it was just a couple lines of coke.”

“And a couple of drinks, too.”

“Can’t you cut me a little slack?” she said. “Remember? We had my six-month cake last week.”

“And now we’re back to day zero.”

“No.” She took my hand in hers. “We’re going to get married next month. Remember? This…” She waved a hand dismissively over the scattered bottles. “It was just a slip. Like cheating on a diet.” She flashed puppy dog eyes at me. “Can’t we write it off as a moment of weakness on a special night?”

My hand lay flaccid in hers. She squeezed harder. “I’m going to be Mrs. Benjamin Dafoe soon. The mother of your kids. I wouldn’t let any chemical in the world screw that up.”

She leaned forward and planted her lips on mine. In spite of my passiveness, she kissed harder, her soft tongue caressing my lips and tongue. Her hand reached under my shirt and skittered over my chest before tucking into the waistband of my jeans. Her hand crept lower until it found the perfect spot. When she rolled on top of me and dug the warmth of her groin into my leg, the last of my resistance drained. I yanked off her skirt as I wriggled free of my jeans.

The angry sex we had was as intense as it had ever been. She fell asleep with me still inside her. I clung to her warm sweaty body, wanting to believe everything she said but sensing that we’d just rounded another curve in a downward spiral.

Three hours after I’d set out on the mountain-bike ride that was supposed to help me forget Emily, I returned home missing her even more, almost disappointed to have remained in one piece. By early evening, despite my exhaustion, I still wasn’t any closer to sleep.

At a loss for what to do, I showered and headed back to the hospital. There, I went directly to Lara Maxwell’s ICU room. Despite the typical mess of machines and IV lines surrounding the sleeping patient, I was relieved to see the endotracheal tube gone from her mouth, meaning Lara was free of the ventilator.

Eyes closed, her sister Isabelle lay curled up in the chair beside the bed. With her face clear of all the tears and mascara, Isabelle looked like a normal teenager; a far sight from the drag princess of the morning. Compared to all that I’d seen this day, the two sisters were a wholesome and welcome sight. I turned to leave. Halfway to the door, I was stopped by a soft croaky voice. “Who are you?”

I looked behind me. Lara sat up in her bed.

“I’m Dr. Dafoe. I saw you in the Emergency Room.”

Isabelle roused at the sound of my voice. She stretched in the seat beside her. “Remember, Lara?” She yawned. “He’s the guy I told you about.”

Lara looked away. “Oh.”

Isabelle rose and stood at Lara’s bedside. “Mom and Dad will be here in the morning.” She sounded far more defiant than earlier. “And I already told them everything,” she said, as if stripping me of a weapon.

I nodded. “It’s none of my business.”

Arms crossed, Isabelle glared at me in full agreement.

“I just dropped by to see how Lara was doing.”

“My throat hurts.” Lara coughed harshly. “And it’s still not too easy to breathe.” She adjusted the nasal prongs running under her nose, but her eyes were fixed on the bedsheet. “I guess it could’ve been a lot worse though.”

“Much.”

She looked up at me tentatively. “The nurses said you saved my life.”

“There were lots of people who took care of you.” I shrugged. “What I do know is that Ecstasy and cocaine just about ended your life.”

She nodded solemnly. “I’m not going near that stuff again.”

“And I’m not going to let her,” Isabelle added with a huff. “If that’s what you’re wondering.”

I walked closer to the bedside. “Isabelle, I had no right to lay into you the way I did this morning.”

Isabelle held the icy stare a few moments longer, but then her resolve broke, and her eyes misted over. She looked at me pitifully. “No, what you said was true. I did almost kill my sister,” she wept. “Lara, I’m so sorry.”

Lara turned to her sister, confused.

I wavered, knowing I’d already blurred the line of professional conduct and was on the verge of stepping right over it.
Screw it!
I thought. “Listen, Isabelle, you don’t know why I was so upset this morning.”